"Oh, I don't know: silk always makes me feel so comfortable that I can't be cold. Isn't it a heavenly day? We are lucky, you know; it might have been beastly. Lor', but I'm going to enjoy myself to-day, my dear! I warn you. I've got to forget how Tommy looked when I put her off with excuses. I felt positively mean."
"What did she say?" asked Peter.
"That she didn't mind at all, as she had got to write letters," said Julie, "Solomon, Tommy's a damned good sort!… Give us a cigarette, and don't look blue. We're right out of town."
Peter got out his case. "Don't call me Solomon to-day," he said.
Julie threw herself back in her corner and shrieked with laughter. The French chauffeur glanced round and grimaced appreciatively, and Peter felt a fool. "What am I to call you, then?" she demanded. "You are a funny old thing, and now you look more of a Solomon than ever."
"Call me Peter," he said.
She looked at him, her eyes sparkling with amusement. "I'm really beginning to enjoy myself," she said. "But, look here, you mustn't begin like this. How in the world do you think we shall end up if you do? You'll have nothing left to say, and I shall be worn to a rag and a temper warding off your sentimentality."
"Julie," said Peter, "are you ever serious? I can't help it, you know, I suppose because I am a parson, though I am such a rotten one."
"Who says you're a rotten one?"
"Everybody who tells the truth, and, besides, I know it. I feel an absolute stummer when I go around the wards. I never can say a word to the men."