Read The Guarded Heights Page 5

  PART V

  THE NEW WORLD

  I

  George crushed his uneasy thoughts, trying to dwell instead on the ideathat he was going back to the normal, but all at once he experienced adread of the normal, perhaps, because he was no longer normal himself.Could he limp before Sylvia with his old assurance? Would people pityhim, or would he irritate them because he had a disability? And snatchesof his talks at the front with Wandel etched themselves sharply againsthis chaotic recollections of those days. Was Wandel fair? Was it,indeed, the original George Morton people had always liked? Here, apartfrom the turmoil, he didn't believe it, didn't dare believe it. Thosepeople wouldn't have cared for him except for his assumption ofqualities which he had chosen as from a counter display. Yet was it thereal George Morton that made him in superlative moments break the tracesof his acquired judgments, as he had done at New Haven, in the Argonne,to dash selflessly into the service of others? Rotten inside, indeed!Even in the hospital he set out to crush that impulsive, dangerous partof him.

  But the nearer he drew to home the more he suffered from a depressionthat he could only define as homesickness--homesickness for the oldways, the old habits, the old thoughts; and the memory of his temeritywith Sylvia at the moment of their parting was like a great cloudthreatening the future with destructive storm.

  Lambert, wearing a contrivance the doctors had given him in place ofwhat the country had taken away, accompanied by Betty and the Baillys,met the transport. Betty and Mrs. Bailly cried, and George shook hisheavy stick at them.

  "See here! I'm not going to limp like this always."

  Bailly encircled him with his thin arms.

  "You're too old to play football, anyway, George."

  George found himself wanting Betty's arms, their forgetfulness, theirunderstanding, their tenderness.

  "When are you two going to be married?" he forced himself to ask.

  Betty looked away, her white cheeks flushing, but Lambert hurried ananswer.

  "As soon as you're able to get to Princeton. You're to be best man."

  "Honoured."

  So Lambert's crippling hadn't made any difference to Betty, but how didSylvia take it? He wanted to ask Lambert where she was, if anything hadhappened to her, any other mad affair, now that the war was over, likethe one with Blodgett; but he couldn't ask, and no one volunteered totell him, and it wasn't until his visit to Oakmont, on his first leavefrom the hospital, that he learned anything whatever about her, and thatwas only what his eyes in a moment told him.

  Lambert drove over and got George, explaining that his mother wanted tosee him.

  "She'd have come to the dock," he said, "but Father these days is ratherhard to leave."

  George went reluctantly, belligerently, for since his landing hisfeeling of homesickness had increased with the realization that hisvictorious country was more radically altered than he had fancied. Theride, however, had the advantage of an uninterrupted talk with Lambertwhich developed gossip that Blodgett, stuffed with business, hadn't yetgiven him.

  Goodhue and Wandel, for instance, were still abroad, holding down showyjobs at the peace conference. Dalrymple, on the other hand, had beenhome for months.

  "Most successful war," Lambert told George. "Scarcely smelled fire, butgot a couple foreign decorations, and a promotion--my poor old legwasn't worth it, or yours, George, but what odds now? And as soon as theshow stopped at Sedan he was trotting back. Can't help admiring him,for that sort of thing spells success, and he's steady as a church. Tryto realize that, and take a new start with him, for he's really likeablewhen he keeps to the straight and narrow. Prohibition's going to fit invery well, although I believe he's got himself in hand."

  George stared at the ugly, familiar landscape, trying not to listen,particularly to the rest. Why should the Planters have taken Dalrympleinto the marble temple?

  "A small start," Lambert was saying, "but if he makes the grade there'sa big future for him there. I fancy he's anxious to meet you halfway.How about you, George?"

  "I'll make no promises," George said. "It depends entirely onDalrymple."

  Lambert didn't warn him, so he didn't expect to find Dalrymple enjoyingthe early spring graces of Oakmont. He managed the moment of meeting,however, without disclosing anything. Dalrymple, for the time, was quiteunimportant. It was Sylvia he was anxious about, Sylvia who undoubtedlynursed a sort of horror of what he had ventured to do and say at Upton.Everyone else was outside, as if making a special effort to welcome him.Where was she?

  He resented the worshipful attentions of the servants.

  "I'm quite capable of managing myself," he said, as he motioned themaside and lowered himself from the automobile.

  He disliked old Planter's heartiness, although he could see the physicaleffort it cost, for the once-threatening eyes were nearly dark; and thebig shoulders stooped forward as if in a constant effort to escape apursuing pain; and the voice, which talked about heroes and thecountry's debt and the Planters' debt, quavered and once or twice brokealtogether, then groped doubtfully ahead in an effort to recover thepropelling thought.

  Mrs. Planter, at least, spared him any sentimental gratitude. She wasrather grayer and had in her face some unremembered lines, but thosewere the only changes George could detect. As far as her manner wentthis greeting might have followed the farewell at Upton after only a dayor so.

  "I hope your wound isn't very painful."

  "My limping," he answered, "is simply bad habit. I'm overcoming it."

  "That's nice. Then you'll be able to play polo again!"

  "I should hope so, as long as ponies have four good legs."

  He wished other people could be like her, so unobtrusively, unannoyinglyprimeval.

  As he entered the hall he saw Sylvia without warning, and he caught hisbreath and watched her as she came slowly down the stairs. He tried torealize that this was that coveted moment he had so frequently fanciedthe war would deny him--the moment that brought him face to face withSylvia again, to witness her enmity, to desire to break it down, to wanther more than he had ever done.

  She came straight to him, but even in the presence of the others shedidn't offer her hand, and all she said was:

  "I was quite sure you would come back."

  "You knew I had to," he laughed.

  Then he sharpened his ears, for she was telling her brother somethingabout Betty's having telephoned she was driving over to take Lambert,Dalrymple, and herself to Princeton.

  No. The war had changed her less than any one George had seen. She wasas beautiful, as unforgiving, as intolerant; and he guessed that it wasshe and not Betty who had made the arrangement which would take her awayfrom him.

  "George will come, too," Lambert began.

  "Afraid I'm not up to it," George refused, dryly.

  At Betty's wedding, however, she would have to be with him, for itdeveloped during this nervous chatter that they would share the honoursof the bridal party.

  So, helplessly, he had to watch her go, and for a moment he felt as ifhe had had a strong tonic, for she alone had been able to give him animpression that the world hadn't altered much, after all.

  The reaction came in the quiet hours following. He was at firstresentful that Mrs. Planter should accompany him on the painful walk thedoctors had ordered him, like Old Planter, to take daily. He had wantedto go back to the little house, highest barrier of all which Sylviawould never let him climb. Then, glancing at the quiet woman, he squaredhis shoulders. Suppose Wandel had been right! Here was a test. At anyrate, the war was a pretty large and black background for so tiny a highlight. Purposefully, therefore, he carried out his original purpose. Bythe side of Mrs. Planter he limped toward the little house. They didn'tsay much. It wasn't easy for him to talk while he exercised, and perhapsshe understood that.

  Even before the clean white building shone in the sun through the treeshe heard a sound that made him wince. It was like a distant drum, badlyplayed. Then he understood what it was, and his boyh
ood, and the day ofawakening and revolt, submerged him in a hot wave of shame. He could seehis mother rising and bending rhythmically over fine linen which emergedfrom dirty water, making her arms look too red and swollen. He glancedquickly at Mrs. Planter to whose serenity had gone the upward effort ofmany generations. Just how appalling, now that war had mocked life sodreadfully, now that a pitiless hand had a moment ago stripped allpretence from the world, was the difference between them?

  It was the woman at the tub, curiously enough, who seemed trying to tellhim, trying to warn him to keep his mouth shut. Then the house wasvisible through the trees. He raised his stick.

  "I wanted to see it again," he said, defiantly, "because I was bornthere. I lived there."

  She paused and stared with him, without saying anything, without anychange of expression. After a time she turned.

  "Have you looked enough? Shall we go back, George?"

  He nodded, glancing at her wonderingly. After all, he had had verylittle love in his life. Mrs. Bailly, Betty----

  He had never dreamed of such gratitude as this. Lambert, home with hiswar madness fresh upon him, must have told her, as an example of what aman might do. But was her action all gratitude? Rather wasn't it asignpost at the parting of two ages?

  If that were so, he told himself, the world had left Sylvia hopelesslybehind.

  II

  The memory of that unguarded moment remained in his mind uncomfortably.He carried it finally from the hospital to his musty apartment, where hestripped off his uniform and looked in the glass, for the first time innearly two years his own master, no man's servant.

  Was he his own master as long as he could commit such sentimentalfollies, as long as he could suspect that he had told Wandel the truthon the Vesle? This nostalgia must be the rebound from the war, of whichhe had heard so much, which made men weak, or lazy, or indifferent.

  He continued to stare in the glass, angry, amazed. He had to overcomethis homesick feeling. He had to prepare himself for harder battles thanhe had ever fought. He had had plenty of warning of the selfishness thatwas creeping over the world like a black pestilence. Where was his ownself-will that had carried him so far?

  He locked himself, as it were, in his apartment. He sat down and calledon his will. With a systematic brutality he got himself in hand. Hereviewed his aims: to make more money, to get Sylvia. He emerged atlast, hard and uncompromising, ready for the selfish ones, and went downtown. Blodgett greeted him with a cheer.

  "Miracles! For the first time since you got back you look yourselfagain."

  "I am," George answered, "all but the limp. That will go some daymaybe."

  He wanted it to go. He desired enormously to rid himself of the lastreminder of his service.

  Lambert was definitely caught by the marble temple, but Goodhue and hewould stay together, more or less tied to Blodgett, to accept theopportunities George foresaw for dragging money by sharp reasoning fromthe reconstruction period. He applied himself to exchange. From theirposition they could run wild in the stock market at little risk, butthere were big things to be made out of exchange, about which thecleverest men didn't seem to know anything worth a penny in anycurrency.

  Everyone noticed his recovery, and everyone congratulated him exceptBailly. When George went down to Betty's wedding the long tutor met himat the station, crying out querulously:

  "What's happened to you?"

  George laughed.

  "Got over the war reaction, I guess."

  "What the deuce did you go to war for at all then?" Bailly asked.

  "Haven't found that out myself yet," George answered, "but I know Iwouldn't go to another, even if they'd have me."

  He grimaced at his injured foot.

  "And they're going to give you some kind of a medal!" Bailly cried.

  "I didn't ask for it," George said, "but I daresay a lot of people, youamong them, went down to Washington and did."

  Bailly was a trifle uncomfortable.

  "See here," George said. "I don't want your old medal, and I don'tintend to be scolded about it. I suppose I've got to rush right out tothe Alstons."

  "Let's stop at the club," Bailly proposed. "People want to see you.We'll fight the war over with the veterans."

  "Damn the war!" George said.

  Mrs. Bailly, when he paused for a moment at the house in DickinsonStreet, attacked him, and quite innocently, from a different direction.

  "It was the wish of my life, George, that you should have Betty, and youmight have had. I can't help feeling that."

  "You're prejudiced," George laughed.

  He went to the Alstons, nevertheless, almost unwillingly, and he delayedhis arrival until the last minute. The intimate party had gathered for adinner and a rehearsal that night. The wedding was set for the nextevening.

  The Tudor house had an unfamiliar air, as though Betty already had takenfrom it every feature that had given it distinction in George's mind.And Betty herself was caught by all those detailed considerations thatsurround a girl, at this vital moment of her life, with an atmosphereregal, mysterious, a little sacred. So George didn't see her until justbefore dinner, or Sylvia, who was upstairs with her. Lambert andBlodgett were about, however, and so was Dalrymple. George was gladLambert had asked Blodgett to usher; he owed it to him, but he wasannoyed that Dalrymple should have been included in the party, for itwas another mark, on top of his presence in the marble temple, of atightening bond of intimacy between him and the Planters. Georgeexamined the man, therefore, with an eager curiosity. He looked wellenough, but George remained unconvinced by his apparent reformation,suspecting its real purpose was to impress a willing public, for he hadstudied Dalrymple during many years without uncovering any realstrength, or any disposition not to answer gladly to every appeal of thesenses. At least he was restless, rising from his chair too often towander about the room, but George conceded with a smile that his ownarrival might be responsible for that. The matter of the notes hadn'tbeen mentioned, but they existed undoubtedly even in Dalrymple'scareless mind, which must have forecasted an uncomfortable day ofpayment.

  Lambert seemed sure enough of his friend.

  "Dolly's sticking to the job like a leech," he said to George when theywent upstairs to dress.

  "I've no faith in him," George answered, shortly.

  "You're an unforgiving brute," Lambert said.

  George hastened away from the subject.

  "I'm not chameleon, at least," he admitted with a smile, "which remindsme. I don't see any of your dearly beloved brothers of the ranks in yourbridal party. Have you put private Oscar Liporowski up for any of yourclubs yet?"

  "Unforgiving and unforgetting!" Lambert laughed.

  "Then you acknowledge that talk in the Argonne was war madness?"

  "By no means," Lambert answered, suddenly serious. "Let me get married,will you? I can't bother with anything else now. Sylvia, whose mindisn't filled with romance, threatens to become the socialist of thefamily."

  George stared at him.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "About what Sylvia's talking about," Lambert answered.

  "Now I know you're mad," George said.

  Lambert shook his head.

  "But I don't take her very seriously. It's a nice game to seek beautiesin Bolshevism. It's played in some of the best houses. You must haveobserved it--how wonderfully it helps get through a tea or a dinner."

  III

  George went to his own room, amused and curious. Could Sylvia talkcommunism, even parrot-like, and deny him the rights of a brother? Hebecame more anxious than before to see her. He shrank, on the otherhand, from facing Betty who was about to take this enormous steppermanently away from him. Out of his window he could see the treebeneath which he had made his confession in an effort to kill Betty'skindness. If he had followed her to the castle then Lambert wouldn't belimping about exposing a happiness that made George envious anddiscontented. It was a reminder with a vengeance that his friends weremating. Was
he, like Blodgett, doomed to a revolting celibacy?

  Blodgett, as far as that went, seemed quite to have recovered from theblow Sylvia had given his pride and heart. With his increasing fortunehis girth had increased, his cheeks grown fuller, his eyes smaller.

  He was chatting, when George came down, with Old Planter, who satslouched in an easy chair in the library, and Mr. Alston. It was evidentthat the occasion was not a joyous one for Betty's father.

  "I've half a mind to sell out here," George heard him say, "and take ashare in a cooperative apartment in town. Without Betty the house willbe like a world without a sun."

  Blodgett, George guessed, was tottering on the threshold of expansivesympathy. He drew back, beckoning George.

  "Here's your purchaser, Alston. I never knew a half back stay single solong. And now he's a hero. He's bound to need a nest soon."

  Mr. Alston smiled at him.

  "Is there anything in that, George?"

  George wanted to tell Blodgett to mind his own business. How could theman, after his recent experience, make cumbersome jokes of that colour?

  "There was a time," Mr. Alston went on, "when I fancied you were goingto ask me for Betty. The thought of refusing used to worry me."

  George laughed uncomfortably.

  "So you would have refused?"

  "Naturally. I don't think I could have said yes to Lambert if it hadn'tbeen for the war. If you ever have a daughter--just one--you'll knowwhat I mean."

  From the three men George received an impression of imminence, shared ithimself. They talked merely to cover their suspense. They were likepeople in a throne room, attentive for the entrance of a figure,exalted, powerful, nearly legendary. Betty, he reflected, had becomethat because she was about to marry. He found himself fascinated, too,looking at the door, waiting with a choked feeling for that girl who hadunconsciously tempted him from their first meeting. Her arrival, indeed,had about it something of the processional. Mrs. Planter entered thedoorway first, nodding absent-mindedly to the men. Betty's motherfollowed, as imperial as ever, more so, if anything, George thought, andquite unaffected by the deeper elements that gave to this quiet weddingin a country house a breath of tragedy. Betty Alston Planter! Thatevolution clearly meant happiness for her. She tried to express itthrough vivacious gestures and cheerful, uncompleted sentences. Bettynext--after a tiny interval, entering not without hesitation exposed inher walk, in her tall and graceful figure, in her face which wasunaccustomedly colourful, in her eyes which turned from one to another,doubtful, apprehensive, groping. George didn't want to look at her; herappearance placed him too much in concord with her reluctant father; toomuch in the position of a man making a hurtful and unasked oblation.

  Momentarily Betty, the portion of his past shared with her, itsundeveloped possibilities, were swept from his brain. Last of all,fitting and brilliant close for the procession, came Sylvia between twobridesmaids. George scarcely saw the others. Sylvia filled his eyes, hisheart, slowly crowded the dissatisfaction from his mind, centred againhis thoughts and his ambitions. Nearly automatically he took Betty'shands, spoke to her a few formalities, yielded her to her father, andwent on to Sylvia. For nearly two years he hadn't seen her in an eveninggown. What secret did she possess that kept her constant? Already shewas past the age at which most girls of her station marry, yet to himher beauty had only increased without quite maturing. And why had shecalmly avoided during all these years the nets thrown perpetually bymen? Only Blodgett had threatened to entangle her, and one day had foundher fled. And she wasn't such a fool she didn't know the years wereslipping by. More poignantly than ever he responded to a feeling ofdanger, imminent, unavoidable, fatal.

  "My companion in the ceremonies," he said.

  "I understood that was the arrangement," she answered, without lookingat him.

  "I'm glad," he said, "to draw even a reflection from the happiness ofothers."

  "I often wonder," she remarked, "why people are so selfish."

  "Do you mean me," he laughed, "or the leading man and lady?"

  She spoke softly to avoid the possibility of anyone else hearing.

  "I'm not sure, but I fancy you are the most selfish person I have evermet."

  "That's a stupendous indictment these days," he said with a smile, buthe didn't take her seriously at all, didn't apply her charge to hissoul.

  "I'm so glad you're here," he went on, "that we're to be together. I'vewanted it for a long time. You must know that."

  She gave him an uncomfortable sense of being captive, of seeking blindlyany course to freedom.

  "I no longer know anything about you. I don't care to know."

  Lambert and Dalrymple strolled in. Dalrymple opened the cage. Georgemoved away, aching to prevent such interference by any means he could.His emotion made him uneasy. To what resolution were his relations withDalrymple drifting? How far was he capable of going to keep the other inhis place?

