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 own socks. However, in some way or other I managed to drive it home (this was when we were already in the taxi) that he need not look upon this as an evening's entertainment to which he was escorting either his own or anybody else's sister.