At the entrance Peter suggested an hour under the palms, but Julie pleaded against it. "Why, dear?" she said. "It's so cosy upstairs, and we have all we want. Besides, the lounge would be an anti-climax; let's go up." They went up, and Julie dropped into her chair while Peter knelt to poke the fire. Then he lit a cigarette, and she refused one for once, and he stood there looking into the flame. Julie drew a deep sigh. "Wasn't it gorgeous, Peter?" she said. "I can't help it, but I always feel I want it to go on for ever and ever. Did you ever see _Kismet?_ That was worse even than this. I wanted to get up and walk into the play. These modern things are too clever; you know they're unreal, and yet they seem to be real. You know you're dreaming, but you hate to wake up. I could let all that music and dancing and colour go on round me till I floated away and away, for ever." Peter said nothing. He continued to stare into the fire. "What do you feel?" demanded Julie. Peter drew hard on his cigarette, and then he blew out the smoke. "I don't know," he said. "Yes, I do," he added quickly; "I feel I want to get up and preach a sermon." "Good Lord, Peter! what a dreadful sensation that must be! Don't begin now, will you? I'm beginning to wish we'd gone into the lounge after all; you surely couldn't have preached there." Peter did not smile. He went on as if she had not spoken, "Or write a great novel, or, better still, a great play," he said. "What would be the subject, then, you Solomon, or the title, anyway?" "I don't know," said Peter dreamily. "_All Men are Grass_, _The Way of all Flesh_--no, neither of those is good, and besides, one at least is taken. I know," he added suddenly, "I would call it _Exchange_, that's all. My word, Julie, I believe I could do it." He straightened himself, and walked across the room and back again, once or twice. "I believe I could: I feel it tingling in me; but it's all formless, if you understand; I've no plot. It's just what I feel as I sit there in a theatre, as we did just now." Julie leaned forward and took the cigarette she had just refused. She lit it herself with a half-burnt match, and Peter stood and watched her, but hardly saw what she was doing. She was as conscious of his preoccupation as if it were something physical about him. "Explain, my dear," she said, leaning back and staring into the fire.