"Better see them in here, Travers. If they really want to see you they'll come in. Ask them to come in, Bateato." The little Jap was gone with the speed and noiselessness of a mouse. "Who in heaven's name can it be?" whispered Travers Gladwin as Bateato could be heard lisping in the vestibule. Before Whitney Barnes managed to frame a reply a swift, muffled step was audible and Helen Burton stood framed in the narrow space between the portières. Her timid cousin stopped behind her, staring timidly over her shoulder. She was manifestly surprised and startled as she paused and regarded the two young men. In point of startled surprise, however, Travers Gladwin's emotion matched hers. He stared at her almost rudely in his amazement and involuntarily he turned to Whitney Barnes and said under his breath: "The grapefruit girl!" Whitney Barnes's lips merely framed: "No! You don't mean it!" He was going to add something more, when the two girls came on into the room diffidently and stood by the great carved table, close together, as if prepared to cling to one another in case something extraordinary happened. Travers Gladwin was the first of the two young men to come to their rescue. "Pardon me! Did you wish to see me?" he said with his best bow. "No," replied Helen Burton quickly, her lips trembling; "we want to see Mr. Gladwin, please." The young man did not recover instantly from this staggering jolt, and a clock somewhere in the great hall nearby ticked a dozen strokes before he managed to mumble: "Well--er--I am"-- "Isn't he here?" broke in the brown-haired beauty, breathlessly. "His man just asked us to come into this room to see him." "What Mr. Gladwin did you want?" asked that young man incoherently. "Why, Mr. Travers Gladwin!" exclaimed the girl indignantly, the color mantling to her forehead. "Is there more than one?" "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"--