  He stood by the mantel, speaking only when it was necessary and thenwithout consciousness, his whole interest caught by the pictureDalrymple and Sylvia made, close together by the centre table in thesoft light of a reading lamp.

  A servant entered with cocktails. George's interest sharpened. Bettytook hers with the others. Only Sylvia and Dalrymple shook their heads.Clearly it was an understanding between them--a little denial of hers tomake his infinitely greater one less difficult. She smiled up at him,indeed, comprehendingly; but George's glance didn't waver fromDalrymple, and it caught an increase in the other's restlessness, afollowing nearly hypnotic, by thoughtful eyes, of the tray with thelittle glasses as it passed around the room. George relaxed. He wasconscious enough of Blodgett's bellow:

  "Here's to the blushing bride!"

  What lack of taste! But how much greater the lack of taste that restlessinheritor exposed! Couldn't even join a formal toast, didn't dareprobably, or was it that he only dared not risk it in public, in frontof Sylvia? And she pandered to his weakness, smiled upon it as if itwere an epic strength. He was sufficiently glad now that Dalrymple hadgot into him for so much money.

  IV

  For George dinner was chiefly a sea of meaningless chatter continuallyruffled by the storm of Blodgett's voice.

  "Your brother tells me," he said to Sylvia, "that you're irritatingyourself with socialism."

  She looked at him with a little interest then.

  "I've been reading. It's quite extraordinary. Odd I should have lived solong without really knowing anything about such things."

  "Not odd at all," George contradicted her. "I should call it odd thatyou find any interest in them now. Why do you?"

  "One has to occupy one's mind," she answered.

  He glanced at her. Why did she have to occupy herself with matter shecouldn't possibly understand, that she would interpret always in a wrongor unsafe manner? She, too, was restless.

  That was the only possible explanation. From Blodgett she had sprung towar-time fads. From those she had leaped at this convenient one whichtempted people to make sparkling and meaningless phrases.

  "It doesn't strike you as at all amusing," he asked, "that you should bered, that I should be conservative?"

  She didn't answer. Blodgett swept them out to sea again.

  Later in the evening, however, George repeated his question, anddemanded an answer. They had accomplished the farce of a rehearsal,source of cumbersome jokes for Blodgett and the clergyman; of doubts anddreary prospects for Mr. Alston, who had done his share as if submittingto an undreamed-of punishment.

  There was the key-ring joke. It must be a part of the curriculum of allthe theological seminaries. George acted up to it, promising to tie astring around his finger, or to pin the circlet to his waistcoat.

  "Or," Blodgett roared, "at a pinch you might use the ring of the weddingbells."

  George stared at him. How could the man, Sylvia within handgrasp, grinand feed such a mood? It suddenly occurred to him that once more he wasreading Blodgett wrong, that the man was admirable, far
more so than hecould be under an equal trial. Would he, a little later, be asked toface such an ordeal?

  With the departure of the clergyman a cloud of reaction descended uponthe party. Some yawns were scarcely stifled. Sporadic attempts to danceto a victrola faded into dialogues carried on indifferently, lazily,where the dancers had chanced to stop with the music. Mr. Alston hadrelinquished Sylvia to George at the moment the record had stutteredout. They were left at a distance from any other couple. George pointedout a convenient chair, and she sat down and glanced about the roomindifferently.

  "At dinner," George said, "I asked you if it didn't impress you asstrange that our social views should be what they are, and opposite."

  She didn't answer.

  "I mean," he went on, "that I should benefit by your alteration."

  "How?" she asked, idly fingering a flower, not looking at him.

  "I fancy," he said, "that you'll admit your chief objection to me hasalways been my origin, my ridiculous position trotting watchfully behindthe most unsocial Miss Planter. Am I not right?"

  "You are entirely wrong," she said, wearily. "That has never hadanything to do with my--my dislike. I think I shall go----"

  "Wait," he said. "You are not telling me the truth. If you areconsistent you will turn your enmity to friendship at least. You willdecide there was nothing unusual in my asking you to marry me. You willeven find in that a reason for my anxiety at Upton. You will understandthat it is quite inevitable I should ask you to marry me again."

  She sprang up and hurried away from him.

  "Put on another record, Dolly----"

  And almost before he had realized it Betty had taken her away, and theevening's opportunities had closed.

  V

  For him the house became like a room at night out of which the only lamphas been carried.

  The others drifted away. George tried to read in the library. Hisuneasiness, his anger, held him from bed. When at last he went upstairshe fancied everyone was asleep, but moving in the hall outside his roomhe saw a figure in a dressing gown. It paused as if it didn't care to bedetected going in the direction of the stairs. George caught thefigure's embarrassed hesitation, fancied a movement of retreat.

  "Dalrymple!" he called, softly.

  The other waited sullenly.

  "What you up to?" George asked.

  "Thought I'd explore downstairs for a book. Couldn't sleep. Nothing inmy room worth bothering with."

  George smiled, the memory of Blodgett's admirable behaviour crowding hismind. What better time than now to let his anger dictate to him, as ithad done that day in his office?

  "Come in for a minute," he proposed to Dalrymple, and opened his door.

  Dalrymple shook his head, but George took his arm and led him, guessingthat Dalrymple feared the subject of the notes.

  "Bad humour!" George said. "You seem to be the only one up. I don't mindchatting with you before turning in. Fact is, these wedding parties arestupid, don't you think?"

  Possibly George's manner was reassuring to Dalrymple. At any rate, heyielded. George took off his coat, sat in an easy chair, and pressed thecall button.

  "What's that for?" Dalrymple asked, uneasily.

  "Sit down," George said. "Stupid and dry, these things! I'm going to tryto raise a servant. I want to gossip over a drink before I go to bed.You'll join me?"

  Dalrymple sat down. He moistened his lips.

  "On the wagon," he muttered. "A long time on the wagon. Place to be,too, and all that."

  George didn't believe the other. If Dalrymple cared to prove him rightthat was his own business.

  "Before prohibition offers the steps?" he laughed.

  "Nothing to do with it," Dalrymple muttered. "Got my reasons--goodenough ones, too."

  "Right!" George said. "Only don't leave me to myself until I've wet mywhistle."

  And when the sleepy servant had come George asked him for some whiskeyand soda water. He talked of the Alstons, of the war, of anything totide the wait for the caraffe and the bottles and glasses; and duringthat period Dalrymple's restlessness increased. Just what had he beensneaking downstairs for in the middle of the night? George watched theother's eyes drawn by the tray when the servant had set it down.

  "Why did he bring two glasses?" Dalrymple asked, irritably.

  "Oh," George said, carelessly, "I suppose he thought--naturally----Havea biscuit, anyway."

  George poured a drink and supped contentedly.

  "Dry rations--biscuits," Dalrymple complained.

  He fingered the caraffe.

  "I've an idea--wedding--special occasion, and all that. Change mymind--up here--one friendly drop----"

  George watched the friendly drop expand to half a tumbler full, and heobserved that the hand that poured was not quite steady. It wouldn't belong now before he would know whether or not Dalrymple's reformation wasmerely a pose in public, a pose for Sylvia.

  Dalrymple sighed, sat down, and talked quite pleasantly about thehorrors of Chaumont. After a time he refilled his glass, and repeatedthe performance a number of times with diminishing intervals. Georgesmiled. A child could tell the other was breaking no extendedabstinence. He drifted from war to New York and his apparent successwith the house of Planter.

  "Slavery, this office stuff!" he rattled on, "but good fun to get thingsdone, to climb up on shoulders of men--oh, no idea how many,Morton--who're only good to push a pen or pound a typewriter. Of course,you know, though. Done plenty of climbing yourself."

  His enunciation suffered and his assurance strengthened as the caraffeemptied. No extended abstinence, George reflected, but almost certainlya very painful one of a few days.

  "Am making money, Morton--a little, not much," he said, confidentially,and with condescension. "Not enough by long shot to pay those beastlynotes I owe you. Know they're over due. Don't think I'd ever forgetthat. Want to do right thing, Morton. You used hard words when Iborrowed that money, but forget, and all that. White of you to let mehave it, and I'll do right thing."

  A sickly look of content overspread his face. He expanded. His assuranceseemed to crowd the room.

  "Wouldn't worry for a minute 'bout those notes if I were you."

  He suddenly switched, shaking his finger at the caraffe.

  "Very pleasant, little drop like this--night cap on the quiet. But notoften."

  His content sought expression in a smile.

  "Dolly's off the hootch."

  George lighted a cigarette. He noticed that his fingers were quitesteady, yet he was perfectly conscious of each beat of his heart.

  "May I ask," he said, "what possible connection there can be between mynot worrying about your notes and your keeping off the hootch, as youcall it?"

  Dalrymple arose, finished the caraffe, and tapped George's shoulder.

  "Every connection," he answered. "Expect you have a right to know. Don'tyou worry, old Shylock Morton. You're goin' to get your pound ah flesh."

  "I fancy I am," George laughed. "What's your idea of it?"

  Dalrymple waved his glass.

  "Lady of my heart--surrender after long siege, but only brave deservefair. Good thing college education. Congratulate me, Morton. But secretfor you, 'cause you old Shylock. Wouldn't say anything to Sylvia tillshe lets it loose."

  As George walked quietly to the door, which the servant a long time agohad left a trifle open, he heard Dalrymple mouthing disconnected words:"Model husband." "Can't be too soon for Dolly."

  Then, as he closed the door, locked it, and put the key in his pocket,he heard Dalrymple say aloud, sharply:

  "What the devil you doing, Morton?"

  George turned. Ammunition against Dalrymple! He had been collecting it.Now, clearly, was the time to use it. In his mind the locked room heldprecariously all of Sylvia's happiness and his.

  He didn't hesitate. He walked straight to the table. Dalrymple hadslumped down in his chair, the content and triumph of his inflamed eyesreplaced by a sullen fear.

  VI
>
  "What's the idea?" Dalrymple asked, uncertainly, watching George,grasping the arms of his chair preparatory to rising.

  "Sit still, and I'll tell you," George answered.

  "Why you lock the door?"

  From Dalrymple's palpable fear George watched escape a reluctant andfascinated curiosity.

  "No more of that strong-arm stuff with me----"

  "I locked the door," George answered, "so that I could point out to you,quite undisturbed, just why you are going to leave Sylvia Planteralone."

  Dalrymple relaxed. He commenced incredulously and nervously to laugh,but in his eyes, which followed George, the fear and the curiosityincreased.

  "What the devil are you talking about? Have you gone out of your head?"

  George smiled confidently.

  "It's an invariable rule, unless you have the strength to handle them,to give insane people their way. So you'll be nice and quiet; and Imight remind you if you started a rumpus, the first questions thearoused house would ask would be, 'Why did Dolly fall off the wagon, andwhere did he get the edge?'"

  He drew a chair close to Dalrymple and sat down. The other lay back,continuing to stare at him, quite unable to project the impression heundoubtedly sought of contemptuous amusement.

  "We've waited a long time for this little chat," George said, quietly."Sometimes I've hoped it wouldn't be necessary. Of course, sooner orlater, it had to be."

  His manner disclosed little of his anxiety, nothing whatever of hisdetermination, through Dalrymple's weakness, to save Sylvia and himself,but his will had never been stronger.

  "You may as well understand," he said, "that you shan't leave this roomuntil you've agreed to give up any idea of this preposterous marriageyou pretend to have arranged. Perhaps you have. That makes nodifference. I'm quite satisfied its disarranging will break no hearts."

  Dalrymple had a little controlled himself. George's brusque campaign hadsteadied him, had hastened a reaction that gave to his eyes an unhealthyand furtive look. He tried to grin.

  "You must think you're God Almighty----"

  "Let's get to business," George interrupted. "I once told you that whatyou borrow you have to pay back in one way or another. This is where wesettle, and I've outlined the terms."

  Dalrymple whistled.

  "You complete rotter! You mean to blackmail--because you know I haven'tgot your filthy money, and can't raise it in a minute."

  "Never mind that," George snapped. "Your opinion of what I'm doingdoesn't interest me. I've thought it out. I know quite thoroughly whatI'm about."

  He did, and he was not without distaste for his methods, nor withoutrealization that they might hurt him most of all with the very personthey were designed to serve; yet he couldn't hesitate, because no otherway offered.

  "You're going to pay my notes, but not with money."

  Dalrymple's grin exploded into a harsh sound resembling laughter.

  "Are you--jealous? Do you fancy Sylvia would be affected by anythingyou'd do or say? See here! Good God! Are you mad enough to look at her?That's funny! That's a scream!"

  There was, however, no conviction behind the pretended amazement andcontempt; and George suspected that Dalrymple had all along sounded hischief ambition; had, in fact, made his secretive announcement just now,because, his judgment drugged, he had desired to call a rival'sattention to his triumphant posture on the steps of attainment.

  "I've no intention of discussing causes," George answered, evenly, "butI do imagine the entire family would be noticeably affected by mystory."

  "Which you couldn't tell," Dalrymple cried. "Which you couldn't possiblytell."

  "Which I don't think I shall have to tell," George said with a smile."Look at your position, Dalrymple. If you borrow money on the strengthof this approaching marriage you announce its chief purpose quitedistinctly. I fancy Old Planter, ill as he is, would want to take a clubto you. You've always wished, haven't you, to keep your borrowings fromLambert? You can't do it if you persist in involving the Planters inyour extravagances. And remember you gave me a pretty thorough list ofyour debtors--not reading for women, but Lambert would understand, andmake its meaning clear. Then let us go back to that afternoon in myoffice, when you tried to say unspeakable things----"

  Impulsively Dalrymple bared his teeth.

  "Got you there, Morton! I told Lambert it was you who had beenimpertinent----"

  All at once George felt better and cleaner. He whistled.

  "When I let you off then I never dreamed you'd try to back that lie up."

  "Will they believe me," the other asked, "or you, who come from Godknows what; God knows where?"

  "Fortunately," George said, "Lambert and his sister share that supernalknowledge. They'll believe me."

  He stood up.

  "That's all. You know what to expect. Just one thing more."

  He spoke softly, without any apparent passion, but he displayed beforethe man in the chair his two hands.

  "If necessary I'd stop you marrying Sylvia Planter with those."

  Dalrymple got to his feet, struggled to assume a cloak of bravado.

  "Won't put up with such threats. Actionable----"

  "Give me your decision," George said, harshly. "Will you keep away fromher? If there is really an understanding, will you so arrange thingsthat she can destroy it immediately? Come. Yes or no?"

  "Give me that key."

  George shrugged his shoulders.

  "I needn't trouble you."

  He walked swiftly to the door, unlocked it, and drew it invitingly wide;but now that the way was clear Dalrymple hesitated. Again Georgeshrugged his shoulders and stepped to the hall. Dalrymple, abruptlyactive, ran after him, grasping at his arm.

  "Where you going?" he whispered.

  "To Lambert's room."

  "Not to-night," the other begged. "I don't admit you could make any realtrouble, but I want to spare Sylvia any possible unpleasantness. Well!Don't you, too? You lost your temper. Maybe I did mine. Give us both achance to think it over. Now see here, Morton, I won't ask you anotherfavour, and I'll do nothing in the meantime. I couldn't very well. Imean, status quo, and all that----"

  "Lambert, to-morrow," George said, "is going away for more than amonth."

  "But you could always get hold of him, at a pinch," Dalrymple urged."Heaven knows I'm not likely to talk to Sylvia about what you've said.Let us both think it over until Lambert comes back."

  George sighed, experiencing a glow of victory. The other's eagernessconfessed at last an accurate measure of the power of his ammunition;and George didn't want to go to the Planters on such an errand as longas any other means existed. The more Dalrymple thought, the morethoroughly he must realize George had him. From the first George hadmanoeuvred to avoid the necessity of shocking habits of thought andaction that were inborn in the Planters, so he gladly agreed.

  "Meantime, you'll keep away from her?"

  "Just as far as possible," Dalrymple answered. "You'll be able to seethat for yourself."

  "Then," George said, "you arrange to get yourself out of the way as soonas Lambert and Betty return. Meantime, if you go back on your word, I'llget hold of Lambert."

  Dalrymple leant against the wall, morosely angry, restless, discouraged.

  "I'll admit you could make some unpleasantness all around," he said,moistening his lips. "I wish I'd never touched your dirty money----"

  George stepped into his room and closed the door.

  VII

  The awakening of the house to its most momentous day aroused Georgeearly, hurried him from his bed, sent him downstairs in a depressed,self-censorious mood, as if he and not Dalrymple had finished thecaraffe. That necessary battle behind a locked door continued to fillhis mind like the memory of a vivid and revolting nightmare. He fledfrom the increasing turmoil of an exceptional agitation, but he couldnot escape his own evil temper. Even the flowering lanes where Goodhueand he had run so frequently during their undergraduate days mocked hislimping steps, his heavy
cane; seemed asking him what there was incommon between that eager youth and the man who had come back to share adefinite farewell with Betty; to stand, stripped of his veneer, againsta wall to avoid a more difficult parting from Sylvia. There was onething: the determination of the boy lived in the man, become greater,more headstrong, more relentless.

  He paused and, chin in hand, rested against a gate. What about Wandel,who had admired the original George Morton? Would he approve of histhreats to Dalrymple, of his probable course with the Planters? If hewere consistent he would have to; yet people were so seldom consistent.It was even likely that George's repetition of Dalrymple's shockinginsults would be frowned upon more blackly than the original,unforgiveable wrong. George straightened and walked back toward thehouse. It made no difference what people thought. He was George Morton.Even at the cost of his own future he would keep Sylvia from joining herlife to Dalrymple's, and certainly Lambert could be made to understandwhy that had to be.

  The warm sun cheered him a little. Dalrymple was scared. He wouldn'tmake George take any further steps. It was going to be all right. Butwhy didn't women see through Dalrymple, or rather why didn't he morethoroughly give himself away to them? Because, George decided, guardedwomen from their little windows failed to see the real world.

  Dalrymple obsessed him even when, after luncheon, he sat with Lambertupstairs, discussing business chiefly. He wanted to burst out with:

  "Why don't you wake up? How can you approve of this intimacy betweenyour sister and a man like that?"

