"Julie, by all that's holy! Where have you sprung from?"
She glanced from one to the other. "From Abbeville via Eu in a convoy of Red Cross cars, I dare bet," she said.
"Julie, you're beyond me. If you weren't so strong I'd smack you, but as it is, give me another kiss. _And_ introduce us. There may as well be propriety somewhere."
They sorted themselves out and sat down. "What do you think of my rig?" demanded Dr. Melville (as Julie had introduced her).
"Toppin'," said Julie critically. "But what in the world is it? Chiefly Waac, with three pukka stars and an R.A.M.C. badge. Teanie, how dare you do it?"
"I dare do all that doth become a woman," she answered complacently. "And it doth, doth it not? Skirt's a trifle short, perhaps," she added, sticking out a leg and examining the effect critically, "but upper's eminently satisfactory."
Julie leaned over and prodded her. "No corsets?" she inquired innocently.
"Julie, you're positively indecent. You must have tamed your padre completely. You're not married by any chance?" she added suddenly.
Julie screamed with laughter. "Oh, Teanie, you'll be the death of me," she said at last. "Solomon, are we married? I don't think so, Teanie. There's never no telling these days, but I can't recollect it."
"Well, it strikes me you ought to be if you're jogging round the country together," said the other, her eyes twinkling. "But if you're not, take warning, padre. A girl that talks about corsets in public isn't respectable, especially as she doesn't wear them herself, except in the evening, for the sake of other things. Or she used not to. But perhaps you know?"
Peter tried to look comfortable, but he was completely out of his depth. He finished his drink with a happy inspiration, and ordered another. That down, he began to feel more capable of entering into the spirit of these two. They were the sort he wanted to know, both of them, women about as different from those he had met as they could possibly be.
Another man dropped in after a while, so the talk became general. The atmosphere was very free and easy, bantering, careless, jolly, and Peter expanded in it. Julie led them all. She was never at a loss, and apparently had no care in the world.
