Rich Man, Poor Man

"Then you know?" he asked.

"Yes," answered David, "I know."

"And the others," persisted Varick; "do they know?"

"Upstairs? You mean them?"

"Yes, all of them."

"No," assured David, his voice weary; "but tonight they'll know. He means to tell them everything."

Bab could stand no more. She had as yet no inkling of what the meaning was of this veiled, guarded colloquy of theirs, but by now she had dully lost interest. Just as Varick was about to speak she interrupted.

"If you don't mind," she said abruptly, "I think I'll find Aunt Vira."

Anything to escape! By now the emotion Varick's presence had roused in her had become unbearable, and she feared her agitation would betray itself. Too much had happened that night. There was, first, that interview with Beeston, itself distracting. Then had followed her talk with David, the words that turned him, a cousin, into a lover. And this was but a part. There was the dinner, the dance with it, her first party! Finally, as if all this by itself had not been enough, unasked and unexpected, like a wraith risen from the past, here had come Varick!

How she had once dreamed of an occasion like this one! To dance with him, to have him there – that was why she had so longed to have her party. It had been for him then – just for him alone. That, too, was why, until she had them, she had longed so for possessions, the things that would make her attractive in his eyes – the wealth and the position it would bring that would lift her to his level. But now he had come to her party, that dance she so long had dreamed about, and his coming had only troubled her. Strange! Strange, indeed, the reality! It was not at all the dream as Bab had dreamed it.

"Wait!" said Varick as she turned to go. There was in his voice a note of authority, abrupt and peremptory, that Bab never before had heard; and as she paused she saw him glance hurriedly toward the drawing-room door. "I'm going with you! I've something to tell you!" he said; then he turned to David. "Your father – has he come back?" he asked; and when David said that his father had returned Varick added: "I'll have to hurry then!"

A moment later Bab found herself walking with him toward the ballroom door. David, his mouth set fixedly, had made no protest. Silently he watched them go.

The orchestra still was playing. The air, a waltz, rose and fell, throbbing seductively, its swinging measure alluring to Bab in every beat; and as she heard it the shadow in her eyes grew deeper. Her pique had left her, and somehow she had lost as well her one-time scorn of Varick. Incensed once that he had sought to marry her, not for herself but, as she had thought, for what she had, she no longer felt that anger. All that her mind now could dwell upon was the music and the fact that he was with her. That they were together again! Bab's eyes grew misty, and she bit her trembling lip. A moment later Varick felt her touch him impulsively on the arm.

"Bayard," said Bab, and her voice broke tremulously, "won't you ask me to dance just once?"

"I?"

She was conscious that he turned swiftly, staring down at her. Then all the hardness in his face died out, the scowl, the trouble in his eyes; and the Varick she knew best stood there, the real Varick, smiling, friendly, kind. Indeed in his pity for her Varick's heart could have melted, for no one more than he knew what hung over Bab's innocent head. She saw his eyes flash then. Dance with her? There was nothing at the instant he rather would have done, and yet Varick hesitated. Again he glanced swiftly toward the drawing-room door.

"Please," pleaded Bab.

She looked up at him then, her eyes wistful and entreating, her lips parted in that old, familiar, twisted little smile of hers – the one that to him was so amusing in the way it wrinkled the tip of her little nose.

"You're not angry at me?" she pleaded. "Don't you want to dance?"

"Angry?" he echoed. His voice, filled with sudden feeling, startled her. "Do you think I could be angry with you?"

Bab didn't know. As he took her hand, his arm about her as they waited momentarily to catch the music's beat, she felt herself tremble at his nearness. She dared not speak, she dared not look at him. Her head low, her face against his sleeve, she breathed faintly, borne away by him, the music, half-heard, drumming distantly in her ears. She was not conscious that she danced. It was as if she clung to him and was carried on, drifting like a cloud. Then in her maze of vague, bewildering emotions she heard him speak, his voice coming to her distantly, small and penetrating like a bell's silver note.

"Bab!" he whispered. "Bab!"

The arm about her tightened then. She did not resent it. She had the feeling that after all somehow he was hers. Numbly the thought came to her of how long she had waited for this. From the first her dream had been of such a moment. She would be in his arms and he looking down at her; and then like that, too, he would whisper to her.