  He didn't believe the other knew that intimacy had progressed; and whenLambert spoke of Dalrymple, calling attention again to his apparentreformation, George cleansed his mind a trifle, placing, as it were, thefoundation for a possible announcement of a more active enmity.

  "Don't see why you admire anything he does, Lambert. It isn'tparticularly pleasant for me to have you, for I've been watching him,and I've quite made up my mind. You asked me when I first got home if Iwouldn't meet him halfway. I don't fancy he'd ever start in mydirection, but if he did I wouldn't meet him. Sorry. That's definite. Imust use my own judgment even where it clashes with your admirations."

  Lambert stared at him.

  "You'll never cease being headstrong," he said. "It's rather safer tohave any man for a friend."

  George had an uncomfortable sense of having received a warning, butBlodgett blundered in just then with news from the feminine side of thehouse.

  "Some people downstairs already, and I've just had word--from one ofthose little angels that talk like the devil--that Betty's got all herwar-paint on."

  "You have the ring?" Lambert asked George.

  George laughed.

  "Yes, I have the ring, and I shan't lose it, or drop it; and I'll keepyou out of people's way, and tell you what to answer, and see generallyyou don't make an idiot of yourself. Josiah, if he faints, help me pickhim up."

  Blodgett's gardenia bobbed.

  "Weddings make Josiah feel old. Say, George, you're no spring chickenyourself. I know lots of little girls who cry their eyes out for you."

  "Shut up," George said. "How about a reconnaissance, Lambert?"

  But they were summoned then, and crept down a side staircase, and heardmusic, and found themselves involved in Betty's great moment.

  At first George could only think of Betty as she had stood long ago inthe doorway of Bailly's study, and it was difficult to find in thiswhite-clothed, veiled, and stately woman the girl he had seen first ofall that night. This, after a fashion, was his last glimpse of her. Sheappeared to share that conception, for she carried to the improvisedaltar in the drawing-room an air of facing far places, divided byboundaries she couldn't possibly define from all that she had everknown. After the ceremony she smiled wonderingly at George while sheabsorbed the vapid and pattered remarks of, perhaps, a hundred oldfriends of the family. George, who knew most of them, resented theirsympathy and curiosity.

  "If they don't stop asking me about the war," he whispered to Blodgettduring a lull, "I'm going to call for help."

  Some, however, managed to interest him with remarks about the rebirth offootball. Green had been at Princeton all along, Stringham was comingback in the fall, and there were brilliant team prospects. Would Georgebe able to help with the coaching? He indicated his injured leg. Hehadn't the time, anyway. He was going to stick closer than ever to WallStreet. He fancied that Sylvia, who stood near him, resented the livelyinterest of these people. She spoke to him only when she couldn'tpossibly avoid it, glancing, George noticed, at Dalrymple who ratherpointedly kept away from her. So far so good. Then Dalrymple did realizeGeorge would have his way. George looked at Sylvia, thinkingwhimsically:

  "I shan't let anybody put you where you wouldn't bother to hate me anymore."

  He spoke to her aloud.

  "I believe we're to have a bite to eat."

  She followed him reluctantly, and during the supper yielded of herselfnothing whatever to him, chatting by preference with any one convenient,even with Blodgett whom she had treated so shabbily. Very early she leftthe room with Betty and Mrs. Alston, and George experienced a strongdesire to escape also, to flee anywhere away from this house and thebitter dissatisfactions he had found within its familiar walls. He sawMrs. Bailly and took her hand.

  "I want to go home with you and Squibs to-night."

  Mrs. Bailly smiled her gratitude, but as he was about to move away shestopped him with a curiosity he had not expected from her.

  "Isn't Sylvia Planter beautiful? Why do you suppose she doesn't marry?"

  George laughed shortly, shook his head, and hurried upstairs toLambert's room; yet Mrs. Bailly had increased his uneasiness. Perhaps itwas the too-frequent repetition of that question that had made Sylviaturn temporarily to Blodgett; that was, possibly, focussing her eyes onDalrymple now; yet why, from such a field, did she choose these men?What was one to make of her mind and its unexpected reactions? Thematter of marriage was, not unnaturally, in the air here. Lambert facedhim with it.

  "Josiah's right. When are you going to make a home, Apollo Morton?"

  George turned on him angrily, not bothering to choose his words.

  "Such a question from you is ridiculous. You've not forgotten the darkages either."

  Lambert looked at him for a moment affectionately, not without sympathy.

  "Don't be an ass, George."

  George's laughter was impatient.

  "Don't forget, Lambert, your old friends, Corporal Sol Roseberg, andBugler Ignatius Chronos. No men better! Chairs at the club! Legs underthe table at Oakmont----"

  Lambert put his hands on George's shoulders.

  "It isn't that at all. You know it very well."

  "What is it then?" George asked, sharply.

  "Don't pretend ignorance," Lambert answered, "and it must be your ownfault. Whose else could it possibly be? And I'm sorry, have been foryears."

  "It isn't my fault," George said. "The situation exists. I'm glad yourecognize it. You'll understand it's a subject I can't let you jokeabout."

  "All right," Lambert said, "but I wonder why you're always asking fortrouble."

  VIII

  Betty had plenty of colour to-night. As she passed George, her head bentagainst the confetti, he managed to touch her hand, felt a quickresponsive pressure, heard her say:

  "Good-bye, George."

  The whispered farewell was like a curtain, too heavy ever to be liftedagain, abruptly let down between two fond people.

  IX

  Unexpectedly the companionships of the little house in Dickinson Streetfailed to lighten George's discontented humour. Mrs. Bailly's questionlingered in his mind, coupling itself there with her disappointment thathe, instead of Lambert, hadn't married Betty; and, when she retired, thetutor went back to his unwelcome demands of the day before. Hadn'tGeorge made anything of his great experience? Was it possible it hadleft him quite unchanged? What were his immediate plans, anyway?

  "You may as well understand, sir," Geo
rge broke in, impatiently, "that Iam going to stay right in Wall Street and make as much money and get asmuch power as I can."

  "Why? In the name of heaven, why?" Bailly asked, irritably. "You arealready a very rich man. You've dug for treasure and found it, but canyou tell me you've kept your hands clean? Money is merely aconception--a false one. Capitalism will pass from the world."

  George grunted.

  "With the last two surviving human beings."

  "Mockery won't keep you blind always," Bailly said, "to the strivings ofmen in the mines and the factories----"

  "And in the Senate and the House," George jeered, "and in Russia andGermany, and in little, ambitious corners. If you're against the Leagueof Nations it's because, like all those people, you're willing Romeshould burn as long as personal causes can be fostered and selfishschemes forwarded. No agitator, naturally, wants the suffering worldgiven a sedative----"

  Bailly smiled.

  "Even if you're wrong-headed, I'm glad to hear you talk that way. Atlast you're thinking of humanity."

  "I'm thinking of myself," George snapped.

  Bailly shook his head.

  "I believe you're talking from your heart."

  "I'm talking from a smashed leg," George cried, "and I'm sleepy andtired and cross, and I guess I'd better go to bed."

  "It all runs back to the beginning," Bailly said in a discouraged voice."I'm afraid you'll never learn the meaning of service."

  George sprang up, wincing. Bailly's wrinkled face softened; his youngeyes filled with sympathy.

  "Does that wound still bother you, George?"

  "Yes, sir," George answered, softly. "I guess it bothers as much as itever did."

  X

  One virtue of the restlessness of which Bailly had reminded him was itspower to swing George's mind for a time from his unpleasantunderstanding with Dalrymple. It had got even into Blodgett's blood.

  "About the honestest man I can think of these days," he complained toGeorge one morning, "is the operator of a crooked racing stable. All thecards are marked. All the dice are loaded. If they didn't have to let usin on some of the tricks, we'd go bust, George, my boy."

  "You mean we're crooked, too?" George asked.

  "Only by infection," Blodgett defended himself, "but honest, George, I'dsell out if I could. I'm disgusted."

  George couldn't hide a smile.

  "In the old days when you were coming up, you never did anything theleast bit out of line yourself?"

  Blodgett mopped his face with one of his brilliant handkerchiefs. Hiseyes twinkled.

  "I've been shrewd at times, George, but isn't that legitimate? I mayhave made some crowds pretty sick by cutting under them, but that'sbusiness. I won't say I haven't played some cute little tricks withstocks, but that's finesse, and the other fellow had the same chance.I'm not aware that I ever busted a bank, or held a loaded gun to a man'shead and asked him to hand over his clothes as well as his cash. That'sthe spirit we're up against now. That's why Papa Blodgett advisesselling out those mill stocks we kept big blocks of at the time of thearmistice."

  "They're making money," George said.

  Blodgett tapped a file of reports.

  "Have you read the opinions of the directors?"

  "Yes," George answered, "and at a pinch they might have to go intocooperation, but they'd still pay some dividends."

  Blodgett puffed out his cheeks.

  "You're sure the unions would want a share in the business?"

  "Why not?" George asked. "Isn't that practical communism?"

  "Hay! Here's a fellow believes there's something practical in the worldnowadays! Sell out, son."

  "Then who would run our mills?"

  "Maybe some philanthropist with more money than brains."

  "You mean," George asked, "that our products, unless conditions improve,will disappear from the world, because no one will be able to afford tomanufacture them?"

  Blodgett pursed his lips. George stared from the window at the forest ofbuildings which impressed him, indeed, as giant tree trunks from whichall the foliage had been stripped. Had there been awakened in the worldan illiberal individuality with the power to fell them every one, and toturn up the system out of which they had sprung as from a rich soil? Wasthat what he had helped fight the war for?

  "You're talking about the dark ages," he said, feeling the necessity offaith and stability. "Sell your stocks if you want, I choose to keepmine."

  Blodgett yawned.

  "We'll go down together, George. I won't jump from a sinking ship aslong as you cling to the bridge."

  "The ship isn't sinking," George cried. "It's too buoyant."

  XI

  Wandel and Goodhue came home, suffering from this universalrestlessness.

  "Ah, _mon_ brave!" Wandel greeted George. "_Mon vieux Georges, grand etincomparable!_ So the country's dry! Jewels are cheaper than beefsteaks!Congress is building spite fences! None the less, I'm glad to be home."

  "Glad enough to have you," George said. "I'm not sure we won't go backto our bargain pretty soon. I'm about ready for a pet politician."

  "Let me get clean," Wandel laughed. "You must have a lot of money."

  "I can control enough," George said, confidently.

  "_Bon!_ But don't send me to Washington at first. I don't want to put onskirts, use snuff, or practise gossiping."

  For a time he refused to apply himself to anything that didn't lead topleasure. Goodhue went at once to Rhode Island for a visit with hisfather and mother, while Wandel flitted from place to place, from houseto house, as if driven by his restlessness to the play he had abandonedduring five years. Once or twice George caught him with Rogers in town,and bluntly asked him why.

  "An eye to the future, my dear George. Are you the most forgetful ofclass presidents? Perfect henchman type. When one goes into politics onemust have henchmen."

  But George had an unwelcome feeling that Rogers, eyes always open, wastaking advantage, in his small way, of the world's unsettled condition.People were inclined to laugh at him, but they treated him well forWandel's sake.

  "Still in the bond business," he explained to George. "It isn't what itwas befo' de war. I'm thinking of taking up oil stocks and corners inheaven, although I doubt if there are as many suckers as fell for P. T.B. Trouble nowadays is that the simplest of them are too busy trying tofind somebody just a little simpler to sting. Darned if they don'tusually hook one. Still bum securities are a great weakness with mostpeople. Promise a man a hundred per cent. and he'll complain it isn't ahundred and fifty."

  George reflected that Rogers was bound for disillusionment, then hewasn't so sure, for America seemed more than ever friendly to thatbrisk, insincere, back-bending type. Out of the sea of money formed bythe war examples sprang up on nearly every side, scarcely troubled byracial, religious, or educational handicaps; loudly convinced that theycould buy with money all at once every object of matter or spirit thecenturies had painstakingly evolved. One night in the crowds of thetheatre district, when with Wandel he had watched the hystericalcompetition for tickets, cabs, and tables in restaurants where theprices of indigestion had soared nearly beyond belief, he burst outangrily:

  "The world is mad, Driggs. I wouldn't be surprised to hear these peoplecry for golden gondolas to float them home on rivers of money. Stark,raving mad, Driggs! The world's out of its head!"

  Wandel smiled, twirling his cane.

  "Just found it out, great man? Always has been; always will be--chronic!This happens to be a violent stage."

  XII

  It was Wandel, indeed, who drew George from his preoccupation, andreminded him that another world existed as yet scarcely more thanthreatened by the driving universal invaders. George had looked in athis apartment one night when Wandel was just back from a northernweek-end.

  "Saw Sylvia. You know, George, she's turning back the years and prancinglike a debutante."

  George sat down, uneasy, wondering what the other's unpreparedannouncement was desi
gned to convey.

  "I'll lay you what you want," Wandel went on, lighting a cigar, "thatshe forgets the Blodgett fiasco, and marries before snow falls."

  Had it been designed as a warning? George studied Wandel, trying to readhis expression, but the light was restricted by heavy, valuable, andsmothering shades; and Wandel sat at some distance from the nearest,close to a window to catch what breezes stole through. Confound the man!What was he after? He hadn't mentioned Sylvia that self-revealing day inFrance; but George had guessed then that he must have known of hispersistent ambition, and had wondered why his unexpectedcommunicativeness hadn't included it. At least a lack of curiosity nowwas valueless, so George said:

  "Who's the man?"

  "I don't suggest a name," Wandel drawled. "I merely call attention to apossibility. Perhaps discussing the charming lady at all we're a trifleout of bounds; but we've known the Planters many years; years enough towonder why Sylvia hasn't been caught before, why Blodgett failed at thelast minute."

  George stirred impatiently.

  "It was inevitable he should. I once disliked Josiah, but that wasbecause I was too young to see quite straight. Just the same, he wasn'tup to her. Most of all, he was too old."

  "I daresay. I daresay," Wandel said. "So much for jolly Josiah. But theothers? It isn't exaggeration to suggest that she might have had aboutany man in this country or England. She hasn't had. She's still theloveliest thing about, and how many years since she wasintroduced--many, many, isn't it, George?"

  "What odds?" George muttered. "She's still young."

  He felt self-conscious and warm. Was Wandel trying to make him say toomuch?

  "Why do you ask me?"

  Wandel yawned.

  "Gossiping, George. Poking about in the dark. Thought you might havesome light."

  "How should I have?" George demanded.

  "Because," Wandel drawled, "you're the greatest and most penetrating ofmen."

  George's discomfort grew. He tried to turn Wandel's attack.

  "How does it happen you've never entered the ring?"

  Wandel laughed quietly.

  "I did, during my school days. She was quite splendid about it. I mean,she said very splendidly that she couldn't abide little men; but anytime since I'd have fallen cheerfully at her feet if I'd ever become abig man, a great man, like you."

  Before he had weighed those words, unquestionably pointed andsignificant, George had let slip an impulsive question.

  "Can you picture her fancying a figure like Dalrymple?"

  He was sorry as soon as it was out. Anxiously he watched Wandel throughthe dusk of the room. The little man spoke with a troubled hesitation,as if for once he wasn't quite sure what he ought to reply.

  "You acknowledged a moment ago that you had failed to see Josiahstraight. Hasn't your view of Dolly always been from a prejudicedangle?"

  "I've always disliked him," George said, frankly. "He's given me reasonsenough. You know some of them."

  "I know," Wandel drawled, "that he isn't what even Sylvia would call alittle man, and he has the faculty of making himself exceptionallypleasant to the ladies."

  "Yet he couldn't marry any one of mine," George said under his breath."If I had a sister, I mean, I'd somehow stop him."

  Wandel laughed on a sharp note, caught himself, went on with an amusedtone:

  "Forgive me, George. Somewhere in your pockets you carry the PilgrimFathers. Most men are shaggy birds of evil habit, while most young womenare delicately feathered nestlings, and quite helpless; yet the two mustmate. Dolly, by the way, drains a pitcher of water every time he sees aviolation of prohibition."

  "He drinks in sly places," George said.

  "After all," Wandel said, slowly, "why do we cling to the suggestion ofDolly? Although I fancy he does figure--somewhere in the odds."

  For a time George said nothing. He was quite convinced that Wandel hadmeant to warn him, and he had received that warning, straight and hardand painfully. During several weeks he hadn't seen Dalrymple, had beenlulled into a sense of security, perhaps through the turmoil down town;and Lambert and Betty had lingered beyond their announced month. ClearlyWandel had sounded George's chief aim, as he had once satisfied himselfof his origin; and just now had meant to say that since his return hehad witnessed enough to be convinced that Dalrymple was still afterSylvia, and with a chance of success. To George that meant thatDalrymple had broken the bargain. He felt himself drawn irresistiblyback to his narrow, absorbing pursuit.

  "You're becoming a hermit," Wandel was saying.

  "You've become a butterfly," George countered.

  "Ah," Wandel answered, "but the butterfly can touch with its wings thebeautiful Sylvia Planter, and out of its eyes can watch her debutantefrivolities. Why not come away with me Friday?"

  "Whither?"

  "To the Sinclairs."

  George got up and wandered to the door.

  "By by, Driggs. I think I might slip off Friday. I've a mind to renouncethe veil."

  XIII

  George fulfilled his resolution thoroughly. With the migratory bachelorshe ran from house to house, found Sylvia or not, and so thought theeffort worth while or not. The first time he saw her, indeed, heappreciated Wandel's wisdom, for she stood with Dalrymple at the edge ofa high lawn that looked out over the sea. Her hair in the breeze was alittle astray, her cheeks were flushed, and she bent if anything towardher companion who talked earnestly and with nervous gestures. Georgecrushed his quick impulse to go down, to step between them, to have itout with Dalrymple then and there, even in Sylvia's presence; but theystrolled back to the house almost immediately, and Sylvia lost herapparent good humour, and Dalrymple descended from satisfaction to afidgety apprehension. Sylvia met George's hand briefly.

  "You'll be here long?"

  The question expressed a wish.

  "Only until Monday. I wish it might be longer, for I'm glad to findyou--and you, Dalrymple."

  "Nobody said you were expected," Dalrymple grumbled. "Everybody said youwere working like a horse."

  George glanced at Sylvia, smiling blandly.

