o," I said. I was feeling suddenly rather tired, bored by the
noise, dazzled by the blaze of pink lights and the whirl of colour. "I
don't think I'll wait for Miss Million after all. I'll go home." I meant
to think over the talking-to that I should give Million when she
returned.

"I'll get you a taxi," began Mr. Brace. But I stopped him.

"I don't want a taxi, thanks----"

"Please. I want to see you home."

"Oh! But I don't want you to," I said hastily. "I'll get the 'bus. It's
such a short way. Good-night."

But he wouldn't say "Good-night." He insisted on boarding the 'bus with
me, and plumping himself down on the front seat beside me, under the
fine drizzle that was still coming down.

Certainly it was only a short 'bus ride to the Strand, but a good deal
happened in it. In fact, that happened which is supposed to mark an
unforgettable epoch in a girl's life--her first proposal of marriage.

CHAPTER XVIII

MY FIRST PROPOSAL

WE were alone on the top of the 'bus.

Mr. Brace turned to me, settling the oil-cloth 'bus apron over my knees
as if I were a very small and helpless child that must be taken great
care of.

Then he said: "You didn't like it, did you? All that?" with a jerk of
his head towards the side street from which the 'bus was lurching away.

I said: "Well! I don't think there seemed to be any real harm in that
sort of frivolling. It's very expensive, though, I suppose----"

"Very," said Mr. Brace grimly.

"But, of course, Miss Million has plenty of money to waste. Still, it's
rather silly--a lot of grown-up people behaving like that----"

Here I had another mental glimpse of Mr. Burke's reckless, merry,
well-bred face, bending over Miss Vi Vassity's common, good-humoured
one, with its shrewd, black eyes, its characteristic flash of prominent
white teeth; I saw his tall, supple figure whirling round her rather
squat, overdressed little shape in that one-step.

"'Larking' about with all sorts of people they wouldn't otherwise meet,
I suppose, and shrieking and 'ragging' like a lot of costers on
Hampstead Heath. Yes. Really it was rather like a very much more
expensive Bank Holiday crowd. It was only another way of dancing to
organs in the street, and of flourishing 'tiddlers,' and of shrieking in
swing-boats, and of changing hats. Only all that seems to 'go' with
costers. And it doesn't with these people," I said, thinking of