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 “I am sincerely glad that you did,” answered the novelist, with one of his kindly, weary smiles.

“My dear,” said Denise Ryland, turning again to Helen Cumberly, “you say you met that…cross-eyed…being…Gianapolis, again?”

“Good Heavens!” cried Helen; “I thought I should never get rid of him; a most loathsome man!”

“My dear…child”—Denise squeezed her tightly by the arm, and peered into her face, intently—“cul-tivate…deliberately cul-tivate that man’s acquaintance!”

Helen stared at her friend as though she suspected the latter’s sanity.

“I am afraid I do not understand at all,” she said, breathlessly.

“I am positive that I do not,” declared Leroux, who was as much surprised as Helen. “In the first place I am not acquainted with this cross-eyed being.”

“You are…out of this!” cried Denise Ryland with a sweeping movement of the left hand; “entirely…out of it! This is no man’s…business.”…

“But my dear Denise!” exclaimed Helen.…

“I beseech you; I entreat you;…I order…you to cul-tivate…that…execrable…being.”

“Perhaps,” said Helen, with eyes widely opened,