She shrugged her shoulders, and then gave a little shiver. "Love, or what men take for love," she said.
He clasped the hand that lay along his arm passionately. "Come along," he said.
"Oh, this is good, Peter," said Julie a few minutes later. She had thrown off her wrap, and was standing by the fire while he arranged the cigarettes, the biscuits, and a couple of drinks on the little table with its shaded light. "Did you lock the door? Are we quite alone, we two, at last, with all the world shut out?"
He came swiftly over to her, and took her in his arms for answer. He pressed kisses on her hair, her lips, her neck, and she responded to them.
"Oh, love, love," he said, "let's sit down and forget that there is anything but you and I."
She broke from him with a little laugh of excitement. "We will, Peter," she said; "but I'm going to take off this dress and one or two other things, and let my hair down. Then I'll come back."
"Take them off here," he said; "you needn't go away."
She looked at him and laughed again. "Help me, then," she said, and turned her back for him to loosen her dress.
Clumsily he obeyed. He helped her off with the shimmering beautiful thing, and put it carefully over a chair. With deft fingers she loosened her hair, and he ran his fingers through it, and buried his face in the thick growth of it. She untied a ribbon at her waist, and threw from her one or two of her mysterious woman's things. Then, with a sigh of utter abandonment, she threw herself into his arms.
They sat long over the fire. Outside the dull roar of the sleepless city came faintly up to them, and now and again a coal fell in the grate. At long last Peter pushed her back a little from him. "Little girl," he said, "I must ask one thing. Will you forgive me? That night at Abbeville, after we left Langton, what was it you wouldn't tell me? What was it you thought he would have known about you, but not I? Julie, I thought, to-night—was it anything to do with East Africa—those tropical nights under the moon? Oh, tell me, Julie!"