“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.