“He is the prince of actors,” thought Bab. “I was a goose to let him see how I felt. I will show him that I know how to act as well as he does, when I am forced to it.”
Barbara accepted the invitation quietly. They took their places with the two long rows of dancers extending down the whole length of the great ballroom.
The barn dance, with its merry, unconventional movement, its swinging music and grace, was generally the greatest joy to Bab. But tonight, in spite of her pretense at acting, her feet lagged. She dared not look into the face of her partner. He was as gay and debonair as usual.
When the dance was over, Townsend asked Bab to walk out on the lawn with him.
As Ruth saw Harry and Barbara walk out at the door, she turned suddenly to the stranger with whom she was talking. “Will you,” she said to him, “tell Ralph Ewing I would like to speak to him at once? I want to tell him something that is very important. Please forgive my asking you, but I must see him. I will wait right here until you find him.” It was five—ten minutes, before Ralph was found.
Harry Townsend meant to discover what Barbara Thurston knew. She was a young girl, still at school. He was a man approaching thirty, with a record behind him of nearly ten years of successful villainy.
Would Barbara betray herself? Would she “give the game away?”
“Miss Thurston,” began Harry Townsend, politely, “as I shall be going away from Newport very soon, I want to have a talk with you. I must confess, that, since the night of Mrs. Erwin’s ball, I have been very angry with you. No high-minded man could endure the suggestion you made against my honor, when you asked Hugh Post to search me, so soon after his mother’s jewels had disappeared. But time has passed, and I do not now feel so wounded. Before I go away, would you mind telling me why you made such an accusation against me?”
“Mr. Townsend,” said Barbara, biting her lips, but keeping cool and collected, “is it necessary for you to ask me why I made such an accusation? If it is, then, I beg your pardon. The jewels were not in your possession, certainly, when the search was made. I own I was most unwise.”
“Then you withdraw the accusation?” Townsend was puzzled. He had expected Barbara to defy him, to insist he had stolen the jewels, that she had seen him in the act of doing it. He was wise enough to know that, if he could once make her angry, she would betray what she knew. He had still to discover who the gypsy was that had so strangely revealed to him her knowledge of his crimes.