made his
remarks up till then sound quite pleased and approving. "The Thousand
and One Club? He's taken Miss Million there? Of all places on earth! You
let her go there?"

He spoke as if nothing more terrible could have happened....

CHAPTER XVII

REVELRY BY NIGHT

BUT why am I writing all this, in view of the really serious and
terrible thing that has happened after all?

Yes. The most terrible thing has happened. Miss Million has disappeared.

Gone! And no trace of her!

And I don't know where to look for her.... But to go back to the
beginning of it all--to that fatal evening when Mr. Reginald Brace stood
there in her sitting-room, looking at me with that horrified face
because I told him she'd gone to supper at the Thousand and One Club.

Five minutes after that young man's appalled-sounding "What? You let her
go there?" I was sitting in a taxi, with him, whirling towards Regent
Street.

"Yes; that's where she's gone," I told him, with a queer mix-up of
feelings. There was defiance among them. What right had he to come and
bully me because I couldn't keep Miss Million and her dollars and her
new friends all under my thumb? There was anxiety.... Supposing this
Thousand and One Club were such an appallingly awful place that no young
girl ought to set foot in it? There was a queer excitement.... Well,
anyhow, I might see and judge for myself. Then I should be in a position
to lecture Miss Million about it, if necessary, afterwards!

So I said: "Not only that, but I'm going there, too. To-night. Now!"

"Impossible," said Mr. Brace. "Madness. Quite impossible. You go? To a
night club? You? Alone?"

"No," I said on another impulse. "You'll come with me. I've got to have
a man with me, I suppose. You'll take me, please."

"I shall do nothing of the sort, Miss Lovelace," said the young bank
manager, standing there in my mistress's sitting-room as if nothing
would ever dislodge him from the spot. "Take you to that place--it's not
a place that I should ever let any sister of mine know by sight!"

By this time I'd heard so much of this (non-existent) sister of his that
I almost felt as if I knew her well (poor girl). I felt as if I were
she. Yes. Mr. Brace seemed to behave so exactly like the typical "nice"
big brother; the man who shows his respect for women by refusing to let
his own sisters see or do anything except, say, the darning of his ow