"I had hoped," he said, "to go into this thing very thoroughly, so that we could begin the reorganization at once, with the preliminaries completely understood; but if we are detaining you from any engagement, Mr. Burnit--" "Not at all, not at all," the highly-interested Bobby hastened to assure him. "I have no engagements whatever to-night, and my time is entirely at your disposal." "Then let's drop down to the theater," suddenly interposed Mrs. Sharpe. "You can talk your dust-dry business there just as well as here. Billy, telephone down to the Orpheum and see if they have a box." Bobby was far too unsuspecting to understand that he had been deliberately trapped. Though not of the ultra-exclusives, his social position was an excellent one and he had the entree everywhere. To be seen publicly with young Burnit was a step upward, as Mrs. Sharpe saw it, in that forbidding and painful social climb. Bobby started with dismay when Garland stepped to the telephone, but he was fairly caught, and he realized it in time to check the involuntary protest that rose to his lips. He had acknowledged that his time was free and at their disposal, and he regretted deeply that no good, handy lie came to his rescue. They arrived at the theater between acts, and with the full blaze of the auditorium upon them. Bobby's comfort was not at all heightened when Stone almost immediately followed them in. He had firmly made up his mind as they entered to obtain a place in the rear corner of the box, where he could not be seen; but he was not prepared for the generalship of Mrs. Sharpe, who so manoeuvered it as to force him to the very edge, between herself and Garland, and, as she turned to him with a laughing remark which, in pantomime, had all the confidential understanding of most cordial and intimate acquaintanceship, Bobby glanced apprehensively across at the other side of the proscenium-arch. There, in the opposite box, staring at him in shocked amazement, sat Agnes Elliston! "But Agnes," protested Bobby at the Elliston home next day, "I could not possibly help it." "No?" she inquired incredulously. "I don't imagine that any one strongly advised you to have anything to do with Mr. Sharpe--and it was through him that you met _her_. Perhaps it is just as well that it happened, however, because it has shown you just how you were about to become involved." Bobby swallowed quite painfully. His tongue was a little dry. "Well, the fact of the matter is," he admitted, reddening and stammering, "that I have already 'become involved,' if that's the way you choose to put it; for--for--I signed an agreement with Sharpe, and an application for increase of capitalization, this morning." "You don't mean it!" she gasped. "How could you?"