Rich Man, Poor Man

The light was rising, and the shrill sparrows under the eaves had begun to twitter volubly with the day when Bab came out into the hall and closed the door behind her. She had just crossed Mr. Mapy's pipelike arms upon his breast, but she did not weep. Instead, a smile like the morning hovered dreamily on her face. Her hand on the knob, she stood for a moment, then opened the door again.

"Good-by, dear!" she whispered. That was her parting with Mr. Mapleson.

Seeing Varick waiting in the hall, she went toward him unfaltering.

"Bayard!" she said. "Oh, Bayard!"

The next instant, his conscience dumb, all his good resolutions forgotten, Varick had her in his arms – was holding her to him.

"Bab, dearest!" he said.

Her eyes, through the mist that dimmed them, shone up at him like stars.

"You thought I'd come, didn't you?" she said. "You knew, didn't you, I'd never marry for money?"

Varick tried to reassure her.

"No, no, I want you to hear!" she said. "Don't you understand? I had to come!"

"Yes, I know," he murmured. "I knew you'd come if they'd let you."

"Oh, but you don't understand!" Bab protested. "That isn't it! I got to thinking of it all. I thought of you, and I knew what you'd think of me. I couldn't stand it any more. I had to see you and tell you, Bayard. I didn't know Mr. Mapy was dying and I was coming to get him. Then he and I were going away."

The cloud of wonder in Varick's eyes gave way to a sudden light.

"You mean you've given up David then? That you're not going to marry him?"

"Why, no!" said Bab. "That's why I ran away."

It was Lena, the waitress, disheveled and unkempt, who brought the situation to a climax.

"Oh, excuse me!" she exclaimed in conscious confusion at the tableau before her.

"What is it?" asked Varick.

"There'll be a couple of gentlemen in the parlor, sir," answered the blushing Lena. "They're asking for you."

At once Varick guessed who those callers were. He signaled Lena to silence and, opening the door of his room, gently pushed Bab inside. When he had closed the door again he turned to the astonished waitress.

"Who are they, Lena?" he asked, and Lena told him.

The men waiting downstairs were Beeston and David Lloyd.

XXVI

"You've come too late, Mr. Beeston," said Varick grimly as he closed the parlor door behind him. "John Mapleson is dead."

Facing him on the chair across the room Beeston sat with both his gnarled, knotted hands gripping the handle of his stick. His face was a mask, but from under his shaggy brows his eyes glinted like balefires. Varick could see, too, his jaws work dryly together. David stood beside him. Propped up on his crutches, he bent forward to peer at Varick, and never had he looked more frail, more sensitive. Varick's speech he had not seemed to hear. If he had he did not heed it.

"Bab – is she here?" he demanded eagerly.

She was upstairs, Varick told him; and at this statement he saw David gasp. Then David and his grandfather exchanged glances. A growl escaped Beeston.

"Well, I might have known!" he rumbled. "Trust to a woman to make a fool of herself! You go up and tell her we're ready now to go home."

"Wait!" said David sharply. Varick, however, had had no intention of departing. He knew Bab never would return to that house down there on Long Island, but he was hardly prepared for what followed. "Don't call her – not yet," continued David thickly. Then he turned to his grandfather, smiling wearily. "That's all over," he said. "You know already what I've told you."

Another growl escaped Beeston's lips.

"Then the more fool you, that's all!" he grunted.

"Perhaps," David answered. He was still smiling as again he turned to Varick.

"We didn't come to get Bab, Bayard; I just came to make sure she was safe. She left no word when she went away last night from Eastbourne; but something told me she'd come here. I was too worried to wait. They wouldn't let me go at first, then I persuaded them. Grandfather said he'd come with me."

"Yes," said Beeston, and his lip curled; "I meant she should go back with us. She'd have gone, too, if I'd have had my way!"

One could not doubt it. His face told that. David laid a hand upon the old man's arm.

"You mustn't speak of that," said he. "It was a cruel thing you did to her. It was cruel not to let me know too."

Varick guessed what he meant. He turned to look at Beeston; but Beeston, even at David's speech, had not flinched.

"Bayard," said David, "when I came here it was as I said – not to get Bab but to give her up. I'd begun to see things right. She didn't love me; I realize now she never did. It was her pity first, and because of that pity she was going to marry me. And then love, real love, got the better of her. It was only my grandfather's threat that made her stick to the bargain. She didn't want me; she didn't want me even with all my money. She couldn't help herself; that was what it was! She wanted the man she loved!"

Varick waited in silence, not knowing what to say. Beeston, his face a mask, sat opposite him with his eyes still fixed on Varick. He was not the kind to show emotion; but what his feelings must have been as he sat there hearkening to David's outpoured, frank admissions, one might well understand. David's eyes had sought the floor. Presently he raised them, and with an attempt at a laugh he shrugged his shoulders. "Well," he said, "I suppose I should have learned by now to take what's coming to me. I can't have things like other men – that's all there is to it. I'll just have to grin and bear it." In earnest of that he smiled now rather wistfully. "I'm just what I am, you know," he concluded.

Varick, as he listened to his friend, forgot that the old man who sat opposite him, his lips curled now into a sneer, was his enemy. Beeston, it was evident, was a good hater. He was equally a softhearted, valorous partisan. It must have hurt him indeed to sit there and hear one of his blood cry peace. All this Varick realized. "Davy, don't!" he cried, and held out his hand to him. "I'm so sorry!" He stood there, one hand on the cripple's shoulder, the other clasping his hand. "Can't we still be friends?" he asked.

"Why, always," David answered; "why not?" He turned then to Beeston. "Come, grandfather," he said. "It's time we were going."

Settling his crutches under his arms, he smiled at Varick, then plied his way out into the hall. Upstairs, with a premonition of what was happening below, Bab opened her door. She heard the murmur of their voices, and in them detected a familiar tone. She went swiftly to the stair. A moment later down the hall she heard the familiar thump! thump! of David's crutches. The sound grew fainter and finally died away as the door closed downstairs. Out of her hearing and out of her life David Lloyd had gone, thumping on his way alone.

A few minutes later Varick found her in her room, her head buried in her arms.

"Bab," he said, "look up at me." Obediently she raised her face. "It isn't the best man who's got you, dear; but I love you. I always have!"

She did not speak, but she raised her two hands and drew his face down to hers.