"Bab," he said again. "Bab, dear!"

His voice, though he had lowered it until it could barely be heard, rang to her like a trumpet. His face, she knew, too, was so close that it touched the soft stray filaments of her hair. She felt her heart throb ponderously.

"Happy, Bab?" he asked.

A quick breath, half a sob, escaped her. Happy? Varick gave no heed. A laugh, a small, joyous echo of contentment, rippled from his lips, and again she felt his arm tighten about her, possessive, confident. Round them were a hundred others, all elbow to elbow with them, all dancing to the strains of that same languorous, alluring music. But of this neither seemed aware. All Bab knew or cared was that he and she were there; that for this one moment, whatever else might befall, they two were together. What if it were only for her money that he wanted her? What if he had once asked her to marry him for that? It made little difference now. This was her night. This was what she had wanted. For it was of him she had dreamed. It was Varick, after all, she had wanted at her dance. Happy?

Bab's mouth quivered as she pressed it against his sleeve. Varick was still whispering to her softly.

"Bab, you remember the night, don't you, the Christmas Eve when you went away from Mrs. Tilney's? You remember you told me then when you were a little girl, a kid in pigtails and pinafores, you used to dance by yourself to the music of an unseen orchestra there all alone in Mrs. Tilney's kitchen. Remember, Bab?"

Yes, she remembered. She remembered, too, what else she had said that night. An inarticulate murmur escaped her.

"Bab, tell me now, is this like it?" he asked. "Is this the dream come true?"

Was it, indeed? She knew that in her dreams at Mrs. Tilney's a night like this would have seemed veritably a dream. Place, possessions, a name! All these she had now. She was sought after and desired as she had dreamed! Yet was it all as in her dreams she had seen it?

"Well?" asked Varick.

Her face against his sleeve, Bab debated.

"I don't know. Why?"

"I wondered, Bab. I wondered if anything could make you happier; if there were anything for which you'd give it up."

"Give it up?"

"Yes, Bab."

She looked up at him, a startled glance. Why should she give it up? Then, the thought leaping into her mind, she guessed – or thought she guessed – what he meant; and the color swept into her face. Conscious then, quivering, too, she dropped her eyes confusedly. Give it up for him?

The music still played. They still drifted in and out among the other dancers. She wondered whether, pressed tightly against his shoulder, he could not feel her heart. It was throbbing like a bird's.

"Bab, listen! A while ago I asked you to marry me, and you said no. You scorned me, you remember. You said that if I'd really loved you I'd have asked you when you were poor. But what if marrying me made you poor? What if by doing that you lost all this? Bab, would you take me then?"

She listened in dumb silence.

"Well, Bab?" he asked.

She still did not answer. She dared neither to speak nor to look at him. If she did she knew there would not be a soul in that ballroom who wouldn't guess what he was saying to her. He was pleading now, his voice urging her.

"Come with me, Bab! Marry me tonight! I want just you, don't you understand? I want you now!"

Tonight? Marry him like that? Run away with him? Varick could feel her tremble.

"It's not running away, Bab. Say yes, now! Say you'll marry me!" Even in her emotion, the distress that tore her now, Bab could not help but wonder at his haste, his persistency. "Don't be frightened, will you? Trust in me; I have everything ready, dear! And you won't have to go alone; I'll tell you something; it's all been fixed, Bab – I've brought Mr. Mapleson with me too."

"Mr. Mapy?" The name, the exclamation, burst from her, stifled, a startled cry. "You brought him?"

Again Varick's arm tightened itself about her, protecting, reassuring.

"Steady, dear!" he whispered. "They've begun to look at you."

She hardly heard him.

"You brought Mr. Mapy?" she repeated.

"Yes, Bab; he knows why I've come tonight. He's outside there, waiting in the cab." Then, careless of any eye that might see him, Varick pressed his cheek softly against the brown head that so long had been turned away from his. "Bab, will you say yes? Say you will, Bab! Come with me and we'll be married now!" He heard her catch her breath. The face against his sleeve pressed tighter to it. For an instant he felt her cling to him. "Will you come, Bab?"

Then she answered him.

"Bayard! Bayard!" whispered Bab. "I can't. Don't you understand how it was? I thought you hated me. I thought after what I'd said to you I'd never see you again. It was all my fault; I believed what they said of you. Forgive me, won't you? Oh, don't look at me like that!"

