Varick? Bab heard the name in vague astonishment. So he was the man they'd been discussing? Yes, but why all Mrs. Lloyd's strange interest in him? Why all her curiosity concerning Varick's attitude? Did all this concern her—Bab? Was that it?
She sat there outwardly unmoved, her face inexpressive of the tumult that went on within her. Strangely, it was not of the motives she thought. In her mind ran rioting another thought—a thought that shouted clamorously, its mockery evident. A party and Varick at it? Her party too? With that vividly clear-cut minuteness of detail that mental conflict so often engenders, a memory, a vision leaped into her mind and stood there, graphic, boldly limned.
It was in Mrs. Tilney's dining-room that she saw herself. Dinner was at half-past six; it shortly would be served; and the table set, her task completed, Bab sat with her chin on her hands. Across on the hearthrug stood Varick. He was in evening clothes, and Bab had just tied his tie. "Tell me," she'd said, "if tonight things were changed, and I—I was up there—— If you, you——" Ah, yes; if things were changed! If they were changed, indeed, and she could be there, uptown, with him, would he then not think her as pretty, as charming, as desirable as those other girls he knew? That was the question, the one she'd half asked, then had not dared to finish! A dance! A party with him there! At the thought then how her heart had leaped! To be there with him! To have him dance with her! She still could recall her first exhilaration. Yes, but that had been weeks ago! There was a difference now; and Bab, a queer look in her eyes, glanced swiftly, perhaps guiltily, at the man who sat beside her. It was the first acknowledgment to herself, that glance, of how far in the past had fallen that romance of hers at Mrs. Tilney's. Far indeed!
Still sitting there, her face inexpressive, she had looked away, when of a sudden she heard Beeston speak.
"Varick, eh?" he growled. "That fellow asked here!"
He stared about him, his dull eyes threatening, a deep color crowding into his face.
"Well, why don't you answer?" he demanded. "Who asked that fellow? I've told you, haven't I, I'll have no Varick in my house!"
It was David who replied.
"No one's asked him," he said quietly. "I've been trying to decide if I should."