Lloyd, reaching out, touched a near-by button.
"Breakfast, Lumley," he directed, indicating Bab to the manservant who entered. Then when she had seated herself Lloyd returned to his place on the hearthrug. While Mrs. Lloyd in her dragging, wearied voice addressed herself to Bab, her husband sedulously inspected his finger nails.
Curiously he seemed nervous, irritable too; but that he paid close heed to the talk Bab somehow felt sure. It did not add to her easiness. What was the matter? Why was their air so queer? Mrs. Lloyd, her manner on the surface blandly idle but her curiosity still evident, was questioning Bab about her life at Mrs. Tilney's, how she had gone there, why she had remained, when of a sudden Lloyd's increasing interest got the better of him.
"Look here," he remarked to Bab abruptly, "you know Varick, don't you—the chap there last night?"
Know Varick? The teacup she had raised to her lips hung suspended, and for a moment she gazed over it at Lloyd, inwardly astonished at his tone.
"Why, yes," she replied.
He shot a glance at Mrs. Lloyd.
"Varick's lived there a long time, too, hasn't he?" he demanded.
"Since last spring," answered Bab quietly.
"And you know him rather well, too, don't you?" persisted Lloyd.