Rich Man, Poor Man

XV

And so it stood. Her answer she was to let David have that night. She had promised it. As Bab, the promise given, slipped from the library and made her way swiftly toward the drawing-room at the front, one needed only a glance to guess the ferment already working in her mind. Her eyes glowed. On each cheek again the color burned, now with a newer, more feverish brightness. Marry him? Her breath, at the thought, came fast!

The drawing-room, by the time she got there, was filling rapidly, and instilled with an animation that momentarily increased, she gayly greeted these arrivals, the first of the evening's guests. Her heart she could feel throb. A sense of exhilaration roused her. It was as if wine ran coursing through her veins; and her eyes dancing, her little head cocked sidewise like a bird's, she laughed and chatted, filled with a quick coquetry as new to her as it was charming. Bab never had looked more alluring.

She was in the midst of this, her face radiant, when she felt a hand touch her suddenly on the arm. The hand was Miss Elvira's; and as Bab looked up she found Miss Elvira gazing at her with an eye as dull and accusing as a haddock's. Her voice, when she spoke, was correspondingly morose.

"What's happened?" asked Miss Elvira guardedly in an aside.

Bab stared.

"Happened?" she echoed.

"Look at David!" rejoined Miss Elvira significantly.

Bab looked. In a corner across the drawing-room he sat, a figure of silence, nibbling his finger tips. A frown ruffled his brow; and though he was surrounded by half a dozen of the guests, young men and young women together, it was manifest that he was deaf to their laughter and talk. Miss Elvira gave Bab a swift, searching look.

"Have you two been up to anything?"

"I? David?"

"You two haven't had a tiff, have you?"

A tiff! Of course not! But Bab needed no second look at him to guess the cause of David's disquiet. She, too, felt that selfsame disturbance, that same tumult of the mind; but she, with a woman's art to aid her, had managed better to hide it. But now as Miss Elvira's eye, fishlike in its gloom, probed hers, Bab felt the color pour suddenly over her face and neck. A half-stifled "Humph!" escaped Miss Elvira, a mumble the significance of which was evident. Then, turning about abruptly, Miss Elvira resumed the task of greeting the last of the arrivals. That David should thus disclose his feelings, Bab saw, would never do. At the first opportunity, therefore, she hurried across the room. Bending swiftly over him, she touched him lightly on the shoulder.

"Spunk up!" whispered Bab. A flashing smile went with the words.

David, as it was evident, spunked up instantly. Bab returned to the other guests she had left. When again she looked across the room at him, he, too, was laughing and chatting, his mood now as exhilarant as hers. As her glance wandered away from him a pair of eyes encountered hers. Mrs. Lloyd stood gazing at her intently. Bab in spite of herself colored faintly.

Early that afternoon, long indeed before they'd been expected, the two Lloyds had motored in from their country place on Long Island. Evidently they had come in no little haste; and Lloyd, after a brief interview with David, had as hastily dashed off in the motor again. As for Mrs. Lloyd, almost at once she had retreated to her room, vouchsafing to Bab only a brief, not too exuberant greeting, a word or so purred indolently, as if with great effort. Bab by now owned to herself that she did not like the Lloyds. True, for David's sake she had tried to, but not even this had availed. Against the stone wall of their indifference she had only bruised herself.

The look that she had just surprised in her aunt's eyes, however, was not just indifferent. Mrs. Lloyd, after a quick stare at her son, had shot an equally swift glance at Bab, and there was in it something so searching that Bab felt herself start. Why should she be looked at like that? It was as if Mrs. Lloyd knew something. It was as if in that look she revealed the disdain that this knowledge gave her. What was it she knew? Had David told? At the thought a little chill touched her. If she should say yes to David, what then? What of their antagonism? But Bab, the thought once digested, at once rid herself of it. The Lloyds, to be sure, were David's parents, but why need she feel fear of them? Even if they were opposed to her, David wasn't! And that he wasn't was after all the main thing. Buoyant again, her animation reviving swiftly, Bab freed her mind of that passing shadow. A moment later Crabbe appeared at the drawing-room door and bent deferentially toward Miss Elvira.

"Madam is served!" announced Crabbe.

Her face aglow, Bab shot a glance at David. How splendid it all was! From then on it seemed to Bab that the events of that evening arranged and rearranged themselves with kaleidoscopic swiftness and confusion. The dinner slipped by as if hurried feverishly. Too much was happening, she felt. It seemed as though her mind could not encompass it all. Her glance, roving about the huge, dark dining-room, now transformed, dwelt on the flowers, the gleaming silver, the cut glass and snowy linen. All this for her! Already she had been asked for a dozen dances! Already, in evidence of what yet was to come, the music hidden behind the palms struck into a swaying, seductive measure. Her dance indeed! And then of a sudden came remembrance.

