"I may be only a minute or two, and I shall want you to take me right back to the point I came from." The man nodded, and turned to set the time index of the taximeter.

A few steps led up to a spacious doorway, and Curtis passed through a revolving door.

Halfway along a well-lighted passage he saw an elevator sign, and found an attendant sitting there.
"I believe that Miss Grandison lives here ?" he said.
"Second floor--Number 10--take you up ?" was the time-saving reply.
"Yes, but I am not anxious to see Miss Grandison herself.

I would prefer to speak to some male relative." The attendant looked puzzled; perhaps he was wishful to make smooth the way for a visitor who was obviously a gentleman, but the problem offered by Curtis's request presented difficulties, and he fell back on his official instructions.
"Sorry, but you must explain matters to the maid at Number 10," he said, quite civilly, and Curtis was soon pressing an electric bell at the door of the flat itself.
A neatly dressed girl appeared.

Her out-of-doors costume suggested that she was either just going out or just returned, and Curtis, unaccustomed to the domestic problem as it exists in New York, fancied that she ranked above the level of a house-maid.
"Is Miss Grandison in ?" he asked.
"I'll inquire, sir.