The music had ended. In the stir that followed, the momentary confusion as the dancers, separating, strayed toward their seats, Varick glanced irresolutely about him. If he were to do anything he must do it quickly, he saw.

Beeston, his face menacing, was already halfway across the ballroom floor. The jig was up—that was evident. One needed but a look to see this, and Varick, as he caught the look on Beeston's face, felt his heart sink. It was not of himself, though, that Varick thought.

Bab stood there, gay in her borrowed plumes, the pearl, the great gem Beeston had given her, nestling on the snowy whiteness of her breast; and in spite of the cloud, the troubled bewilderment that still clung darkly to her eyes, Varick thought he had never seen her more brilliant, more bewitching. But now, it happened, not even her charm, her witchery, were to avail her.

Varick pondered swiftly. Should he tell her? It would be a mercy, he felt, however he told it, to forestall the brutal way he was sure Beeston would blurt it out. And that, too, was why he had come there, an unbidden guest, forcing his way into the house. It was to save Bab, it was to rescue her from just some such scene as this. But the instant Varick looked at her the words flocking to his lips died there. His heart failed him. He hadn't the courage to do it.

Tell her she was a fraud! Tell her she was a cheat, an impostor! He groaned to himself at the thought. Still irresolute, he had turned to glance apprehensively across the ballroom, when he felt a hand touch him quietly on the arm. David stood beside him.

From his place in the corner David, too, had seen Beeston enter the ballroom; and he too, it seemed, had divined instantly what brought his grandfather. Lloyd, David's father, had carried out his promise; he had told Beeston of the fraud. And David, knowing Beeston, knew too what they might expect of him now that he had learned. Surprisingly, however, it was for Varick, not Bab, that David was concerned. Bab he did not even seem to consider. As he touched Varick on the arm he spoke, and his voice was grave with warning.

"You'd better go," said David.

No need to tell Varick that. He had been convinced of this the instant he had glimpsed Beeston. Even so, however, this was not the question. It was, instead, how he could get Bab out of that ballroom, the house itself, too, so there should be no scene.

David interrupted his thoughts.

"There'll be no scene, don't worry—not with her," he said; and Varick, astonished, turned to him swiftly. No scene with her? Why, Bab would be the first of all Beeston would denounce. More than that, it would be like Beeston to denounce her publicly, there before her guests. However, there was no time now for explanations.

"Do as I tell you," said David sharply. "If you'll go there'll be no trouble. I'll look out for Bab."

Bab was still standing there, her eyes and her drawn brows filled with bewildered wonderment.

"Come, Bab," said David.

Then when as in a dream she moved away with him David looked back across his shoulder. Once again he signed imperatively to Varick; once more he waved to him to go. But Varick did not move. He stood there as if debating, as if in that brief moment something had dawned within his mind. Bab and David, slowly threading their way amid the throng on the ballroom floor, drifted toward the door. On the way there they passed close to Beeston, but Beeston did not so much as give the two a look. His eyes on Varick, he stamped swiftly toward him. A moment later the two stood face to face. A thick growl escaped Beeston, a rumble of rancorous dislike.

"Huh!" he said roughly. "What are you doing here?"

Outside, huddled in a cab, Mr. Mapleson sat waiting. A long line of motors thronged the street—huge limousines or smaller, equally smart landaulets, their chauffeurs and footmen clustered along the curb in groups. Beyond from the open windows of the Beeston house the strains of an orchestra poured forth; and through the hangings one had a glimpse of the crowded ballroom, the dancers gliding to and fro. Absorbed in his thoughts, however, Mr. Mapleson could not have been more solitary had he been plunged into the heart of the Sahara.

He had lost; he knew that now. His crime, the fraud and forgery he had committed, all had been in vain. However, it was not just of this failure that the little man sat thinking, not altogether of this downfall of his dreams. Curiously, neither did his mind dwell at the moment on its consequences to himself. Jail yawned for Mr. Mapleson, and yet he did not give it a thought. The thought of Bab was what filled him with despair. He began to see now what he had done to her.

"Diamonds and pearls! Diamonds and pearls!" A groan escaped him. How he had tried, how he had striven, sacrificing everything, his own honor included, to make her happy, to give her what she wanted! And how he had failed! It was not only that he had failed, however; he withered at the thought of what he'd brought upon her. For the diamonds and pearls, these symbols of the vaunted riches he so long had prated about, were not all that would be stripped from her now. Bab not only had lost all this, she not only would be shamed and branded, but she would in all probability lose the man she loved!

"O God!" said Mapleson; and as the groan escaped him he bent forward swiftly and buried his face in his hands.

It was of Varick he thought. Varick he knew loved Bab. But even though he did, would Varick care now to marry her? Would anyone, in fact, care to take for his wife a woman who had been the central figure in a crime, a shameful fraud? Or even if he did, would his friends, his family, let him? Nor was that all. There was a nearer, more poignant shame that the fraud would fasten on her. Before his mind's eye arose a vision, a picture of Beeston, now that he knew the fraud, denouncing Bab before her guests. Mr. Mapleson quivered at the thought.

Varick, when he had left, had warned him he must not leave the cab. He must stay there until Varick came back with Bab. But this was too much. At this thought, this picture of Beeston, Mr. Mapleson struggled swiftly to his feet. There was still time. If he hurried he still could get to her before Beeston did. So, his hands fumbling with the catch, Mr. Mapleson had thrown open the cab door and was stepping out when, with a quick exclamation, he halted. There, hurrying toward him, came Varick!

Not above half an hour had passed since he and Mr. Mapleson had parted, but to the little man a lifetime might as well have intervened. Unnerved, in a sort of stupor, he stared blankly. Varick was alone! Outside, his hand on the cab door, he stood giving an order to the driver. Then as Varick, entering the cab, slammed the door behind him Mr. Mapleson awoke.

"Bab—where's Bab?" he cried.

For a moment Varick did not speak. His face was set, and a smile, grim and sardonic, played about the corners of his mouth.

"She's not coming," he said abruptly then.

Mr. Mapleson did not seem to comprehend.

"You left her?" he exclaimed.

"Yes," answered Varick grimly, "I left her."

Mr. Mapleson could stand no more. His voice suddenly rose.

"Tell me what has happened!" he cried. "Don't they know? Haven't they found it out?"

The taxicab, gathering speed, had already reached the Avenue, turning southward on its way, and with a jerk of his head Varick indicated the house they had left behind them.

"They know everything," he said; "all of them. Beeston has known it for weeks. He knew long before Lloyd took the trouble to tell him."

Mr. Mapleson heard him dumbfounded.

"Beeston knows?"

Varick nodded.

"And he didn't turn her out?" gasped Mr. Mapleson.

It was so, and the little man's eyes rounded themselves like marbles. Beeston had let her stay? Incredible!

"I'll tell you something else," drawled Varick. His air dull, his speech, too, as if what had happened had left him stupefied, he turned to Mr. Mapleson. "Beeston said he didn't give a damn what Bab was, whether she was a fraud or not. Understand? Lloyd was there, and I heard Beeston say to him: 'You tell her a word—her or anyone else, mind you—and your wife'll get no more money from me. You'll go to work!'"