The huge room, splendid with its profusion of costly flowers, glittering and brilliant with all its appurtenances of silver, glass and linen – all this with its lights, with the gay luster and coloring of the gowns, for an instant faded dimly. On an afternoon, a day now long past and almost forgotten, she saw herself in Mrs. Tilney's kitchen; and all by herself, and in pigtails and pinafore, she danced, pirouetting to the music of an unseen, far-off orchestra heard only in her fancy. With what stateliness she had trod that measure! With what delicious solemnity she had bowed and balanced to and fro! And now to think, here was the reality!

The thought was followed swiftly by another. Would David, had he seen her then, have been allured? Probably not! Stilty, scrubby little girls with spindling legs were scarcely what anyone would find alluring. Her thought went further. At any stage of her life at Mrs. Tilney's would David have been allured? She wondered indeed! Would he? Would his family have let him be? At the thought a queer smile dawned in Bab's blue eyes. It was not the Lloyds she thought about; it was the rest of David's family too. What, marry a boarding-house waif? Peter Beeston's grandson marry anyone like that! The idea! A nameless nobody?

But why think now of such things? Why let any cloud obscure her happiness? Her face once more radiant, she was glancing about her, her eyes dancing like elfin fires, when at the table adjoining a ripple of laughter arose. David sat there. Her lips parted as she looked at him.

Tonight the big table that usually filled the room had been carried out and its place filled with smaller tables. There were ten of these, six of the guests seated at each, but at none of the ten had the merriment been more evident, more spontaneous, than at David's. He had bent forward, his face alight with its animation; and the others, their eyes dancing, their lips parted as they listened, hung intently on what he was saying. Bab swiftly took in the scene. Opposite David sat Linda Blair, that bronze-haired, bizarre, attractive creature, among the first David had introduced to Bab. Her chin on her hands now, and her eyes veiled behind their long lashes, she was gazing, as if idly, at David. Behind that idleness, though, Bab at the first glance had seen something else. Linda Blair was a perfect example of the highly cultivated New York type. The life, the game that surrounded her she had been taught to play from the cradle up. From the days of bib and tucker to the time of her coming out she had been trained with a Spartan rigor to throttle every impulse. Her feelings she must hide. She must at no moment disclose herself. Bab, though she liked Linda Blair, often had thought her too impenetrable, too cold and self-contained.

But not so now! Her frail, high-bred features had for a moment fallen into repose; and off her guard now, the world might have read in Linda's face exactly what she felt. Her eyes alone were eloquent. They hung upon David, inexpressibly friendly and admiring; they were, indeed, even kindlier than that.

Bab looked at her in misty wonder. She had heard much about Linda Blair. David and she since childhood had been playmates – intimates, in fact. However, that either had felt for the other anything deeper than friendliness Bab had not even dreamed. She wondered now that David never had responded, for Linda was beautiful! More than that, Linda had all that birth and cultivation can give. The fact that David should seem to Linda desirable made him all the more so in Bab's eyes. And he had asked Bab to marry him! Would she? Indeed, why should she not? Cousins before this had married.

She was still looking on, still gazing with a discreet but rising interest at what unwittingly she had seen, when across the dining-room, framed in the background of the doorway, Bab beheld a figure, now well known to her, emerge abruptly into view. David's father had returned.

The dinner, after all but a preliminary to the night's real entertainment, was nearly over. Already, with the informality of such affairs, many of the guests had risen and were drifting about, visiting from table to table; and Lloyd, after a swift glance at Bab, then at his son, beckoned to Mrs. Lloyd. Evidently the signal was expected. She arose instantly, and disregarding a look of inquiry Miss Elvira gave her, made her way toward the hall. A moment later, conversing hurriedly, the two Lloyds disappeared. But Bab, though she saw them go, felt small concern.

Outside the orchestra again had struck up, and this time the music instantly had effect. It was a dance that was being played, a lively measure, and round the room heads began to nod, feet to tap, beating time to it. Bab no longer could wait.

"Come along, everyone," she cried, and pushing back her chair she arose.