"Bab, what have you done?" he asked.

She looked up at him dully, her face filled with weary helplessness. Then she told him.

"I'm going to marry David. You didn't come and I didn't think you would, so a while ago I told him yes."

"You said you'd marry him?"

"Yes, Bayard. You don't know how kind and dear he's been. Then, too, you didn't come. So I said yes."

Again Varick had tried to save her, and again he had failed. Then, as he glanced toward the ballroom door, his face a study of bewilderment, he saw there what he had been expecting. Beeston had just entered and he had seen Varick and Bab.

XVII

The music had ended. In the stir that followed, the momentary confusion as the dancers, separating, strayed toward their seats, Varick glanced irresolutely about him. If he were to do anything he must do it quickly, he saw.

Beeston, his face menacing, was already halfway across the ballroom floor. The jig was up – that was evident. One needed but a look to see this, and Varick, as he caught the look on Beeston's face, felt his heart sink. It was not of himself, though, that Varick thought.

Bab stood there, gay in her borrowed plumes, the pearl, the great gem Beeston had given her, nestling on the snowy whiteness of her breast; and in spite of the cloud, the troubled bewilderment that still clung darkly to her eyes, Varick thought he had never seen her more brilliant, more bewitching. But now, it happened, not even her charm, her witchery, were to avail her.

Varick pondered swiftly. Should he tell her? It would be a mercy, he felt, however he told it, to forestall the brutal way he was sure Beeston would blurt it out. And that, too, was why he had come there, an unbidden guest, forcing his way into the house. It was to save Bab, it was to rescue her from just some such scene as this. But the instant Varick looked at her the words flocking to his lips died there. His heart failed him. He hadn't the courage to do it.

Tell her she was a fraud! Tell her she was a cheat, an impostor! He groaned to himself at the thought. Still irresolute, he had turned to glance apprehensively across the ballroom, when he felt a hand touch him quietly on the arm. David stood beside him.

From his place in the corner David, too, had seen Beeston enter the ballroom; and he too, it seemed, had divined instantly what brought his grandfather. Lloyd, David's father, had carried out his promise; he had told Beeston of the fraud. And David, knowing Beeston, knew too what they might expect of him now that he had learned. Surprisingly, however, it was for Varick, not Bab, that David was concerned. Bab he did not even seem to consider. As he touched Varick on the arm he spoke, and his voice was grave with warning.

"You'd better go," said David.

No need to tell Varick that. He had been convinced of this the instant he had glimpsed Beeston. Even so, however, this was not the question. It was, instead, how he could get Bab out of that ballroom, the house itself, too, so there should be no scene.

David interrupted his thoughts.

"There'll be no scene, don't worry – not with her," he said; and Varick, astonished, turned to him swiftly. No scene with her? Why, Bab would be the first of all Beeston would denounce. More than that, it would be like Beeston to denounce her publicly, there before her guests. However, there was no time now for explanations.

"Do as I tell you," said David sharply. "If you'll go there'll be no trouble. I'll look out for Bab."

Bab was still standing there, her eyes and her drawn brows filled with bewildered wonderment.

"Come, Bab," said David.

Then when as in a dream she moved away with him David looked back across his shoulder. Once again he signed imperatively to Varick; once more he waved to him to go. But Varick did not move. He stood there as if debating, as if in that brief moment something had dawned within his mind. Bab and David, slowly threading their way amid the throng on the ballroom floor, drifted toward the door. On the way there they passed close to Beeston, but Beeston did not so much as give the two a look. His eyes on Varick, he stamped swiftly toward him. A moment later the two stood face to face. A thick growl escaped Beeston, a rumble of rancorous dislike.

"Huh!" he said roughly. "What are you doing here?"

Outside, huddled in a cab, Mr. Mapleson sat waiting. A long line of motors thronged the street – huge limousines or smaller, equally smart landaulets, their chauffeurs and footmen clustered along the curb in groups. Beyond from the open windows of the Beeston house the strains of an orchestra poured forth; and through the hangings one had a glimpse of the crowded ballroom, the dancers gliding to and fro. Absorbed in his thoughts, however, Mr. Mapleson could not have been more solitary had he been plunged into the heart of the Sahara.

