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.