There was a cardboard box inside the paper. Bab opened it. Then, as her eyes fell on what was within, her face underwent a curious transformation. She could have laughed, but in her heart was no merriment. It had needed but a glance at the gift she had received to show her clearly the attitude of the sender. Indifference Linda could not have expressed more clearly. She had sent Bab a small silver bonbon dish and, considering all the means at her disposal, she could hardly have selected anything less personal, less friendly and intimate. The gift was costly enough. It was its significance that hurt Bab—the evident apathy it showed on the part of the giver.
The reason for that apathy Bab knew only too well.
"Why are you marrying David?" Linda had inquired. Why, indeed? And if Linda were to hear the whole truth, what would she think then? What would she say were she able to read Bab's mind—to see that David's wealth had become a balm to cure Bab's wounded spirit?
The silver bonbon dish slid unheeded to the floor, and for a long time she sat looking straight before her with eyes that now saw nothing of all the beautiful things that a few moments before had filled her thoughts. Then slowly she rose to her feet and began pacing the bedroom to and fro. She herself had once called Varick a fortune hunter; to think how the tables had now been turned on her. It wasn't true, of course, that she was marrying for money; but how would the world know that? She could not tell people she had married to save Mr. Mapleson from jail. If she did she would have to tell also the truth about herself. Her tongue was tied. She could not even defend herself. She must let the world think that she was like all those other women who had taken men just for their money. And Varick would think that too!
Here a dry sob broke from her. Flinging herself upon the piled-up mass of finery on her bed she lay, her face hidden among the pillows. If only he could know! If only once before her marriage she could see him, tell him the truth. She could not bear to have him think she had given herself for the money. But it was too late now. That afternoon, there in the road when she had left him, she knew he had finished with her. The look in his face had been enough to tell her that. At the thought a new despair came to her and the unutterable loneliness of her plight came over her anew. Everyone had left her, it seemed—everyone! Part of her bargain with Beeston was that she should renounce even those who had loved her. Varick was not the only one. She must not even see poor little Mr. Mapleson.
Then, surging over her again and drowning out all other thoughts, came the remembrance that in two days now she was to marry a man she did not love!
Her mistress not having rung for her, at half-past eleven Mawson of her own accord tapped at the sitting-room door. There being no answer, she tapped at the bedroom door. Still getting no response, she opened the door and stepped in. The room was vacant, and in the center of the floor Bab's dressing gown lay in a heap. Beside it, too, were the mauve silk stockings and satin slippers that she had worn down to dinner. But Bab, it seemed, had vanished.