"Good-bye," said Langton; "we'll go and arrange our menu."
"There must be champagne," called Julie merrily over her shoulder, and catching his eye.
The two men watched her make for the car across the sunlit square, then they strolled round it towards a café. "Come on," said Langton; "let's have an appetiser."
From the little marble-topped table Peter watched the car drive away.
Julie was laughing over something with another girl. It seemed to
conclude the morning, somehow. He raised his glass and looked at Langton.
"Well," he said, "here's to reality, wherever it is."
"And here's to getting along without too much of it," said Langton, smiling at him.
* * * * *
The dinner was a great success—at least, in the beginning. Julie wore a frock of some soft brown stuff, and Peter could hardly keep his eyes off her. He had never seen her out of uniform before, and although she was gay enough, she said and did nothing very exciting. If Hilda had been there she need hardly have behaved differently, and for a while Peter was wholly delighted. Then it began to dawn on him that she was playing up to Langton, and that set in train irritating thoughts. He watched the other jealously, and noticed how the girl drew him out to speak of his travels, and how excellently he did it, leaning back at coffee with his cigarette, polite, pleasant, attractive. Julie, who usually smoked cigarette after cigarette furiously, only, however, getting through about half of each, now refused a second, and glanced at the clock about 8.30.
"Oh," she said, "I must go."
Peter remonstrated. "If you can stay out later at Havre," he said, "why not here?"
She laughed lightly. "I'm reforming," she said, "in the absence of bad companions. Besides, they are used to my being later at Havre, but here I might be spotted, and then there would be trouble. Would you fetch my coat, Captain Graham?"