  "Every horse goes to grass occasionally."

  He turned back to Dalrymple.

  "I daresay you know Lambert and Betty are due back the first of theweek?"

  Sylvia nodded carelessly, and started along the verandah. Dalrymple,reddening, prepared to heel, but George beckoned him back.

  "I'd like a word with you."

  Sylvia glanced around, probably surprised at the sharp, authoritativetone.

  "Just a minute, Sylvia," Dalrymple apologized uneasily. "Littlebusiness. Hard to catch Morton. Must grasp opportunity, and all that."

  And when they were alone he went close to George eagerly.

  "No need to wait for Betty and Lambert, Morton. It's done. Dolly's gothimself thrown over----"

  "I don't believe you," George said.

  "Why not?"

  "What are you doing here?" George asked. "It was understood you shouldavoid her."

  Dalrymple's grin was sickly.

  "Way she's tearing around now I'd have exactly no place to go."

  "You seemed rather too friendly," George pointed out, "for parties to abroken engagement."

  George fancied there was something of anger in the other's face.

  "Must say I'm not flattered by that. Guess you were right. One heart'snot smashed, anyway."

  George turned on his heel. Dalrymple caught him.

  "What about those notes?"

  "I don't trust you, Dalrymple. I'll keep my eye on you yet awhile."

  "Ask Sylvia if you want," Dalrymple cried.

  George smiled.

  "I wonder if I could."

  He went to his room, trying to believe Dalrymple. Was that romancereally in the same class as the one with Blodgett? If so, why did sheinvolve herself in restive affairs with less obvious men? As best hecould he tried to find out that night when she was a little off guardbecause of some unquiet statements she had just made of Rus
sianrumours.

  "You don't mean those things," he said, "or else you've no idea whatthey mean."

  Through her quick resentment she let herself be caught in a corner, asit were. Everyone was preparing to leave the house for a dance inbenefit of some local charity. Momentarily they were left alone. Heindicated the over-luxurious and rather tasteless room.

  "You're asking for the confiscation of all this, and your own Oakmont,and every delightful setting to which you've been accustomed all yourlife. You're asking for rationed food; for a shakedown, maybe, in agarret. You're asking for a task in a kitchen or a field. Why not anegro's kitchen; a Chinaman's field?"

  He looked at her, asking gravely:

  "Do you quite understand the principles of communism as they affectwomen?"

  He fancied a heightening of her colour.

  "You of all men," she said, "ought to understand the strivings of thepeople."

  He shook his head vehemently.

  "I'm for the palace," he laughed, "and I fancy it means more to me thanit could to a man who's never used his brain. Let those stay in thehovel who haven't the courage to climb out."

  "And you're one of the people!" she murmured. "One of the people!"

  "You don't say that," he answered, quickly, "to tell me it makes meadmirable in your eyes. You say it to hurt, as you used to call me,'groom'. It doesn't inflict the least pain."

  There was no question about her flush now.

  "Tell me," he urged, "why you permit your brain such inconsistencies,why you accept such a patent fad, why you need fads at all?"

  "Why won't you leave me alone?" she asked, harshly.

  "You're always asking that," he smiled, "and you see I never do. Why areyou unlike these other women? Why did you turn to Blodgett? Why have youmade a fool of Dalrymple?"

  She stared at him.

  "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying, why don't you come to me?"

  He watched the angry challenge in her eyes, the deliberate stiffening ofher entire body as if to a defensive attitude. He held out his hand toher.

  "Sylvia! We are growing old."

  Yet in her radiant presence it was preposterous to speak of age. Shedrew away with a sort of shudder.

  "You wouldn't dare touch me again----"

  He captured her glance. He felt that from his own eyes he failed to keepthe unsatisfied desire of years.

  "I haven't forgotten Upton, either. When will you give me what I want,Sylvia?"

  Her glance eluded him. Swiftly she receded. Through the open doordrifted a growing medley of voices. She hurried to the door, but hefollowed her, and purposefully climbed into the automobile she hadentered, but they were no longer alone. Only once, when he made herdance with him in a huge, over-decorated tent, did he manage a whisper.

  "No more nonsense with Dalrymple or anybody. Please stop makingunhappiness."

  XIV

  George returned to New York with an uneasy spirit, filled with doubt asto Dalrymple's statement of renunciation, and of his own course insaying what he had of Dalrymple to Sylvia. Mightn't that very expressionof disapproval, indeed, tend to swing her back to the man? When Lambertwalked in a day or two later George looked at the happy, bronzed face,recalling his assurance that Betty wasn't one to give by halves. Througheyes clouded by such happiness Lambert couldn't be expected to see veryfar into the dangerous and avaricious discontent of the majority. Howmuch less time, then, would he have for George's personal worries?George, nevertheless, guided the conversation to Dalrymple.

  "He's running down to Oakmont with me to-night," Lambert said,carelessly. "You know Betty's there with the family for a few days."

  George hid his temper. There was no possible chance about this. WouldDalrymple go to Oakmont after the breaking off of even a secretengagement; or, defeated in his main purpose, was he hanging about forwhat crumbs might yet fall from the Planters' table. Nearly withoutreflection he burst out with:

  "It's inconceivable you should permit that man about your sister."

  Probably Lambert's great content forbade an answer equally angry.

  "Still at it! See here. Sylvia doesn't care for you."

  "I'm not talking of myself," George said. "I'm talking of Dalrymple."

  With an air of kindness, undoubtedly borrowed from Betty, Lambert saideasily:

  "Stop worrying about him, then. Giving a friend encouragement doesn'tmean asking him into the family. That idea seems to obsess you. Whatdifference does it make to you, anyway, what man Sylvia marries? I'llsay this, if you wish: Since I've had Betty I see things a bit clearer.I really shouldn't care to have Dolly the man. I don't think there's achance of it."

  "You mean," George asked, eagerly, "if there were you'd stop it?"

  "I shouldn't like it," Lambert answered. "Naturally, I'd expressmyself."

  "See here. Dalrymple isn't to be trusted. You've been too occupied. Youhaven't watched your sister. How can you tell what's in her mind? Youdidn't forecast the affair with Josiah, eh? There's only one way I canplay my game--the thorough way. If it came to a real engagement I shouldhave to say things, Lambert--things I'd hate myself for; things thatwould hurt me, perhaps, more than any one else. If necessary I shall saythem. Will you tell me, if--if----"

  Lambert smiled uneasily.

  "You're shying at phantoms, but you've always played every game to thatpoint, and perhaps you're justified. I'll come to you if circumstancesever promise to prove you right."

  "Thanks," George said, infinitely relieved; yet he had an unpleasantfeeling that Lambert had held his temper and had agreed because he wasaware of the existence of a great debt, one that he could never quitepay.

  XV

  This creation of a check on Dalrymple and the assurance that Lambertwould warn him of danger came at a useful time for George, since themarket-place more and more demanded an undisturbed mind. He concededthat Blodgett's earlier pessimism bade fair to be justified. He watcheda succession of industrial upheavals, seeking a safe course amonginnumerable and perilous shoals that seemed to defy charting; conqueringwhatever instinct he might have had to sympathize with the men, since hejudged their methods as hysterical, grabbing, and wasteful.

  "But I don't believe," he told Blodgett, "these strikes have beenordered from the Kremlin; still, other colours may quite easily combineto form red."

  "God help the employers. God help the employees," Blodgett grumbled.

  "And most of all, may God help the great public," George suggested.

  But Blodgett was preoccupied these days with an Oakmont stripped ofpassion. George knew that Old Planter had sent for him, and he foundsomething quite pitiful in that final surrender of the great man who wasnow worse off than the youngest, grimiest groveller in the furnaces; sohe was not surprised when it was announced that Blodgett would shortlymove over to the marble temple, a partner at last with individuality andinitiative, one, in fact, who would control everything for Old Planterand his heirs until Lambert should be older. Lambert was sufficientlyunhappy over the change, because it painted so clearly the inevitableend. The Fifth Avenue house was opened early that fall as if the oldman desired to get as close as possible to the centre of turbulentevents, hoping that so his waning sight might serve.

  Consequently George had more opportunities of meeting Sylvia; did meether from time to time in the evenings, and watched her gaiety whichfrequently impressed him as a too noticeably moulded posture. It served,nevertheless, admirably with the men of all ages who flocked about heras if, indeed, she were a debutante once more.

  In these groups George was glad not to see Dalrymple often, but henoticed that Goodhue was near rather more than he had been formerly, andhe experienced a sharp uneasiness, an instinct to go to Goodhue and say:

  "Don't. Keep away. She's caused enough unhappiness."

  Still you couldn't tell about Goodhue. The very fact that he flutterednear Sylvia might indicate that his real interest lay carefullyconcealed, some distance away. He had, moreover, always stood singular
lyaside from the pursuit of the feminine.

  George's first meeting with Betty since her return was coloured by afrank acceptance on her part of new conditions that revived his sense ofa sombre and helpless nostalgia. All was well with Betty. If there hadever been any doubt in her Lambert had swept it away. Whatever emotionshe experienced for George was, in fact, that of a fond sister for abrother; and George, studying her and Lambert, longed as he had neverdone to find some such eager and confident content. The propulsion ofpure ambition slipped from his desire for Sylvia. With a growing wonderhe found himself craving through her just the satisfied simplicity soclearly experienced by Lambert and Betty. Could anything make herbrilliancy less hard, less headstrong, less cruel?

  George cast about for the means. Lambert was on watch. There was stilltime--plenty of time.

  He hadn't spoken again to Lambert about Dalrymple. There hadn't seemedany point, for Lambert was entirely trustworthy, and, since Betty and helived for the present in the Fifth Avenue house, he saw Sylviaconstantly. Their conversation instead when they met for luncheon, asthey did frequently, revolved about threats which a few years back theyhadn't dreamed would ever face them. Blodgett, George noticed, didn'tpoint the finger of scorn at him for holding on to the mill stocks.George wouldn't have minded if he had. They had originally cost himlittle, their total loss would not materially affect his fortune, and hewas glad through them to have a personal share in the irritating andabsorbing evolution in the mills. He heard of Allen frequently as afiery and fairly successful organizer of trouble, and he sent for himwhen he thought the situation warranted it. Allen came readily enough,walking into the office, shorn of his London frills, but evidentlyretentive of the habit of keeping neat and clean. The eyes, too, hadaltered, but not obviously, letting through, perhaps, a certaindisillusionment.

  "What are you doing to my mills?" George wanted to know.

  Allen, surprisingly, didn't once lose his temper, listening to George'scomplaints without change of expression while he wandered about, hiseyes taking in each detail of the richly furnished office.

  "The directors report that the men have refused to enter into a fair andabove-board cooperative arrangement, and we've figured all along it wasturning the business over to them; taking money out of our own pockets.It's a form of communism, and they throw it down. Why, Allen? I wantthis straight."

  Allen paused in his walk, and looked closely at George. There was nochange in his face even when he commenced to speak.

  "A share in a business," he said, softly, "carries uncomfortableresponsibilities. You can't go to yourself, for instance, and say: 'Giveme more wages--more than the traffic will bear; then you sweat about itin your office, but don't bother me in my cottage.'"

  "You acknowledge it!" George cried.

  Allen's face at last became a trifle animated.

  "Why not--to you? Everybody's out to get it--the butcher, the baker, thecandlestick maker. The capitalist most of all. Why not the man thatturns the wheels?"

  George whistled.

  "You'd crush essential industries off the face of the earth! You'd goback to the stone age!"

  "Not," Allen answered, slowly, "as long as the profits of the past canbe got out of somebody's pockets."

  "You'd grab capital!"

  "Like a flash; and what are you going to do about it?"

  "I'll tell you what I am going to do," George answered, "and I fancy alot of others will follow my example. I am going to get rid of thosestocks if I have to throw them out of the window, then you'll have nogun to hold at my head."

  "Throw too much away," Allen warned, "and you'll throw it all."

  "The beautiful, pure social revolution!" George sneered. "You're lesshonest than you were when you dropped everything to go to London for me.What's the matter with you, Allen?"

  Allen appraised again the comfortable room. Even now his expressiondidn't alter materially.

  "Nothing. I don't know. Unless the universal spirit of grab has got inmy own veins."

  "Then, my friend," George said, pleasantly, "there's the door."

  XVI

  George found himself thinking and talking of Allen's views quite enoughto please even Bailly. Blodgett, on the other hand, perhaps because ofthe heavy, settled atmosphere of the marble temple, had changed histune.

  "Things are bound to come right in the end."

  As far as George was concerned he might as well have said:

  "This marble surrounding me is so many feet thick. Who do you think isgoing to interfere with that?"

  Something of quite a different nature bothered Lambert, and for a fewdays George thought it a not unnatural resentment at seeing Blodgett inhis father's office, but Lambert took pains to awaken him to the truth,walking in one afternoon a few weeks after the Planters' move to town.He had an uncertain and discontented appearance.

  "By the way, George," he said not without difficulty, "Dolly's about agood deal."

  It was quite certain Lambert hadn't come to announce only that, soGeorge shrank from his next words, confident that something definitemust have happened. He controlled his anxiety with the thought thatLambert had, indeed, come to him, and that Dalrymple couldn't permit theannouncement of an engagement without meeting the fulfilment of George'spenalties.

  "It's been on my mind for the past week," Lambert went on. "I mean, hehasn't been seeing her much in public, but he's been hanging around thehouse, and last night I spoke to Sylvia about it, told her I didn'tthink father would want him any more than I did, pointed out hisfinancial record, and said I had gathered he owed you no small sum----"

  "You blind idiot!" George cried. "Why did you have to say that? How didyou even guess it? I've never opened my mouth."

  "He'd milked everybody else dry," Lambert answered, "and Driggsmentioned a long time ago you'd had a curiously generous notion you'dlike to help Dolly if he ever needed it."

  "It wasn't generosity," George said, dryly. "Go ahead. Did you make anymore blunders?"

  "You're scarcely one to accuse," Lambert answered. "You put me up to itin the first place, although I'll admit now, I'd have spoken anyway. Idon't want Sylvia marrying him. I don't want him down town as more thana salaried man, unless he changes more than he has. I didn't feel evenlast night that Sylvia really loved him, but I made her furious, andyou're right. I shouldn't have said that. I daresay she guessed, too, itwasn't all generosity that had led you to pay Dolly's debts. Anyway, shewouldn't talk reasonably, said she'd marry any one she pleased--oh,quite the young lady who sent me after you with a horse whip, and Idaresay she'd have been glad to do it again last night. I spoke toMother. She said Sylvia hadn't said anything to her, but she added, ifSylvia wanted him, she wouldn't oppose her. Naturally she wouldn't,seeing only Dolly's good points, which are regularly displayed for thebenefit of the ladies. Anyway, I agreed to tell you, and you promised,if it came to the point, you'd have some things to say to me----"

  George nodded shortly.

  "Yes, but I blame you for forcing me to say them. You've thrown themtogether----"

  "I've always wanted to help Dolly as you would any old friend who hadwandered a little to the side, and was anxious to get back on the path.I can't figure every man that comes about the place as a suitor forSylvia. Let's forget all that. What are these important and unpleasantthings you have to tell me? I daresay you know where the money youloaned Dolly went."

  George pressed his lips tight. He frowned. Even now he hesitated to soilhis hands, to divide himself, perhaps, permanently from Sylvia at thevery moment of saving her; and he wasn't quite sure, in view of herpride and her quick temper, that his very effort wouldn't defeat its ownpurpose. If only Lambert hadn't made that worst of all possibleblunders. He wondered how a man felt on the rack. He bent swiftly andpicked up the telephone.

  "I shall talk with Dalrymple first," he said. "I'm going to ask him tocome over here at once. I think he'll come."

  But Lambert shook his head, stopped him before he could take thereceiver from the hook
.

  "Isn't in the office. Hasn't been back since luncheon. Left no wordthen."

  "Perhaps since you've come away----" George hazarded.

  He telephoned, while Lambert wandered about the room, or paused to slipthrough his fingers the tape that emerged like a long and listlessserpent from the now silent ticker. After a question or two Georgereplaced the receiver and glanced at Lambert.

  "You're right. Sticks to the job, doesn't he?"

  "He isn't exactly an ordinary clerk," Lambert offered.

  George walked to a window. For a long time he gazed over the lower city,turned singularly unreal by the early dusk, while it outlined itselflittle by little in yellow points of light which gave to the clouds andthe circling columns of steam a mauve quality as if the world, insteadof night, faced the birth of a dawn, new, abnormal, frightening.

  He had to make one more effort with Dalrymple before sending Lambert toSylvia with his reasons why she shouldn't marry the man. In thesingular, unreal light he glanced at his hands. He had to see Dalrympleonce more first----

  He turned and snapped on the lights.

  "What are you going to do?" Lambert asked. "There's no likely way tocatch him down town."

  A clerk tip-toed in. George swung sharply.

  "What is it, Carson?"

  "Mr. Dalrymple's outside, sir. It's so late I hesitated to bother you,but he said it was very important he should see you, sir."

  George sighed.

  "Wait outside, Carson. I'll call you in a moment."

  And when the door was closed he turned to Lambert.

  "I'm going to see him here--alone."

  "Why?" Lambert asked, uneasily. "I don't quite see what you're up to. Nomore battles of the ink pots!"

  "Please get out, Lambert; but maybe you'd better hang about the office.I think Dicky's gone for the night. Wait in his room."

  "All right," Lambert agreed.

  George opened the door, and, as Lambert went through reluctantly,beckoned the clerk.

  "Send Mr. Dalrymple in, Carson."

  He stood behind his desk, facing the open door. Almost immediately thedoorway was blocked by Dalrymple. George stared, trying to value thealteration in the man. The weak, rather handsome face was bold andcontemptuous. Clearly he had come here for blows of his own choosing,and had just now borrowed courage from some illicit bar, but he hadtaken only enough, George gathered, to make him assured and not toocalculating. He was clothed as if he had returned from an affair, with aflower in his buttonhole, and a top hat held in the hand with his stickand gloves.

  "Come in!"

  Dalrymple closed the door and advanced, smiling.

  Not for a moment did George's glance leave the other. He felt taut, hardto the point of brittleness.

  "It's fortunate you've come," he said, quietly. "I've just been tryingto get hold of you."

