Read The Guarded Heights Page 3

  PART III

  THE MARKET-PLACE

  I

  George left Princeton with a sense of flight. The reception of a diplomadidn't interest him, nor did the cheers he received class day or on theafternoon of the Yale baseball game when, beneath a Japanese parasol, heled the seniors in front of admiring thousands who audibly identifiedhim for each other.

  The man that had done most for Princeton! He admitted he had done a gooddeal for himself. Of course, Squibs was right and he was abnormallyselfish; only it was too bad Betty couldn't have thought so. He hadtried to make her and had failed, he told himself, because Bettycouldn't understand selfishness.

  He avoided during those last days every chance of seeing her alone; buteven in the presence of others he was aware of an alteration in hermanner, to be traced, doubtless, to the night of his difficultconfession. She was kinder, but her eyes were often puzzled, as if shecouldn't understand why he didn't want to see her alone.

  He counted the moments, anxious for Blodgett and the envelopingatmosphere of his marble-and-mahogany office. That would break the lastpermanent tie. He would return to Princeton, naturally, but for only aday or two now and then, too short a time to permit its influencesappreciably to swerve him.

  Without meaning to, he let himself soften on the very edge of hisdeparture when the class sang on the steps of Nassau Hall for the lasttime, then burned the benches about the cannon, and in lock step, handson shoulders, shuffled slowly away like men who have accomplished theinterment of their youth.

  A lot of these mourning fellows he would never meet again; but he wouldsee plenty of Goodhue and Wandel and other useful people. Why, then, didhe abruptly and sharply regret his separation from all the others, eventhe submerged ones who had got from Princeton only an education takenlike medicine and of about as much value? In the sway of this mood,induced by permanent farewells, he came upon Dalrymple.

  "There's no point saying good-bye to you," George offered, kindly.

  Of course not. They would meet each other in town too frequently,secreting a private enmity behind publicly worn masks of friendship.George was wandering on, but Dalrymple halted him. The man was a trifledrunk, and the sentiment of the moment had penetrated his narrow mind.

  "Not been very good friends, George, you and I."

  Even then George shrank from his apologies, since he appreciated theirprecise value.

  "Why don't you forget it?" he asked, gruffly.

  Dalrymple nodded, but George knew in the morning the other would regrethaving said as much as he had.

  Immediately after that sombre dissolution of the class George saidgood-bye to the Baillys. Although it was quite late they sat waiting forhim in the study, neat and serene as it had been on that first day ahundred years ago. The room was quite the same except that BillGregory's picture had lost prominence while George's stood in the placeof honour--an incentive for new men, although George was confidentSquibs didn't urge certain of his qualities on his youngsters.

  Squibs looked older to-night, nearly as old, George thought, as thedisgraceful tweeds which he still wore. Mrs. Bailly sat in the shadows.George kissed her and sank on the sofa at her side. She put her hand outand groped for his, clinging to his fingers with a sort of despair. Fora long time they sat without speaking. George put his arm around her andwaited for one or the other to break this silence which becameunbearable. He couldn't, because as he dreamed among the shadows thereslipped into his mind the appearance and the atmosphere of another roomwhere three had sat without words on the eve of a vital parting. Tawdrydetails came back of stove and littered table and ungainly chairs, andof swollen hands and swollen eyes. He had suffered an unbearable silencethen because he had found himself suddenly incapable of speaking hiscompanions' language. With these two the silence was more difficult,because there was too much to say--more than ever could be said.

  He started. Suppose Squibs at the very last should use his father'sparting words:

  "It's a bad start, but maybe you'll turn out all right after all."

  His lips tightened. Would it be any truer now than it had been then? Forthat matter, would Squibs have cared for him or done as much for him, ifhe had been less ambitious, if he had compromised at all?

  One thing was definite: No matter what he did these two would neverdemand his exile; and the old pain caught him, and he knew it was real,and not a specious cover for his relief at not having to see his parentsagain. It hurt--most of all his mother's acceptance of a judgment sheshould have fought with all her soul.

  He stroked the soft hand that clung to his. From that parting he hadcome to the tender and eager maternal affection of this childless woman,and he knew she would always believe he was right.

  But she wanted him to have Betty----

  He stood up. He was going away from home. She expressed that at thedoor.

  "This is your home, George."

  Bailly nodded.

  "Never forget that. Don't let your ideas smoulder in your own brain.Come home, and talk them over."

  George kissed Mrs. Bailly. He put his hands on Bailly's narrowshoulders. He looked at the young eyes in a wrinkled face.

  "The thing that hurts me most," he muttered, "is that I haven't paid youback."

  "Perhaps not altogether," Bailly answered, gravely, "but someday youmay."

  II

  The last thing George did before leaving his dismantled room, which forso long had sheltered Sylvia's riding crop and her photograph, was towrite this little note to Betty:

  DEAR BETTY:

  It's simpler to go without saying good-bye.

  G. M.

  Then he was hustled through the window of the railroad train, out ofPrinceton, and definitely into the market-place.

  After the sentiment of the final days the crowding, unyieldingbuildings, and the men that shared astonishingly their qualities,offered him a useful restorative. He found he could approximate theiressential hardness again.

  The Street at times resembled the campus--it held so many of the men hehad learned to know at Princeton. Lambert was installed in his father'smarble temple. He caught George one day on the sidewalk and hustled himto a luncheon club.

  "I suppose I really ought to put you up here."

  "Why?" George asked.

  "Because I'm always sure of a good scrap with you. I missed not playingagainst you in the Princeton game last fall. Now there's no morefootball for either of us. I like scraps."

  Blodgett, he chanced to mention later, had spent the previous week-endat Oakmont. Blodgett had already bragged of that in George's presence.He forgot the excellent dishes Lambert had had placed before him.

  "Have you put Blodgett up here, too?" he asked in his bluntest manner.

  Lambert shook his head.

  "That's different."

  "Not very honestly different," George said, attempting a smile.

  "You mean," Lambert laughed, "because I've never asked you to Oakmont?Under the circumstances----"

  "I don't mean that," George said. "I mean Blodgett."

  "I can only arrange my own likes and dislikes," Lambert answered, stillamused.

  Then who at Oakmont liked the fat financier?

  Rogers was in the street, too, selling bonds with his old attitudetoward the serious side of life, striving earnestly only to spy out theright crowd and to run with it.

  "Buy my bonds! Buy my bonds!" he would cry, coming into George's office."They're each and every one a bargain. Remember, what's a bargain to-daymay be a dead loss to-morrow, so buy before it's too late."

  Goodhue planned to enter a stock exchange firm in the fall, and a lot ofother men from the class would come down then after a long rest betweencollege and tackling the world on twenty dollars a month. Wandel aloneof George's intimates rested irresolute. George, since he had taken tworooms and a bath in the apartment house in which Wandel lived, saw himfrequently. He could easily afford that luxury, for each summer hisbalance had grown, and Blodgett, now that he had G
eorge for as long ashe could keep him, was paying him handsomely, and flattering him bydrawing on the store of special knowledge his extended and difficultapplication had hoarded.

  To live in such a house, moreover, was necessary to his campaign, which,he admitted, had lagged alarmingly. Sylvia had continued to avoid him.She seemed to possess a special sense for the houses and the partieswhere he would be, and when, in spite of this, they did meet, she triedto impress him with a thorough indifference; or, if she couldn't avoid adance, with a rigid repulsion that failed to harmonize with her warmcolouring and her exquisite femininity.

  Through some means he had to get on. His restless apprehension hadgrown. Her departure for Europe with her mother fed the rumours thatfrom time to time had connected her name with eligible men. It was evenhinted now that her mother's eyesight, which reached to social greatnessacross the Atlantic, was responsible for her celibacy.

  "There'll be an announcement before she comes back," the gossip ran."They'll land a museum piece of a title."

  George didn't know about that, but he did realize that unless he couldprogress, one day a rumour would take body. He resented bitterly herabsence this summer, but if things would carry on until the fall hewould manage, he promised himself, to get ahead with Sylvia.

  Wandel seemed to enjoy having George near, for, irresolute as he was, hespent practically the entire summer in town. George, one night when theyhad returned from two hours' suffering of a summer show, asked him thereason. They smoked in Wandel's library.

  "I can look around better here," was all Wandel would say.

  "But Driggs! Those precious talents!"

  Wandel stretched himself in an easy chair.

  "What would you suggest, great man?"

  George laughed.

  "Do you write poetry in secret--the big, wicked, and suffering city,seen from a tenth-story window overlooking a pretty park?"

  Vehemently Wandel shook his head.

  "You know what most of our modern American jinglers are up to--talkingsocialism or anarchy to get themselves talked about. If only theywouldn't apply such insincere and half-digested theories to their art!It's a little like modern popular music--criminal intervals and measuresagainst all the rules. But crime, you see, is invariably arresting. Myapologies to the fox-trot geniuses. They pretend to be nothing more thanclever mutilators; but the jinglers! They are great reformers. Bah! Theyremind me of a naughty child who proudly displays the picture he hastorn into grotesque pieces, saying: 'Come quick, mother, and see whatsmart little Aleck has done.' You'll have to try again, George."

  George glanced up. His face was serious.

  "Don't laugh at me. I mean it. Politics."

  "At Princeton I wasn't bad at that," Wandel admitted, smilingreminiscently. "But politics mixes a man with an unlovely crowd--uncouthprovincials, a lot of them, and some who are to all purposes foreigners.Do you know, my dear George, that ability to read and write is essentialto occupying a seat in the United States Senate? I was amazed the otherday to hear it was so. You see how simple it is to misjudge."

  "Then there's room," George laughed, "for more honest, well-educated,well-bred Americans."

  "Seems to me," Wandel drawled, "that a little broad-minded practicalityin our politics would be more useful than bovine honesty. I couldfurnish that. How should I begin?"

  "You might get a start in the State Department," George suggested,"diplomacy, a secretaryship----"

  "For once you're wrong," Wandel objected. "In this country diplomacy isa destination rather than a route. The good jobs are frequently givenfor services rendered, or men pay enormous sums for the privilege ofbeing taken for waiters at their own functions. To start at thebottom----Oh, no. I don't possess the cerebral vacuity, and you can onlyclimb out of the service."

  "Just the same," George laughed, "you'd make a tricky politician."

  Wandel puffed thoughtfully.

  "You're a far-seeing, a far-going person," he said. "You are bound to bea very rich man. You'll want a few practical politicians. Isn't it so?Never mind, but it's understood if I ever run for President or coroneryou'll back me with your money bags."

  George glanced about the room, as striking and costly in its Frenchfashion as the green study had been.

  "You have all the money you need," he said.

  "But I'd be a rotten politician," Wandel answered, "if I spent any of myown money on my own campaigns. So we have an understanding if theoccasion should arise----"

  With a movement exceptionally quick for him, suggesting, indeed, anuncontrollable nervous reaction, Wandel sprang to his feet and went tothe window where he leant out. George followed him, staring over thepark's far-spread velvet, studded with the small but abundant yellowjewels of the lamps.

  "What is it, little man? It's insufferable in town. Why don't you goplay by the sea or in the hills?"

  "Because," Wandel answered, softly, "I can't help the feeling that anyoccasion may arise. I don't mean our little politics, George. Timeenough for them. I don't want to go. I am waiting."

  George understood.

  "You mean the murders at Sarajevo," he said. "You're over-sensitive. Runalong and play. Nothing will come of that."

  "Tell me," Wandel said, turning slowly, "that you mean what you say.Tell me you haven't figured on it already."

  George shrugged his shoulders.

  "You're discreet. All right. I have figured, because, if anything shouldcome of it, it offers the chance of a lifetime for making money. Mundy'sput me in touch with some useful people in London and Paris. I want tobe ready if things should break. I hope they won't. Honestly, I verymuch doubt if they will. Even Germany will think twice before forcing ageneral war."

  "But you're making ready," Wandel whispered, "on the off-chance."

  George pressed a switch and got more light. It was as if a heavy shadowhad filled the delightful room.

  "We're growing fanciful," he said, "seeing things in the dark. By theway, you run into Dalrymple occasionally? I'm told he comes often totown."

  Wandel left the window, nodding.

  "How long can he keep it up?" George asked.

  "I'm not a physician."

  "No, no. I mean financially. I gather his family live up to what theyhave."

  "I daresay it would pain them to settle Dolly's debts frequently,"Wandel smiled.

  "Then," George said, slowly, "he is fairly sure to come to you--that is,if this keeps up."

  "Why," Wandel asked, "should I encourage Dolly to be charitable to richwine agents and under-dressed females?"

  George shook his head.

  "If he asks you for help don't send him to the money lenders. Send himdiscreetly to me. If I didn't have what he'd want, I daresay I could getit."

  Wandel stared, lighting another cigarette.

  "I'd like to keep him from the money lenders," George said, easily.

  He didn't care whether Wandel thought him a forgiving fool or acalculating scoundrel. Goodhue and Wandel had long since seen that hehad been put up at a number of clubs. The two had fancied they couldcontrol Dalrymple's resentments. George, following his system, preferreda whip in his own hand. He harboured no thought of revenge, but he didwant to be able to protect himself. He would use every possible means.This was one.

  "We'll see," Wandel said. "It's too bad great men don't get along withlittle wasters."

  III

  More than once George was tempted to follow Sylvia, trusting to luck tofind means of being near her. Such a trip might, indeed, lead to profitif the off chance should develop. Still that could be handled betterfrom this side, and it was, after all, a chance. He must trust to hercoming back as she had gone. His place for the present was with Blodgettand Mundy.

  The chance, however, was at the back of his head when he encounteredAllen late one hot night in a characteristic pose in Times Square. Allenstill talked, but his audience of interested or tolerant college men hadbeen replaced by hungry, ragged loafers and a few flushed, well-dressedmales of the type
that prefers any diversion to a sane return home.Allen stood in the centre of this group. His arms gestured broadly. Hisangular face was passionate. From the few words George caught hissympathy for these failures was beyond measure. He suggested to them thebeauties of violence, the brilliancies of the social revolution. Theloafers commented. The triflers laughed. Policemen edged near.

  "Free liquor!" a voice shrilled.

  Allen shook his fist, and continued. The proletariat would have to takematters into its own hands.

  "Fine!" a hoarse and beery listener shouted, "but what'll the cops sayabout it?"

  The edging policemen didn't bother to say anything at first. Theyquietly scattered the scarecrows and the laggards. They indicated theadvisability of retreat for the orator. Then one burst out at Allen.

  "God help the proletariat if I have to take it before McGloyne at thestation house."

  And George heard another sneer:

  "Social revolution! They've been trying to throw Tammany out ever sinceI can remember."

  George got Allen away. The angular man was glad to see him.

  "You look overworked," George said. "Come have a modest supper with me."

  Allen was hungry, but he managed to grumble discouragement over hisfood.

  "They laugh. They'll stop listening for the price of a glass of beer."

  "Maybe," George said, kindly, "they realize it's no good trying to helpthem."

  "They've got to be helped," Allen muttered.

  "Then," George suggested, "put them in institutions, but don't expect menor any one else to approve when you urge them to grab the leadership ofthe world. You must have enough sense to see it would mean ruin. I knowthey're not all like this lot, but they're all a little wrong or theywouldn't need help."

  "It's because they've never had a chance," Allen protested.

  It came to George that Allen had never had a chance either, and hewondered if he, too, could be led aside by the price of a glass of beer.

  "You all want what the other fellow's got," he said. "From that onemotive these social movements draw the bulk of their force. A lot fornothing is a perfect poor man's creed."

  "You're a heathen, Morton."

  "That is, a human being," George said, good naturedly. "You're another,Allen, but you won't acknowledge it."

  Because he believed that, George took the other's address. Allen wasloyal, aggressive, and extraordinarily bright, as he had proved atPrinceton. It might be convenient to help him. Besides, he hated to seea man he knew so well waste his time and look like a fool.

  IV

  By late July the off chance had pretty thoroughly defined itself exceptto the blind. Blodgett, however, was still skeptical. He thoughtGeorge's plans were sound, provided a war should come. But therewouldn't be any war. His correspondents were optimistic.

