“Well––er––that is,” the young man turned desperately to his friend, “do you know Mr. Gladwin?”
“Do I know him?” cried Helen Burton, and then, with a hysterical little laugh as she turned to her cousin, “I should think I did know him. I know him very, very well.”
Sadie Burton appeared both distressed and frightened and slipped limply down into one of the great chairs beside her. As Travers Gladwin’s features passed through a series of vacant and bewildered expressions and as the attention of Whitney Barnes seemed to be focussed with strange intensity upon the prettiness of the shy and silent Sadie, anger flashed in Helen’s expressive eyes as she again addressed the young man, who felt as if some mysterious force had just robbed him of his identity.
“You don’t suppose,” she said, drawing herself to the full height of her graceful figure, “that I would come here to see Travers Gladwin if I didn’t know him, do you?”
“No, no, no––of course not!” sputtered the young man. “It was stupid of me to ask such a question. Please forgive me. I––er”––
Helen turned from him as if to speak to Sadie, who sat with erect primness suffering from what she sensed as a strange and overpowering stroke. She had permitted herself to look straight into the eyes of Whitney Barnes and hold the look for a long, palpitating second.
While Sadie was groping in her mind for some explanation of the strange thrill, Whitney Barnes had flung himself headlong into a new sensation and was determined to make the most of it, so when Travers Gladwin turned to him and asked:
“I rather think Gladwin’s gone out, don’t you?” Barnes nodded and answered positively:
“He was here only a few minutes ago.”