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?"