  "Have I your permission to use Mundy in his off time?" George asked.

  "As far as I'm concerned," Blodgett said, "Mundy can play parchesi inhis off time."

  George telephoned Lambert Planter and sent a telegram to Goodhue. Hetook them to luncheon and had Mundy there, too. He outlined his plansfor the formation of the firm of Morton, Planter, and Goodhue.

  "He's called the turn of the cards," Mundy offered.

  Such cards as he possessed George placed on the table. He furnished theidea, and the preliminary organization, and what money he had. He took,therefore, the major share of the profits. The others would give whattime to the business they could, but it was their money he wanted, andthe credit their names would give the firm. Mundy and he had made listsof buyers and sellers. No man in the Street was better equipped thanMundy to pick such a force. If Lambert and Goodhue agreed, these mencould be collected within a week. Some would go to Europe. Others wouldscatter over the United States. It would cost a lot, but it meant animmeasurable amount in return, for the war was inevitable.

  Goodhue and Lambert were as skeptical as Blodgett, but they agreed togive him what he needed to get his organization started. By that time,he promised them, they would see how right he was, and then he could usemore of their money.

  "It's the nearest I've ever come to gambling," he thought as he leftthem. "Gambling on a war!"

  Because of his confidence, before a frontier had been crossed he hadbought or contracted for large quantities of shoes and cloths andwaterproofing. He had taken options on stock in small and waveringautomobile concerns, and outlying machine shops and foundries, some ofthem already closed down, some struggling along without hope.

  "If the war lasts a month," he told his partners, "those stocks willcome from the bottom of nothing to the sky."

  Goodhue became thoroughly interested at last. He cancelled his vacationand installed himself in the offices George had rented in Blodgett'sbuilding. With the men Mundy had picked, and under Mundy's tutelage, hetook charge of the routine. George went to Blodgett the first of August.

  "I want to quit," he said. "I've got a big thing. I want to give it allmy time."

  Blodgett mopped his face. His grin was a little sheepish.

  "I want to invest some money in your firm," he jerked out.

  "I can use it," George said.

  "You've got Goodhue there," Blodgett went on in a complaining way, "andMundy's working nights for you. Don't desert an old man without notice.I'll give you plenty of time upstairs. Other things may come off here. Ican use you."

  "If you want to pay me when you know my chief interest is somewhereelse," George said, "it's up to you."

  "When I think I'm getting stung I'll let you know," Blodgett roared.

  George sent for Allen, and urged him to go to London to open an officewith an expert Lambert had got from his father's marble temple. Allenwould be a check on the more experienced men whose scruples might notstand the temptations of this vast opportunity. Allen said he couldn'tdo it; couldn't abandon the work he had already commenced.

  "There'll be precious little talk of socialism," George said, "untilthis thing is over. It's a great chance for a man to study close up thebiggest change the world has ever undergone. Those fellows will wanteverything, and I'll give them everything I can lay my hands on. I'mahead of a lot of jobbers here. I'll pay you well to see I don't getrobbed on that side. Come on. Take a shot at hard facts for a change."

  Allen gasped at the salary George mentioned. He hesitated. He went.George was glad to have helped him. He experienced also an ugly sense oftriumph. He felt that he wanted to tell Squibs Bailly right away.

  Sylvia and her mother, he heard later, had come home out of the turmoil,unacquainted with the discomforts of people who had travelled withoutthe Planter prestige. Whether the war was to blame or not, she hadreturned without a single rumour touching fact. He didn't see her rightaway, because she clung to Oakmont. More and more, as his successmultiplied, keeping pace with the agony in Europe, he longed to see her.All at once a return to Oakmont was, in a sense, forced upon him, but hewent without any thought of encountering Sylvia, hoping, indeed, toavoid her.

  It was like his mother to express her letter with telegraphic bluntnesswithout, however, going to the expense of actually wiring. Where he hadexpected her customary stiff gratitude for money sent he found ascrawled announcement of his father's death, and her plans for thefuneral the following afternoon.

  "Of course you won't come," she ended.

  Yet it seemed to him that he should go, to arrange her future. This wasthe moment to snap the last enslaving tie between the Mortons andOakmont. There was, of course, the chance of running into Sylvia, orsome visitor who might connect him with the little house. SupposeDalrymple, for example, should be staying with the Planters as he oftendid? George shrugged his shoulders. Things were coming rather rapidly tohim. Besides, it was extremely unlikely that any one from the greathouse would see the Morton ceremony. The instincts of those peoplewould be to avoid such sights.

  V

  About his return there was a compelling thrill. He drove from thestation in one of the cheap automobiles that had made his
fatherpractically a pensioner of the Planters. With an incredulousappreciation that he had once accepted its horizon as the boundary ofhis life, he examined the familiar landscape and the scar made upon itby the village. Curtly he refused to satisfy the driver's curiosity. Hehad some business at the little house on the Planter estate.

  There, through the nearly stripped trees, it showed, almost audiblyconfessing its debt to the Planter carpenters, painters, and gardeners.In a clouded light late fall flowers waved from masses of dead leaves.Their gay colours gave them an appearance melancholy and apprehensive.

  Here he was back at last, and he wasn't going in at the great gate.

  He walked around the shuttered house and crossed the porch where hisfather had liked to sit on warm evenings. He rapped at the door. Feetshuffled inside. The door swayed open, and his mother stood on thethreshold. Most of the changes had come to him, but in her red eyessparkled a momentary and mournful importance. At first she didn'trecognize her son.

  "What is it?"

  George stooped and kissed her cheek.

  "I'm sorry, Mother."

  Instead of holding out her arms she drew away, staring with fascination,a species of terror, at his straight figure, at his clothing, at hisface that wouldn't coarsen now. When she spoke her voice suggested aplacating of this stranger who was her son.

  "I didn't think you'd come. I can't believe you're George--my Georgie."

  Over her shoulders in the shadowed house he saw the inquisitive faces ofwomen. It was clear that for them such an arrival was more divertivethan the sharing of a sorrow that scarcely touched their hearts.

  George went in. He remembered most of the faces that disclosedexcitement while fawning upon his prosperity. He received an unpleasantimpression that these poor and ignorant people concealed a dangerousenvy, that they would be glad to grasp in one moment, even of violence,all that it had taken him years of difficult struggle to acquire.Whether that was so or not they ought not to stand before him as if hissuccess were a crown. He tried to keep contempt from his voice.

  "Please sit down. I want to talk to my mother. Where----"

  With slow steps she crossed the kitchen and opened the door of theparlour, beckoning. He followed, knowing what he would find in thatuncomfortable, gala room of the poor.

  He closed the door. In the half light he saw standing on trestles anoblong box altogether too large for the walls that seemed to crowd it.He had no feeling that anything of his father was there. He realizedwith a sense of helpless regret that all that remained to him of thatunhappy man were the ghosts of such emotions as avarice, fear, and theinstinct to sacrifice one's own flesh and blood for a competence.

  "Why don't you look at him, George?"

  "I don't think he'd care to have me looking at him now."

  She wiped her eyes.

  "You are too bitter against your father. After all, he was a good man."

  "Why should death," he asked her, musingly, "make people seem betterthan they were in life? It isn't so."

  "That's wicked. If your father could rise----"

  His attention was caught by an air of pointing the oblong box had, as ifto something infinitely farther than ambition and success, yet so closeit angered him he couldn't see or touch it. His father had gone there,beyond the farthest horizon of all. Old Planter couldn't make troublefor him now. He was quite safe.

  Over in Europe, he reflected, they didn't have enough coffins.

  The oblong box for the first time made him think of that war, that wasmaking him rich, in terms of life instead of dollars and cents. He feltdissatisfied.

  "There should be more light here," he said, defensively.

  But his mother shook her head.

  He arranged a chair for her and sat near by while they discussed thedetails of her departure. She let him see that she shrank from leavingthe house, against which, nevertheless, she had bitterly complained eversince Old Planter had got it. Evidently she wanted to linger in herfamiliar rut, awaiting with the attitude of a martyr whatever fate mightoffer. That was the reason people had to be helped, because theypreferred vicious inertia to the efforts and risks of change. Then whydid they want the prizes of those who had had the courage to go forthand fight? Why couldn't Squibs see that?

  Patiently George told her she needn't worry about money again. She had asister who years ago had married and moved West to a farm that was notparticularly flourishing. Undoubtedly her sister would be glad to haveher and her generous allowance. So his will overcame his mother'sreluctance to help herself. She glanced up.

  "Who is that?"

  He listened. The women in the kitchen were standing again. Light feetcrossed the floor.

  "Maybe somebody from the big house," his mother whispered. "They sentSimpson last night."

  For a moment the entire building was as silent as the oblong box. Thenthe door opened.

  Sylvia Planter slipped in and closed the door.

  George caught his breath, studying her as she hesitated, accustomingherself to the insufficient light. She wore a broad-brimmed hat thatgave her the charm and the grace of a portrait by Gainsborough. When sherecognized him, indeed, she seemed as permanently caught as a portrait.

  "Miss Sylvia!" his mother worshipped.

  "They told me I would find you here," Sylvia said, uncertainly. "Ididn't know----"

  She broke off, biting her lip. George strolled around the oblong box tothe window, turning there with a slow bow. Even across that desolate,dead shell, the obstinate distaste and the challenge were lively in herglance.

  "It was very kind of you to come," he said.

  But he was sorry she had come. To see him in such surroundings was astimulation of the ugly memories he had struggled to destroy. He readher instinct to hurt him now as she had hurt the impertinent man,Morton, who had lived in this house.

  "When one of our people is in trouble----" she began, deliberately. "Ithought I might be of some help to your mother."

  Even over the feeling of security George had just tried to give her theold menace reached the uneasy woman.

  "You--you remember him, Miss Sylvia?"

  "Very well," Sylvia answered. "He used to be my groom."

  "The title comes from you," George said, dryly.

  His mother's glance fluttered from one to the other. What did sheexpect--Old Planter stalking in to carry out his threats?

  "After all these years I scarcely knew him myself."

  Sylvia's colour heightened. He appraised her rising temper.

  "Bad servants," he said, "linger in good employers' memories."

  "I know, Miss Sylvia," his mother burst out, "that he wasn't to comeback here, but----"

  She unclasped her nervous hands. One indicated the silent cause of hisdisobedience. George moved toward the door. Sylvia stepped quicklyaside. He felt, like a physical wave, her desire to hurt.

  "At such a time," she said, "it's natural he should come back to hishome. I think my father would be glad to have him with his mother."

  George shrugged his shoulders, slipped out, navigated the shoals ofwhispering women, and reached the clean air. He buttoned his overcoatand shuffled through the dead leaves beneath the trees until he foundhimself at the spot where Lambert and he had fought. He recalled hishot boasts of that day. Fulfilment had seemed simple enough then. Thescene just submitted reminded him how short a distance he had actuallytravelled.

  He knew she would pass that way on her return to the big house, so hewaited, and when he heard her feet disturbing the dead leaves he didn'tturn. She came closer than he had expected, and he heard her contraltovoice, quick and defiant:

  "I hadn't expected to see you. I didn't quite realize what I was saying.I should have had more respect for any one's grief."

  Having said that, she was going on, but he turned and stopped her. As helooked at her he reflected that everything had altered since thatday--she most of all. Then the woman had been a little visible in thechild. Now, he fancied, the child survived in the woman only th
rough thepersistence of this old quarrel. He stared at her lips, recalling hisboast that no man should touch them unless it were George Morton. He wasno nearer them than he had been that day. Unless he got nearer some manwould. It was incredible that she hadn't married. She would marry.

  "In the sense you mean, I have no grief," he said.

  "Then I needn't have bothered. I once said you were a--a----"

  "Something melodramatic. A beast, I think it was," he answered. "If youdon't mind I'll walk on with you for a little way."

  "No," she said.

  "If you please."

  "You've no perception," she cried, angrily.

  "Don't you think it time," he suggested, "that you ceased treating melike a groom? It isn't very convincing to me. I doubt if it is to you. Ifancy it's really only your pride. I don't see why you should have somuch where I am concerned."

  Her hand made a quick gesture of repulsion.

  "You've not changed. You may walk on with me while I tell you this: Ifyou were like the men I know and can be friends with you'd leave mealone. Will you stop this persecution? It comes down to that. Will youstop forcing me to dance with you, to listen to you?"

  He smiled, shaking his head.

  "I'll make you dance with me more than ever. I've seen very little ofyou lately. I hope this winter----"

  She stopped, facing him, her cheeks flaming.

  "You see! You remind me every time I meet you of just what you are, justwhat you came from, just what you said and did that day."

  "That is my aim," he smiled.

  He moved his hand in the direction of the little house.

  "When we're all like that will it make much difference who our fathersand mothers were?"

  She shivered. She started swiftly away.

  "Miss Planter!"

  The unexpectedness of the naked command may have brought her around. Hewalked to her.

  "When will you realize," he asked, "that it is unforgivable to turn yourback on life?"

  Had he really meant to suggest that she could possess life only throughhim? Doubtless the sublime effrontery of that interpretation reachedher. She commenced to laugh, her colour rising. She glanced away, andher laughter died.

  "You may as well understand," he said, "that I am never going to leaveyou alone."

  She started across the leaf-strewn grass. He kept pace with her.

  "Are you going to force me to make a scene?" she asked.

  "Except with your father," he said, "I don't think it would make muchdifference."

  He felt that if she had had anything in her hands then she would havestruck at him.

  "It's not because I'm a beast," he said, quietly, "that I have no grieffor my father. He was through. Life had nothing to offer him. He hadnothing to offer life. Don't think I'm incapable of grief. I experiencedit the day I thought you might be dead. That was because you had somuch to offer life--rather more than life had to offer you."

  He saw her shrink from him but she walked on, repressing her pain andher anger.

  "Since I've known intimately girls of your class," he said, "I'verealized that not all of them would have turned and tried to wound asyou did that day. Some would have laughed. Some would have been sorryand sympathetic. I don't think many would have made such a scene."

  He smiled down at her.

  "I want you to realize it is your own fault. You started this. I'm notscolding. I'm glad you were such a little fury. Otherwise, I might havegone on working for your father or for somebody else's father. Butyou're to blame for my persistence, so learn to put up with it. As longas I keep the riding crop with which you tried to cut my face I'llremember what I said I'd do, and I'll do it."

  She didn't answer, but if she tried to give him the impression shewasn't listening she failed utterly.

  Around a curve in the path came a bent, white old man, bundled in aheavy muffler and coat. In one hand he carried a thick cane. The otherrested on the arm of a young fellow of the private secretary stamp.There, George acknowledged, advanced the single person with whom a scenemight make a serious difference, yet a more compelling thought crept inand overcame his sense of danger. That was the type of man who madewars. That man, indeed, was helping to finance this war. George wasobsessed by the dun day: by the leaves, fallen and rotten; by the memoryof the oblong box. Everything reminded him that not far away Deathmarched with a bland, black triumph, greeting science as an ally insteadof an enemy.

  "Suppose," he mused, "America should get in this thing."

  At last she spoke.

  "What did you say? Do you see my father?"

  He nodded.

  "Wouldn't it be wiser," she asked, "to leave me alone?"

  "Your father," he said, "looks a good deal older."

  Old Planter had, in fact, gone down hill since George's last glimpse ofhim in New York, or else he didn't attempt here to assume a strength heno longer possessed. He was quite close before he gave any sign ofseeing the pair, and then he muttered to his secretary who answered witha whisper. He limped up and took Sylvia's hand.

  "Where has my little girl been?"

  She laughed harshly.

  "To a rendezvous in the forest. You shouldn't let me go out alone."

  Planter glanced from clouded eyes at George. His lips between the whitehair smiled amiably.

  "I don't believe I remember----"

  "It's one of Lambert's business friends," Sylvia said, hastily. "Mr.Morton."

  The old man shifted his cane and held out his hand.