David, too, had risen. After teetering uncertainly for an instant, he got his crutches tucked beneath his arms and started slowly toward the hall. Linda Blair was beside him. Her pace matched to his slow progress, she sauntered through the doorway and toward the drawing-room, her lithe, long-limbed grace queerly contrasted by his slow, cumbrous effort. Indeed she herself must have been conscious of it – she could not have helped being so; but if she was her look gave no hint of it. Her attitude toward him and his crutches was as if the crutches did not exist. Bab's eyes grew misty. Filled with pity, she was still gazing at him when her escort, the young man who had taken her in to dinner, faced her smilingly.

"Shall we try this?" he asked.

A nod was her answer. She dared not trust herself to speak. Then a moment later she found herself carried away on the orchestra's enlivening strains. By now nearly all in the room were dancing. Already, too, the guests asked in for the dance were beginning to arrive in little parties. Bab's dinner was not the only festivity that had preceded the dance; and as the newcomers, all in high spirits, rolled up to the door in their motors, the once grim, dark Beeston house awoke anew. Bab had circled the drawing-room not more than once when she was obliged to pause to greet the new arrivals. Then when they, partner and partner, had whirled off to the music, there were still others who must be greeted. But the time came when at last she was free; and the music again thrumming in her ears, she had turned to smile up at her escort, that patient, smiling young man, when she saw across the room, sitting alone and, as she thought, forgotten, her cousin, David.

Miss Elvira for the moment had withdrawn. The Lloyds, too, since the dinner had not reappeared. Nor was Linda Blair to be seen. David indeed had been deserted; and escaping from her partner with a brief apology, Bab sped across the drawing-room.

"Why, David," she murmured; "they've all left you! I didn't know!"

He looked up, smiling quietly.

"Why, I'm all right," he returned. "Linda's been with me, but just now I made her go dance. You go, too, won't you?"

But Bab said no; she meant to sit with him a while, and in spite of his protests she drew up a chair to the corner where he sat. It would be like David, she knew, to see that all the others enjoyed themselves while he was left to look on. Presently when he began to protest, "But this is your dance, dear, yours!" Bab gently laid a hand on his.

"Yes, but I wish to be with you, don't you see?"

She heard him catch softly at his breath.

"With me?"

His fingers closed on the hand that still touched his, but Bab made no effort to withdraw it.

"Babs," he said, and again, as if he feared to frighten her, his voice grew gentle – "Babs, I can make you happy; I can do everything in the world for you. Give me your answer now, won't you? You've got to give it tonight, you know, so why wait? The sooner the better, Babs."

She did not answer. Beneath the filmy chiffon of her dress she could feel her heart flutter like the wings of a captive moth. She dared not look at him. She knew that if she did she would betray herself to that throng of gay, careless dancers, these guests of hers, intent though they were on their gayety. But troubled, agitated at what he asked, she could not but wonder at his insistence on haste. Why was it so imperative that she should answer now? It all seemed so swift, so breathlessly unexpected too. His hands tightened on hers.

"Babs."

She still did not answer.

"Babs, dearest," he whispered.

Though his voice broke, deep with its entreaty, she still steeled herself. Then his fingers released hers slowly and he drew in a breath, a sigh.

"Well, if you won't even look at me," he said, and at that the walls of the city gave.

"Oh, David, David!" and she looked at him, her eyes suffused. "If only I can make you happy!"

"Happy?" he echoed hoarsely. His face was transfigured.

"Yes, if only I can," she said.

The music went on. Alone then, forgotten as it seemed in the midst of that rising gayety, the man and the girl sat silent, their faces tortured into an air of bland, conventional impassivity. Of the storm that racked them inwardly who saw or who in that room could have known? It was for them, for one of them at least, the greatest, the most potential moment that life can bring; but life – the life they led, that is – ordered that they must hide every hint of their emotion. Finally David, summoning his courage, looked at her. His voice when he spoke broke again. His face, too, in that moment had grown heavy and lined with care.

"You must go dance now, Babs," he said fixedly. "This mustn't spoil your party. Come!"

She tried weakly to protest.

"I'd rather not, David."

But David shook his head determinedly.

"Tonight's your night," he said; and giving in she arose.

"Very well, Davy," she was saying when, her eyes widening and her lips parting in slow wonder, she paused. Then the color crept slowly up into Bab's face, a suffusing crimson tide, and, her breath held, she stood like one in a trance. Across the room was Varick. And as he saw Bab he turned and came swiftly toward her.

XVI

As in a dream, the tides of confusion coming and going in her face, Bab watched him as he crossed the room, threading his way among the dancers. Varick, she saw, had many friends in that throng. On every side the men called him a greeting as he passed; the girls, their partners, waving him a gay, friendly welcome. In spite of this, however, Varick's air was hardly what one would call festive.

