At Mrs. Tilney's the boarders had not only seen this, but had noted more than one other change in him. His shy, friendly voice no longer joined in the talk at the dinner table; his timid, frosty little giggle no more was heard to echo their merriment. Banquo at the feast indeed could not have been more dejected. Submerged, downcast, detached, he had altered utterly in the brief two months since Christmas.
What it was that weighed on the little man's mind was of course not known to the others. But Mr. Mapleson knew. And it was this knowledge that had worn on him so destructively. Even now at the thought his face grew full of pain; and as he raised a hand to draw it across his brow a penetrating sigh escaped him. "Oh, God!" said Mr. Mapleson.
He was still sitting there, the tragic simpleton, that sentimentalist, when of a sudden a quick footfall, a step he well remembered, sounded in the hall. Then a hand rapped swiftly on the door.
The limousine bearing Bab to Mrs. Tilney's had come swiftly; as a matter of fact, for her it had come too swiftly. Uptown, when she had made up her mind, she had felt so sure, so certain. The thing to do, she had been convinced up there, was to see Mr. Mapy; he would set everything right. Yes, but now that she had come, what was it he was to set right? What was it he or anyone else could do? She confessed she didn't know.
Beeston's sneering, contemptuous speeches still rang echoing in her ears. Even had they been true, the affront in those utterances could not have been more stinging. And again, how did she know they weren't true? A vulgar fortune hunter Beeston had termed him; and what reason had she to believe he wasn't? To be sure, he had neither asked her to marry him nor openly made love to her; but then how did she know he wouldn't if once he got the chance? That was it—if once he got the chance!
"Oh, Mr. Mapy!" called Bab. "Oh, Mr. Mapy!"
Closing his door she stood there smiling wistfully.
The little man's face was a picture. Amazement and alarm together struggled in it—alarm most of all. Then of a sudden, as if from the cloud in her eyes he divined something, Mr. Mapleson scrambled to his feet.
"What is it?" he wheezed, and caught thickly at his breath. "Bab, they haven't sent you away?"