CHAPTER XIV.
THRILL BEGETS THRILL.
Gladwin’s exit from the room served as a signal for the agile-witted Barnes to strike while the iron was hot. His friend had hardly vanished through the portières when he turned to Helen with an air of easy confidence, looking frankly into her eyes, and said:
“It’s singular that my friend doesn’t know what you referred to––the object of your call,” and he nodded his head with a knowing smile.
“Why, do you?” asked Helen eagerly, coming toward him.
Whitney’s knowing smile increased in its quality of knowingness and he spoke with an inflection that was quite baffling.
“Well,” he said, in a confiding whisper, “I have an idea; but he”––jerking his thumb over his shoulder where Travers Gladwin was last seen departing from view––“is Travers Gladwin’s most intimate friend.”
The astonishing character of this information served only further to confuse the beautiful Miss 84 Burton’s already obfuscated reasoning faculties and hypnotize her into that receptive condition where she was capable of believing any solemnly expressed statement.