  "Oh! Then Lambert's been here!" Dalrymple answered, jauntily.

  George nodded.

  "You've been crooked, Dalrymple. Now we'll have an accounting."

  Dalrymple laughed.

  "It's what I've come for; but first I advise you to hold your temper.It's late, but there are plenty of people still outside. Any more roughstuff and you'll spend the night in a cell, or under bail."

  "If you lived nine lives," George commented, "you'd never be able tointimidate me."

  Yet the other's manner troubled, and George's doubtful curiosity grew ashe watched Dalrymple commence to draw the strings of the mask.

  Dalrymple put down his hat and cane, bent swiftly, placed the palms ofhis hands on the desk, stared at George, his face inflamed, his eyeschoked with malicious exultation.

  "Your blackmail," he cried, "is knocked into a cocked hat. I marriedSylvia half an hour ago."

  Before George's response he lost some of his colour, drew back warily;but George had no thought of attacking him; it was too late now. Thatwas why he experienced a dreadful realization of defeat, for a momentlet through a flickering impression of the need for violence, but--andDalrymple couldn't be expected to understand that--violence againstGeorge Morton who had let this situation materialize, who experienced,tumbling about his head, the magnificent but incomplete efforts of manyyears. That sensation of boundless, imponderable wreckage crushing uponhim sent him back to his chair where for a moment he sat, sunk down,stripped of his power and his will.

  And Dalrymple laughed, enjoying it.

  In George's overwhelmed brain that laughter started an awakeningclamour.

  "What difference does the money make now?" Dalrymple jibed. "And she'llbelieve nothing else you may tell her, and violence would only make alaughing stock of you. It's done."

  "How was it done?" George whispered.

  "No objections to amusing you," Dalrymple mocked. "Lambert interferedlast night, and spoiled his own game by dragging you in. By gad, she hasgot it in for you! Don't see why you ever thought----Anyway, she agreedright enough then, and I didn't need to explain it was wiser, seeing howLambert felt about it, and her father, and you, of all people, to getthe thing over without any brass bands. Had a bit of luck ducking thereporters at the license bureau. Tied the knot half an hour ago. She'sgone home to break the glad news."

  He grinned.

  "But I thought it only decent to jump the subway and tell you yourfilthy money's all right and that you can plant a tombstone on yourpound of flesh."

  He laughed again.

  In George's brain the echoes of Dalrymple's triumph reverberated moreand more intelligibly. Little by little during the recital his slumpedattitude had altered.

  "In a way! In a way! In a way!" had sung through his brain, deridinghim.

  Then, as he had listened, had flashed the question: "Is it really toolate?" And he had recalled his old determination that nothing--not eventhis--should bar the road to his pursuit. So, at the close ofDalrymple's explanation, he was straight in his chair, his handsgrasping the arms, every muscle, every nerve, stretched tight, and inhis brain, overcoming the boisterous resonance of Dalrymple's mirth,rang his old purposeful refrain: "I will! I will! I will!"

  Dalrymple had married her, but it wasn't too late yet.

  "Jealous old fellow!" Dalrymple chaffed. "No congratulations for Dolly.Blow up about your notes any time you please. I'll see they're paid."

  He took up his hat and stick.

  "Want to run along now and break the news to brother-in-law. Sure tofind him. He's a late bird."

  George stood up.

  "Wait a minute," he said, quietly. "Got to say you've put one over,Dalrymple. It was crooked, but it's done. You've settled it, haven'tyou?"

  "Glad you take it reasonably," Dalrymple laughed, turning for the door.

  "Wait a minute," George repeated.

  Dalrymple paused, apparently surprised at the tone, even and colourless.

  "Lambert's somewheres about the place," George explained. "Just stayhere, and I'll find him and send him in."

  "Good business!" Dalrymple agreed, sitting down. "Through all thesooner."

  He smiled.

  "A little anxious to get home to my wife."

  George tried to close his ears. He didn't dare look at the other. Hehurried out, closed the door, and went to Goodhue's office. At sight ofhim Lambert sprang from his chair as if startled by an unforeseen recordof catastrophe.

  "What's happened?"

  "Dalrymple's in my room," George answered without any expression. "Hewants to see you. He'll tell you all about it."

  He raised his hands, putting a stop to Lambert's alarmed questions.

  "Can't wait. Do just one thing for me. Give me half an hour. KeepDalrymple here for half an hour."

  Still Lambert cried for reasons.

  "Never mind why. You ought to interest each other for that long."

  But Lambert tried to detain him.

  "Where are you going? Why do you want me to keep him here? You look asif you'd been struck in the face! George! What goes on?"

  George turned impatiently.


  "Ask Dalrymple. Then do that one thing for me."

  He ran out of the room, picked up his hat and coat, and hastened to theelevators.

  He was caught by the high tide of the homeward rush, but his onlythought was of the quickest way, so he let himself be swept into themaelstrom of the subway and was pounded aboard a Lexington Avenueexpress. All these people struggling frantically to get somewhere! Thepleasures awaiting them at their journey's end should be colourful andcompelling; yet it was clear to him sordid discontent lurked for some,and for others unavoidable sorrows. It was beyond belief that theirself-centred haste should let creep in no knowledge of the destinationand the purpose of this companion, even more eager than themselves,intimately crushed among them.

  He managed to free his arm so he could glance at his watch, and hepeered between bobbing heads through the windows at the station signs.At Eighty-sixth Street he escaped and tore, limping, up the stairs whilepeople stared at him, or, if in his haste he had brushed unthinkinglyagainst them, called out remarks angry or sarcastic. His leg commencedto ache, but he ran across to Fifth Avenue and down it to the Planterhouse. While he waited before the huge, heavy glass and iron doors hecaught his breath, counting the seconds.

  It was Simpson who opened.

  "I'm not sure Miss Planter has returned, sir. If so, she would beupstairs. When she went out she said something about not being disturbedthis evening. Yes, sir. She left with Mr. Dalrymple less than two hoursago."

  George walked into the vast hall.

  "I must see her, Simpson, at once."

  He started toward hangings, half-drawn, through which he could see onlypartially a dimly lighted room.

  "I will tell her, sir."

  George swung.

  "But not my name, Simpson. Tell her it is a message from her brother, ofthe greatest importance."

  George held his breath.

  "What is it, Simpson?"

  The clear contralto voice steadied him. If she was alone in there hewould have a better chance than he had hoped for, and he heard no othervoice; but why should she be alone at this exciting hour in a dimlylighted room? Was it possible that she hadn't told any one yet what shehad done, had returned to the house and chosen solitude, instead, in adim light? Then why? Why?

  He dismissed Simpson with a nod and entered between the hangings.

  She was alone. She stood before a cold fireplace at the end of the roomas if she had just risen from a chair near by. She was straight andmotionless, but she projected an air of fright, as if she had beencaught at an indiscretion; and, as George advanced, he thought hercolour was too deep, and he believed she had been crying alone in thedusk of the room which was scarcely disturbed by one shaded lamp.

  He paused and stared at her--no longer Sylvia Planter--Dalrymple's wife.All at once the appearance of modelled stone left her. Her entire bodyseemed in motion, surrendered to a neurotic and undirected energy. Shestarted forward, paused, drew away. Her eyes turned from him to thedoor, then questioningly back again. She pulled at the gloves which shehad kept in her hand. Her voice, when she spoke, was unsteady:

  "What do you mean--coming in here--unannounced?"

  His eyes held her.

  "I've had enough of that," he said, harshly. "All I can think of is thevile name your husband would have called you once if I hadn't choked himhalf to death."

  For a second her eyes blazed, then her shoulders drooped, and shecovered her face with her hands. With a sharp regret it occurred to himthat he could throw the broken crop away, for at last he had struckher--hard enough to hurt.

  Her voice from behind her hands was uncertain and muffled.

  "Who told you?"

  "He did--naturally, that--that----"

  He broke off, choking.

  "By God, Sylvia! It isn't too late. You've got to understand that. Now.This minute. I tell you it isn't too late."

  She lowered her hands. Her fear was sufficiently visible. Her attempt ata laugh was pitiful, resembled an escaping grief.

  "Leave me alone. You have to leave me alone now."

  Her brutal definition of the great wall suddenly raised between themswept his mind clean of everything except her lips, her beauty,cloistered with his interminable desire in this dim room.

  He stumbled blindly forward to his final chance. With a great,unthinking, enveloping gesture he flung his arms about her drew her soclose to his body that she couldn't resist; and, before she had time tocry out, pressed his mouth at last against her lips.

  He saw her eyes close, guessed that she didn't attempt to struggle,experienced an intoxicating fancy she was content to have him fulfillhis boast. He didn't try to measure the enormity of his action. Oncemore he was the George Morton who could plunge ahead, casting asideacquired judgments. Then he felt her shudder. She got her lips away. Shetried to lift her hands. He heard her whisper:

  "Let me go."

  He stared, fascinated, at her lips, half parted, that had just now toldhim he had never really wanted anybody else, never could have.

  "Sylvia! Forgive me. I didn't know. I've loved you--always; I've neverdreamed how much. And I can't let you go."

  He tried to find her lips again, but she fought, and he commenced toremember. From a point behind his back something held her incredulousattention. He turned quickly. Dalrymple stood between the hangings.

  XVII

  George experienced no fear, no impulse to release Sylvia. He wasconscious merely of a sharp distaste that it should have turned out so,and a feeling of anger that Lambert was responsible through his failureto grant his request; but Lambert might have been shocked toforgetfulness by Dalrymple's announcement, or he might have had toosharp a doubt of George's intentions. Sylvia had become motionless, asif impressed by the futility of effort. In a moment would she cry out toDalrymple just what he had done? He waited for her charge, herjustification, while he continued to stare at Dalrymple's angry andunbelieving face which the gay flower in his button hole had an air ofmocking. Dalrymple started forward.

  "You see that, Lambert----"

  Lambert, who must have been standing close behind him, walked into theroom, as amazed as Dalrymple, nearly as shocked.

  "Sylvia!"

  George let Sylvia go. She sat down in the chair by the fireplace andlooked straight ahead, her lips still half parted. Dalrymple hurried thelength of the room and paused in front of her.

  "Be careful what you say, Dalrymple," George warned him.

  Dalrymple burst out:

  "You'll not tell me what to say. What's this mean, Sylvia? Speak up,or----"

  "Easy, Dolly," Lambert advised.

  George waited. Sylvia did not cry out. He relaxed, hearing her sayuncertainly:

  "I don't know. I'm sorry. I----"

  She paused, looked down, commenced pulling at her gloves again with theself-absorbed gestures of a somnambulist. George's heart leapt. She hadnot accused him, had really said nothing, from her attitude wouldn'tjust yet. Dalrymple swung furiously on Lambert.

  "God! Am I to believe my eyes? Pretends to despise him, and I find herin his arms!"

  Sylvia glanced up once then, her face crimson, her lips trembling, thenshe resumed her blank scrutiny of her gloves at which she still pulled.George stepped swiftly forward, fancying Dalrymple was going to threatenher with his hands.

  "Why don't you talk up?" Dalrymple cried. "What you got to say? Don'tsee there's much? Never would have dreamed it of you. What a scandal!"

  "Morton," Lambert said with a leashed fury in his quiet voice, "no onebut you could have done this. Leave us alone now to see what we can makeof it."

  George laughed shortly.

  "All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't budge me justyet. And I'll tell you what we'll make of it. Just what she wishes."

  "Keep your mouth shut," Dalrymple said, shrilly. "You won't go. We'llgo. Sylvia! Come with me. We'll talk it out alone."

  She shrank back in her chair, grasped its arms, looked up startled,shaking her head.

/>   "I can't go anywhere with you, Dolly," she said in a wondering voice.

  "What you mean? You came to church right enough with me this afternoon.Don't you forget that."

  She nodded.

  "It was wrong of me," she whispered. "I lost my temper. I didn't know atall----"

  "How did you find out?" Dalrymple sneered. "From him? But you're mywife. Come away with me----"

  She stood up swiftly, facing him.

  "You shan't say such things to me, and I am not coming with you. I don'tknow what's going to happen, but that--I know----"

  She turned helplessly to Lambert.

  "Make him understand."

  Lambert took her hand and led her to the door.

  "Go to Betty," he said.

  "But make him understand," she pled.

  "Why did you marry him if you didn't love him?" Lambert asked.

  She turned and glanced at Dalrymple.

  "I was fond of him. I didn't quite realize. There's a difference--hemust see that I've done an impossible thing, and I won't go on with it."

  They were at the door. Lambert led her through, returning immediately.George watched her go, blaming himself for her suffering. He had,indeed, dragged her from her high horse, but he had not realized hewould bring her at once and starkly face to face with facts she had allalong refused to recognize; yet, he was convinced from his longknowledge of her, she would not alter her decision, and he was happy,knowing that he had accomplished, after a fashion, what he had come hereto do.

  "You're married," Lambert was saying dryly to Dalrymple. "The problemseems to be how to get you unmarried."

  "You shan't do that," Dalrymple cried, hotly. "You'll talk her aroundinstead."

  "Scarcely a chance," Lambert answered, "and really I don't see why Ishould try. You've played a slippery trick. You may have had anunderstanding with Sylvia, but I am perfectly convinced that shewouldn't have let anything come of it if you hadn't caught her at amoment when she couldn't judge reasonably. So it's entirely up to her."

  "We'll see about it," Dalrymple said. "I have my side. You turn nasty. Iturn nasty. You Planters want an annulment proceeding, or a publicdivorce with this rotter as co-respondent?"

  "Dolly! You don't know what you're saying."

  "I'll fight for my rights," Dalrymple persisted, sullenly.

  "See here," George put in, "I stayed to say one thing. Sylvia hadnothing to do with what you saw. She couldn't help herself. Yourcrookedness, Dalrymple, made me forget everything except that----Nevermind. Lambert understands. Maybe I was out of my head. Anyway, I didn'tgive her a chance. She had to suffer it. Is that quite clear?"

  Lambert smiled incredulously.

  "That'll sound well in court, too," Dalrymple threatened.

  "Drop that!" Lambert cried. "Think who you are; who Sylvia is."

  "My wife," Dalrymple came back. "I'll have her or I'll go to court."

  George started for the door.

  "Don't fret, Lambert," he advised. "Money will go a long way with him.If I might, I'd like to know what the two of you settle. I mean, if youwant to keep it away from your father and mother, my money's available.I haven't much use for it any more----"

  He broke off. What had he just meant to say: that since he had heldSylvia in his arms all that had marked the progress of his ambition hadbecome without value? He would have to find that out. Now he waited atthe door, interested only in Dalrymple's response to his bald proposal.Dalrymple thrust his hands in his pockets, commenced to pace the room,but all he said was:

  "Teach you all not to make a fool of Dolly."

  "Remember," George said. "What she wants. And undesired scandals can bepaid for in various ways."

  He glanced at Lambert. Evidently Sylvia's brother on that ground wouldmeet him as an ally. So he left the house and walked slowly through theeastern fringe of the park, wishing to avoid even the few peoplescattered along the pavements of the avenue, for the touch of Sylvia'slips was still warm on his mouth. He felt himself apart. He wanted toremain apart as long as possible with that absorbing memory.

  Her angry responses in the past to his few daring gestures weresubmerged in the great, scarcely comprehensible fact that she had notrebuked him when he had tumbled over every barrier to take her in hisarms; nor had she, when cornered by Dalrymple and Lambert, assumed herlogical defence. Had that meant an awakening of a sort?

  He smiled a little, thinking of her lips.

  Their touch had sent to his brain flashes of pure illumination in whichhis once great fondness for Betty had stood stripped of the capacity forany such avid, confused emotions as Sylvia had compelled; flashes thathad exposed also his apparent hatred of the girl Sylvia as an obstinatelove, which, unable to express itself according to a common-placepattern, had shifted its violent desires to conceptions of wrongs andpenalties. Blinded by that great light, he asked himself if hisambition, his strength, and his will had merely been expressions of hisnecessity for her.

  Of her words and actions immediately afterward he didn't pretend tounderstand anything beyond their assurance that Dalrymple's romance wasat an end. Not a doubt crept into his strange and passionate exaltation.

  He was surprised to find himself at his destination. When he reached hisapartment he got out the old photograph and the broken riding crop, andwith them in his hands sat before the fire, dreaming of the long roadover which they had consistently aided him. He compared Sylvia as he hadjust seen her with the girlish and intolerant Sylvia of the photograph,and he found he could still imagine the curved lips moving to form thewords:

  "You'll not forget."

  He lowered his hands, and took a deep breath like one who has completeda journey. To-night, in a sense, he had reached the heights mostcarefully guarded of all.

  XVIII

  He heard the ringing of the door bell. His servant slipped in.

  "Mr. Lambert Planter, sir."

  George started, placed the crop and the photograph in a drawer, andlooked at the man with an air of surprise.

  "Of course, I should like to see him. And bring me something on a tray,here in front of the fire."

  Lambert walked in.

  "Don't mind my coming this way, George?"

  "I'm glad I'm no longer 'Morton'," George said, dryly. "Sit down. I'mgoing to have a bite to eat."

  He glanced at his watch.

  "Good Lord! It's after ten o'clock."

  "Yes," Lambert said, choosing a chair, "there was a lot to talk about."

  Little of the trouble had left Lambert's face, but George fanciedSylvia's brother looked at him with curiosity, with a form of respect.

  "I'm glad you've come," George said, "but I don't intend to apologizefor what I did this evening. I think we all, no matter what ourinheritance, fight without thought of affectations for our happiness.That's what I did. I love your sister, Lambert. Never dreamed how muchuntil to-night. Not a great deal to say, but it's enormous beyonddefinition to think. You have Betty, so perhaps you can understand."

  Lambert smiled in a superior fashion.

  "I'm a little confused," he said. "She's led me to believe all alongshe's disliked you; has kept you away from Oakmont; has made itdifficult from the start. Then I find her, whether willingly or not--atleast not crying out for help--in your arms."

  "I had to open her eyes to what she had done," George answered. "Iwasn't exactly accountable, but I honestly believe I took the onlypossible means. I don't know whether I succeeded."

  "I fancy you succeeded," Lambert muttered.

  George stretched out his hand, looked at Lambert appealingly.