A smile, half grim, half disdainful, lurked in his eyes. It was as if his presence there somehow grotesquely seemed amusing, and about him, too, was a look of stubborn purpose she had never seen before. If Bab, after their last encounter, had thought to find him ill at ease she was doomed to disappointment. However, the thoughts in her mind were of quite a different nature. What was he doing there, she was asking herself. How came he to be in that house? Her mind working swiftly even in its bewilderment, she recalled that moment, only a few days past, when she herself had heard Beeston say Varick should not set foot inside his door. And yet here he was! That David had not asked him was evident. She was standing there, her mind still a maze, when she heard David speak. Obviously his astonishment was as great as hers.

"Varick!" he exclaimed.

Varick's air had not altered. But for all its grimness he returned the greeting cheerfully.

"Hello, Davy!"

Then he turned to Bab. As Bab looked at him she saw the hardness fade from his face. A look of sadness, of regret took its place, as if in that glimpse of her, his first for days, his resolution, whatever it may have been, had died.

"Why, Bab," he said, his eyes eloquent now; "you are lovely!"

Bab offered a limp hand to him.

"How do you do, Mr. Varick?" she returned.

A hobbledehoy could not have done worse. Self-conscious, nettled that she had been so awkward, she snatched away her hand. Varick, however, seemed too absorbed to notice. Then to her relief she again heard David speak. "It's good of you to have come, Bayard," he said hesitatingly. "I didn't know you would."

Varick looked at him queerly.

"I suppose you know I wasn't asked," he returned slowly, his tone deliberate.

"Not asked?"

A low murmur of embarrassment escaped David, and Bab, watching, saw his eyes flutter uncomfortably.

"Then my aunt didn't send you a card?"

Varick shook his head.

"No, Davy; it's as I say, I just came."

She looked on in wonder. So he had come uninvited then. After that she saw Varick and David exchange a long, steady look. In it comprehension seemed to pass from one to the other, for, his eyes uneasy, his brow clouded with its growing shadow of disquiet, David slowly nodded.

"I understand," he said. "You've seen my father then?"

"Yes, I've seen him," assented Varick; and Bab moved restlessly, her lips parting in dull wonder.

However, if the riddle, the mystery, were still a mystery to her, it was all clear now to Varick. Downtown that night, there in Mrs. Tilney's parlor, Lloyd's visit had in a flash laid it all bare to him. It was, of course, Lloyd who first had suspected the fraud. It was Lloyd, too, of course, who had set those detectives on the trail. In his gnawing self-interest, incensed that another now would share in the Beeston money, he had been quick to seize on, to nourish the smallest seed of suspicion. The lawyers Mr. Mapleson might delude; Mr. Mapleson might even cozen Mrs. Tilney. Envy and greed, though, boast a sharper eye than goodwill. In not more than a few days after Lloyd had set out sniffing suspiciously along the trail he struck the scent of Mr. Mapleson's early downfall, that first forgery that had sent him off to jail. After that the rest was simple.

Lloyd's presence at Mrs. Tilney's was easily explained. For one thing, he wished no scandal; he sought merely to rid himself of Bab. The reason, however, for his tempestuous haste was not so evident.

"You go get that girl tonight!" directed Lloyd; though why, he did not say.

But Varick had asked no explanations. Neither had he let Mr. Mapleson ask them. His face tortured, his frightened eyes turned to Lloyd in doglike entreaty, the little man had sought to appeal to Lloyd's tender mercies. It was for Bab, however, not himself, that he supplicated.

"Don't be cruel!" cried Mr. Mapleson. "Don't turn her out like that! Can't you see she had no hand in it!"

Varick with a contemptuous gesture silenced him. The contempt, though, was not for the little man.

"Hush!" he ordered. "You waste your breath!" Then he turned sternly to Lloyd. "Now what is it we're to do?" he demanded.

"Just what I say," Lloyd retorted. "Unless that girl's taken away tonight I'll see that you all regret it."

And now Varick was there to get her.

Bab, still plunged in hazy bewilderment, gazed at them with troubled eyes. Why had David's father gone to Varick? What was the significance of that fact? Then in its perplexity her mind of a sudden stumbled on a memory. It was the remembrance, a vivid one, of the first morning she had spent there in that house, the Christmas morning when Lloyd had put to her a dozen questions, each searching into Varick's life at Mrs. Tilney's. Yes, but why? What was Lloyd's interest in Varick? Bab did not dream the truth. She had no hint that she was the one concerned. Varick was gazing at David fixedly.