Bab, wondering more now, spoke again.
"I'm sure he would," she said quietly.
He gave her a quick glance; but the hurt in his eyes, his drawn and haggard mouth, went far to obscure the resentment he put into the look. He did not dislike Varick, she knew; they had been friends, and still would have been so had David had his way. What had roused him now was the bitterness of all he'd had to stand.
"Oh, but what's the use!" continued David with a shrug of hopeless misery. "What's the use! I could stand that—seeing men do the things I wanted to do. I've stood it for years. Tonight, though, when I saw him with you—when I saw, too, the look he gave you—that was too much! I'd thought after all I'd had to give up all my life that perhaps I might have you! And then I saw I couldn't!"
Bab was watching him fixedly. His eyes on the floor, he did not see the color fade suddenly in her face.
"Well?" she said abruptly. David at her tone looked up. For a moment his face was vacant. Bab steeled herself to speak again. "What has Varick to do with it?" she demanded. "Why do you dwell on him?"
There was an instant's pause.
"Bab, what do you mean?"
She did not answer directly. Then because she would not hold him in suspense, and hurt him more than he had already been hurt: "You haven't lost me," she said. "I told you I'd marry you, and I'll keep my promise, dear!"