Mr.
Burke's clean-limbed, public-school, hunting-field look.

"I shall tell Mill--Miss Million that. And she won't like it," I
chattered on, as Mr. Brace didn't seem to be going to say anything more.
"I really think she's better away from those places, perhaps, after all.

"Late hours won't suit her, I know. Why, she's never been out of bed
after half-past ten before in her whole life. And she's never tasted
those weird things they were having for supper; hot dressed crab and
pastry with mushrooms inside it! As for champagne--well, I expect she'll
have a horrid headache to-morrow. I shall have to give her breakfast in
bed and look after her like a moth----"

"Miss Lovelace! You must do nothing of the sort. That sort of thing must
stop," the young man at my side blurted out. "You oughtn't to be doing
that. It's too preposterous----"

This was the second time to-day I'd heard that word applied to my
working as Miss Million's maid. The first time the Honourable Jim Burke
had said it. Now here was a young man who disagreed with the Honourable
Jim on every other point, apparently working himself up into angry
excitement over this.

"That you--you--should be Miss Million's maid. Good heavens! It's
unthinkable!"

"I suppose you mean," I said rather maliciously, "that you couldn't
think of that sister of yours doing anything of the kind."

He didn't seem to hear me. He said quite violently: "You must give it
up. You must give it up at once."

I laughed a little. I said: "Give up a good, well-paid and amusing
situation? Why? And what could I do instead? Go back to my aunt, I
suppose----"

"No," broke in the young bank manager, still quite violently, "come to
me, couldn't you?"

I was so utterly taken aback that I hadn't a word to reply. I thought I
must have misunderstood what he said.

There was a moment of jolting silence.

Then, in a tone of voice that seemed as if it had been jerked out of
him, sentence by sentence, with the rolling of the 'bus, Mr. Brace went
on:

"Miss Lovelace! I don't know whether you knew it, but--I have always--if
you only knew the enormous admiration, the reverence, that I have always
had for you--I ought not to have said it so soon, I suppose. I meant not
to have said it for some time yet. But if you could possibly--there is
nothing that I would not do to try to make you happy, if you would
consent to become my wife."

"Oh, good heavens!" I exclaimed, absolutely dazed.

"I know,