He had lost; he knew that now. His crime, the fraud and forgery he had committed, all had been in vain. However, it was not just of this failure that the little man sat thinking, not altogether of this downfall of his dreams. Curiously, neither did his mind dwell at the moment on its consequences to himself. Jail yawned for Mr. Mapleson, and yet he did not give it a thought. The thought of Bab was what filled him with despair. He began to see now what he had done to her.

"Diamonds and pearls! Diamonds and pearls!" A groan escaped him. How he had tried, how he had striven, sacrificing everything, his own honor included, to make her happy, to give her what she wanted! And how he had failed! It was not only that he had failed, however; he withered at the thought of what he'd brought upon her. For the diamonds and pearls, these symbols of the vaunted riches he so long had prated about, were not all that would be stripped from her now. Bab not only had lost all this, she not only would be shamed and branded, but she would in all probability lose the man she loved!

"O God!" said Mapleson; and as the groan escaped him he bent forward swiftly and buried his face in his hands.

It was of Varick he thought. Varick he knew loved Bab. But even though he did, would Varick care now to marry her? Would anyone, in fact, care to take for his wife a woman who had been the central figure in a crime, a shameful fraud? Or even if he did, would his friends, his family, let him? Nor was that all. There was a nearer, more poignant shame that the fraud would fasten on her. Before his mind's eye arose a vision, a picture of Beeston, now that he knew the fraud, denouncing Bab before her guests. Mr. Mapleson quivered at the thought.

Varick, when he had left, had warned him he must not leave the cab. He must stay there until Varick came back with Bab. But this was too much. At this thought, this picture of Beeston, Mr. Mapleson struggled swiftly to his feet. There was still time. If he hurried he still could get to her before Beeston did. So, his hands fumbling with the catch, Mr. Mapleson had thrown open the cab door and was stepping out when, with a quick exclamation, he halted. There, hurrying toward him, came Varick!

Not above half an hour had passed since he and Mr. Mapleson had parted, but to the little man a lifetime might as well have intervened. Unnerved, in a sort of stupor, he stared blankly. Varick was alone! Outside, his hand on the cab door, he stood giving an order to the driver. Then as Varick, entering the cab, slammed the door behind him Mr. Mapleson awoke.

"Bab – where's Bab?" he cried.

For a moment Varick did not speak. His face was set, and a smile, grim and sardonic, played about the corners of his mouth.

"She's not coming," he said abruptly then.

Mr. Mapleson did not seem to comprehend.

"You left her?" he exclaimed.

"Yes," answered Varick grimly, "I left her."

Mr. Mapleson could stand no more. His voice suddenly rose.

"Tell me what has happened!" he cried. "Don't they know? Haven't they found it out?"

The taxicab, gathering speed, had already reached the Avenue, turning southward on its way, and with a jerk of his head Varick indicated the house they had left behind them.

"They know everything," he said; "all of them. Beeston has known it for weeks. He knew long before Lloyd took the trouble to tell him."

Mr. Mapleson heard him dumbfounded.

"Beeston knows?"

Varick nodded.

"And he didn't turn her out?" gasped Mr. Mapleson.

It was so, and the little man's eyes rounded themselves like marbles. Beeston had let her stay? Incredible!

"I'll tell you something else," drawled Varick. His air dull, his speech, too, as if what had happened had left him stupefied, he turned to Mr. Mapleson. "Beeston said he didn't give a damn what Bab was, whether she was a fraud or not. Understand? Lloyd was there, and I heard Beeston say to him: 'You tell her a word – her or anyone else, mind you – and your wife'll get no more money from me. You'll go to work!'"

XVIII

The guests had gone, the musicians had followed them, and in the huge Beeston house, its lower floors once more shadowy and dim, Crabbe and the other servants yawned their way about, locking up for the night. It was striking two when the old servant, after a final round about him, slowly climbed the stairs. Stillness fell then. Bab's dance was done.

Upstairs, alone in her dressing room, she sat with her chin upon her hand, plunged in a train of thought. The night, in spite of the fact that May drew near, had come on cold, and Mawson had lit the fire in the grate. Bab, after her dress had been removed, had slipped a wrapper over her bare arms and shoulders, then drifted to the hearth.

"You may go, Mawson," she said to the drowsy maid; and Mawson departing, Bab slipped to her knees on the big fur rug before the fire.