  "Lambert," he joked, "says he's going to make more money through youthan I can hope to leave him. You seem to have got the jump on a lot ofshrewd men. I'll see you at dinner? Lambert isn't coming to-night?"

  George briefly clasped the hand of the big man.

  "I must go back to town this afternoon."

  "Then another time."

  Planter shifted his cane and leant again on his secretary.

  "Let's get on, Straker. Doctor's orders."

  "Why," George asked when Sylvia and he were alone, "didn't you spring atthe chance?"

  "I prefer to fight my own battles," she said, shortly.

  "Don't you mean," he asked, quizzically, "that you're a little ashamedof what you did that day?"

  She shook her head.

  "I was a frightened child. I have changed."

  "Isn't it," he laughed, "a little because I, too, have changed? It neveroccurred to your father to connect me with the Mortons living on hisplace."

  Again she shook her head, turning away. He held out his hand.

  "I must go back. Let's admit we've both changed. Let us be friends."

  She didn't answer. She made no motion to take his hand.

  "One of the promises I made that day," he reminded her, "was to teachyou not to be afraid of my touch."

  "Does it amuse you to threaten me?" she asked.

  Suddenly he reached out, caught her right hand before she could avoidhim, and gave it a quick pressure.

  "Of course you're right," he laughed. "Actions are more useful thanthreats."

  While she stared, flushed and incredulous, at the hand he had pressed,George walked swiftly away, tingling with life, back to the house ofdeath.

  VI

  At the funeral he submitted to the amazed scrutiny of the countrypeople. They couldn't hurt him, because they impinged not at all on hisworld; but he was relieved when the oblong box had been consigned to theplace reserved for it, and he could, after arranging the last details ofhis mother's departure, take the train back to New York.

  Blodgett didn't even bother to ask where he had been. He was contentthese days to let George go his own way. He hadn't forgotten that theyounger man had seen farther off than he the greatest opportunity formoney making the world had ever offered the greedy. He personally wasmore interested in the syndicating of foreign external loans. ThePlanters weren't far from the head of that movement, and George ratherresented his stout employer's working hand in hand with the Planters.George longed to as
k him how often he was trying to appear graceful atOakmont these days.

  The firm of Morton, Planter, and Goodhue had grown so rapidly that ittook practically all of George's and Lambert's time. Mundy, to whomGeorge had given a small interest, asked Blodgett if he couldn't leaveto devote himself entirely to the offices upstairs.

  "Go to it," Blodgett agreed, good naturedly. "Draw your profits and yoursalary from Morton after this."

  George mulled over the sacrifice. Did it mean that Blodgett was so closeto the Planters that a merger was possible?

  "There's no use," he told Blodgett. "I'm earning practically nothing inyour office, because I'm never here. I want to resign."

  "Run along, sonny," Blodgett said. "Your salary is a small portion ofthe profits your infant firm is bringing me. I like you around theoffice once a day. Old Planter hasn't fired his boy, has he, and he'supstairs all the time, and he's taken over some of the old man's bestclerks."

  "He's Mr. Planter's son," George reminded him.

  "And ain't you like a good son to me," the other leered, "making moneyfor papa Blodgett?"

  "Why did you let Mundy go so peacefully?" George asked, suspiciously.

  "Because," Blodgett said, "he's been here a good many years, and he canmake more money this way. Didn't want to stand in his light, and I hadsomebody in view."

  But George wouldn't credit Blodgett with such altruism. Why was the manso infernally good natured, exuding an oily content? Goodhue hinted at areason one day when they were talking of Sinclair and his lack ofinterest in the office.

  "I've heard rather privately," Goodhue said, "that Sinclair got prettybadly involved a few months ago. If it hadn't been for Blodgett he'dhave gone on the rocks a total wreck. Josiah puffed up and towed himaway whole. Naturally Sinclair and his lady are grateful. I daresay thiswinter Blodgett's receiving invitations he's coveted, and if he givesany parties himself he'll have some of the people he's always wanted."

  George hid his disapproval. Blodgett didn't even have a veneer. Moneywas all he could offer. And was Sinclair a great fool, or Blodgett thecleverest man in Wall Street, that Sinclair didn't know who had involvedhim and why?

  As a matter of fact, Blodgett did appear at several dances, wobblingabout the room to the discomfort of slender young things, gettinggenerally in everyone's way. George hated to see him attempting to dancewith Sylvia Planter. Sylvia seemed rather less successful in avoidinghim than she did in keeping out of George's way. Until Blodgett'sextraordinary week-end in February, indeed, George didn't have anotherchance to speak to her alone.

  "Of course you'll come, George," Blodgett said. "If this weather holdsthere'll be skating and sleighing--horses always, if you want 'em; and alot of first-class people."

  "Who?" George asked.

  "How about another financial chick--one of your partners?"

  "Lambert Planter?"

  The puffy face expanded.

  "And the Sinclairs, because I'm a bachelor, and----"

  But, since he could guess Sylvia would be there, George didn't care forany more names. He wondered why Lambert or his sister should go. Had herattitude toward the fat, coarse man conceivably altered because of hisgambolling at Oakmont? While he talked business with Mundy, Lambert, andGoodhue, George's mind was distracted by a sense of imponderable loss.Was it the shadow of what Sylvia had lost by accepting such aninvitation?

  He didn't go until Saturday afternoon--there was too much to occupy himat the office. This making money out of Europe's need had a good dealconstricted his social wanderings. It was why he hadn't frequently seenDalrymple close enough for annoyance; why he had met Betty only brieflya very few times. He hadn't expected to run into either of them atBlodgett's, but both were there. Betty was probably Lambert's excuse forrushing out the night before.

  George felt sorry for Mrs. Sinclair. Still against the corpulentcrudities of her host she could weigh the graces of his guests. Itpleased George that her greeting for him should be so warm.

  The weather, too, had been considerate of Blodgett, refraining frominjuring his snow or ice. A musical and brassy sleigh met George at thestation. Patches of frosty white softened the lines of the house anddraped the self-conscious nudity of the sculpture in the sunken garden.

  "And it'll snow again to-night, sir," the driver promised, as if eventhe stables pulled for the master's success.

  Everyone was out, but it was still early, so George asked for a horseand hurried into his riding clothes. He had been working rather too hardrecently. The horse a groom brought around was a good one, and by nomeans overworked. George was as eager as the animal to limber up and go.Off they dashed at last along a winding bridle-path, broken just enoughto give good footing. The war, and his share of helping the allies--at aprice; his uncomfortable fear that the Baillys didn't like him to drawsuccess from such a disaster; his disapproval of Sylvia's cominghere--all cleared from his head as he galloped or trotted through thesharp air.

  One thing: Blodgett hadn't spoiled these woodland bridle-paths; yetGeorge had a sensation of always looking ahead for a nude marble figureat a corner, or an urn elaborately designed for simple flowers, or someiron animals to remind a hunter that Blodgett knew what a well-bredforest was for. Instead he saw through the trees ice swept clear of snowacross which figures glided with joyful sounds.

  "Some of his flashy guests," George thought.

  He rode slowly to the margin of the pond, which shared the colour of thesky. Several of the skaters cried greetings. He recognized Dalrymplethen, skating with a girl. Dalrymple veered away, waving a carelesshand, Lambert came on, fingers locked with Betty's, and scraped to ahalt at the pond's edge.

  "So the war's stopped for the week-end at last?" Lambert called.

  "I wondered if you'd come at all," Betty cried.

  George dismounted, smothering his surprise.

  "A men and youths' general furnisher," he said, "has to stick prettymuch to the store. I never dreamed of seeing you here, Betty."

  Perhaps Lambert caught George's real meaning.

  "She's staying with Sylvia," he explained, "so, of course, she came."

  George mounted and rode on, his mood suddenly as sunless as thedeclining afternoon. Those two still got along well enough. Certainly itwas time for a rumour to take shape there. He had a sharp appreciationof having once been younger. Suppose, because of his ambition, he shouldsee all his friends mate, leaving him as rich as Blodgett, and, likehim, unpaired? He quickened the pace of his horse. It was inconceivable.No matter what Sylvia did he would never slacken his pursuit. In everyother direction he had forged ahead. Eventually he would in that one.Then why did it hurt him to picture Betty gone beyond his reach?

  He crossed the Blodgett boundaries, and entered a country road asundisturbed and enticing as the private bridle-paths had been. He tookcrossroads at random, keeping only a sense of direction, trying tounderstand why he was sorry he had to be with Betty when he had comeonly to be near Sylvia.

  The thickening dusk warned him, and he chose a road leading towardBlodgett's. First he received the horseman's sense of something ahead ofhim. Then he heard the muffled tread of horses in the snow, andoccasionally a laugh.

  "More of Josiah's notables," he hazarded.

  He put spurs to his horse, and in a few minutes saw against the snowthree dark figures ambling along at an easy trot. When he had comecloser he knew that two of the riders were men, the other a woman. Itwas easy enough to identify Blodgett. A barrel might have ridden so ifit had had legs with which to balance itself; and that slender figurewas probably the trapped Sinclair. George hurried on, his premonitionassuming ugly lines of reality. Even at that distance and from the rearhe guessed that the graceful woman riding between the two men wasSylvia. Why had she chosen an outing with the ridiculous Blodgett?Sinclair, no man possessed sufficient charm to offset the disadvantagesof such a companionship.

  George, when he was sure, reined in, surprised at his reflections.Blodgett, heaven knew, had been good to him, and he had o
nce liked theman. Why, then, had he turned so viciously against him? Adjectives hismind had recently applied to Blodgett flashed back: "Coarse," "fat,""ridiculous." Was it just? Why did he do it in spite of himself?

  Sinclair turned and saw him. The party reined in, Sylvia, as one wouldhave expected, impatiently in advance of the others. Her nod andsomething she said were lost in the men's cheery greetings. Since shewas in advance, and edging on, as if to get farther away from him,George's opportunity was plain. The road wasn't wide enough for fourabreast. If he could move forward with her Blodgett and Sinclair wouldhave to ride together.

  "Since I'm the last," he interrupted them, "mayn't I have first place?"

  Quite as a matter of course he put his horse through and reined in ather side. They started forward.

  "You ride as well as ever," he commented.

  She shot a glance at him. Calmly he studied the striking details of herface. Each time he saw her she seemed more desirable. How was he totouch those lips that had filled his boy's heart with bursting thoughts?For the first time since that day they rode together, only now he was ather side, instead of heeling like a trained dog. In his man's fashion hewas as well clothed as she. When they got back he would enter the greathouse with her instead of going to the stables. Whether she cared toacknowledge it or not he was of her kind--more so than the millionaireBlodgett ever could be. So he absorbed her beauty which fired hisimagination. Such a repetition seemed ominous of a second climax intheir relations.

  Her quick glance, however, disclosed only resentment for his intrusion.He excused it.

  "You see, I couldn't very well ride behind you."

  She turned away.

  "Hurry a little," Blodgett called.

  It was what George wished, as she wished to crawl, never far in advanceof the others.

  "Come," he said, and flecked her horse with his crop.

  "Don't do that again!"

  He had gathered his own horse, and was galloping. Hers insisted onfollowing. When George pulled in to keep at her side they were well inadvance of the others. Now that he was alone with her he found itdifficult to speak, and evidently she would limit his opportunity, foras he drew in she spurred her horse. He caught her, laughing.

  "You may as well understand that I'll never ride behind you again."

  She pressed her provocative lips together. So in silence, except for thecrunching and scattering of the snow, they tore on through the dusk,rounding curves between hedges, rising to heights above bare, whitestretches of landscape, dipping into hollows already won by the night.And each moment they came nearer the house.

  In the night of the hollows he battled his desire to reach over andtouch her, and cry out:

  "Sylvia! You've got to understand!"

  And in one such place her horse stumbled, and she pulled in and bent lowover her saddle, and said, as if he had really spoken:

  "I can't understand----"

  Her outline was blurred, but her face was like a light in that shadowedvalley. He didn't speak until they were up the hill and the wind hadcaught them.

  "What?" he asked then.

  Was it the glow, offered by the white earth rather than the sky, thatmade him fancy her lips quivered?

  "Why you always try to hurt me."

  He thought of her broken riding crop, of her attempts to hurt him everytime he had seen her since the day she had tried to cut him with it. Asingle exception clung to his memory--the night of Betty's dance, yearsago, when she had failed to remember him. Her words, therefore, carrieda thrill, a colour of surrender, since from the very first she had madehim attack for his own defence.

  "That's an odd thing for you to say."

  There were lights ahead, accents in the closing night for Blodgett'shuge and ugly extravagance. They rode slowly up the drive.

  "Will you ever stop following me? Will you ever leave me alone?"

  He stared at her, answering softly:

  "It is impossible I should ever leave you alone."

  At the terrace he sprang down, tossed his reins to a groom, and went toher, raising his hands. For a moment she looked at him, hesitating.There were two grooms. So she took his hands and leapt down. It was aquick, uncertain touch her fingers gave him.

  "Thanks," she said, and crossed the terrace at his side.

  That moment, he reflected, was in itself culminating, yet he couldn'tdismiss the feeling that their relations approached a larger climax. Allthe better, since things couldn't very well go on as they were. Was itthat fleeting contact that had altered him, or her companionship in thegray night? He only knew as he walked close to her that the bitternessin his heart had diminished. He was willing to relinquish the returnblow if she would ease the hurt she had given him. He told himself thatshe had never been nearer. An odd fancy!

  The others rode up as they reached the door, and the hall was noisy withpeople just returned from the pond, so that their solitude wasdestroyed. While he bathed and dressed he tried to understand just whathad happened. The alteration in his own heart could only be accountedfor by a change in hers. Perhaps his mood was determined by herunexpected wonder that he should always try to hurt. He couldn't drivefrom his mind the definite impression of her having come nearer.

  "Winter sentiment!" he sneered, and hurried, for it was late.

  VII

  Lambert dropped in and lounged in a satin-covered chair while Georgewrestled with his tie. He gave Lambert the freshest news from theoffice, but his mind wasn't on business, nor, he guessed, was Lambert's.

  "Blodgett does one rather well," Lambert said, glancing around the room.

  George agreed.

  "Only a marquise might feel more at ease in this room than a mere male."

  He turned, smiling.

  "I'm always afraid the furniture won't hold. Why should he have raisedsuch a monster?"

  "Maybe," Lambert offered, "to have it ready for a wife."

  "Who would marry him?" George flashed.

  "Nearly any girl," Lambert said. "So much money irons out a lot of fat.Then, when all's said and done, he's amusing and generous. He alwaystries to please. Why? What's made you scornful of Josiah?"

  "There are some things," George said, "that one oughtn't to be able tobuy with money."

  Lambert arose, walked over to George, put his hands on his shoulders,and stared at him quizzically.

  "You're a curious brute."

  "I know what you mean," George said, "but let me remind you that moneywas just one of three things I started for."

  Lambert's grasp tightened.

  "And in a way you've got them all."

  George shook off Lambert's grasp.

  In a way!

  "Let's go down."

  In a way! It was rather cooling. It reminded him, too, that SquibsBailly remained unpaid; and there was Sylvia, only a trifle nearer, andthat, perhaps, in an eager imagination. Certainly he had forced somesuccess, but would he actually ever complete anything? Would he ever beable to say I have acquired an exterior exactly as genuine as that oneinherits, or I am a great millionaire, or I have proved myself worthy ofall Squibs has given me, or I am Sylvia Planter's husband? Of course hehad succeeded, but only in a way. Where was his will that he couldn'tconquer altogether?

  As he came down the stairs he saw Sylvia in a dazzling gown standing infront of the great fireplace surrounded by a group which includedDalrymple and Rogers who had managed an invitation and had just arrivedwith Wandel. Wandel brought excuses from Goodhue. It was like Goodhue,George thought, to avoid such a party.

  Dalrymple smirked and chatted. George left Lambert and went straight tothem. Sylvia could always be depended upon to be gracious to Dalrymple.She glanced at George and nodded. Although she continued to talk toDalrymple she didn't turn away. George thought, indeed, that he detecteda slight movement as if to make room for him. It was as if he had beenany man of her acquaintance coming up. Then he had been right?

