"I asked you, Helen dear, who could have sent them?" There was something distinctly feline in the purring tones as the question was repeated.
"Why, isn't there any card, Aunt El?" fenced the girl.
"Come, come, my dear, why keep me in suspense? You can see there is no card. Can it be one of the young men we met at the Grangers last night? I hardly think so, for it is execrably bad form to send flowers to a public dining room by a page in buttons."
Helen shook her head and assumed an air of great perplexity. She stole a glance across the table at Sadie, but that shy little cousin seemed on the verge of tears. Mrs. Burton intercepted the wireless appeal and shifted her cross-questioning to Sadie. She was determined to unravel the mystery. She read Sadie's panic as a symptom of guilty knowledge.
But Sadie was loyal to the cousin and chum she adored and proved surprisingly game under fire. Indeed, she succeeded in breaking down her aunt's cross-examination and bringing the inquest to ruins by suddenly clapping her hands and blurting:
The outrageous absurdity of the statement gave it cataclysmic force. Helen embraced Sadie with her eyes and then added her own broadside:
"That really was splendid of him, Auntie El? Now you can tell me all about his letter."
"I will reserve that until later," said Mrs. Burton, icily. "If you have finished your luncheon, Helen, please pay the check and we shall go."
Joshua Barnes, sometimes referred to in the daily press as Old Grim Barnes, the mustard millionaire, turned suddenly upon his son and pinioned him:
"That's just it, pater--why don't I?" replied the young man, blandly.
"Well, why don't you, then?" stormed Joshua Barnes, banging his fist down upon the mahogany table. "It's time you did."
Another bang lifted the red-headed office boy in the next room clear out of Deep Blood Gulch just as Derringer Dick was rescuing the beautiful damsel from the Apaches. Even Miss Featherington dropped "The Mystery of the Purple Room" on the floor and made a wild onslaught on the keys of her typewriter.
Whitney Barnes smiled benevolently upon his parent and nonchalantly lighted a cigarette.
"As I've said before," he parried easily between the puffing of smoke rings, "I haven't found the girl."