The warmth of the glowing cannel allured her. Downstairs in the last hour of the dance a chill had seemed to steal upon her, a sensation that had been as much mental, perhaps, as it was physical. She felt dull, numbly troubled, and in addition a shadow of apprehension was now creeping upon her. Why, she could not have told. Filled with all that had happened that night, she sat staring at the coals, conscious only of the burden that had begun to weigh upon her.

A feeling of sadness and longingThat is not akin to pain,And resembles sorrow onlyAs the mist resembles the rain.

After all, what was it that had happened? As her mind, harking back over the night's occurrences, dwelt on each event, her vision of what had taken place grew more and more confused. It was not just of Varick she thought, for Varick, she knew now, she had lost. Of that she was sure. The instant she had told him the truth, that she had given her promise to David Lloyd, the look on his face had been enough. This look and the exclamation that had gone with it had shown doubt, first, and with it dismay, consternation. Then she had seen, she felt sure, a look of repugnance follow. But there was something besides that, something Varick seemed to know and that was causing him deep concern. What could it be?

Of the real facts regarding her presence in the Beeston house Bab as yet knew nothing. However, though ignorant of the truth, her mind was by no means at rest. Already back in her brain a dim something was at work. One hardly could call it a suspicion – not yet, at any rate. Suspicion, for one thing, involves some suggestion of the truth. It was more bewilderment, a sense of confused, growing wonder.

As she sat there staring at the fire in the grate, her mind groping round for some explanation of the evening's experiences, a quick remembrance came to her. It was like a ray of light – a sudden, illuminating gleam stabbing swiftly through the darkness. Her thoughts turned back to the first morning she had spent in that house, the Christmas day when she encountered the Lloyds, David's cold, unresponsive parents.

Bit by bit she recalled the scene: first, Mrs. Lloyd's air of aloofness, her chilly reception to her new-found niece; then in train with this Lloyd's keen, curious interest in her life at Mrs. Tilney's, her acquaintance especially with Varick. Of course by now Bab had learned why Varick was no longer welcome at her grandfather's house. It was because of Beeston's hatred of Varick's father. But, even this hardly could be reason enough for the Lloyds' deep-rooted interest in the matter; at any rate, not for their concern in Bab's early friendship with Varick. She remembered also the climax of that scene, the moment when, grim of face, flying the signals of war, Miss Elvira had swooped down upon the Lloyds. At sight of her they suddenly had been stricken silent. Why? And then Miss Elvira had flung those few tart words at the pair. They had contained a warning, a threat, too. But why was that threat necessary? Was it to keep them from revealing something to her?

Gradually the conviction that this was the real explanation began to grow upon her. In this case the revelation, the secret they knew, must have something to do with Varick. But how was he involved? Was it something shady they had to tell? If so, why didn't they tell it? Why didn't they give him a chance to defend himself? Mulling this over, she recalled, too, with sudden vividness something that had occurred on that eventful afternoon when she had driven alone with Beeston, the day when in his rage he had denounced Varick as a fortune hunter. Varick's father, as Beeston had told her, had tried to trim him, and instead had himself been trimmed. That the man Varick, Senior, had been dishonest was manifest. Had he perhaps handed down this trait? Was Varick dishonest too? But if this were true, why didn't they say so? That she herself might be the one concerned did not enter Bab's mind by even so much as a suggestion.

An hour passed. The cannel, crackling and snapping in the hearth, began presently to burn low. It grew gray about the edges, its glow subsiding, the ashes turning cold. As three o'clock struck out in the hall Bab heard a sound upon the stair. Startled, for an instant she held her breath. Then, the sound passing on, she recognized it – or so she thought. It was old Crabbe, she told herself. Having locked up, he now must be going to bed. She did not know he had been there an hour already. Her alarm gone, she reached over to the grate, and with the poker stirred up the waning blaze. Again the coals began to snap and crackle, their light dancing on the ceiling of the half-darkened room. And Bab once more resumed her thoughts.

It was not only Lloyd and his wife who were hiding something; it was David, and Miss Elvira, and even Varick. However, though she recalled Varick's quick question addressed to David, "Does she know?" its significance did not dawn on her. To her it was merely a part of the tangle, the mystery, a mere repetition.