  "Josiah said we'd have you," Dalrymple drawled. "Why didn't you skate?Any
thing to get on a horse, what? Freezing pleasure this weather."

  George smiled at Sylvia.

  "Not with the right horse and companionship."

  Any one could see that Dalrymple had already swallowed an antidote forwhatever benefit the day's fresh air and exercise had given him. Stillin the weak face, across which the firelight played, George read othertraits, settled, in a sense admirable; more precious than anyinheritance a son could expect from a washerwoman mother and a labouringfather. Then what was it Dalrymple had always coveted? What had made himrude to the poor men at Princeton? Something he hadn't had. Money.America, George reflected, could breed people like that. There was morethan one way of being a snob. He wondered if Dalrymple would eversubmerge his pride enough to come to him for money. He might go toBlodgett first, but George wasn't at all sure Blodgett would find itworth his while to buy up the young man.

  Blodgett just then joined them. The white waistcoat encircling hisrotund middle was like an advance agent, crying aloud: "The great Josiahis arriving just behind me."

  "Everybody having a good time?" he bellowed.

  Mrs. Sinclair, sitting near by, looked up, but her husband smiledindulgently. George watched Sylvia. Blodgett put the question to her.

  "That was a fine ride, wasn't it? I'm always a little afraid for thehorse I ride, though; might bend him in the middle."

  George couldn't understand why she gave that friendly smile he covetedto Blodgett.

  "I'd give a lot to ride like this young man," Blodgett went on, pattingGeorge's back. He preened himself. "Still we can't all be born in thesaddle."

  The thing was so obvious George laughed outright. Even Sylvia concededits ugly, unintentional humour. A smile drew at the corners of hermouth. If she could enjoy that she was, indeed, for the moment nearer.

  Two servants glided around with trays.

  Blodgett gulped the contents of his glass and smacked his lips.

  "That fellow of mine," he boasted, "has his own blend. Not bad."

  Sylvia drank hers with Dalrymple, while Betty over there shook her head.Probably it was his ungraceful inheritance that made George dislike aglass in Sylvia's fingers. Dalrymple slipped away.

  "Dividends in the smoking-room!" Blodgett roared.

  "Dalrymple's drawing dividends," George thought.

  The procession for the dining-room formed and disbanded. Blodgett hadMrs. Sinclair and Sylvia at either hand. It was natural enough, butGeorge resented the arrangement, particularly with Dalrymple next toSylvia on the other side. Betty sat between Dalrymple and Lambert.George was nearly opposite, flanked by fluffy clothes and hair; andstraightway each ear was choked with fluffy chatter--the theatre; theopera, from the side of sartorial criticism; the east coast ofFlorida--"but why should I go so far to see exciting bathing suits outof season and tea tables wabbling under palm trees?"--a scandal ortwo--that is such details as were permissible in his presence. Hedivided his ears sufficiently to catch snatches from neighbouringsections of the table.

  "Of course, we'll keep out of it."

  It was Wandel, speaking encouragingly to a pretty girl. Out of what?Confound this chatter! Oh! The war, of course. It was the one remark ofserious import that reached him throughout the dinner, and the countryfaced that possibility, and an increasing unrest of labour, and gravefinancial questions. The diners might have been people who had fled to ahigh mountain to escape an invasion, or happy ones who lived on a peakfrom which the menace was invisible. But it wasn't that. At other sociallevels, he knew, there was the same closing of the shutters, the sameeffort to create an enjoyable sunlight in a cloistered room. On thesummit, he honestly believed, men did more and thought more. Perhapswhere sensible men gathered together the curtains weren't drawn againstgrave fires in an abnormal night. Then it was the women. Did all men,like Wandel, choose to keep such things from the women? Did the womenwant them kept? Hang it! Then let them have the vote. Make them talk.

  "You're really not going to Palm Beach, Mr. Morton?"

  "I've too much to do."

  "Men amuse me," the young lady fluffed. "They always talk about thingsto do. If one has a good time the things get done just the same."

  God! What a point of view! Yet he wasn't one to pass judgment since hewas more interested in the winning of Sylvia than he was in the winningof the war.

  He watched her as he could, talking first to Blodgett then to Dalrymple.The brilliant Sylvia Planter had no business sitting between two suchmen. The fact that Blodgett had got the right people stared him in theface, but even so the man wasn't good enough to be Sylvia Planter'shost. Nor did George like the way she sipped her wine. She seemedforcing herself to a travesty of enjoyment. Betty, on the other hand,drank nothing. He questioned if she was sorry Sylvia had brought her.She seemed glad enough, at least, to be with Lambert. He appeared toabsorb her, and, in order to listen to him, she left Dalrymple nearlywholly to Sylvia. Once or twice she glanced across and smiled at George,but her kindliness had an air of coming from a widening distance. Georgewas trapped--a restless giant tangled in a snarl of fluff.

  He sighed his relief when the women had gone. He didn't remain longbehind, wandering into the deserted hall where he stood frowning at thefire. He heard a reluctant step on the stairs and swung around. Sylviawalked slowly down, a cloak about her shoulders. In a sort ofdesperation he raised his hand.

  "This party has got on my nerves."

  He couldn't read the expression in her eyes.

  "It's stifling in here," she said.

  She walked the length of the hall, opened the door, and went through tothe terrace.

  George's heart quickened. She was out there alone. What had her eyesmeant? He had never seen them just like that. They had seemed withoutchallenge.

  There was a coat closet at the rear of the hall. He ran to it, got a capand somebody's overcoat, and followed her out.

  She sat on the railing, far from the house. The only light upon her wasthe nebulous reflection from the white earth. He hurried to her, hisheart beating to the rhythm of nearer--nearer--nearer----

  She stirred.

  "As usual with you," she said, "I am unfortunate. I didn't think youwould follow me. I came here because I wanted to be alone. I wanted tothink. Can you appreciate that?"

  He sat on the railing close to her.

  "You never want me. I have to grasp what opportunities I can."

  He waited for her to rise and wander away. He was prepared to urge herto remain. She didn't move.

  "I can't always be running away from you," she said.

  She stared straight ahead over the garden, nearly phosphorescent withits snow.

  "Nearer, nearer, nearer," went through his head.

  "It has been a long time since I've seen you," he said, "but even so Iwish you hadn't come here."

  "Why did you come?" she asked.

  "Because I thought I should find you."

  "Why did you think that?"

  "I'd heard Blodgett had been a good deal at Oakmont. I guessed ifLambert came you would, too."

  "It is impertinent you should interest yourself in my movements.Why--why do you do it?"

  "Because everything you do absorbs me. Why else do you suppose I tookthe trouble at Betty's dance years ago to tell you who I was?"

  She drew back without answering. Her movement caught his attention. Thechange in her manner, the white night, made him bold.

  "I've often wondered," he said, "why you didn't remember me that day inPrinceton, or that night. It hadn't been long. Don't you see it was anacknowledgment that I wasn't the old George Morton even then?"

  "Oh, no," she answered with a little laugh, "because I remembered youperfectly well."

  "Remembered me!" he cried. "And you danced with me, and said you didn'tremember, and let me take you aside, and----"

  He moved swiftly nearer until his face was close to hers, until hestared into her eyes that he could barely see.

  "Why did you do that?"

  She didn't answer.
<
br />   "Why do you tell me now?" he urged with an increasing excitement.

  Such a confession from her had the quality of a caress! He felt himselfreaching up to touch the summit.

  "Why? You've got to answer me."

  She arose with easy grace and stood looking down at him.

  "Because," she said, "I want you to stop being ridiculous andtroublesome; and, really, the whole thing seems so unimportant now thatI am going to be married."

  He cried out. He sprang to his feet. He caught her hands, and crushedthem as if he would make them a part of his own flesh so that she couldnever escape to accomplish that unbearable act.

  "Sylvia! Sylvia!"

  She fought, gasping:

  "You hurt! I tell you you hurt! Let me go you--you----Let me go----"

  VIII

  George stared at Sylvia as if she had been a child expressing someunreasonable and incredible intention. "What are you talking about? Howcan I let you go?"

  Even in that light he became aware of the distortion of her face, of anunexpected moisture in her eyes; and he realized quite distinctly wherehe was, what had been said, just how completely her announcement for themoment had swept his mind clean of the restraints with which he had sopainstakingly crowded it. Now he appreciated the power of his grasp, buthe watched a little longer the struggles of her graceful body; for,after all, he had been right. How could he let her go to some man whosearms would furnish an inviolable sanctuary? He shook his head. No suchthing existed. Hadn't he, indeed, foreseen exactly this situation, andhadn't he told himself it couldn't close the approach to his pursuit?But he had never reconnoitred that road. Now he must find it no matterhow forbidding the places it might thread. So he released her. Sheraised her hands to her face.

  "You hurt!" she whispered. "Oh, how you hurt!"

  "Please tell me who it is."

  She turned, and, her hands still raised, started across the terrace. Hefollowed.

  "Tell me!"

  She went on without answering. He watched her go, suppressing his angryinstinct to grasp her again that he might force the name from her. Heshrugged his shoulders. Since she had probably timed her attack on himwith a general announcement, he would know soon enough. He could fancythose in the house already buzzing excitedly.

  "I always said she'd marry so and so;" or, "She might have donebetter--or worse;" perhaps an acrid, "It's high time, I shouldthink"--all the banal remarks people make at such crises. But whatlingered in George's brain was his own determination.

  "She shan't do it. Somehow I'll stop her."

  He glanced over the garden, dully surprised that it should retain itsformer aspect while his own outlook had altered as chaotically as it haddone that day long ago when he had blundered into telling her he lovedher.

  He turned and approached the house to seek this knowledge absolutelyvital to him but from which, nevertheless, he shrank. Two names slippedinto his mind, two disagreeable figures of men she had recently chosento be a good deal with.

  George acknowledged freely enough now that he had taken his later viewof his employer from an altitude of jealousy. Blodgett offered apossibility in some ways quite logical. With war finance he workedcloser and closer to Old Planter. He had become a familiar figure atOakmont. George had seen Sylvia choose his companionship that afternoon,had watched her a little while ago make him happy with her smiles; yetif she could tolerate Blodgett why had she never forgiven George hisbeginnings?

  Dalrymple was a more likely and infinitely less palatable choice. He wasgood-looking, entirely of her kind, had been, after a fashion, raised ather side; and Sylvia's wealth would be agreeable to the Dalrymple bankaccount. George had had sufficient evidence that he wanted her--and hermoney. A large portion of the enmity between them, in fact, could betraced to the day he had found her portrait displayed on Dalrymple'sdesk. The only argument against Dalrymple was his weakness, and peoplesmiled at that indulgently, ascribing it to youth--even Sylvia whocouldn't possibly know how far it went.

  Suspense was intolerable. He walked into the house and replaced the coatand cap in the closet. He commenced to look for Sylvia. No matter whosetoes it affected he was going to have another talk with her if either ofhis hazards touched fact.

  IX

  He caught the rising and falling of a perpetual mixed conversation onlypartially smothered by a reckless assault on a piano. He traced theracket to the large drawing-room where groups had gathered in thecorners as if in a hopeless attempt to escape the concert. Sylvia satwith none. One of the fluffy young ladies was proving the strength ofthe piano. Rogers was amorously attentive to her music. Lambert andBetty sat as far as possible from everyone else, heads rather close.Blodgett hopped heavily from group to group.

  Over the frantic attempts of the young performer the human voicetriumphed, but the impulse to this conversation was multiple. From nogroup did Sylvia's name slip, and George experienced a sharp wonder; sofar, evidently, she had chosen to tell only him.

  The young lady at the piano crashed to a brief vacation. The chatter,following a perfunctory applause, rose gratefully.

  "Fine! Fine!" Blodgett roared. "Your next stop ought to be CarnegieHall."

  "She ought to play in a hall," someone murmured unkindly.

  George retreated, relieved that Blodgett wasn't with Sylvia; and alittle later he found Dalrymple in the smoking-room sippingwhiskey-and-soda between erratic shots at billiards. Wandel was at thetable most of the time, counting long strings with easy precision.

  "What's up, great man?" he wanted to know.

  Dalrymple, too, glanced curiously at George over his glass. "Nothingexceptional that I know of," George snapped and left the room.

  It added to his anger that his mind should let through its discontent.At least Sylvia wasn't with Blodgett or Dalrymple, and he tried to tellhimself his jealousy was too hasty. All the eligible men weren'tgathered in this house. He wandered from room to room, always seekingSylvia. Where could she have gone?

  He met guests fleeing from drawing-room to library, as if driven by thetangled furies of a Hungarian dance.

  "Will that girl never stop playing?" he thought.

  Betty came up to him.

  "Talk to me, George."

  He found himself reluctant, but two tables of bridge were forming, andBetty didn't care to play. Lambert did, and sat down. George followedBetty to a window seat, telling himself she wanted him only becauseLambert was for the time, lost to her.

  "Now," she said, directly, "what is it, George?"

  "What's what?" he asked with an attempt at good-humour.

  Her question had made him uneasy, since it suggested that she hadobserved the trouble he was endeavouring to bury. Would he never learnto repress as Goodhue did? But even Goodhue, he recalled, had failed tohide an acute suffering at a football game; and this game was infinitelybigger, and the point he had just lost vastly more important than afumbled ball.

  "You've changed," Betty was saying. "I'm a good judge, because I haven'treally seen you for nearly a year. You've seemed--I scarcely know how tosay it--unhappy?"

  "Why not tired?" he suggested, listlessly. "You may not know it, butI've been pretty hard at work."

  She nodded quickly.

  "I've heard a good deal from Lambert what you are doing, and somethingfrom Squibs and Mrs. Squibs. You haven't seen much of them, either. Doyou mind if I say I think it makes them uneasy?"

  "Scold. I deserve it," he said. "But I've written."

  "I don't mean to scold," she smiled. "I only want to find out what makesyou discontented, maybe ask if it's worth while wearing yourself out toget rich."

  "I don't know," he answered. "I think so."

  It was his first doubt. He looked at her moodily.

  "You're not one to draw the long bow, Betty. Honestly, aren't you alittle cross with me on account of the Baillys?"

  "Not even on my own account."

  Her allusion was clear enough. George was glad Blodgett created adiversion just then, lumbering i
n and bellowing to Lambert for news ofhis sister. George listened breathlessly.

  "Haven't seen her," Lambert said, and doubled a bid.

  "Miss Alston?" Blodgett applied to Betty.

  "Where should she be?" Betty answered.

  "Got me puzzled," Blodgett muttered. "Responsibility. If anythinghappened!"

  Betty laughed.

  "What could happen to her here?"

  George guessed then where Sylvia had gone, and he experienced a strongbut temporal exaltation. Only a mental or a bodily hurt could havedriven Sylvia to her room. He didn't believe in the first, but he couldstill feel the shape of her slender fingers crushed against his. Thegreater her pain, the greater her knowledge of his determination anddesire.

  "Guess I'll send Mrs. Sinclair upstairs," Blodgett said, gropingly.

  He hurried out of the room. Betty rose.

  "I suppose I ought to go."

  "Nonsense," George objected. "She isn't the sort to come down ill all atonce."

  He followed Betty to the hall, however. Mrs. Sinclair was halfway up thestairs. Blodgett had gone on, always pandering, George reflected, to hisguests.

  "I'll wait here," Betty said to Mrs. Sinclair. "I mean, if anythingshould be wrong, if Sylvia should want me."

  Mrs. Sinclair nodded, disappearing in the upper hall.

  Finally George faced the moment he had avoided with a persistentlonging. For the first time since the night of his confession he wasquite alone with Betty. He tried not to picture her swaying away fromhim in a moonlight scented with flowers; but he couldn't help hearingher frightened voice: "Don't say anything more now," and he experiencedagain her hand's delightful and bewitching fragility. Why had hisconfession startled? What had it portended for her?

