"Yes, if you'll be so kind," and Helen gave the young man a smile that furnished him the thrill he had hunted for all over the globe, with a margin to boot.
"I'll be right back," he gasped, spun on his heel and passed dizzily out into the hallway.
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 Burton's already obfuscated reasoning faculties and hypnotize her into that receptive condition where she was capable of believing any solemnly expressed statement.
"Really!" she said with a little start of surprise.
"Oh, yes," ran on the glib Barnes, "they are lifelong chums--love each other like brothers; one of those Castor and Pollox affairs, you know--only more so. Never have any secrets from each other and all that sort of thing."
Helen dropped back into her chair and her brow wrinkled with perplexity.
"That's curious," she said. "I don't think Travers ever spoke to me about that kind of a friend."
The idea was just burgeoning in her mind to ask for the friend's name when Barnes hastened on:
"Well, now that is singular. Are you sure that"--
The sudden brisk return of Travers Gladwin saved Barnes from an immediate excruciating tax upon his ingenuity.
"I'm awfully sorry," said Gladwin, going to Helen and shaking his head regretfully, "but I couldn't find him."
"Oh, dear! That's very provoking!" cried Helen. "He didn't say he was going out, did he?"
"No; I could have sworn he was here a few minutes ago," spoke up Barnes, turning his head away for fear his smile would suddenly get out of control.