"My grandfather's!" Bab had cried out in astonishment.
All along, it had seemed to her, Beeston had regarded her first dance only in gloomy tolerance, as if he wished the confusion and stir in his household at an end. But apparently she had been mistaken. Of a sudden that evening Beeston had appeared upon the scene, and after a look about him had demanded where the florist was. Then when the man had come running, Beeston, his brows twitching, more than ever grim, had rumbled an order at him. After that for an hour confusion had piled on itself in the household. Then as hurriedly it had passed, while out of it the house had risen transformed, beautified into a bower.
Bab listened intently to what old Crabbe was telling her. In the months she had lived there in that house she had grasped how many-sided was Beeston's dark and formidable nature. And yet, grim as it was and uncompromising, the man had about him, somewhere buried in his half-starved soul, a streak of sentimentalism impulsive and surprising. Of this his orders for the night's decoration seemed an evidence, and Bab still was looking about her in wonder, her appreciation growing, when at the door of the library Beeston himself appeared. Crabbe, breaking off in the midst of a sentence, sought to efface himself, but Beeston had seen him.
"Here, you, Crabbe!" he grunted.
Bearing on the arm of his young English valet, Cater, he came scuffling along the hall, his stick thwacking loudly on the floor, his brow darkened by an angry frown.
"Yes, sir," said Crabbe.
"My son-in-law, Mr. Lloyd—has he come in?" Beeston demanded abruptly.
Crabbe bent toward him deferentially.
"Mr. Lloyd was here, sir, and left. It was an hour ago."
Again a growl left Beeston.