  He sighed. There was no point asking such questions, no reason foravoiding such dangerous moments now; too many factors had assumed newshapes. The long separation had certainly not been without its effect onBetty, and hadn't he recently seen her absorbed by Lambert? Hadn't shejust now scolded him with a clear appreciation of his shortcomings? Inthe old days she had unconsciously offered him a pleasurable temptation,and he had been afraid of yielding to it because of its effect on hisaim. Sylvia just now had tried to convince him that his aim waspermanently turned aside. He knew with a hard strength of will that itwasn't. Nothing could tempt him from his path now--even Betty'skindness.

  "Betty--have you heard anything of her getting married?"

  She glanced at him, surprised.

  "Who? Sylvia?"

  He nodded.

  "Only," she answered, "the rumours one always hears about a very populargirl. Why, George?"

  "The rumours make one wonder. Nothing comes of them," he said, sorry hehad spoken, seeking a safe withdrawal. "You know there's principally oneabout you. It persists."

  There was a curious light in her eyes, reminiscent of something he hadseen there the night of his confession.

  "You've just remarked," she laughed, softly, "that rumours seldommaterialize."

  What did she mean by that? Before he could go after an answer Mrs.Sinclair came down, joined them, and explained that Sylvia was tired anddidn't want any one bothered. George's exaltation increased. He hoped hehad hurt her, as he had always wanted to. Blodgett, accompanied byWandel and Dalrymple, wandered from the smoking-room, seeking news.George felt every muscle tighten, for Blodgett, at sight of Mrs.Sinclair, roared:

  "Where is Sylvia?"

  The gross familiarity held him momentarily convinced, then heremembered that Blodgett was eager to make progress with such people,quick to snatch at every advantage. Sylvia wasn't here to rebuke him.Under the circumstances, the others couldn't very well. As a matter offact, they appeared to notice nothing. Of course it wasn't Blodgett.

  "In her room with a headache," Mrs. Sinclair answered. "She may comedown later."

  "Headaches," Wandel said, "cover a multitude of whims."

  George didn't like his tone. Wandel always gave you the impression of avision subtle and disconcerting.

  Dalrymple, in spite of his confused state, was caught rattling offquestions at Mrs. Sinclair, too full of concern, while George watchedhim, wondering--wondering.

  "Must have her own way," Blodgett interrupted. "Bridge! Let's cut in ormake another table. George?"

  George and Betty shook their heads, so Blodgett, with that air of ashowman leading his spectators to some fresh surprise, hurried theothers away. George didn't attempt to hide his distaste. He stared atthe fire. Hang Blodgett and his familiarities!

  "What are you thinking about, George?"

  "Would you have come here, Betty, of your own wish?"

  "Why not?"

  "Blodgett."

  "What about the old dear?"

  George started, turned, and looked full at her. There was no question.She meant it, and earlier in the evening Lambert had said nearly anygirl would marry Blodgett. What had become of his own judgment? He feltthe necessity of defending it.

  "He's too precious happy to have people like you in his house. You knowperfectly well he hasn't always been able to do it."

  "Isn't that why everyone likes him," she asked, "because he's socompletely unaffected?"

  George understood he was on thin ice. He didn't deviate.

  "You mean he's all the more admirable because he hasn't plasteredhimself with veneer?"

  Her white cheeks flushed. She was as nearly angry as he had ever seenher.

  "I thought you'd never go back to that," she said. "Didn't I make itclear any mention of it in the first place was quite unnecessary?"

  "I thought you had a reproof for me, Betty. You don't suppose I everforget what I've had to do, what I still have to accomplish."

  She half stretched out her hand.

  "Why do you try to quarrel with me, George?"

  "I wouldn't for the world," he denied, warmly.

  "But you do. I told you once you were different. You shouldn't compareyourself with Mr. Blodgett or any one. What you set out for you alwaysget."

  He smiled a little. She was right, and he must never lose his sense ofwill, his confidence of success.

  She started to speak, then hesitated. She wouldn't meet his glance.

  "Why," she asked, "did you tell me that night?"

  "Because," he answered, uncomfortably, "you were too good a friend toimpose upon. I had to give you an opportunity to drive me away."

  "I didn't take it," she said, quickly, "yet you went as thoroughly as ifI had."

  She spread her hands.

  "You make me feel as if I'd done something awkward to you. It isn'tfair."

  Smiling wistfully, he touched her hand.

  "Don't talk that way. Don't let us ever quarrel, Betty. You've nevermeant anything but kindness to me. I'd like to feel there's always alittle kindness for me in your heart."

  Her long lashes lowered slowly over her eyes.

  "There is. There always will be, George."

  X

  For some time after Betty had left him George remained staring at thefire. The chatter and the intermittent banging of the piano made himlong for quiet; but it was good discipline to stay downstairs, and Mrs.Sinclair had said Sylvia might show herself later. So he waited,struggling with his old doubt, asking himself if he had actuallyacquired anything genuine except his money.

  Later he wandered again from room to room, seeking Sylvia, but shedidn't appear, and he couldn't understand her failure. Had it anymeaning for him? Why, for that matter, should she strike him before anyother knew of the weapon in her hand? From time to time Dalrympleexpressed a maudlin concern for her, and George's uncertainty increased.If it should turn out to be Dalrymple, he told himself hotly, he wouldbe capable of killing.

  The young man quite fulfilled his promise of the early evening. Longafter the last of the women had retired he remained in the smoking-room.Rogers abetted him, glad, doubtless, to be sportive in suchdistinguished company. Wandel loitered, too, and was unusually flushed,refilling his glass rather often
. Lambert, Blodgett, and he were at afinal game of billiards.

  "You've been with Dalrymple all evening," George said, significantly, toWandel.

  "My dear George," Wandel answered, easily, "I observe the habits of myfellow creatures. Be they good or bad I venture not to interfere."

  "An easy creed," George said. "You're not your brother's keeper."

  "Rather not. The man that keeps himself makes the world better."

  George had a disturbing fancy that Wandel accused him.

  "You don't mean that at all," he said. "When will you learn to say whatyou mean?"

  "Perhaps," Wandel replied, sipping, "when I decide not to enterpolitics."

  "Your shot," Blodgett called, and Wandel strolled to the table.

  Dalrymple didn't play, his accuracy having diminished to the point oflaughter. He edged across to George.

  "Old George Morton!" he drawled. "Young George Croesus! And all that."

  The slurred last phrase was as abhorrent as "why don't you stick to yourlaundry?" It carried much the same implication. But Dalrymple was up tosomething, wanted something. He came to it after a time with the air ofone conferring a regal favour.

  "Haven't got a hundred in your pocket, Croesus? Driggs and bridge havesqueezed me dry. Blodgett's got bones. Never saw such a man. Haseverything. Driggs is running out. Recoup at bones. Everybody shoot. Gotthe change, save me running upstairs? Bad for my heart, and all that."

  He grinned. George grinned back. It was a small favour, but it was astart, for the other acquired bad habits readily. Ammunition againstDalrymple! He had always needed it, might want it more than ever now. Atlast Dalrymple himself put it in his hand.

  He passed over the money, observing that the other moved so as to screenthe transaction from those about the table.

  "Little night-cap with me?" Dalrymple suggested as if by way of payment.

  George laughed.

  "Haven't you already protected the heads of the party?"

  Dalrymple made a wry face.

  "Do their heads a lot more good than mine."

  The game ended.

  Dalrymple turned away shouting.

  "Bones! Bones!"

  Blodgett produced a pair of dice with his air of giving each of hispatrons his heart's desire. Wandel yawned. Dalrymple rattled the diceand slithered them across the billiard table.

  "Coming in, George?" Blodgett roared.

  "Thanks. I'm off to bed."

  But he waited, curious as to the destination of the small loan he hadjust made.

  Blodgett with tact threw for reasonable stakes. Roger's play wasnecessarily small, and he seemed ashamed of the fact. Lambert put plentyon the table, but urged no takers. Wandel varied his wagers. Dalrymplecovered everything he could, and had luck.

  George studied the intent figures, the eager eyes, as the dice floppedacross the table; listened to the polished voices raised to these toysin childish supplications that sang with the petulant accents ofnegroes. Simultaneously he was irritated and entertained, experiencing avague, uneasy fear that a requisite side of life, of which this follymight be taken as a symbol, had altogether escaped him. He laughed aloudwhen Wandel sang something about seven and eleven. His voice resembled anegro's as the peep of a sparrow approaches an eagle's scream.

  "What you laughing at, great man? One must talk to them. Otherwise theydon't behave, and you see I rolled an eleven. Positive proof."

  He gathered in the money he had won.

  "Shooting fifty this time."

  "Why not shoot?" Dalrymple asked George. "'Fraid you couldn't talk to'em?"

  "Thing doesn't interest me."

  "No sport, George Morton."

  It was the way it was said that arrested George. Trust Dalrymple when hehad had enough to drink to air his dislikes. The others glanced up.

  "How much have you got there?" George asked quietly.

  With a slightly startled air Dalrymple ran over his money.

  "Pretty nearly three. Why?"

  "Call it three," George said.

  He gathered the dice from the table. The others drew back, leaving, asit were, the ring clear.

  "I'll throw you just once," George said, "for three hundred. High man tothrow. On?"

  "Sure," Dalrymple said, thickly.

  George counted out his money and placed it on the table. He threw afive. Dalrymple couldn't do better than a four. George rattled the dice,and, rather craving some of the other's Senegambian chatter, rolledthem. They rested six and four. Dalrymple didn't try to hide hisdelight.

  "Stung, old George Morton! Never come a ten again."

  "There'll come another ten," George promised.

  He continued to roll, a trifle self-conscious in his silence, whileDalrymple bent over the table, desirous of a seven, while the otherswatched, absorbed.

  Sixes and eights fell, and other numbers, but for half-a-dozen throws noseven or ten.

  "Come you seven!" Dalrymple sang.

  "You've luck, George," Lambert commented. "I wouldn't lay against younow. I'll go you fifty, Driggs, on his ten."

  "Done!"

  The next throw the dice turned up six and four.

  "The very greatest of men," Wandel said, ruefully.

  While George put the money in his pocket Dalrymple straightened,frowning.

  "Double or quits! Revenge!"

  "I said once," George reminded him. "I'm off to bed."

  The others resumed their play. Dalrymple stared at George, an ugly lightin his eyes. George nodded, and the other followed him to the door.George handed him a hundred dollars.

  "Save you running upstairs. How much do you owe me now?"

  "Couple hundred."

  "I shouldn't worry about that," George laughed. "When you want a gooddeal more and it's inconvenient to run upstairs I might save you sometrouble."

  "Now that's white of you," Dalrymple condescended, and went, a trifleunsteadily, back to the table.

  George carried to his room an impression that he had thoroughly soiledhis hands at last, but unavoidably. Of course he had scorned Blodgettfor involving Sinclair. His own case was very different. Besides, hehadn't actually involved Dalrymple yet, but he had made a start.Dalrymple had always gunned for him. More than ever since Sylvia'sannouncement, George felt the necessity of getting Dalrymple where hecould handle him. If she had chosen Dalrymple, of course, money wouldserve only until the greedy youth could get his fingers in the Planterbags. He shook with a quick repugnance. No matter who won her itmustn't be Dalrymple. He would stop that at any cost.

  He sat for some time on the edge of the bed, studying the pattern of therug. Was Dalrymple the man to arouse a grand passion in her? She hadsaid:

  "I can't always be running away from you."

  She had told him and no one else. Was the thing calculation, quitebereft of love? Oh, no. George couldn't imagine he was of suchimportance she would flee that far to be rid of him; but he went to bedat last, confessing the situation had elements he couldn't grasp.Perhaps, when he knew surely who the man was, they would becomesufficiently ponderable.

  XI

  He was up early after a miserable night, and failed to rout hisdepression with a long ride over country roads. When he got back insearch of breakfast he found the others straggling down. First of all hesaw Dalrymple, white and unsteady; heard him asking for Sylvia. Sylviahadn't appeared.

  "Who's for church?" Blodgett roared.

  Mrs. Sinclair offered to shepherd the devout. They weren't many. Meneven called Blodgett names for this newest recreation he had appeared tooffer.

  "How late did you play?" George asked Blodgett.

  "Until, when I looked at my watch, I thought it must be last evening.These young bloods are too keen for Papa Blodgett."

  "Get into you?" George laughed.

  "I usually manage to hang on to my money," Blodgett bragged, "but thestakes ran bigger and bigger. I'll say one thing for young Dalrymple.He's no piker. Wrote I. O. U's until he wore out his fountain pen. Icould pa
per a room with what I got. I'd be ashamed to collect them."

  "Why?" George asked, shortly. "When he wrote them he knew they had to beredeemed."

  Blodgett grinned.

  "I expect he was a little pickled. Probably's forgot he signed them. Iwon't make him unhappy with his little pieces of paper."

  "Daresay he'll be grateful," George said, dryly.

  His ride had brought no appetite. After breakfast he avoided people witha conviction that his only business here was to see Sylvia again, thento escape. It was noon before she appeared with Betty. He caught themwalking from the hall to the library, and he studied Sylvia's face withanxious curiosity. It disappointed, repelled him. It was quiteunchanged, as full of colour as usual, as full of unfriendliness. Shenodded carelessly, quite as if nothing had happened--gave him theidentical, remote greeting to which he had become too accustomed. Andlast evening he had fancied her nearer! He noticed, however, that shehad put her hands behind her back.

  "I hope you're feeling better."

  "Better! I haven't been ill," she flashed.

  Betty helped him out.

  "Last night Mrs. Sinclair told us you had a headache."

  "You ought to know, Betty, that means I was tired."

  But George noticed she no longer looked at him. She hurried on.

  "Dolly!" he heard her laugh. "You must have sat up rather late."

  "Trying to forget my worry about you, Sylvia. Guess it gave me yourheadache."

  George shrugged his shoulders and edged away, measuring his chances ofseeing her alone. They were slender, for as usual she was a magnet, yetluck played for him and against her after luncheon, bringing them at thesame moment from different directions to the empty hall. She wanted tohurry by, as if he were a disturbing shadow, but he barred her way.

  "I suppose I should say I'm sorry I hurt you last night. I'll say it, ifyou wish, but I'm not particularly sorry."

  She showed him her hands then, spread them before him. They trembled,but that was all. They recorded no marks of his precipitancy.

  "I shouldn't expect you to be sorry. After that certainly you will neverspeak to me again."

  "Will you tell me now who it is?" he asked.

  Her temper blazed.

  "I ought always to know what to expect from you."

  She ran back to the door through which she had entered.

  "Oh, Dolly!"

  Dalrymple met her on the threshold.

  "Take me for a walk," she said. "It won't hurt you."

  Dalrymple indicated George.

  "Morton coming?"

  She shook her head and ran lightly upstairs.

  "No, I'm not going," George said. "She's right. The fresh air will doyou good."

  "Thanks," Dalrymple answered, petulantly. "I'm quite capable ofprescribing for myself."

  He went out in search of his hat and coat.

  George watched him, letting all his dislike escape. Continually theyhovered on the edge of a break, but Dalrymple wouldn't quite permit itnow. George was confident that the seed sown last night would flower.

  He was glad when Mundy telephoned before dinner about some difficultiesof transportation that might have been solved the next day. Georgesprang at the excuse, however, refused Blodgett's offer of a car totown, and drove to the station.

  Dalrymple and Sylvia hadn't returned.

  XII

  In town Goodhue, too, read his discontent.

  "You look tired out, George," he said the next morning. "EvidentlyBlodgett's party wasn't much benefit."

  "I'm learning to dislike parties," George answered. "You were wise toduck it. What was the matter? Didn't fancy the Blodgett brand ofhospitality?"

  "Promised my mother to spend the week-end at Westbury. I'd have enjoyedit. I'm really growing fond of Blodgett."

  There it was again, and you couldn't question Goodhue. Always he saidjust what he meant, or he kept his opinions to himself. Every word ofpraise for Blodgett reached George as a direct charge of disloyalty, ofbad judgment, of narrow-mindedness. His irritation increased. He wasgrateful for the mass of work in which he was involved. That chained hisimagination by day, but at night he wearily reviewed the past fiveyears, seeking his points of weakness, some fatal omission.

