XV
And so it stood. Her answer she was to let David have that night. She had promised it. As Bab, the promise given, slipped from the library and made her way swiftly toward the drawing-room at the front, one needed only a glance to guess the ferment already working in her mind. Her eyes glowed. On each cheek again the color burned, now with a newer, more feverish brightness. Marry him? Her breath, at the thought, came fast!
The drawing-room, by the time she got there, was filling rapidly, and instilled with an animation that momentarily increased, she gayly greeted these arrivals, the first of the evening's guests. Her heart she could feel throb. A sense of exhilaration roused her. It was as if wine ran coursing through her veins; and her eyes dancing, her little head cocked sidewise like a bird's, she laughed and chatted, filled with a quick coquetry as new to her as it was charming. Bab never had looked more alluring.
She was in the midst of this, her face radiant, when she felt a hand touch her suddenly on the arm. The hand was Miss Elvira's; and as Bab looked up she found Miss Elvira gazing at her with an eye as dull and accusing as a haddock's. Her voice, when she spoke, was correspondingly morose.
"What's happened?" asked Miss Elvira guardedly in an aside.
Bab stared.
"Happened?" she echoed.