  "She didn't say so--she----"

  Lambert shook his head.

  "She wouldn't talk about you at all."

  He waited while the servant entered and arranged George's tray.

  "Of course you've dined?"

  "After a fashion," Lambert answered. "Not hungry. You might give me adrink."

  "I feel apologetic about eating," George said when they were aloneagain. "Do
n't see why I should have an appetite."

  Lambert fingered his glass.

  "Do you know why she didn't have you drawn and quartered?"

  "No. Don't try to create happiness, Lambert, where there mayn't be any."

  "I'm creating nothing. I'm asking a question, in an effort tounderstand why she won't, as I say, mention your name; why she can'tbear to have it mentioned."

  "If you were right, if things could be straightened out," George said,"you--you could put up with it?"

  "Easily," Lambert answered, "and I'll confess I couldn't if it wereCorporal John Smith. I've been fond of you for a long time, George, andI owe you a great deal, but that doesn't figure. You're worthy even ofSylvia; but I don't say I'm right. You can't count on Sylvia. And evenif I were, I don't see any way to straighten things out."

  George returned to his meal.

  "If you had taken the proper attitude," he scolded, "you could havehandled Dalrymple. He's weak, avaricious, cowardly."

  "Oh, Dalrymple! I can handle him. It's Sylvia," Lambert said. "In thelong run Dolly agreed to about everything. Of course he wanted money,and he'll have to have it; but heaven knows there's plenty of money.Trouble is, the wedding can't be hushed up. That's plain. It will be inevery paper to-morrow. We arranged that Dolly was to live in the housefor a time. They would have been together in public, and Dolly agreedeventually to let her go and get a quiet divorce--at a price. It soundsrevolting, but to me it seemed the only way."

  George became aware of an ugly and distorted intruder upon hishappiness, yet Lambert was clearly right. Sylvia and Dalrymple,impulsively joined together, were nothing to each other, couldn't evenresume their long friendship.

  "Well?" George asked.

  "Mother, Betty, and I talked it over with Sylvia," Lambert answered."You see, we've kept Father in ignorance so far. He's scarcely up tosuch a row. Mother will make him wise very gently only when it becomesnecessary."

  "But what did Sylvia say?" George demanded, bending toward Lambert, hismeal forgotten.

  "Sylvia," Lambert replied, spreading his hands helplessly, "would agreeto nothing. In the first place, she wouldn't consent to Dolly's stayingin the house even to save appearances. I don't know what's the matterwith her. She worried us all. She wasn't hysterical exactly, but shecried a good deal, which is quite unusual for her, and sheseemed--frightened. She wouldn't let any one go near her--even Mother. Icouldn't understand that."

  George stared at the fire, his hands clasped. When at last he spoke hescarcely heard his own voice:

  "She will get a divorce--as soon as possible?"

  Lambert emptied his glass and set it down.

  "That's just it," he answered, gloomily. "She won't listen to anythingof the sort."

  George glanced up.

  "What is there left for her to do?"

  Lambert frowned.

  "Something seems to have changed her wholly. She declares she'll neversee Dolly again, and in the same breath talks about the church and ahorror of divorce, and the necessity of her suffering for her mistake;and she wants to pay her debt to Dolly by giving him, instead ofherself, all of her money--a few such pleasant inconsistencies. Seehere. Why didn't you run wild yesterday, or the day before?"

  "Do you think," George asked, softly, "it would have been quite the samething, would have had quite the same effect?"

  "I wonder," Lambert mused.

  George arose and stood with his back to the fire.

  "And of course," he said, thoughtfully, "you or I can't tell just whatthe effect has been. See here, Lambert. I have to find that out. I mustsee her once, if only for five minutes."

  He watched Lambert, who didn't answer at first.

  "I'll not run wild again," he promised. "If she'd only agree--just fiveminutes' talk."

  "I told you," Lambert said at last, "she wouldn't mention your name orlet any one else; but, on the theory that you are really responsible forwhat's happened, I'd like you to see her. You might persuade her that adivorce is absolutely necessary, the only way out. You might get her tounderstand that she can't go through life tied to a man she'll neversee, while people will talk many times more than if she took a trainquietly west."

  "If she'll see me," George said, "I'll try to make it plain to her."

  "Betty has a scheme----" Lambert began, and wouldn't grow more explicitbeyond saying, "Betty'll probably let you hear from her in the morning.That's the reason I wanted you to know how things stand. I'm hurryingback now to our confused house."

  George followed him to the door.

  "Dalrymple--where is he?" he asked.

  "Gone to his parents. He'll try to play the game for the present."

  "At a price," George said.

  Lambert nodded.

  "Rather well-earned, too, on the whole," he answered, ironically.

  XIX

  George slept little that night. The fact that Lambert believed himresponsible for the transformation in Sylvia was sufficiently exciting.In Sylvia's manner her brother must have read something he had not quiteexpressed to George. And why wouldn't she mention him? Why couldn't shebear to have the others mention him? With his head bowed on his hands hesat before the desk, staring at the diminishing fire, and in thisposture he fell at last asleep to be startled by Wandel who had nottroubled to have himself announced. The fire was quite dead. In thebright daylight streaming into the room George saw that the little manheld a newspaper in his hand.

  "Is it a habit of great men not to go to bed?"

  George stood up and stretched. He indicated the newspaper.

  "You've come with the evil tidings?"

  "About Sylvia and Dolly," Wandel began.

  George yawned.

  "I must bathe and become presentable, for this is another day."

  "You've already seen it?" Wandel asked, a trifle puzzled.

  "No, but what else should there be in the paper?"

  Wandel stared for a moment, then carefully folded the paper and tossedit in the fireplace.

  "Nothing much," he answered, lighting a cigarette, "except hold-ups,murders, new strikes, fresh battles among our brethren of the NearEast--nothing of the slightest consequence. By by. Make yourself, greatman, fresh and beautiful for the new day."

  XX

  George wondered why Wandel should have come at all, or, having come, whyhe should have left in that manner; and he was sorry he had answered ashe had, for Wandel invariably knew a great deal, more than most people.In this case he had probably come only to help, but in George's brainnothing could survive for long beyond hazards as to what the morningmight develop. Betty was going to communicate with him, and she wouldnaturally expect to find him at his office, so he hurried down town andwaited, forcing himself to the necessary details of his work. For thefirst time the mechanics of making money seemed dreary and unprofitable.

  Goodhue came in with a clearly designed lack of curiosity. Had hispartner all along suspected the truth, or had Wandel been talking? Forthat matter, did Goodhue himself experience a sense of loss?

  "Not so surprising, George. Dolly's always been after her--even back inthe Princeton days, and she's played around with him since they werechildren; yet I was a little shocked. I never thought it would quitecome off."

  It was torture for George to listen, and he couldn't possibly talk aboutit, so he led Goodhue quite easily to the day's demands; but Blodgettappeared not long after with a drooping countenance. Why did they allhave to come to him to discuss the unannounced wedding of SylviaPlanter?

  "She ought to have done better," Blodgett disapproved funereally.

  He fingered a gaudy handkerchief. He thrust it in his pocket, drew itforth again, folded it carefully with his pudgy hands.

  "Don't think I've ever ceased to regret----" he started ratherpitifully.

  After a moment's absorbed scrutiny of George he went on.

  "If she had picked somebody like you I wouldn't have minded. PapaBlodgett would have given you both his blessing."

  So they ha
d all guessed something! George questioned uneasily ifBlodgett's suspicions had lived during the course of his own unfortunateromance, and he was sorrier than ever he had had to help destroy that.He got rid of Blodgett and refused to see any one else, but he had toanswer the telephone, for that would almost certainly be Betty's meansof communication. Each time the pleasant bell tinkled he seized thereceiver, and each time cut short whatever masculine worries reachedhim. The uneven pounding of the ticker punctuated his suspense. It was afeverish morning in the market, but not once did he rise to glance atthe tape which streamed neglected into the basket.

  It was after one o'clock when he snatched the receiver from the hookagain with a hopeless premonition of another disappointment. Then heheard Betty's voice, scarcely more than an anxious whisper "George!"

  "Yes, yes, Betty."

  "My car will be somewhere between Altman's and Tiffany's at two o'clock,as near the corner of Thirty-fifth Street as they'll let me get. Lambertknows. It's all right."

  "But, Betty----"

  "Just be there," she said, and must have hung up.

  He glanced at his watch. He could start now. He hurried from thebuilding, but there was no point in haste. He had plenty of time, toomuch time; and Betty hadn't said he would see Sylvia; hadn't given himtime to ask; but she must have arranged an interview, else why shouldshe care to see him at all, why her manner of a conspirator?

  He reached the rendezvous well ahead of time, but he recognized Betty'scar just beyond the corner, and saw her wave to him anxiously. Hestepped in and sat at her side. She laughed nervously.

  "I guessed you would be a little ahead," she said as the car commencedto crawl north.

  "Am I to see Sylvia?"

  Betty nodded.

  "Just once. This noon, before I telephoned, she acknowledged that shewanted to see you--to talk to you for the last time. That's the way sheput it."

  Betty smiled sceptically.

  "You know I don't believe anything of the sort."

  "What do you think can be done?" George asked.

  She didn't suggest anything, merely repeating her faith, going on whileshe looked at George curiously.

  "So all the time, George--and I didn't really guess, but I might haveknown you would. I can remember now that day at Princeton when I askedyou about her dog, and your anxiety one night at Josiah's when youwanted to know if she was going to be married--oh, plenty of hints now.George! Why did you let it go so far?"

  "Couldn't help myself, Betty."

  She looked at him helplessly.

  "And what have you done to her?"

  "If you can't guess----" George said.

  Betty smiled reminiscently.

  "Perhaps I can guess. You would do just that, George, when there wasnothing else."

  "You don't blame me?" he asked. "You don't ask, as Lambert did, why Iwaited so long?"

  She shook her head.

  "I'm sure," she said, "when you came last night you saw a Sylvia none ofus had ever met before. Don't you think it had come upon her all at oncethat she was no longer Sylvia Planter, that in defeating you she haddestroyed herself? If that is so, she has every bit of sympathy I'mcapable of, and we must think first of all of her. The pride's stillthere, but quite a different thing. She's never known fear before,George, and now she's afraid, terribly afraid, most of all, I think, ofherself."

  George counted the corners, was relieved when beyond Fiftieth Street thetraffic thinned and they went faster. He took Betty's hand, and foundthat the touch steadied and encouraged, because at last her fingersseemed to reach his mind again.

  "Betty! Do you think she cares at all?"

  "I'm prejudiced," Betty laughed, "but I think the harder she'd been themore she's cared; but she wouldn't talk about you except to say shewould see you for a minute this once. Lambert's lunching with Dolly."

  "We are conspirators," George said, "and I don't like it, but I must seeher once."

  They drew up at the curb, got out, and entered the hall. The house waspeculiarly without sound. George glanced at the entrance to the roomwhere he had found Sylvia last night.

  "I think she's in Mr. Planter's study," Betty said. "He hasn't comedownstairs yet."

  She led him through the library to a small, square room--a quiet andcomfortable book-lined retreat where Old Planter had been accustomed tosupplement his work down town. George looked eagerly around, but thelight wasn't very good, and he didn't at first see Sylvia.

  "Sylvia!" Betty called softly. "I've brought George."

  XXI

  Almost before George realized it Betty was gone and the door was closed.

  "Sylvia!"

  Her low voice reached him from a large chair opposite the single,leaded, opaque window.

  "I'm over here----"

  Yes, there was fear in her enunciation, as if she groped through shadowyand hazardous places. It cautioned him. With a choked feeling, a rackingeffort after repression, he walked quietly around and stared down ather.

  She looked up once quickly, then glanced away. He was grateful for hercolour, but the fear was in her face, too, and the pride, as Betty hadsaid, but a transformed pride that he couldn't quite understand. She layback in the large chair, her head to one side resting against theprotruding arm. Her eyes were bright with tears she had shed or wantedto shed.

  "Please sit down."

  The ring of exasperated contempt and challenge had gone from her voice.He hadn't known it could stir him so. He drew up a chair and sat closeto her.

  "You are not angry about what I did last night?" he whispered.

  She shook her head.

  "I am grateful. I wanted to see you to tell you that, and how sorry Iam--so beastly sorry, George."

  Her voice drifted away. It made him want his arms about her, made himwant her lips again. The room became a black and restless background forthis shadowy, desired, and forbidden figure.

  Impulsively he slipped to his knees and placed his head against the sideof her chair. Across his hair he fancied a fugitive brushing of fingers.She burst out with something of her former impetuous manner.

  "I used to want that! Now you shan't!"

  He arose, and she stooped swiftly forward, as if propelled objectively,and, before he realized what she was doing, touched the back of his handwith her lips.

  She sprang upright and faced him from the mantel, more afraid than ever,staring at him, her cheeks wet with tears.

  "That's all," she whispered. "It's what I wanted to tell you. Please go.We mustn't see each other again."

  In the room he was aware only of her, but he knew, in spite of his ownblind instinct, that between them was a wall as of transparent and heavyglass against which he would only break his strength.

  "Sylvia," he whispered in spite of that knowledge, "I want to touch yourlips."

  "They've never been anybody else's," she cried in a sudden outburst."Never could have been. I see that now. That's why I've hated you----"

  "Yet you love me now. You do love me, Sylvia?"

  "I love you, George," she said, wearily. "I think I always have."

  "Then why--why----"

  She turned on him, nearly angry.

  "How can you ask that? You haven't forgotten that first day, either,have you? You took something of me then, and I couldn't forget it. Thatwas what hurt and humiliated; I couldn't forget, couldn't get out of mymind what you--one of the--the stablemen--had taken of me, SylviaPlanter. And I thought you could never give it back, but last night youdid, and I----Everything went to pieces----And it had to be last night,after I'd lost my temper. I see that. That's the tragedy of it."

  "I don't quite understand, Sylvia."

  She smiled a little through her tears.

  "Betty would. Any woman would. You must go now--please."

  "When will I see you again?" he asked.

  "This way? Never."

  "What nonsense! You'll get a divorce. You must."

  She straightened. Her head went back.

  "I won't l
ie that way."

  "I'll hit on some means," he boasted. "You belong to me."

  "And I've found it out too late," she said, "and I don't believe I couldhave found it out before. Think of that, George, when it seems too hard.I had to be caught by my own rotten temper before I'd let you wake meup."

  She drew a little away, and when he started forward motioned him back.Her face flooded with colour, but she met his eyes bravely.

  "That was something. I will never forget that, either, but it doesn'tmake me feel--unclean, as I did that day at Oakmont and afterward. Idon't want to forget it ever. Now you understand."

  She ran swiftly to the door and opened it. He followed her and saw Bettyat the farther end of the room talking to Mr. Planter.

  "Why do you do that?" he asked, desperately.

  "I want to tell you why I'll never forget," she answered in a halfwhisper. "Because I love you. I love you. I want to say it. I think itevery minute, so don't you see you have to help me keep it straight andbeautiful always, George?"

  XXII

  "Who has made my little girl cry?"

  The quavering tones reminded George. He walked from the little roomtoward the others, and he saw that Old Planter had caught Sylvia's hand,had drawn her to him, had felt the tears on her cheeks.

  There rushed back to George that ancient interview in the library atOakmont, and here he was back at it, even in Old Planter's presence,making her cry again. He wondered what Old Planter had said when Lamberthad told him who George Morton really was.

  "You see, sir," he said, moodily, "I haven't changed so much from thestable boy, Morton, you once threatened to send to smash if----"

  Sylvia broke in sharply.

  "He's never been told----"

  "What are you talking about?" the old man quavered. "Was there ever aMorton on my place, Sylvia? An old man, yes. He's dead. A young one----"

  Slowly he shook his head from side to side. He peered suspiciously atGeorge out of his dim eyes.

  "I don't remember."

  Suddenly he cried out with a flash of the old authority:

  "I'm growing sensitive, Morton. No jokes! What's he talking about?"

  Sylvia took his hand. Her lips trembled.

  "Never mind, Father. Come."

  And as he let her guide him he drifted on.

  "Sylvia! Have you got everything you want? I'll give you anything youwant if only you won't cry."

  Outside rain had commenced to drizzle. From a tree in the little yardyellow leaves fluttered down. Old Planter hobbled into his study, Sylviaat his side. Betty followed George to the hall.

  "Tell Sylvia I am very happy," he said.

  She pressed his hand, whispering:

  "The great George Morton!"

  XXIII

  Again George walked to his apartment and sat brooding over the fire,trying to find a way; but Sylvia must have searched, too, and failed.There was no way, or none that she would take. He crushed his headyrevolt at the realization, for he believed she had been right. Withouther great mistake she couldn't have given him that obliterative momentlast evening, or his glimpse this afternoon of happiness through heavy,transparent glass. So he could smile a little, nearly cheerfully. Therewas really a quality of happiness in his knowledge that she had neverforgotten his tight clasping at Oakmont, his blurted love, his threatthat he would teach her not to be afraid of his touch. How she must havedespised herself in the great house, among her own kind, when she foundshe couldn't forget Morton, when she tried, perhaps, to escape the shameof wanting Morton! No wonder she had attempted through Blodgett andDalrymple, men for whom she could have had no such urgent feeling, todivide herself from him, to prevent the fulfilment of his boasts ofwhich he had perpetually reminded her. She must have looked at him agood deal more than he had guessed in those far days. And now his touchhad taught her to be more afraid than ever, but not of him. With agrowing wonder he recalled her surrender. Of course, Sylvia, like herplacid mother, like everyone, was, beneath the veneer even of endlessgenerations, necessarily primitive. For that discovery he could thankDalrymple. He continued to dream.

  What, indeed, lay ahead for him? In a sense he had already reached thesummit which he had set out to find, and every thrilling mood of hersthat afternoon flamed in his mind. He had a desolate feeling that therewas no longer anything for him down town, or anywhere else beyond await, possibly endless, for Sylvia; and as he brooded there he longedfor a mother to whom he could have gone with his happiness that was morethan half pain. His mother had said that there were lots of girls toogood for him. His father had added, "Sylvia Planter most of all." Hisfather was dead. His mother might as well have been. All at once herswollen hands seemed to rest passively between him and the fire.