  Perhaps his chief fault had been too self-centred a pursuit of Sylvia.Because of her he had repressed the instincts to which he saw other menpandering as a matter of course. Dalrymple did, yet she preferred him,perhaps to the point of making a gift of herself. He had avoided eventhose more legitimate pleasures of which the dice had appealed to him asa type. What was the use of it? Why had he done it? Yet even now, andstill because of her, when you came to that, he had no desire to turnaside to the brighter places where plumed creatures flutter fatefully.It was a species of tragedy that he had to keep himself for one whodidn't want him.

  It stared at him at breakfast from the page of a newspaper. It wasamazing that the journal saw nothing grotesque in such a union; foundit, to the contrary, sensible and beneficial, not only to the personsinvolved, but to the entire country.

  Planter, the article pointed out, was no longer capable of bringing aresistless energy to his house which was a notable stone in thecountry's financial structure. Should any chance weaken that the entirebuilding would react. His son was at present too young and inexperiencedto watch that stone, to keep it intact. Later, of course--but one had toconsider the present. To be sure there were partners, but after thefashion of great egoists Mr. Planter had avoided admitting anyoutstanding personality to his firm. It was a happy circumstance thatCupid, and so forth--for the senior partner of Blodgett and Sinclair wasmore than an outstanding personality in Wall Street. Some of his recentachievements were comparable with Mr. Planter's earlier ones. Thedissolution of his firm and his induction into the house of Planter andCompany were prophesied.

  George continued to eat his breakfast mechanically. At least it wasn'tDalrymple, yet that resolution would have been less astonishing. JosiahBlodgett, fat, middle-aged, of no family, married to the beautiful andbrilliant Sylvia Planter! But was it grotesque? Wasn't the paper right?He had had plenty of proof that his own judgment of Blodgett wasworthless. He crumpled the paper in his hand and stood up. His judgmentwas worth this: he was willing to swear Sylvia Planter didn't love theman she had elected to marry.

  What did other people think?

  Wandel was at hand. George stopped on his way out. The little man wasstill in bed, sipping coffee while he, too, studied that disturbingpage; yet, when he had sent his man from the room, he didn't appear tofind about it anything extraordinary.

  "Good business all round," he commented, "although I must admit I'msurprised Sylvia had the common-sense to realize it. Impulsive sort,didn't you think, George, who would fly to some fellow because she'dtaken a fancy to him? Phew! Planter plus Blodgett! It'll make her aboutthe richest girl in America, why not say the world? Some households areuneasy this morning. Well! When you come down to it, what's thedifference between railroads and mills? Between mines and real estate?One's about as useful as the others."

  "It's revolting," George said.

  Wandel glanced over his paper.

  "What's up, great man? Nothing of the sort. Blodgett has his points."

  "As usual, you don't mean what you say," George snapped.

  "But I do, my dear George."

  "Blodgett's not like the people he plays with."

  "Isn't that a virtue?" Wandel asked. "Perhaps it's why those people likehim."

  "But do they really?"

  "You're purposely blind if you don't see it," Wandel answered. "Why thedeuce don't you?"

  George feared he had let slip too much. With others he would have toguard his interest closer, and he would delay the final break he hadquite decided upon with Blodgett.

  "Just the same," he muttered, ill at ease, preparing to leave, "I'd likeLambert's opinion."

  "You don't fancy this has happened," Wandel said, "without Lambert'sknowing all about it?"

  Ge
orge left without answering. At least he knew. It was simpler,consequently, to discipline himself. His manner disclosed nothing whenhe made the necessary visit to Blodgett. The round face was radiant. Thenarrow eyes burned with happiness.

  "You're a cagy old Brummell," George said. "I've just seen it in thepaper with the rest of the world. When's it coming off?"

  Blodgett's content faded a trifle.

  "She says not for a long time yet, but we'll see. Trust Josiah to hurrythings all he can."

  "Congratulations, anyway," George said. "You know you're entitled tothem."

  But he couldn't offer his hand. With that he had an instinct to tear thehappiness from the other's face.

  "You bet I am," Blodgett was roaring. "Any fool can see I'm pleased aspunch."

  George couldn't stomach any more of it. He started out, but Blodgett,rather hesitatingly, summoned him back. George obeyed, annoyed andcurious.

  "A good many years ago, George," Blodgett began, "I was a damned idiot.I remember telling you that when Papa Blodgett got married it would beto the right girl."

  "The convenient girl," George sneered. "Don't you think you're doingit?"

  "Now see here, George. None of that. You forget it. I'm sorry I everthought or said such stuff. You get it through your head just what thisis--plain adoration."

  He sprang to his feet in an emotional outburst that made George writhe.

  "I don't see why God has been so good to me."

  XIII

  George escaped and hurried upstairs. Lambert was there, but he didn'tmention the announcement, and George couldn't very well lead him. No onewho did talk of it in his presence, however, shared his bitterdisapproval. Most men dwelt as Wandel did on the material values of sucha match, which, far from diminishing Sylvia's brilliancy, would make itburn brighter than ever.

  Occasionally he saw Sylvia and Blodgett together. For him she had thatair of seeking an unreal pleasure, but she was always considerate ofBlodgett, who seemed perpetually on the point of clasping her publiclyin his arms. A recurrent contact was impossible for George. He went toBlodgett finally, and over his spirited resistance broke the last tie.

  "My remaining on your pay-roll," he complained, "is pure charity. Idon't want it. I won't have it. God knows I'm grateful for all you'vedone for me. It's been a lot."

  "Never forget you've done something for Blodgett," the stout man said,warmly. "There's no question but you've earned every penny you've hadfrom me. We've played and worked together a long time, George. I don'tsee just because you've grown up too fast why you've got to make PapaBlodgett unhappy."

  George had no answer, but he didn't have to see much of the beaming beauafter that, nor for a long time did he encounter Sylvia at allintimately. Lambert, himself, unwittingly brought them together in thespring.

  "Why not run down to Oakmont with me?" he said, casually, one Fridaymorning. "Father's always asking why you're never around."

  "Your father might be pleased to know why," George said.

  "Dark ages!" Lambert said. "We're in the present now. Come ahead."

  The invitation to enter the gates! But it brought to George none of theglowing triumph he had anticipated. He knew why Lambert had offered it,because he considered Sylvia removed from any possible unpleasantaftermath of the dark ages. The man Morton didn't need any furtherchastisement; but he went, because he knew what Lambert didn't, that theman Morton wasn't through with Sylvia yet; that he was going to find outwhy she had chosen Blodgett when, except on the score of money, shemight have beckoned better from nearly any direction; that he wascurious why she had told the man Morton first of all.

  They rolled in at the gate. There he had stood, and there she, when shehad set her dog on him. Then around the curve to the great house and inat the front door with an aging Simpson and a younger servant to competefor his bag and his coat and hat. How Simpson scraped--Simpson who hadordered him to go where he belonged, to the back door. What was thematter with him that he couldn't experience the elation with which themoment was crowded?

  Mrs. Planter met him with her serene manner of one beyond humanfrailties. You couldn't expect her to go back and remember. Such areturn to her would be beyond belief.

  "You've not been kind to us, Mr. Morton. You've never been here before."

  And that night she had walked through the doorway treating him exactlyas if he had been a piece of furniture which had annoyingly got itselfout of place.

  Lambert's eyes were quizzical.

  Old Planter wasn't at all the bear, cracking cumbersome jokes about theyoung ferret that had stolen a march on the sly old foxes of WallStreet. So that was what his threats amounted to! Or was it becausethere was nothing whatever of the former George Morton left?

  He examined curiously the bowed white head and the dim eyes in whichsome fire lingered. He could still approximate the emotions aroused bythat interview in the library. He felt the old instinct to give this manevery concession to a vast superiority. In a sense, he was still afraidof him. He had to get over that, for hadn't he come here to accomplishjust that against which Old Planter had warned him?

  "Where," Lambert asked, "is the blushing Josiah?"

  George caught the irony of his voice, but his mother explained in herunemotional way that Sylvia and Blodgett were riding.

  Certainly all along those early days had been in Lambert's mind, for heled George to the scene of their fight. He faced him there, and helaughed.

  "You remember?"

  "Why not?" George said. "I was born that day."

  "Morton! Morton!" Lambert mused.

  George swung and caught Lambert's shoulders quickly. There was more thansentiment in his quick, reminiscent outburst. It seemed even to himselfto carry another threat.

  "You call me Mr. Morton, or just George, as if I were about as good asyou."

  Lambert laughed.

  "We've had some fair battles since then, haven't we, George? You've donea lot you said you would that day."

  "I've scarcely started," George answered. "I'm a dismal failure. PerhapsI'll brace up."

  "You're hard to satisfy," Lambert said.

  George dug at the ground with his heel.

  "All the greater necessity to find ultimate satisfaction," he grumbled.

  Lambert glanced at him inquiringly.

  "I suppose," George continued, "I ought to thank you and your sister fornot reminding your parents what I was some years ago, for not blurtingit out to a lot of other people."

  "You've shown me," Lambert said, "it would have been vicious to have putany stumbling blocks in your way. Driggs is right. He usually is. You'rea very great man."

  But George shook his head, and accompanied Lambert back to the housewith the despondency of failure.

  Sylvia and Blodgett were back, lounging with Mr. and Mrs. Planter abouta tea table which servants had carried to a sunny spot on the lawn. Atsight of George Sylvia's colour heightened. Momentarily she hesitated totake his offered hand, then bowed to the presence of the others.

  "You didn't tell me, Lambert, you were bringing any one."

  Blodgett's welcome was cordial enough to strike a balance.

  "Never see anything of you these days, George. He makes money, Mrs.Planter, too fast to bother with an old plodder like me. Thank the LordI've still got cash in his firm."

  That he should ever call that quiet, assured figure mother-in-law! Mrs.Planter, however, showed no displeasure. She commenced to chat withLambert. Sylvia, George reflected, might with profit have borrowed someof her mother's serenity. Still she managed to entertain him over thetea cups as if he had been any casual, uninteresting guest.

  That hour, nevertheless, furnished George an ugly ordeal, for Blodgett'sattentions were perpetual, and Sylvia appeared to appreciate them,treating him with a consideration that let through at least thataffection the man had surprisingly drawn from so many of hisacquaintances.

  A secretary interrupted them, hurrying from the house with an abruptconcern stamped on his face, st
anding by awkwardly as if not knowing howto commence.

  "What is it, Straker?" Mr. Planter asked.

  "Mr. Brown's on the 'phone, sir. I think you'd better come. He said hedidn't want to bother you until he was quite sure. There seems no doubtnow."

  "Of what, Straker?" Mr. Planter asked. "Wouldn't it have kept throughtea time?"

  The secretary seemed reluctant to speak. The women glanced at himuneasily. Lambert started to rise. In spite of his preoccupation Georgehad a suspicion of the truth. All at once Blodgett half expressed it,bringing his fist noisily down on the table.

  "The Huns have torpedoed an American boat!"

  Straker blurted out the truth.

  "Oh, no, Mr. Blodgett. It's the _Lusitania_, but apparently the lossesare serious."

  For a moment the silence was complete. Even the servants forgot theirerrands and remained immobile, with gaping faces. An evil premonitionswept George. There were many Americans on the _Lusitania_. He knew anumber quite well. Undoubtedly some had gone down. Which of his friends?One properly asked such questions only when one's country was at war.The United States wasn't at war with Germany. Would they be now? How wasthe sinking of the _Lusitania_ going to effect him?

  Old Planter, Blodgett, and Lambert were already on their feet, startingfor the door. Mrs. Planter rose, but unhurriedly, and went close to herhusband's side. In that movement George fancied he had caught at lastsomething warm and human. Probably she had weighed the gravity of thisannouncement, and was determined to wheedle the old man from too muchexcitement, from too great a temper, from too thorough a preoccupationwith the changes bound to reach Wall Street from this tragedy.

  "I want to talk to Brown, too, if you please," Blodgett roared.

  They crowded into the hall, all except Sylvia and George who had risenlast. He had measured his movements by hers. They entered the librarytogether while the others hurried through to Mr. Planter's study wherethe telephone stood, anxious to speak with Brown's voice. She wanted tofollow, but he stopped her by the table where his cap had rested thatnight, from which he had taken her photograph.

  "You might give me a minute," he said.

  She faced him.

  "What do you want? Why did you come here, Mr. Morton?"

  "For this minute."

  "You've heard what's happened," she said, scornfully, "and you canpersist in such nonsense."

  "Call it anything you please," he said. "To me such nonsense happens tobe vital. It's your fault that I have to take every chance, even makeone out of a tragedy like that."

  He nodded toward the study door through which strained voices vibrated.

  "Children, too!--Vanderbilt!--More than a thousand!--Good God, Brown!"

  And Blodgett's roar, throaty with a new ferocity:

  "We'll fight the swine now."

  George experienced a fresh ill-feeling toward the man, who impressed himas possessing something of the attributes of such animals. He glanced atSylvia's hands.

  "You're not going to marry him."

  She smiled at him pityingly, but her colour was fuller. He wondered whyshe should remain at all when it would be so easy to slip through thedoorway to the protection of Blodgett and the others. Of course to hurthim again.

  "I don't believe you love him. I'm sure you don't. You shan't throwyourself away."

  Her foot tapped the rug. He watched her try to make her smile amused.Her failure, he told himself, offered proof that he was right.

  "One can no longer even be angry with you," she said. "Who gave you avoice in my destiny?"

  "You," he answered, quickly, "and I don't surrender my rights. If I canhelp it you're not going to throw away your youth. Why did you tell mefirst of all you were going to be married?"

  She braced herself against the table, staring at him. In her eyes hecaught a fleeting expression of fright. He believed she was held at lastby a curiosity more absorbing than her temper.

  "What do you mean?"

  Old Planter's bass tones throbbed to them.

  "Nothing can keep us out of the war now."

  The words came to George as from a great distance, carrying notremendous message. In the whole world there existed for him at thatmoment nothing half so important as the lively beauty of this womanwhose intolerance he had just vanquished.

  "Your youth belongs to youth," he hurried on, knowing she wouldn'tanswer his question. "I've told you this before. I won't see you turnyour back on life. Fair warning! I'll fight any way I can to preventit."

  She straightened, showing him her hands.

  "You're very brave. You fight by attacking a woman, by trying behind hisback to injure a very dear man. And you've no excuse whatever forfighting, as you call it."

  "Yes, I have," he said, quickly, "and you know perfectly well that I'mjustified in attacking any man you threaten to marry."

  "You're mad, or laughable," she said. "Why have you? Why?"

  "Because long ago I told you I loved you. Whether it was really so then,or whether it is now, makes no difference. You said I shouldn't forget."

  He stepped closer to her.

  "You said other things that gave me, through pride if nothing else, apretty big share in your life. You may as well understand that."

  Her anger quite controlled her now. She raised her right hand in the oldimpulsive gesture to punish his presumption with the maximum ofhumiliation; and this time, also, he caught her wrist, but he didn'thold it away. He brought it closer, bent his head, and pressed his lipsagainst her fingers.

  He was startled by the retreat of colour from her face. He had neverseen it so white. He let her wrist go. She grasped the table's edge. Shecommenced to laugh, but there was no laughter in her blank, colourlessexpression. A feminine voice without accent came to them:

  "Sylvia! How can you laugh?"

  He glanced up. Mrs. Planter stood in the study doorway. Sylviastraightened; apparently controlled herself. Her colour returned.

  "It was Mr. Morton," she explained, unevenly. "He said something soabsurdly funny. Perhaps he hasn't grasped this tragedy."

  The others came in, a voluble, horrified group.

  "What's the matter with you, George?" Blodgett bellowed. "Don't youunderstand what's happened?"

  "Not quite," George said, looking at Sylvia, "but I intend to find out."

  XIV

  To find out, George appreciated at once, would be no simple task.Immediately Sylvia raised new defences. She seemed abetted by thisincredible happening on a gray sea.

  "I shall go," Lambert said. "How about you, George?"

