searchlights.

"Forgive me," he said perfunctorily. "I think the pantomime will have the desired effect on our friends yonder, and whether they know me or not they know they'll have a hot time to-morrow for playing the dickens with an amorous officer—the main thing is to get them to switch the light off us, isn't it?"

I thrilled. I had always wondered, as every girl born wonders, what it was like to feel a man's arm round you.

I liked it.

I liked the cool, rather insolent, devil-may-care voice.

I am always honest with myself, so I write these things quite honestly and frankly.

I love reading, but I have never thought of love or romance as being even remotely connected with me. I have always been very interested in engaged couples and newly married people, but I think it is rather squashing to be the plain daughter of a pretty mother and a father who can't afford to give you nice clothes. I mean, it doesn't give you much chance. Suddenly, when I felt those arms round me—very limp and casual, it is true—I would have given the world to have been attractive and had an attractive personality and attractive frocks. I have tried very, very hard to be nice and useful and kind in my life, because I know I could never have the more alluring virtues; but it has been very, very dull. I do think clothes matter, and hair-waving, especially when your hair is straight like mine; and I do understand the girl who, when she was asked, "Which would you rather be, beautiful or good?" answered, "I would like to be born beautiful and grow good." I feel she must have been a relation of mine.

The lights swished round.

"That," said the officer, "has done the trick, Miss Burbridge, and here we are at the boundary."

He removed his arms from me, and out of the darkness suddenly came my father's voice.

"I had no idea you were in the habit of taking my daughter for walks, Captain Cromer. Your mother sent me to search for you, Pam. I am awaiting an explanation."

"Oh—Captain Cromer—just—just——"

"Yes," said my father, "I perceived it. I presume you have an explanation to make, sir? I have had the pleasure of watching you for the last ten minutes."

"Yes," said my companion, "Miss Burbridge unfortunately got picked out by the searchlights, and we thought the guns——"

"Pamela," said my father, "have you anything to say? If not——"

"Yes," I said desperately. "Oh yes——" then the old sickening fear of my father, the terror that made me deceive and even lie in a sort of blind panic, rushed over me.

"I presume there is some understanding, an engagement between you and Captain——"

"Hullo! Major. Hullo! Captain Cromer. We've had a most entertaining time. We've been watching you through our glasses. If you will stand in the limelight——" came an unexpected voice behind father.

It was the C.O. and his wife.

"It brings back my own young days," said the C.O. with his jolly laugh.

"I suppose we are the first to congratulate you young people," the C.O.'s wife said charmingly. "I couldn't help overhearing the word 'engagement.'"

I looked at father.

"Yes," I answered desperately. "You are—thank you very much."

Later.

I threw this on the top of the chest of drawers because mother came in to say "good night!"

She has never done such a thing before.

"What a dreadfully old-fashioned nighty you are wearing, Pam," she said.

"It was one of yours," I answered. "I always have yours when you have done with them."

"You must have some pretty new things now, dear," she said. She stayed and chatted for a few minutes, and then strayed out again, leaving an atmosphere of elegance and jasmine scent.

I really am numbed mentally. My brain keeps taking records to-night, like a camera. It's a sort of human sensitised plate, but I don't feel anything, not even that it is really happening to me.

When the C.O. and his wife made their appearance, we all turned and walked up the hill together; father and the Colonel and his wife walked on in front, and the man and I walked behind.

The man bent his head quite close to my head and laughed. It was rather a beastly laugh, not villainy, just as if he didn't care whether an earthquake or the millennium started next minute.

"Well," he said, "you seem to have had your innings, Miss Burbridge. Now I want mine."

"I'll tell dad when I get home," I babbled foolishly. "I'll explain fully all about the searchlights and everything."

I felt absolutely the same as I did when I sat down at my "maths." paper when I tried to matric., after having been awake all night with raging toothache. I felt I couldn't be decisive or adequate or even sensible, I couldn't deal efficiently with a fly that settled on my own nose.

"The inopportune arrival of the Colonel and his wife have made it rather difficult to explain," he hazarded. "Don't you remember gracefully acknowledging our tender regard for each other, and equally gracefully accepting congratulations on existence of same?" He sounded all the time frightfully amused in a bored sort of manner. He had the most delightful kind of voice, frightfully deep and soft, and he drawled in a fascinating way.

We walked, unconsciously, slower and slower, far behind the others, in the scent of the heather that clothed the hill.

It was a wonderful night. It sort of caught you by the throat and made you ache for all the things you could never, never have; crave the deep friendships and wonderful love that would never come your way.

"I am afraid I have been very stupid," I said. "I often am. You see, I am afraid of father."

"He's a bully, a rotten bully," he said; and then: "I beg your pardon, Miss Burbridge—I shouldn't have said that."

"It's just that he shouts, and I can't think when he shouts. I just say something that will make him stop shouting—anything."

"It's funny my not meeting you before," he said. "I've met your mother scores of times. Of course, I've heard of you." He paused thoughtfully, as if he were trying to remember what he had heard.

"I don't go about much," I put in.

It seemed unnecessary to tell him I had no "glad rags."

"Have you ever had a good time?" he demanded abruptly.

"I don't think so," I answered, then sudden loyalty to my parents made me add: "I—I don't care for the sort of good time some girls have."

"Rubbish!" he interrupted rudely. "Every girl likes a good time, and every girl will use a fellow to get one—his money, his influence, his friends, his admiration, his love—anything that adds to her rotten