  He was glad when Wandel came in, even though he found him withoutlights, for the second time that day in an unaccustomed and reflectiveposture.

  "Snap the lamps on, will you, Driggs?"

  Wandel obeyed, and George blinked, laughing uncomfortably.

  "You'll fancy I've caught the poet's mood."

  "Not at all, my dear George," Wandel answered. "Why not say, thinkingabout the war? Nobody will let you talk about it, and I'm told if youwrite stories or books that mention it the editors turn their thumbsdown. So much, says a grateful country, for the poor soldier. What morenatural then than this really pitiful picture of the dejected veteranrecalling his battles in a dusky solitude?"

  "Oh, shut up, Driggs. Maybe you'll tell me why they ever called you'Spike.'"

  Wandel yawned.

  "Certainly. Because, being small, I got hit on the head a great deal. Isometimes think it's why I'm too dull to make you understand what I meanto say."

  George looked at him.

  "I think I do, Driggs; and thanks."

  "Then," Wandel said, brightly, "you'll come and dine with me."

  "I will. I will. Where shall we go? Not to the club."

  "I fancy one club wouldn't be pleasant for you this evening," Wandelsaid, quietly.

  George caught his breath.

  "Why not?"

  But Wandel wouldn't satisfy him until they were in a small restaurantand seated at a wall table sufficiently far from people to make quiettones safe.

  "It's too bad," he said then, "that great men won't take warnings."

  "I caught your warning," George answered, "and I acted on it as far as Icould. I couldn't dream, knowing her, of a runaway marriage, and I'llguarantee you didn't, either."

  "I once pointed out to you," Wandel objected, "that she was theimpulsive sort who would fly to some man--only I fancied then it wouldultimately be you."

  "Why, Driggs?"

  Wandel put his hand on George's knee.

  "You don't mind my saying this? A long time ago I guessed she loved you.Even as far back as Betty's debut, when I danced with her right afteryou two had had some kind of a rumpus, I saw she was a bundle of emotionand despised herself for it. Of course I hadn't observed then all that Ihave since."

  "Why did you never warn me of that?" George asked.

  Wandel laughed lightly.

  "What absurd questions you ask! Because, being well acquainted withSylvia, I couldn't see how she was to be made to realize she cared foryou."

  George crumbled a piece of bread.

  "I daresay," he muttered, "you know everything that's happened. It'sextraordinary the way you find out things--things you're not supposed toknow at all."

  Wandel laughed again, this time on a note of embarrassed disapproval.

  "Not extraordinary in this case."

  George glanced up.

  "You said something about the club not being pleasant for meto-night----"

  "Because," Wandel answered with brutal directness, "Dolly's been there."

  George clenched his hands. Wandel looked at them amusedly.

  "Very glad you weren't about, Hercules."

  "It was that bad?" George asked.

  "Why not," Wandel drawled, "say rather worse?"

  "Drunk?"
George whispered.

  "A conservative diagnosis," Wandel answered. "His language sounded quiteforeign, but with effort its sense could be had; and the rooms werefairly full. You know, just before dinner--the usual crowd."

  "Somebody should have shut him up," George cried.

  "We did, with difficulty, and not all at once," Wandel protested."Dicky's taken him home with the aid of a pair of grinning hyenas. Theydid make one think of that."

  "It's not to be borne," George muttered. "He ought to be killed."

  "By all means, my dear George," Wandel agreed, "but we're back in NewYork. I mean, with the armistice murder ceased to be praiseworthy.They're punishing it in the usual fashion. You quite understand that,George?"

  George tried to laugh.

  "Quite. Go ahead."

  "He really had some excuse," Wandel went on, "because when he first camein no one realized how bad he was--and they jumped him withcongratulations and humour, and he went right out of his head--becamestark, raving mad; or drunk, as you choose."

  "What did he say?" George asked, softly.

  Wandel half closed his eyes.

  "Don't expect me to repeat any such crazy, disconnected stuff. It'senough that he let everybody guess Sylvia had sold him at the verymoment he had fancied he had bought her. I've been thinking it over, andI'm not sure it isn't just as well he did. Everybody will talk his headoff for a few days and drop it. Otherwise, curious things would havebeen noticed and suspected from time to time, and the talk, with freshimpetus, would have gone on forever. Besides, nobody's looking for muchtrouble with the Planters."

  George had difficulty with his next question.

  "He--he didn't mention me?"

  "Why, yes," Wandel answered, gravely, "but rather incoherently."

  "Rotten of him!"

  "No direct accusations," Wandel hurried on, "just vile temper; and whileit makes it temporarily more unpleasant that's just as well, too. Thefact that people know what to expect kills more talk later. I supposeshe'll manage a fairly quiet divorce."

  "Won't listen to it," George snapped.

  "How stupid of me!" Wandel drawled. "Of course she wouldn't."

  He sighed.

  "I mean to sympathize with you, my George, but all the time I envy you,and have to restrain myself from offering congratulations. Behold theoysters! They're really very good here."

  George tried to smile.

  "Then shall we talk about shell fish?"

  "Bivalves, George. Or we might discuss the great strike. Which one? Takeyour choice. Or, by the way, have you received your shock yet? They'reraising rents in our house more than a hundred per cent."

  "The hell after war!" George grinned.

  Wandel smiled back.

  "Let us hope not a milestone on the road."

  XXIV

  Through pure will George resumed his routine, but it no longer had thepower to capture him, becoming a drudgery without a clear purpose.Always he was conscious of the effort to force himself from recollectionand imagination, to drive Sylvia from his mind; and, even so, he neverquite succeeded. Were there then no heights beyond?

  Lambert was painstakingly considerate, catching him for luncheon fromtime to time, or calling at unexpected moments at his office, and alwayshe said something about Sylvia. She was well. Naturally she was keepingto herself. Betty and she were at Princeton, and Sylvia was going tostay on with the Alstons for a time. Once he let slip a sincereadmiration, a real regret.

  "It's extraordinary, George. You've very nearly made every word good."

  George took the opening to ask a question that had been in his mind formany days.

  "Where is he? What's he up to? I haven't seen him, but, naturally, Ikeep to myself, too, and Dicky, bless him, mentions nothing."

  Lambert frowned.

  "He hasn't been around the office much since. He's taking his own sweetwill with himself now. He's gone away--to Canada. It's cold there, butit's also fairly wet."

  "If one could only be sure he had the virtue of loving her!" Georgemused.

  "He hasn't," Lambert said, impatiently. "Since I talked with him thathectic night I've admitted that Dolly's never had the capacity to loveany one except himself. So he's probably happy in his own unpleasantway."

  A thought came to George. He smiled a little.

  "I've been wondering if Sylvia is going in harder than ever on the sideof the downtrodden."

  Lambert laughed.

  "As far as I know, hasn't mentioned a cossack since that night; and Ihave to confess, hard-headed reactionary, the ranks are making me seetoo many bad qualities among the good."

  "Perhaps," George suggested, "the ranks are saying something of the sortabout us. Besides, I don't see why you call me reactionary."

  "Would you have minded it a while back?" Lambert asked.

  "Just the same," George answered, "I'd like to get their point of view."

  What would Squibs say to that from him? Squibs, undoubtedly, would bepleased. After Lambert had gone he sat for a long time thinking. He wasglad Lambert had come, for the other had suggested that in endeavouringto capture such a point of view, in pleasing Squibs, he might at lastfind a real interest, and one of use to somebody besides himself. If themen on the heights didn't get at it pretty soon, a different kind ofclimber would appear, with black hands, inflamed eyes, and a mindstripped, by passion, of all logic. Gladly he found it possible to bringto this new task the energy with which he had attacked the narrowerpuzzles of the university and Wall Street.

  Sylvia had called him the most selfish person she had ever met, and, ashe tried to strip from the facts of the world's disease the perpetual,clinging propaganda, he applied her charge to his soul. From the firsthe had been infected, yet his selfishness had been neither inefficientnor dangerous. This increasing pestilence was. Lambert guessed what hewas at, and George jeered at him for his war madness, but Lambert hadfound again an absorbing interest. Because of his missing leg it wasrather pitiful to watch his enthusiasm for a reawakened activity.

  "You've got to see Harvard swallow your old Tiger, George," he said oneFriday. "After all, why not? You don't need to come out to the Alstons,although I'm not sure there would be any harm in that. Talk's aboutdone, I fancy."

  George flushed.

  "Do you know I'd love to spill you again, Lambert? I'd like to bring youdown so hard the seismographs would make a record."

  "Too bad we can't try to kill each other," Lambert said, regretfully."Why not watch younger brutes?"

  "I've wanted it for days," George acknowledged. "I'll wire Squibs."

  George was perfectly sure that Squibs knew nothing, for he wasn'tsocially curious, and Betty would have hesitated to talk about what hadhappened even to Mrs. Squibs, yet he was conscious, after the firstmoment of meeting, of a continued scrutiny from Squibs, of a hesitancyof manner, of an unusually careful choice of words.

  He had small opportunity to test this impression, for it was noon whenhe reached the house in Dickinson Street, and there were many of thetutor's products in the dining-room, snatching a cold bite while theyroared confused pessimism about the game.

  "You're going to the side-lines," Squibs said when they had climbed theramp to their section of the stadium.

  "I'd be in the way," George objected.

  Bailly stared at him.

  "George Morton on a football field could only be in the way of Harvardand Yale."

  George experienced a quick, ardent wish for thick turf underfoot, for aseat on the bench among players exhaling a thick atmosphere of eager andabsorbed excitement. So he let the tutor lead him down the steps. Squibscalled to Green, who was distrait.

  "What is it, Mr. Bailly?"

  "I've got Morton."

  Green sprang to life.

  "Mr. Stringham! An omen! An omen!"

  He met George at the gate and threw his arms around him. Stringhamhurried up. Green crowed.

  "I believe we'll lick these fellows or come mighty close to it."

  "Of
course you'll lick them, Green. Hello, Stringham! May I sit down?"

  "The stadium's yours," Stringham said, simply.

  As he walked along the line of eager players, smothered in blankets orsweaters, George caught snatches of the curiosity of youth, because ofnervousness, too audibly expressed.

  "Who's the big fellow?"

  "That? Longest kicker, fastest man for his weight ever played the game.George Morton--the great Morton."

  "He never played with that leg! What's the matter with his leg?Football?"

  George caught no answer. He sat down among the respectful youths,thinking whimsically:

  "The war's so soon over, but thank God they can't forget football!"

  XXV

  At the very end of the first half, when the Princeton sectionsexperienced the unforeseen glow of a possible victory, George caught aglimpse of Lambert and Wandel close to the barrier, as if they had lefttheir places to catch someone with the calling of time. Just then thehorn scrunched its anxious message. George called.

  "Lambert Planter!"

  Stringham paused, grinning.

  "Come over here, you biting bulldog."

  Lambert made his way through the barrier and grasped Stringham's hand.

  "Come along to the dressing-room," Stringham suggested, cordially. "Nicebulldog, although once I loved to see Morton chew you up."

  Lambert glanced down.

  "Thanks. I'd better stay here. One of my runners is off, Stringham."

  "Then sit with the boys next half," Stringham said. "Coming, Morton?"

  George shook his head, and urged the anxious coach away, for Wandel hadcaught his eye.

  "Tell them to keep their heads," George called after Stringham. "If theykeep their heads they've got Harvard beaten."

  He glanced inquiringly at Wandel.

  "Why not cease," Wandel said, "imagining yourself a giddy, heroic cub?Come up and sit with mature people the last half."

  The invitation startled George. Then Sylvia wasn't there?

  "Is Sylvia all right?" he asked Lambert under his breath.

  Lambert was a trifle ill at ease.

  "Oh, quite. Betty asked us to get you. Wants to see you. Have my place.I'm going to accept Stringham's fine invitation, and sit here with theyoung--a possible Yale scout on the Princeton side-lines."

  "Stringham's no fool," George laughed. "Anyway, he has you fellowsbeaten right now."

  Lambert thrust his hand in his pocket.

  "How much you got?"

  Wandel grasped George's arm.

  "Come with me before you get in a college brawl."

  "Plenty when we're not chaperoned, Lambert," George called, and followedWandel through the restless crowd and up the concrete steps.

  Was Sylvia really there? Was he going to see her? The idea of findinghim had sprung from Betty, and Lambert had been ill at ease.

  He saw Betty and her father and mother, then beyond them, a vacant placebetween, Sylvia to whom the open air and its chill had given back allher dark, flushed brilliancy. Wandel slid through first, and madehimself comfortable at Sylvia's farther side. George followed, stoppingto speak to the Alstons, to accept Betty's approving glance.

  "Conspirator!" he whispered, and went on, and sat down close to Sylvia,and yielded himself to the delight of her proximity. She glanced at him,her colour deepening.

  "Betty said it was all right, and I must. So many people----"

  The air was sharp enough to make rugs comfortable. He couldn't see herhands because they were beneath the rug across her knees, a covering sheshared with Wandel and him.

  As he drew the rug up one of his hands touched hers, and his fingers,beyond his control, groped for her fingers. He detected a quick, nervousmovement away; then it was stopped, and their hands met, clasped, andclung together.

  For a moment they looked at each other, and knew they mustn't, sincethere were so many people; but the content of their clasped handscontinued because it couldn't be observed.

  The supreme football player sat there staring at a blur of autumn colourbetween the lake and the generous mouth of the stadium; and, when thesecond half commenced, saw, as if from an immeasurable distance, pygmyfigures booting a football, or carrying it here and there, or throwingeach other about; and he didn't know which were Harvard's men or whichwere Princeton's, and he didn't seem to care----

  Vaguely he heard people suffering. A voice cut through a throaty andgrieving murmur.

  "Somebody's lost his head!"

  "What's the matter?" he asked Sylvia.

  "George! You're destroying my hand."

  Momentarily he remembered, and relaxed his grasp, while she addedquickly:

  "But I don't mind at all, dear."

  XXVI

  Lambert stood in front of them, glancing down doubtfully. Evidently thegame was over, for people were leaving, talking universally anddiscontentedly.

  "Betty and I," Lambert said, dryly, "fancied we'd invented and patentedthat rug trick."

  Sylvia stood up.

  "Don't scold, Lambert."

  She turned to George, trying to smile.

  "I shall be happy as long as my hand hurts. Good-bye, George."

  "You'd better go," Betty whispered as he lingered helplessly.

  So he drifted aimlessly through the crowd, hearing only a confusedmurmur, seeing nothing beyond the backs directly in front of him, untilhe found the Baillys waiting at the ramp opening.

  "If you'd only been there, George! Although this morning we'd have beenglad enough to think of a tie score."

  He submitted then to Bailly's wonder at each miracle; to his grief foreach mistake; and little by little, as the complaining voice hurried on,the world assumed its familiar proportions and movements. He caught aglimpse of Allen walking slowly ahead. The angular man was alone, andprojected even to George an air of profound dissatisfaction. Baillycaught his arm and shook hands with him.

  "Whither away?" George asked.

  "To the specials."

  He fell in beside George, and for a time kept pace with him.

  "What's bothering you, Allen?"

  With a haggard air Allen turned his head from side to side, gazing atthe hastening people.

  "Lords of the land!" he muttered. "Lords of the land!"

  "Why?" George asked. "Because they have an education? Well, so haveyou."

  Allen nodded toward the emptying stadium.

  "Lords of the land!" he repeated. "I've been sitting up there with them,but all alone. I wish I hadn't liked being with them. I wish I hadn'tbeen sorry for myself because I was alone."

  Allen's words, his manner of expressing them, defined a good deal forGeorge, urged him to form a quick resolution.

  "Catch your special," he said, "but come to my office Tuesday morning. Imay have work for you that you can do with a clear conscience. If youmust get, get something worth while."

  Allen glanced at him quickly.

  "Morton, you've changed," he said. "I'll come."

  XXVII

  Very slowly the excitement of the game cleared from Squibs' brain. Thatnight he could talk of nothing else, begging George for an opinion ofeach player and his probable value against Yale the following Saturday.George, to cover his confusion, generalized.

  "We'll beat Yale," he said, "as we ought to have beaten Harvard, becausethis team isn't afraid of colours and symbols. Most of these youngstershave been in the bigger game, so final football matches no longer appealto them as matters of life and death and even of one's chances in thehereafter."

  Bailly looked slightly sheepish.

  "I'm afraid, George, I'm going to New Haven to look at a struggle oflife and death, but then I was only in the Y. M. C. A. I'd feel manytimes better if you were sound and available."

  "You might speak to the dean about me," George laughed.

  By the next evening, however, the crowd had departed, and withPrinceton's return to normal Squibs for the time overcame his anxieties.That night George and he sat in a corner of the l
ounge of the NassauClub, waiting for Lambert and Wandel to drive in from the Alstons.George grew a trifle uncomfortable, because he suspected Squibs wasstaring at him with yesterday's curious scrutiny. Abruptly the tutorasked:

  "What did you say to Allen after the game?"

  "Offered him another job," George answered, shortly.

  Bailly frowned.

  "See here, George. What are you up to? Is that fair and decent? Allen isstruggling--for the right."

  "Allen," George answered, "has put some of his views to the test, andthe results have made him discouraged and uneasy. He's been tainted bythe very men he's tried to help. I've no idea of debauching him. Quitethe reverse. Please listen."

  And he entered upon a sort of penitence, speaking, while the tutor'swrinkled face flushed with pleasure, of his recent efforts to understandthe industrial situation and its probable effects on society.

  "I have to acknowledge," he said, softly, "that pure material successhas completely altered its meaning for me. I'd like to use my share ofit, and what small brains I have, to help set things straight; but I'mnot so sure this generation won't have too sticky feet to drag itselfout of the swamp of its own making."

  Lambert and Wandel arrived just then, talking cheerfully about football.

  "What do you mean to do?" Bailly asked George as the others sat down.

  George smiled at Wandel.

  "I'm not sure, Driggs, that the hour hasn't struck for you."

  Wandel raised his hands.

  "You mean politics!"

  "I used to fancy," George said, "that I'd need you for my selfishinterests. Now my idea is quite different."

  He turned to Squibs.

  "See here, sir. You've got to admit that the soul of the whole thing iseducation. I don't mean education in the narrow sense that we know ithere or in any other university. I mean the opening of eyes to realcommunal efficiency; the comprehension of the necessity of buildinginstead of tearing down; the birth of the desire to climb one's selfrather than to try to make stronger men descend."