  "Why should I go?" George asked. "I haven't thought about it yet."

  The scorn in Sylvia's eyes made him uneasy. Why did people have to be soimpulsive? That was the way wars were made.

  During the days that followed he did think about it too absorbingly forcomfort, weighing to the penny the sacrifice his unlikely going wouldinvolve. An inherent instinct for a fight could scarcely be satisfied atsuch a cost. Patriotism didn't enter his calculations at all. Hebelieved it had resounding qualities only because it was hollow, beingmanufactured exactly as a drum is made. Surely there were enoughimpulsive and fairly useless people to do such a job.

  Then without warning Wandel confused his apparently flawless logic.Certainly Wandel was the least impulsive of men and he was also capableof uncommon usefulness, yet within a week of the sinking he asked Georgeif he didn't want to move to his apartment to keep things straightduring a long absence.

  "Where are you going, Driggs?"

  "I've been drifting too long," Wandel answered. "Unless I go somewheres,do something, I'll become as mellow as Dolly. I've not been myself sincethe business started. I suppose it's because I happen to be fond of theFrench and the British and a few ideas of theirs. So I'm going to drivean ambulance for them."

  George fancied Wandel's real motive wasn't so easily expressed. Helonged to know it, but you couldn't pump Wandel.

  "You're an ass," was all he said.

  "Naturally," Wande
l agreed. "Only asses go to war."

  "Do you think it will help for you to get a piece of shell through yourhead?"

  "Quite as much as for any other ass."

  "Why don't you say what you mean?" George asked, irritably.

  "Perhaps you ask that," Wandel drawled, "because you don't understandwhat I mean to say."

  "I won't take care of your apartment," George snapped. "I won't have anyhand in such a piece of foolishness."

  With Goodhue, however, he went to the pier to see Wandel off; absorbedwith the little man the sorrowful and apprehensive atmosphere of theodorous shed; listened to choked farewells; saw brimming eyes; sharedthe pallid anticipations of those about to venture forth upon anunnatural sea; touched at last the very fringe of war.

  "Why is he doing it?" George asked as Goodhue and he drove across townto the subway. "I've never counted Driggs a sentimentalist."

  "I'm not sure," Goodhue answered, "this doesn't prove he isn't. He'salways had an acute appreciation of values. Don't you remember? We usedto call him 'Spike'."

  * * * * *

  George let himself drift with events, but Wandel's departure increasedhis uneasiness. Suppose he should be forced by circumstances to abandoneverything; against his better judgment to go? Automatically histhoughts turned to Squibs. He recalled his advice.

  "Don't let your ideas smoulder in your head. Come home and talk themover."

  He sent a telegram and followed it the next day. The Baillys met him atthe station, affectionately, without any reproaches for his longabsence. The menace was in the air here, too, for Mrs. Bailly's firstquestion, sharply expressed, was:

  "You're not going, if----"

  "I don't want to go," he answered.

  Bailly studied him, but he didn't say anything.

  That afternoon there was a boat race on Lake Carnegie. The Alstons drovethe Baillys and George down some hospitable resident's lane to anadvantageous bank near the finish line. They spread rugs and madethemselves comfortable there, but the party was subdued. Squibs and Mr.Alston didn't seem to care to talk. Betty asked Mrs. Bailly's question,received an identical answer, and fell silent, too. Only Mrs. Alstonappeared to detect no change in the world, remaining cheerfully imperialas if alarms couldn't possibly approach her abruptly.

  Even to George such a scene, sharing one planet with the violences ofEurope, appeared contradictory. The fancifully garbed undergraduates,who ran along the bank; the string of automobiles on the towpathopposite; the white and gleaming pleasure boats in the canal; the shellsthemselves, with coloured oar-blades that flashed in the sunlight; mostof all the green frame for this pleasantly exciting contest had an airof telling him that everything unseen was rumour, dream stuff; eitherthat, or else that the seen was visionary, while in those remote placesexisted the only material world, the revolting and essential realities.

  Bailly at last interrupted his revery, with his long, thin arm making agesture that included the athletes; the running, youthful partisans.

  "How many are we going to lose or get back with twisted minds?"

  "Keep quiet," his wife said in a panic.

  Mrs. Alston laughed pleasantly.

  "Don't worry. Woodrow will keep us out of it."

  XV

  Back in the little study Bailly expressed his doubt.

  "He may do it now, but later----"

  "Remember you're not going, George," Mrs. Bailly cried.

  "I think not."

  She patted his hand, while Bailly looked on with his old expression ofdoubt and disapproval. When Mrs. Bailly had left them, George told thetutor of Wandel's surprising venture, asking his opinion.

  "It's hard to form one," Bailly admitted. "He's always puzzled me. Wouldit surprise you if I said I think he at least has grafted on his brainsome of Allen's generous views?"

  "Oh, come, sir. You can't make war an ideal expression of thebrotherhood of man. Far better that all men should be suspiciousstrangers."

  Bailly drew noisily at his pipe.

  "It often pleases you to misunderstand," he said. "Wandel, I fancy,would take Allen's theories and make something more practical of them.Understand I am a pacifist--thorough-paced. War is folly. War isdreadful. It cannot be conceived in a healthy brain. But when a factrises up before you you'd better face it. Wandel probably does. TheAllens probably don't--don't realize that we must win this war as theonly alternative to the world pacing of an autocratic foot that wouldcrush social progress like a serpent, that would boot back thebrotherhood of man, since you seem to enjoy the phrase, unthinkableyears."

  "After admitting that," George asked, quickly, "you can still tell methat I ought to accept the point of view of your rotten, illogicalSocialists?"

  "Even in this war," Bailly confessed, "most socialists are pacifists.No, they're not an elastic crowd. It amuses me that a lot of the lordsof the land, leading an unthinking portion of the proletariat, willpermit them to carry on their work in spite of themselves."

  "I despise such theorists," George burst out. "They are unsound. Theyare dangerous."

  Bailly smiled.

  "Just the same, the very ones they want to reform are going to give themthe opportunity to do it."

  "They're all like Allen," George sneered, "purchasable."

  Bailly shook his head, waved his pipe vehemently.

  "Virtue's flaws don't alter its really fundamental quality."

  "Then you agree all Socialists are knaves or fools," George stormed.

  "Perhaps, George," Bailly said, patiently, "you'll define aconservative for me. There. Never mind. Somewhere in between we may findan honest generosity, a wise sympathy. It may come from this war--a hugeand wise balance of power of the right, an honest recognition of men asindividuals rather than as members of classes. Perhaps your friendWandel is on the track of something of the sort. I like to think it isreally what the war is being fought for."

  "The war," George said, "is being fought for men with fat paunches andpocket-books."

  "Then you're quite sure you don't want to go?"

  "Why should I as long as my stomach and my pocket-book are comfortable?But I'm not sure whether I'll go or not. That's what worries me."

  "You've made," Bailly said, testily, "enough out of the war to warrantyour giving it something."

  George grinned. It was quite like old times.

  "Even myself, on top of all the rest I might make out of it by stayingback?"

  "You're not as selfish as you'd have me believe," Bailly cried.

  George quoted a phrase of Wandel's since Bailly seemed just now toapprove of the adventurer.

  "The man that keeps himself makes the world better."

  Bailly drove him out of the room to dress for dinner.

  "I won't talk to you any more," he said. "I won't curse the loiterer atthe base until I am sure he isn't going to climb."

  XVI

  At least George wouldn't have to decide at once. When it became clearthat for the present Mrs. Alston's optimism was justified he breathedeasier. With Goodhue, Lambert, and Mundy he applied himself unreservedlyto his work. Consequently he didn't visit much, didn't see Sylvia againuntil the fall when he met her at a dinner at the Goodhues'. She shrankfrom him perceptibly, but there was no escape. He studied her with aneasier mind. No date for her wedding had been set. Until that momentshould come there was nothing he could do. What he would be able toaccomplish then was problematical. Something. She shouldn't throwherself away on Blodgett.

  "It must be comforting," he heard her say to Goodhue, "to know iftrouble comes your wonderful firm will be taken care of."

  George guessed she had meant him to hear that.

  "I'm sure I hope so," Goodhue answered her, "but what do you mean?"

  "I heard Mr. Morton say once he didn't think he'd care to go to war.Didn't I, Mr. Morton?"

  Goodhue, clearly puzzled by her manner, laughed.

  "Give us something more useful, Sylvia. He's a born fighter."

  "I b
elieve I said it," George answered her. "There might be problemshere I couldn't very well desert."

  Her eyes wavered. He recalled her hysterical manner that evening atOakmont. She still sought chances to hurt him. In spite of Blodgett,then, she recognized a state of contest between them. He smiledcontentedly, for as long as that persisted his cause was alive.

  XVII

  It languished, however, during the winter as did Blodgett's hopes of aspeedy wedding. The Planters' Fifth Avenue home remained closed, becauseof Mr. Planter's health. Sylvia and her mother went south with him.Blodgett made a number of flying trips, deserting his affairs to thatextent to be with Sylvia. George was satisfied for the present to letthings drift.

  Dalrymple certainly had drifted with events. He had taken no pains tohide the shock of Sylvia's engagement. George of all people couldunderstand his disappointment, his helpless rage; but Dalrymple hadn'tbothered him, and he had about decided he never would.

  One spring day, quite without warning, he appeared in George's office.It was not long after the Planters' return to Oakmont. What did he wanthere? Was there any point spending money on him as matters stood?

  He looked at Dalrymple, a good deal surprised, reading the dissipationrecorded in his face, the nervousness exposed by the mobile hands. Allat once he understood why he had come at last. Dalrymple had wanderedtoo far. The patience of his friends had been exhausted. Perhaps Wandelhad taken George's hint. At any rate, he had let himself in for it.

  "An opportunity to make a little money," Dalrymple was mumblinguneasily. "Need capital. Not much. You said at Blodgett's--just happenedto remember it, and was near----"

  "How much?" George demanded, stopping his feeble lies.

  Dalrymple, George suspected, because of his manner, asked for less thanhalf what he had come to get.

  "What say to a couple thousand? Make it five hundred more if you can.Not much in the way of security."

  "Never mind the security."

  George pressed a button, and directed the clerk who responded to draw upa note.

  "Got to sign something?" Dalrymple asked, suspiciously.

  George smiled.

  "Do you mind my keeping a little record of where my money goes--in placeof security?"

  Dalrymple was quite red.

  "All right, if you insist."

  "I insist. Care to change your mind?"

  "No. Only thought it was just a little loan between--friends."

  The word left his tongue with difficulty. George guessed that the otherretained enough decency to loathe himself for having to use it. Thenervousness of the long fingers increased while the clerk prepared thenote and George wrote the check. George put a pen in the unsteady hand.

  "Sign here, please."

  Dalrymple obeyed with a signature, shaky, barely legible.

  "Nice of you to do me a favour. Appreciate it. Thanks."

  To George it would have been worth that money to find out just howSylvia's extended engagement had affected Dalrymple. Was it responsiblefor his speeding up on the dangerous path of pleasure? Of that he couldlearn only what the other chose to disclose, probably nothing. But whatwas he waiting for now that he had the money? Why were his fingerstwitching faster than ever?

  "Didn't see Lambert when I came in," he managed.

  "I daresay he's about," George said. "Want him?"

  Dalrymple raised his hand.

  "That's just it," he whispered. "Rather not see Lambert. Rather thislittle transaction were kept sub rosa. You understand. No pointLambert's knowing."

  "Why not?" George asked, coolly, feeling himself on the edge of thetruth.

  "I'm a little off the Planters," Dalrymple said.

  "Since when?"

  Dalrymple's face became redder than ever. For a moment his nervousnessabandoned him. He seemed to stiffen with violent thoughts.

  "Don't like buying and selling of women in any family. Not as decent asslavery."

  George rose quietly. He hadn't expected just this.

  "Be careful," he warned. "What are you talking about?"

  "What the whole town talks about," Dalrymple burst out. "You know her. Iask you. Hasn't she enough without selling herself, body and soul? Nobetter than an unmentionable----"

  George sprang. He didn't stop to tell himself that Dalrymple wasunaccountable, in a sense, out of his head. He didn't dare stop, becausehe knew if Dalrymple finished that sentence he would try to kill him.Dalrymple's mouth fell open, in fact, before the unexpected attack. Hecouldn't complete the sentence, didn't try to; drew back against thedesk instead; grasped a convenient ink container; threw it; calledshrilly for help.

  George shook the streaming black liquid from his face. With his stainedhands he grasped Dalrymple. His fingers tightened with a feeling ofprofound satisfaction. No masks now! Finally the enmity of years wasunleashed. He had Dalrymple where he had always wanted him.

  "One more word----You been saying that kind of thing----"

  The hurrying of many feet in the outer office recalled him. Theimpulsive George Morton crept back beneath the veneer. He let Dalrymplego, drew out his handkerchief, looked distastefully at the black stainson his clothing.

  Lambert and Goodhue closed the door on the curious clerks.

  "What in heaven's name----"

  It was Lambert who had spoken. Goodhue merely shrugged his shoulders, asif he had all along expected such a culmination.

  Dalrymple, fingering his throat spasmodically, sank in a chair. His faceinfused. His breath came audibly.

  "Caught him harder than I realized," George reflected. He spoke aloudwith his whimsical smile.

  "Looks as if I'd lost my temper. I don't often do it."

  He had no regret. He was happy. He believed himself nearer Sylvia thanhe had ever been. He felt in grasping Dalrymple's throat as if he hadtouched her hands.

  He failed to give its true value, consequently, to Lambert's angryturning on him after Dalrymple's shaking accusation.

  "Sorry, Lambert. Had to--to do what I could. He--he was rottenimpertinent about--about--Sylvia."

  XVIII

  Goodhue caught Lambert's arm. In a flash George read the meaning ofDalrymple's charge. Naturally he was the one to do something of thesort, had to try it. He had been afraid of Lambert's knowing of theloan. How much less could he let Lambert learn why George hadjustifiably shut his mouth.

  "Keep quiet," George warned Lambert. "Dicky! Can you get him out ofhere. He needs attention. I'm not a doctor. He hasn't been himself sincehe came."

  But Lambert wouldn't have it.

  "Repeat that, Dolly," he commanded.

  George walked to Dalrymple.

  "You'll not say another word."

  Dalrymple stood up, weaving his fingers in and out; as it were, claspinghis hands to George.

  "I'm sorry, Morton. Damn sorry. Forget--forget----"

  His voice wandered into a difficult silence, as if he had seen this way,too, a chance of implicating himself with Sylvia's brother; but his eyescontinued to beg George. They were like the eyes of an animal, caught ina net, beseeching release.

  Goodhue gave him his hat. He took it but drew away from the other'stouch on his arm.

  "Don't think I'm not all right," he said in a frightened voice. "Took meby surprise, but I'm all right--quite all right. Going home."

  He glanced at Lambert and again at George, then left the room, pullingat his necktie, Goodhue anxiously at his heels.

  "What about it?" Lambert asked George sharply.

  George sat down, still trying to rid himself of the black souvenirs ofthe encounter.

  "Don't be a fool. I said nothing about your sister--nothing whatever."

  He couldn't get rid of Dalrymple's begging eyes, yet why should he sparehim at all?

  "The rest of it," he went on, easily, "is between Dalrymple and me."

  "I'm not sure," Lambert challenged.

  He reminded George of the younger Lambert who had advanced with a whipin his hand.

  "See here,
" he said. "You can't make me talk about anything I don't careto. I've told you I didn't mention your sister. I couldn't to thatfellow."

  Lambert spread his hands.

  "What is there about you and Sylvia--ever since that day? I believe you,but I tried to give you a licking for her sake once, and I'd do itagain."

  George laughed pleasantly.

  "You make me feel young."

  Clearly Lambert meant to warn him, for he went on, still aggressive:

  "I care more for her than anybody in the world."

  The laughter left George's face.

  "Anybody?"

  Lambert was self-conscious now.

  "Just about. See here. What are you driving at?"

  George yawned.

