She saw it all now—or so she thought. She remembered, for example, that time now long past when she first had noted Varick's rising interest in her. If then he had not openly made love, still his attitude was next door to it! Had he ever lost a chance to be with her? Had he once omitted the opportunity to make himself singularly pleasant? Bab was sure, quite sure, he had not. He had, in short, amused himself at every occasion! For what else but amusement could it be called? Her good looks had always sufficed to interest him, but not until he knew one day she would have money had he ever taken her seriously.
Day by day her resentment had grown. Day by day, too, she had learned to find in it a kind of styptic balm, a bitter salve for the hurt she first had felt. However, that hurt was passing now; and as Bab arose to make ready for luncheon her spirits manifestly had improved. A new color had come to her cheeks, a new buoyancy to her step. It was as if the harvest of her thoughts this morning had at last brought to her a decision long debated, and that now, once she had reached this conclusion, the shadow had been swept resolutely from her mind.
"Never mind my hat, Mawson," Bab told the angular, bony-faced Englishwoman Miss Elvira had provided to wait on her. "I'll run up for it after luncheon."
"Very good, miss," replied the maid; and her eyes alight with their new animation, perhaps just a little hard, too, Bab hurried down the stairs. Rarely had she looked so self-poised.
That afternoon she was to drive out in a new motor, a racing runabout David Lloyd had just bought; and as she passed swiftly down the long stairway Bab was humming under her breath a familiar bar of music. It was by chance an air that once she had heard someone she knew whistling gayly:
La Donna è mobile!
And singularly, at the remembrance, she smiled as if lightly amused. But then that is the way of it:
Quam plume mal vento!
She was, indeed, still singing it as she slipped into the living-room, on her way down, to help herself to a flower or two out of a big bunch that stood in a vase on the table. David that morning had sent them to her, and she knew how his face would light when he saw her wearing them. Of late she had begun to notice rather definitely how readily she could please him. And he, too, pleased her. She had not dreamed that one's own cousin—just a relative, you know—could seem always so charming. But then there was a gentleness, a kindliness and consideration about David that endeared him to everyone. Bab, by the time she had reached the dining-room, seemed much like her smiling, pleasant self again.