  Bailly's eyes sparkled.

  "I don't say you're not right, George. You may be right."

  A fire blazed comfortably in front of them. The chairs were deep.Through a window the Holder tower, for all its evening lack ofdefinition, seemed an indestructible pointer of George's thoughts. For along time he talked earnestly.

  "I climbed," he ended. "So others can, and less selfishly and moreusefully, if they're only told how; if they'll only really try."

  "You're always right, great man," Wandel drawled, "but we mustn't forgetyou climbed from fundamentals. That's education--the teaching of thefundamentals."

  "It means an equal chance for everybody," George said, "and then, bygad, we won't have the world held back by those who refuse to take theirchance. We won't permit the congenitally unsound to set the pace for thehealthy. We'll take care of the congenitally unsound."

  He turned to Bailly.

  "And you and your excitable socialists have got to realize that youcan't make the world sane through makeshifts, or all at once, but withforesight it can be done. You've raised the devil with me ever since Iwas a sub-Freshman about service and the unsound and the virtue ofsoiled clothing. Now raise the devil with somebody else about the virtueof sound service and clean clothes. This education must start in theschools. We may be able to force it into public schools through thelegislatures; but in Princeton and the other great universities it hasto come from within, and that's hard; that, in a way, is up to you andother gentle sectarians like you. And your clubs have got to stand insome form--everywhere, if only as objectives of physical andintellectual content. Nothing good torn from the world! Only theevil----"

  He tapped Wandel's arm.

  "Driggs! If you want to go among the time-servers, to stand alone forthe people; perhaps for people yet unborn----"

  "For a long time," Wandel said, "I've been looking for something I couldreally want to do. I rather fancy you've found it for me, George. I wantto climb, too, always have--not to the heights we once talked about atyour unhealthy picnic, but to the furtherest heights of all, which areguarded by selfishness, servility, sin--past which people have to beled."

  Squibs cried out enthusiastically.

  "And from which you can look down with a clear conscience on theclimbers to whom you will have pointed out the path."

  "I see now," Lambert put in, "that that is the only way in which onewith self-respect can look down on lesser men."

  George laughed aloud.

  "An ally that can't escape! Driggs is a witness. We'll hold that finedemocracy of the Argonne over your head forever."

  "You see," Wandel drawled, "that was bound to fail, because it was basedon the ridiculous assumption that every man that fought was good andgreat."

  "I fancy," George said, "we're commencing to find out why we went towar--To appreciate the world's and our own astigmatism."

  As they walked back to the little house in Dickinson Street, Baillytried to express something.

  "I guess," he managed, "that I'll have to call it square, George."

  "I'm glad," George said, quickly, "but you must give some of the creditto Lambert Planter's sister."

  He smiled happily, wistfully.

  "You know she's the most useful socialist of you all."

  After a time he said under his breath:

  "There are some things I never dreamed of being able to repay you, sir.For instance this--this feeling that one is walking home."

  "That debt," Bailly said, brightly, "cancels itself."

  His mood changed. He spoke with a stern personal regret.

  "You young men! You young men! How much farther you see! How much moreyou can do!"

  XXVIII

  George returned to New York happy in his memory of his intimate hour ona crowded stand with Sylvia. Dalrymple had given him that, too. Itamazed him that so much beauty could spring from so ugly a source.

  He heard that Dalrymple was back from Canada, then that he had wanderedaway, pockets full, on another journey, pandering to his twistedconception of pleasure. One day George took his notes from thesafe-deposit box and gave them to Lambert.

  "Get them back to him," he said.

  And Lambert must have understood that George would never let thePlanters' money redeem them.

  "It's pretty decent, George."

  "It's nothing of the kind. They make my hands feel dirty, and I've lotsof money, and I'm making more every day; yet I wonder if it's going tobe enough, even with Driggs' and Blodgett's and yours, old Argonnedemocrat."

  For he had spoken of his plans to Blodgett, and had been a littlesurprised to learn how much thought Blodgett had given the puzzlehimself, although most of his searching had been for makeshifts, foranything to tide over immediate emergencies.

  "I don't know," Blodgett roared, "whether this cleaning out the sore andgetting to the bottom of it will work or not; but I'm inclined to lookto the future with you for a permanent cure. Anyway, I'd help youfinance a scheme to make the ocean dry, because you usually get whatyou're after. So we'll send Wandel and Allen and some more as a littleleaven to Albany and to that quilting party in Washington. I don't envythem, though."

  George realized that his content could be traced to this new interest,as that went back to Sylvia. He had at last consciously set out toexplore the road of service. For the first time in his life, with hiseyes open, he was working for others, yet he never got rid of the senseof a great personal need unfulfilled; always in his heart vibrated thecry for Sylvia, but he knew he mustn't try to see her, for Betty wouldhave let him know, and Betty hadn't sent for him again.

  After the holidays, at the urging of Wandel and Lambert, he showedhimself here and there, received at first curious glances, fancied somepeople slightly self-conscious, then all at once found himself welcomedon the old frank and pleasant basis. Yes, the talk had pretty well died,and men and women were inclined to like Sylvia Planter and George Mortonbetter than they did Dalrymple.
r />   He saw Dalrymple in the club one stormy January evening. He hadn't heardhe was in town, and examined him curiously as he sat alone in a corner,making a pretence of reading a newspaper, but really looking across theroom at the fire with restless eyes. George, prepared as he had been,was surprised by the haggard, flushed countenance, and the neuroticsymptoms, nearly uncontrollable.

  Beyond question Dalrymple saw him, and pretended that he didn't.Heartily glad of that, George joined a group about the fireplace, andafter a few minutes saw Dalrymple rise and wander unevenly from theroom.

  George met him several times afterward under similar circumstances, andalways Dalrymple shortly disappeared, because, George thought, of hisarrival; but other people tactfully put him straight. Dalrymple, itseemed, remained in no public place for long, as if there was somethingevilly secretive to call him perpetually away.

  Wandel told him toward the end of the month that Dalrymple was about tomake a trip to Havana for the remainder of the winter.

  "Where there's horse-racing, gambling, and unlimited alcohol--where onemay sin in public. Why talk about it? Although he doesn't mean to,George, he's in a fair way of doing you a favour."

  But George didn't dream how close Dalrymple's offering was. His firstthought, indeed, was for Sylvia when the influenza epidemic of Januaryand February promised for a time to equal its previous ugly record.Lambert tried to laugh his worry away.

  "She's going south with father and mother very soon. Anyway, she hasn'tthe habit of catching things."

  And it was Lambert a day or two later who brought him the firstindication of the only way out, and he tried to tell himself he mustn'twant it. Even though he had always despised Dalrymple and his weakness,even though Dalrymple stood between him and his only possible happiness,he experienced a disagreeable and reluctant sense of danger in such asolution.

  "All his life," Lambert was saying, "Dolly's done everything he could tomake himself a victim."

  "Where is he?" George asked.

  "At his home. It's fortunate he hadn't started south."

  "Or," George said, "he should have started sooner."

  "I've an uncomfortable feeling," Lambert mused, "that he was planning torun away from this very chance. Put it off a little too long. Seems hewent to bed four days ago. I didn't know until to-day because you seehe's been a little outcast since that scene in the club. He sent for methis afternoon, and, curiously enough, asked for you. Will you go up? Ireally think you'd better."

  But George shrank from the thought.

  "I don't want to be scolded by a man who is possibly dying."

  "Let's hope not," Lambert said. "You'll go. Around five o'clock."

  George hesitated.

  "Did he ask for Sylvia?"

  "He didn't ask me, but I telephoned her."

  "Why?" George asked, sharply.

  "Every card on the table now, George!" Lambert warned. "We have to thinkof the future, in case----"

  "Of course, you're right," George answered. "I'm sorry, and I'll go."

  When he entered the Dalrymple house at five o'clock he came face to facewith Sylvia in the hall. He had never seen her so controlled, and herquiet tensity frightened him.

  "Lambert told me," she whispered, "you were coming now. Dolly hasn'tasked for me, but I'd feel so much better--if things should turn outbadly, for I'm thinking with all my heart of the boy I used to be sofond of, and it's, perhaps, my fault----"

  "It is not your fault," George cried. "He's always asked for it. Lambertwill tell you that."

  George relaxed. Dalrymple's mother came down the stairs with the doctor,and George experienced a quick sympathy for the retiring, elderly womanhe had scarcely seen before. She gave Sylvia her hand, while Georgestepped out with the physician. In reply to George's questions the quietman shook his head and frowned.

  "If it were any one else of the same age--I've attended in this housemany years, Mr. Morton, and I've watched him since he was a child. I'vemarvelled how he's got so far."

  He added brutally:

  "Scarcely a chance with the turn its taking."

  "If there's anything," George muttered, "any great specialistanywhere----Understand money doesn't figure----"

  "Everything possible is being done, Mr. Morton. I'm truly sorry, but Ican tell you it's quite his own fault."

  So even this cold-blooded practitioner had heard the talk, andsympathized, and not with Dalrymple. A trifle dazed George reentered thehouse.

  "It's good of you to come, Mr. Morton," Mrs. Dalrymple said. "Shall wego upstairs now?"

  There was no bitterness in her voice, and she had taken Sylvia's hand,yet undoubtedly she knew everything. Abruptly George felt sorrier forDalrymple than he had ever done.

  "Please wait, Sylvia," she said.

  He followed Mrs. Dalrymple upstairs and into the sick-room.

  "It's Mr. Morton, dear."

  She beckoned to the nurse, and George remained in the room alone withthe feverish man in the bed. He walked over and took the hot hand.

  "Morton!" came Dalrymple's hoarse voice, "I believe you're sorry forme!"

  "I am sorry," George said, quietly, "and you must get well."

  Dalrymple shook his head.

  "I know all the dope, and I guess I'm off in a few days. Not so bad nowI can't talk a little and sorta clean one or two things up. No sillydeathbed repentance. I'm jealous of you, Morton; always have been,because you were getting things I couldn't, and I figured from the firstyou were an outsider."

  The dry lips smiled a little.

  "When you get like this it makes a lot of difference, doesn't it, howyou came into the world? I'll be the real outsider in a few days----"

  "Don't talk that way."

  A quick temper distorted Dalrymple's face.

  "They oughtn't to bring a man into the world as I was brought, withoutmoney."

  George couldn't think of anything to say, but Dalrymple hurried on:

  "I wanted to thank you for the notes. Don't have to leave those to myfamily, anyway. And I'm not sure hadn't better apologize all 'round. Idon't forget I've had raw deal--lots of ways; but no point not sayingSylvia had pretty raw one from Dolly. Lucky escape for her--mean Dolly'snot domestic animal, and all that."

  George was aware of a slight shiver as Dalrymple's hoarse voice slippedinto its old, not quite controlled mannerisms.

  "Mean," Dalrymple rambled on, "Dolly won't haunt anybody. Blessings 'n'sort of thing. Best thing, too. Sorry all 'round. That's all. Thankscoming, George."

  And all George could say was:

  "You have to get well, Dolly."

  But Dalrymple turned his head away. After a moment George proposedtentatively:

  "Sylvia's downstairs. She wants very much to see you."

  Dalrymple shook his head.

  "Catching."

  "For her sake," George urged.

  Dalrymple thought.

  "All right," he said at last. "Long enough for me to tell her all right.But not near. Nurse in the room. Catching, and all that."

  George clasped the hot hand.

  "Thanks, Dolly. You've done a decent thing, and you're going to getwell."

  But as he left the room George felt that the physician had been right.

  He spoke to the nurse, who sat in the upper hall, then he told Sylvia.She went up, and he waited for her. He felt he had to wait. He hopedMrs. Dalrymple wouldn't appear again.

  Sylvia wasn't long. She came down dry-eyed. She didn't speak even whenGeorge followed her to her automobile, even when he climbed in besideher; nor did he try to break a silence that he felt was curative. In thelight and surrounded by a crowd they could clasp hands; in this obscuresolitude there was nothing they could do or say. Only on the steps ofher home she spoke.

  "Good-night, George, and thank you."

  "Good-night, dear Sylvia," he said, and returned to the automobile, andtold the man to drive him to his apartment.

  XXIX

  George didn't hear from Dalrymple again, nor di
d he expect to, but hewas quite aware five days later of Goodhue's absence from the office andof his black clothing when he came in during the late afternoon. Hedidn't need Goodhue's few words.

  "It's hard not to feel sorry, to believe, on the whole, it's ratherbetter. Still, when any familiar object is unexpectedly snatched awayfrom one----"

  "We had a talk the other evening," George began.

  Goodhue's face lighted.

  "I'm glad, George."

  He sighed.

  "I've got to try to catch up. Mundy says rails have taken a queer turn."

  "When you think for a minute not so queer," George commenced to explain.

  A few days later Lambert told him that Sylvia had gone to Florida.

  "They'll probably stay until late in the spring. It agrees with Father."

  "How did Sylvia seem?" George asked, anxiously.

  "Wait awhile," Lambert advised, "but I don't think there are going to beany spectres."

  He smiled engagingly.

  "If there shouldn't be," he went on, "a few matters will have to bearranged, because Sylvia and I share alike. Josiah and I had a long,careful talk with Father last night about what we'd do with Sylvia'shusband if she married. He left it to my judgment, advising that wemight take him in if he were worth his salt. Josiah wanted to know withhis bull voice what Father would think if it should turn out to be you.Very seriously, George, Father was pleased. He pointed out that you werea man who made things go, but that you would end by running us all, andhe added that if we wanted that we would be lucky to get you as long asit made Sylvia happy. You know we want you, George."

  George felt as he had that day on the Vesle when Wandel had praised him.No longer could Lambert charge him with having fulfilled his boasts, ina way; yet he hadn't consciously wanted this, nor was he quite sure thathe did now.

  "At least," George said, "you know what my policy would be to makePlanter and Company something more than a money making machine."

  Lambert imitated Blodgett's voice and manner.

  "George, if you wanted to grow hair on a bald man's head I'd say go toit."

  "And there must be room for Dicky," George went on.

  "We've played together too long to break apart now; but why talk aboutit? It depends on Sylvia."

  That was entirely true. For the present there was nothing whatever to bedone. Constantly George conquered the impulse to write to Sylvia, butshe didn't write or give any sign, unless Lambert's frequent quotationsfrom her letters could be accepted as thoughtful messages.

  He visited the Baillys frequently now, for it was stimulating to talkwith Squibs, and he liked to sit quietly with Mrs. Bailly. She had anunstudied habit, nevertheless, of turning his thoughts to his mother.Sylvia had seen her. She knew all about her. After all, his mother hadgiven him the life with which he had accomplished something. He couldn'tbear that their continued separation should prove him inconsistent; soearly in the spring he went west.

  His mother was more than ever ill at ease before his success; more thanever appreciative of the comforts he had given her; even more than atOakmont appalled at the prospect of change. She wouldn't go east. Shecouldn't very well, she explained; and, looking at her tired figure inthe great chair before the fire which she seldom left, he had an impulseto shower upon her extravagant and fantastic gifts, because before longit would be too late to give her anything at all. The picture made himrealize how quickly the generations pass away, drifting one into theother with the rapidity of our brief and colourful seasons. He nodded,satisfied, reflecting that the cure for everything lies in the future,although one must seek it in the diseased present.

  He left her, promising to come back, but he carried away a sensationthat he had intruded on a secluded content that couldn't possiblysurvive the presence of the one who had created it.

  Lambert had no news for him on his return. It was late spring, in fact,before he told George the family had come north, pausing at a number ofresorts on the way up.

  "When am I to see Sylvia, Lambert?"

  "How should I know?"

  It was apparent that he really didn't, and George waited, with a growingdoubt and fear, but on the following Friday he received a note fromBetty, dated from Princeton. All it said was:

  "Spring's at its best here. You'd better come to-morrow--Friday."

  He hurried over to the marble temple.

  "You didn't tell me Betty was in Princeton," he accused Lambert.

  "Must I account to you for the movements of my wife?"

  "Then Sylvia----" George began.

  Lambert smiled.

  "Maybe you'd better run down to Princeton with me this afternoon."

  George glanced at his watch.

  "First train's at four o'clock. Let Wall Street crash. I shan't waitanother minute."

  XXX

  Betty had been right. Spring was fairly vibrant in Princeton, and forGeorge, through its warm and languid power, it rolled back the years;choked him with a sensation of youth he had scarcely experienced sincehe had walked defiantly out of the gate of Sylvia's home to commence hisjourney.

  Sylvia wasn't at the station. Neither was Betty. Abruptly uneasy, hedrove with Lambert swiftly to the Alstons through riotous, youthfulfoliage out of which white towers rose with that reassuring illusion ofa serene and unchangeable gesture. Undergraduates, surrendered to thenew economic eccentricity of overalls, loafed past them, calling to eachother contented and lazy greetings; but George glanced at themindifferently; he only wanted to hurry to his journey's end.

  At the Tudor house Betty ran out to meet them, and Lambert grinned atGeorge and kissed her, but evidently it was George that Betty thought ofnow, for she pointed, as if she had heard the question that repeateditself in his mind, to the house; and he entered, and breathlesslycrossed the hall to the library, and saw Sylvia--the old Sylvia, itoccurred to him--colourful, imperious, and without patience.

  She stood in the centre of the room in an eager, arrested attitude,having, perhaps, restrained herself from impetuously following Betty.George paused, staring at her, suddenly hesitant before the culminationof his great desire.

  "It's been so long," she whispered. "George, I'm not afraid to have youtouch me----You mean I must come to you----"

  He shook off his lassitude, but the wonder grew.

  As in a dream he went to her, and her curved lips moved beneath his, buthe pressed them closer so that she couldn't speak; for he feltencircling them in a breathless embrace, as his arms held her, somethingthrilling and rudimentary that neither of them had experienced before;something quite beyond the comprehension of Sylvia Planter and GeorgeMorton, that belonged wholly to the perplexing and abundant future.

  THE END

  BOOKS BY WADSWORTH CAMP

  THE ABANDONED ROOM THE GRAY MASK THE GUARDED HEIGHTS THE HOUSE OF FEAR SINISTER ISLAND WAR'S DARK FRAME

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