and doesn't go to sleep, like it
does in the country in the cold, hard North. Do you know," she went on,
"though I love the cities, and bands, and restaurants, and theatres, and
taxis, and nice clothes, I love best of all the places where one has none
of these things. I once went with a shooting-party to East Africa, Peter,
and that's what I love. I shall never forget the nights at Kilindini,
with the fireflies dancing among the bushes, and the moon glistening on
the palms as if they were wet, and the insects shrilling in the grass,
and the hot, damp air. Or by day, up in the forest, camped under the
great trees, with the strange few flowers and the silence, while the sun
trickled through the leaves and made pools of light on the ground. Do you
know, I saw the most beautiful thing I've ever seen or, I think, shall
see in that forest."

"What was that?" asked Peter, under her spell, for she was speaking like
a woman in a dream.

"It was one day when we were marching. We came on a glade among the
trees, and at the end of it, a little depression of damp green grass,
only the grass was quite hidden beneath a sheet of blue--such blue, I
can't describe it--that quivered and moved in the sun. We stood quite
still, and then a boy threw a little stone. And the blue all rose in the
air, silently, like magic. It was a swarm of hundreds and hundreds of
blue butterflies, Peter. Do you know what I did? I cried--I couldn't help
it. It was too beautiful to see, Peter."

A little silence fell between them. She broke it in another tone.

"And the natives--I love the natives. I just love the all but naked girls
carrying the water up to the village in the evening, tall and straight,
like Greek statues; and the men, in a string of beads and a spear. I
wanted to go naked myself there--at least, I did till one day I tried it,
and the sun skinned me in no time. But at least one needn't wear
much--cool loose things, and it doesn't matter what one does or says."

Peter laughed. "Who was with you when you tried the experiment?" he
demanded.

Julie threw her head back, and even the professional four glanced up and
looked at her. "Ah, wouldn't you like to know?" she laughed. "Well, I
won't tease you--two native girls if you want to know, that was all. The
rest of the party were having a midday sleep. But I never can sleep
at midday. I don't mind lying in a hammock or a deck-chair, and reading,
but I can't sleep. One feels so beastly when one