"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.