  "I must wash up. I've a lot of work to do."

  "I'd like to know what went on here," Lambert said.

  "Why don't you ask Dalrymple, then?"

  "Dolly isn't all bad," Lambert offered as he left. "He's been my frienda good many years."

  "Then by all means keep him," George answered, "and keep him toyourself; but when he comes around hang on to the ink pots."

  XIX

  His apparent good humour didn't survive the closing of the door. Hisdislike of Dalrymple fattened on his memory of the incident. It had lefta sting. He hadn't stopped the man in time. Selling herself! Was she?She appeared to his mind, no longer intolerant, rather with an air ofshame-faced apology for all the world. That was what hurt. He hadn'tstopped Dalrymple in time.

  But there was no sale yet, nothing whatever, except an engagement which,after a year, showed no symptoms of fruition. Blodgett was aware of it,and couldn't hide his anxiety. Evidently he wanted to talk about it, didtalk about it to George when he met him in the hall not long afterDalrymple's visit.

  "Why don't you ever run down to Oakmont with Lambert?" he asked.

  Only Blodgett would have put such a question, and perhaps even hedesigned it merely as an entrance to his favourite topic. George evadedwith a fairly truthful account of office pressure.

  "Old Planter asks after you," Blodgett went on, uncomfortably. "Admiresyou, because you've done about what he had at your age, and it waseasier then. Old man's not well. That's tough on Josiah."

  "Tough?"

  Blodgett mopped his face with a brilliant handkerchief. His rotundstomach rose and fell with a sigh.

  "His gout's worse--all sorts of complications. She's the apple of hiseye. Guess you know that. Won't desert him now. Wants to wait till he'sbetter, or--or----"

  He added naively:

  "Hope to heaven he bucks up soon."

  George watched Blodgett's hopes dwindle, for Old Planter didn't buck up,nor did he grow perceptibly worse. From time to time he visited hismarble temple, but for the most part men went to him at Oakmont;Blodgett, of course, with his double errand of business and romance,most frequently of all. And Sylvia did cling to her father, but George'ssatisfaction increased, for he agreed with Wandel: she was capable of afeeling far more powerful than filial devotion. Blodgett, clearly, hadfailed to arouse it.

  Her sense of duty, however, kept her nearly entirely away from George;for Lambert, either because Sylvia had spoken to him, or because hehimself had sensed a false step, failed to repeat his invitation toOakmont. The row with Dalrymple, although that had not been mentionedagain, made it unlikely that he ever would.

  Dalrymple had dropped out of sight. George heard vaguely that he wastaking a rest cure in the northern part of the state. He couldn't fancymeeting him again without desiring to add to the punishment he hadalready given. The man was impossible. He had sneaked from that room,leaving the note in George's hands, the check in his own pocket. And thecheck had been cashed. No madness of excitement could account for that.

  It wasn't until summer that he ran into him, and with a black temper sawSylvia at his side. If she only knew! She ought to know. It increasedhis bad humour that he couldn't tell her.

  He regretted the necessity that had made such a meeting possible. Ithad, however, for a long time impressed him. Even flabby old Blodgetthad noticed, and had advised less work and more play. To combat hisfeeling of staleness, the relaxing of his long, carefully conditionedmuscles, George had forced himself to play polo at a Long Island clubinto which he had hurried because of his skill at the game, or to takean occasional late round of golf, which he didn't care for particularlybut which he managed very well in view of his inexperience. It was whilehe was ordering dinner with Goodhue one night at the Long Island clubthat Sylvia and Dalrymple drove up with the Sinclairs. The older paircame straight to the two, while Sylvia and Dalrymple followed with anobvious reluctance.

  "We spirited her away for the night," Mrs. Sinclair explained.

  She turned to Sylvia.

  "My dear, I'll see that you don't cloister yourself any more. Yourfather's going on for years."

  Yet it occurred to George, as he looked at her, that her cloistering hadaccomplished no change. The alteration in Dalrymple, on the other hand,was striking. George, as he met him with a difficult ease of manner,quite as if nothing had happened, couldn't account for it; for thelight-headed look had gone from Dalrymple's eyes, and much of the stampof dissipation from his face. His hands, too, were quiet. Was itcredible he had forgotten the struggle in George's office? No. He hadcashed the check; yet his manner suggested a blank memory except,perhaps, for its too-pronounced cordiality.

  There was nothing for it but a dinner together. The Sinclairs expectedit, and couldn't be made to understand why it should embarrass any one.Dalrymple really helped matters. His mind worked clearly, and he could,George had to acknowledge, exert a certain charm when he tried.Moreover, he didn't drink, even refusing the cocktail a waiter offeredhim just before they went inside.

  As always George disliked speaking to Sylvia in casual tones ofindifferent topics. She met him at first pleasantly enough on thatground--too pleasantly, so that he found himself waiting for someacknowledgment that she had not forgotten; that she still believed intheir quarrel. It came at last rather sharply through the topic that wasuniversal just then of General Wood's civilian training camps atPlattsburgh. Lambert had gone. Goodhue would follow the next month,having agreed to that arrangement for the sake of the office. EvenBlodgett was there. Sylvia took a great pride in the fact, pointed it atGeorge.

  "Although," she laughed, "I'm told he's not popular with his tent mates.I hear he has a telephone fastened to his tent pole. I don't knowwhether that's true. He's never mentioned it. But I do know he has threesecretaries in a house just off the reservation. Of course it's asacrifice for him to be at Plattsburgh at all."

  George stared at her. There was no question. Her voice, her face,expressed a tolerant liking for the man. The engagement had lastedconsiderably more than a year, and now she had an air of giving a publicreminder of its ultimate outcome. Or was it for him alone, as heroriginal announcement had been?

  "I'm off next month," Goodhue said. "Lambert writes it's good fun andnot at all uncomfortable."

  "I'll be with you, Dicky," Dalrymple put in. "Beneficial affair, besidesduty, and all that."

  George experienced relief at the very moment he resented her attackmost. It was still worth while trying to hurt him.

  "Practically everyone has gone or is going. It's splendid. When are youbooked for, Mr. Morton?"

  Even the Sinclairs had silently asked that question. They looked at himexpectantly.

  "I'm not going at all," he answered, bluntly.

  "I remember," she said. "You didn't believe in war or something, wasn'tit? But this isn't exactly war."

  George smiled.

  "Scarcely," he said. "It's hiking, singing, playing cards, rattling offstories, largely done by some old men who couldn't get a job in the armyof Methuselah. Why should I waste my time at that?"

  "It's a start," Mr. Sinclair said, seriously. "We have to do something."

  George hid his sneer. Everywhere the spirit was growing to make any kindof a drum that would bang.

/>   "If you don't think Wilson will keep us out of it," he asked, earnestly,"why not get after Wilson and make him start something general,efficient, fundamental? I've never heard of a President who wasn'tsensitive to the pressure of the country."

  There was no use talking that way. These people were satisfied with thenoise at Plattsburgh. He was glad when the meal ended, when he could getaway.

  At the automobile he managed to help Sylvia into her cloak, and he tookthe opportunity to whisper:

  "When is the great event coming off?"

  She turned, looked at him, and didn't answer. She mounted to the backseat beside Dalrymple.

  XX

  George didn't see her again until winter. He heard through the desolateBlodgett that she had gone with her parents to the Canadian Rockies.

  Nearly everyone seemed to flee north that summer as if in a final effortto cajole play. The Alstons moved to Maine unusually early, and didn'treturn until late fall. Betty put it plainly enough to him then.

  "I'm sorry to be back. Don't you feel the desire to get as far away aspossible from things, to escape?"

  "To escape what, Betty?"

  "That's just it. One doesn't know. Something one doesn't want to know."

  It was queer that Betty never asked why he hadn't been to Plattsburgh,never urged a definite decision as to what he would do if----

  The "if" lost a little of its power with him. At times he was eveninclined to share Mrs. Alston's optimism. It was easy to drift withWashington. Besides, he was too busy to worry about much except hisgrowing accumulation of profits from bloodshed. He was brought backmomentarily when Lambert and Goodhue received commissions as captains inthe reserve corps. The Plattsburgh noise still echoed. He couldn't helpa feeling of relief when people flocked back and the town became normalagain, encouraging him to believe that nothing could happen to tear himaway from this fascinating pursuit of getting rich for Sylvia while hewaited for her next move.

  That came with a stark brutality a few weeks after the holidays. He hadseen her only the evening before, sitting next to Blodgett at dinnerwith a remote expression in her eyes that had made him hopeful. Thearticle in the morning newspaper, consequently, took him more bysurprise than the original announcement of the engagement had done.Sylvia and Blodgett would be married on the fifteenth of the followingAugust.

  On top of that shock events combined to rebuke his recent confidence.His desires had taken too much for granted. The folly of the Mrs.Alstons and the wisdom of the Baillys and Sinclairs were forced uponhim. Wilson wasn't going to keep them out of it. George stood face toface with the decision he had shirked when the _Lusitania_ had taken herfatal dive.

  It couldn't be shirked again, for the declaration of war appeared to bea matter of days, weeks at the most. The drum was beginning to soundwith a rising resonance. Lambert and Goodhue would be among the first toleave. Already they made their plans. They didn't seem to care whatbecame of the business.

  "What are you up to, George?" they asked.

  He put them off. He wanted to think it out. He didn't care to have hisdecision blurred by the rattling of a drum. Yet it was patent to him ifhe should go at all it would be with his partners, among the first. Thethought of such a triple desertion appalled him. Mundy was incomparablefor system and routine, but if he had possessed the rare selectiveforesight demanded for the steering of a big business he would longsince have been at the helm of his own house. It would be far better, ifGeorge had to go, to sell the stock and the mass of soaring securitiesthe firm had acquired; in short, to close out before competitors couldsqueeze the abandoned ship from the channel.

  Why dwell on so wasteful an alternative? Why not turn sanely from sosentimental a choice? It was clear enough to him that it would not longsurvive the war, all this singing and shouting, this driving forth byolder people on the winds of a safe enthusiasm of countless young mento grotesque places of death.

  He paced his room. That was just it. It was the present he had toconsider, and the present thoughts of people who hadn't yet returned totheir inevitable practicality, forgetfulness, and ingratitude; most ofall to the present thoughts of Sylvia. To him she had made thosethoughts sufficiently plain. Among non-combatant enthusiasts she wouldbe the most exigent. Why swing from choice to choice any longer? To beas he had fancied she would wish, he had struggled, denied, kept himselfclean, sought minutely for the proper veneer; and so far he had kept hisrecord straight. With her it was his one weapon. He couldn't throw thataway.

  He stopped his pacing. He sat before his desk, his head in his hands,listening to the cacophanous beating of drums by the majority for theanxious marching of a few.

  It was settled. He had always known it would be, in just that way.

  XXI

  George took his physical examination at Governor's Island with theearliest of the candidates for the First Officers' Training Camp. Assoon as he had returned to his office he wrote to Bailly:

  "I'm going to your cheerful war, after all. I'll drop in the end of theweek."

  He summoned Lambert and Goodhue. Until then he had told them nothingdefinite.

  "Of course," he said, "we'll have a few months, but before we leaveAmerica everything will have to be settled. We'll have to know justwhere we stand."

  Into the midst of their sombre discussion slipped the tinkling of thetelephone. George answered. He glanced at the others.

  "It's Blodgett. Wants me right away. Something important."

  He hurried down, wondering what was up. Blodgett's voice had vibratedwith an unaccustomed passion that had left with George an impression ofwhole-hearted revolt; and when he got in the massive, over-decoratedoffice his curiosity grew, for Blodgett looked as if he had dressedagainst time and without valet or mirror. The straggly pale hair aboutthe ears was rumpled. His necktie was awry. The pudgy hands shook atrifle. George's heart quickened. Blodgett had had bad news. What wasthe worst news Blodgett could have?

  "I know," Blodgett began, "that you and your partners have passed andare going to Plattsburgh to become officers."

  All at once George caught the meaning of Blodgett's disarray, and hishope was replaced by a mirth he had difficulty hiding.

  "You don't mean you've been over to Governor's Island----"

  Blodgett stood up.

  "Yes," he confessed, solemnly. "Just got back from my physicalexamination. Would you believe it, George, the darned fools wouldn'thave me, because I'm too fat? Called it obese, as if it was some kind ofa disease, instead of just my natural inclination to fleshiness."

  One of his pudgy hands struck his chest.

  "Never stopped to see that my heart's all right, and that's what wewant, people whose hearts are all right."

  Momentarily the enmity aroused by circumstances fled from George. Theman was genuine, suffering from a devastating disappointment; but surelyhe hadn't called him downstairs only to witness this outbreak.

  Blodgett lowered himself to his chair. He wiped his face with one of hisgay handkerchiefs. He spoke reasonably.

  "My place is at home. All right. I'll make it easier then for the thinpeople that can go. I'm going to look after you boys. Mundy's not bigenough. I've got a man in view I can keep tabs on, and Blodgett'llalways be sitting down here seeing you don't get stung."

  He sighed profoundly.

  "Guess that'll have to be my share."

  George would rather have had the man curse him. It struck directly athis pride to submit to this unmasking of his jealous opinion. Hestrangled his quick impulse to reach forward, to grasp Blodgett's hand,to beg his pardon. Instead he tried to find ways of avoiding thegenerous gift.

  "We can't settle anything yet. A dozen circumstances may arise. The warmay end----"

  "When you go, George," Blodgett said, wistfully.

  And George knew that in the end he couldn't refuse without disclosingeverything; that his partners wouldn't let him. It added strangelyenough to his discomfort that he should leave the disappointed man witha confident feeling that he
need make no move to see Sylvia before goingto Plattsburgh. In any case, the camp ought to be over before thefifteenth of August.

  His partners were pleased enough by his recital, and determined toaccept Blodgett's offer.

  "He's the most generous soul that ever lived," Goodhue said, warmly.

  Lambert agreed, but George thought he detected a troubled light in hiseyes.

  Blodgett's generosity continued to worry George, to accuse him. Afterall, Blodgett had accomplished a great deal more than he. With only oneof the necessities he had made friends, had become engaged to SylviaPlanter. No. There was something besides that. He had had an unaffectedpersonality to offer, and--he had said it himself--a heart that was allright.

  George asked himself now if Blodgett had helped him in the first place,not because he had been Mr. Alston and Dicky Goodhue's friend, butsimply because he had liked him. He was inclined to believe it. He hadreached the point where he admitted that many people had been friendlyand useful to him because he had what Blodgett lacked, an exceptionalappearance, a rugged power behind acquired graces. Squibs, he realized,had put his finger on that long ago. He was glad he was going down. Thetutor would give him his usual disciplinary tonic.

  But it was a changed Squibs that met George; a nearly silent Squibs, whospoke only to praise; a slightly apprehensive Squibs. George tried toreassure Mrs. Bailly.

  "Three months at Plattsburgh, then nobody knows how much longer to whipour division into shape. The war will probably be over before we getacross."

  But she didn't believe it, nor did her husband.

  "You'll be in it, George, before the war's over. Do you know, you'renearer paying me back than you've ever been."

  George was uncomfortable before such adulation.

  "Please don't think," he protested, "that I'm going over for any trickyideals or to save a lot of advanced thinkers from their utter folly."

  "Then what are you going for?" Bailly asked.

  George was surprised that he lacked an answer.

  "Oh, because one has to go," he evaded.

  Bailly's smile was contented.

  "What better reason could any man want?"

  They had an air of showing him about Princeton as if he must absorb itsbeauties for the last time. Their visit to the Alstons was shrouded withall the sullen accompaniments of a permanent farewell. George wasinclined to smile. He hadn't got as far as weighing his chances of beinghit; the present was too crowded, stretched too far; included Betty, forinstance, and Lambert whom he was surprised to find in the Tudor house,prepared to remain evidently until he should leave for Plattsburgh. TheAlstons misgivings centred rather obviously on Lambert. George, when hetook Betty's hand to say good-bye that evening, felt with a desolateregret that for the first time in all their acquaintance her fingersfailed to reach his mind.