h.

"If you are not going to arrest me I'm going," she said.

"I have certainly no intention of arresting you," said he, "but I am
going to see you home!"

She jumped up smartly.

"You're not," she commanded.

She was so definite in this that he was startled.

"My dear child," he protested.

"Please don't 'dear child' me," she said seriously; "you're going to be
a good little Tommy and let me go home by myself."

She held out her hand frankly and the laughing appeal in her eyes was
irresistible.

"Well, I'll see you to a cab," he insisted.

"And listen while I give the driver instructions where he is to take
me?"

She shook her head reprovingly.

"It must be an awful thing to be a policeman."

He stood back with folded arms, a stern frown on his face.

"Don't you trust me?" he asked.

"No," she replied.

"Quite right," he approved; "anyway I'll see you to the cab and you can
tell the driver to go to Charing Cross station and on your way you can
change your direction."

"And you promise you won't follow me?" she asked.

"On my honour," he swore; "on one condition though."

"I will make no conditions," she replied haughtily.

"Please come down from your great big horse," he begged, "and listen
to reason. The condition I make is that I can always bring you to an
appointed rendezvous whenever I want you. Honestly, this is necessary,
Belinda Mary."

"Miss Bartholomew," she corrected, coldly.

"It is necessary," he went on, "as you will understand. Promise me that,
if I put an advertisement in the agonies of either an evening paper
which I will name or in the Morning Port, you will keep the appointment
I fix, if it is humanly possible."

She hesitated a moment, then held out her hand.

"I promise," she said.

"Good for you, Belinda Mary," said he, and tucking her arm in his he
led her out of the room switching off the light and racing her down the
stairs.

If there was a lot of the schoolgirl left in Belinda Mary Bartholomew,
no less of the schoolboy was there in this Commissioner of Police. He
would have danced her through the fog, contemptuous of the proprieties,
but he wasn't so very anxious to get her to her cab and to lose sight of
her.

"Good-night," he said, holding her hand.

"That's the third time you've shaken hands with me to-night," she
interjected.

"Don't let us have any unpleasantness at the last," he pleaded, "and
remember."

"I have promised," she replied.

"And on