THE MARKET-PLACE
I
George left Princeton with a sense of flight. The reception of a diploma
didn't interest him, nor did the cheers he received class day or on the
afternoon of the Yale baseball game when, beneath a Japanese parasol, he
led the seniors in front of admiring thousands who audibly identified
him for each other.
The man that had done most for Princeton! He admitted he had done a good
deal for himself. Of course, Squibs was right and he was abnormally
selfish; only it was too bad Betty couldn't have thought so. He had
tried to make her and had failed, he told himself, because Betty
couldn't understand selfishness.
He avoided during those last days every chance of seeing her alone; but
even in the presence of others he was aware of an alteration in her
manner, to be traced, doubtless, to the night of his difficult
confession. She was kinder, but her eyes were often puzzled, as if she
couldn't understand why he didn't want to see her alone.
He counted the moments, anxious for Blodgett and the enveloping
atmosphere of his marble-and-mahogany office. That would break the last
permanent tie. He would return to Princeton, naturally, but for only a
day or two now and then, too short a time to permit its influences
appreciably to swerve him.
Without meaning to, he let himself soften on the very edge of his
departure when the class sang on the steps of Nassau Hall for the last
time, then burned the benches about the cannon, and in lock step, hands
on shoulders, shuffled slowly away like men who have accomplished the
interment of their youth.
A lot of these mourning fellows he would never meet again; but he would
see plenty of Goodhue and Wandel and other useful people. Why, then, did
he abruptly and sharply regret his separation from all the others, even
the submerged ones who had got from Princeton only an education taken
like medicine and of about as much value? In the sway of this mood,
induced by permanent farewells, he came upon Dalrymple.
"There's no point saying good-bye to you," George offered, kindly.
Of course not. They would meet each other in town too frequently,
secreting a private enmity behind publicly worn masks of friendship.
George was wandering on, but Dalrymple halted him. The man was a trifle
drunk, and the sentiment of the moment had penetrated his narrow mind.
"Not been very good friends, George, you and I."
Even then George shrank from his apologies, since he appreciated their
precise value.
"Why don't you forget it?" he asked, gruffly.
Dalrymple nodded, but George knew in the morning the other would regret
having said as much as he had.
Immediately after that sombre dissolution of the class George said
good-bye to the Baillys. Although it was quite late they sat waiting for
him in the study, neat and serene as it had been on that first day a
hundred years ago. The room was quite the same except that Bill
Gregory's picture had lost prominence while George's stood in the place
of honour--an incentive for new men, although George was confident
Squibs didn't urge certain of his qualities on his youngsters.
Squibs looked older to-night, nearly as old, George thought, as the
disgraceful tweeds which he still wore. Mrs. Bailly sat in the shadows.
George kissed her and sank on the sofa at her side. She put her hand out
and groped for his, clinging to his fingers with a sort of despair. For
a long time they sat without speaking. George put his arm around her and
waited for one or the other to break this silence which became
unbearable. He couldn't, because as he dreamed among the shadows there
slipped into his mind the appearance and the atmosphere of another room
where three had sat without words on the eve of a vital parting. Tawdry
details came back of stove and littered table and ungainly chairs, and
of swollen hands and swollen eyes. He had suffered an unbearable silence
then because he had found himself suddenly incapable of speaking his
companions' language. With these two the silence was more difficult,
because there was too much to say--more than ever could be said.
He started. Suppose Squibs at the very last should use his father's
parting words:
"It's a bad start, but maybe you'll turn out all right after all."
His lips tightened. Would it be any truer now than it had been then? For
that matter, would Squibs have cared for him or done as much for him, if
he had been less ambitious, if he had compromised at all?
One thing was definite: No matter what he did these two would never
demand his exile; and the old pain caught him, and he knew it was real,
and not a specious cover for his relief at not having to see his parents
again. It hurt--most of all his mother's acceptance of a judgment she
should have fought with all her soul.
He stroked the soft hand that clung to his. From that parting he had
come to the tender and eager maternal affection of this childless woman,
and he knew she would always believe he was right.
But she wanted him to have Betty----
He stood up. He was going away from home. She expressed that at the
door.
"This is your home, George."
Bailly nodded.
"Never forget that. Don't let your ideas smoulder in your own brain.
Come home, and talk them over."
George kissed Mrs. Bailly. He put his hands on Bailly's narrow
shoulders. He looked at the young eyes in a wrinkled face.
"The thing that hurts me most," he muttered, "is that I haven't paid you
back."
"Perhaps not altogether," Bailly answered, gravely, "but someday you
may."
II
The last thing George did before leaving his dismantled room, which for
so long had sheltered Sylvia's riding crop and her photograph, was to
write this little note to Betty:
DEAR BETTY:
It's simpler to go without saying good-bye.
G. M.
Then he was hustled through the window of the railroad train, out of
Princeton, and definitely into the market-place.
After the sentiment of the final days the crowding, unyielding
buildings, and the men that shared astonishingly their qualities,
offered him a useful restorative. He found he could approximate their
essential hardness again.
The Street at times resembled the campus--it held so many of the men he
had learned to know at Princeton. Lambert was installed in his father's
marble temple. He caught George one day on the sidewalk and hustled him
to a luncheon club.
"I suppose I really ought to put you up here."
"Why?" George asked.
"Because I'm always sure of a good scrap with you. I missed not playing
against you in the Princeton game last fall. Now there's no more
football for either of us. I like scraps."
Blodgett, he chanced to mention later, had spent the previous week-end
at Oakmont. Blodgett had already bragged of that in George's presence.
He forgot the excellent dishes Lambert had had placed before him.
"Have you put Blodgett up here, too?" he asked in his bluntest manner.
Lambert shook his head.
"That's different."
"Not very honestly different," George said, attempting a smile.
"You mean," Lambert laughed, "because I've never asked you to Oakmont?
Under the circumstances----"
"I don't mean that," George said. "I mean Blodgett."
"I can only arrange my own likes and dislikes," Lambert answered, still
amused.
Then who at Oakmont liked the fat financier?
Rogers was in the street, too, selling bonds with his old attitude
toward the serious side of life, striving earnestly only to spy out the
right crowd and to run with it.
"Buy my bonds! Buy my bonds!" he would cry, coming into George's office.
"They're each and every one a bargain. Remember, what's a bargain to-day
may be a dead loss to-morrow, so buy before it's too late."
Goodhue planned to enter a stock exchange firm in the fall, and a lot of
other men from the class would come down then after a long rest between
college and tackling the world on twenty dollars a month. Wandel alone
of George's intimates rested irresolute. George, since he had taken two
rooms and a bath in the apartment house in which Wandel lived, saw him
frequently. He could easily afford that luxury, for each summer his
balance had grown, and Blodgett, now that he had George for as long as
he could keep him, was paying him handsomely, and flattering him by
drawing on the store of special knowledge his extended and difficult
application had hoarded.
To live in such a house, moreover, was necessary to his campaign, which,
he admitted, had lagged alarmingly. Sylvia had continued to avoid him.
She seemed to possess a special sense for the houses and the parties
where he would be, and when, in spite of this, they did meet, she tried
to impress him with a thorough indifference; or, if she couldn't avoid a
dance, with a rigid repulsion that failed to harmonize with her warm
colouring and her exquisite femininity.
Through some means he had to get on. His restless apprehension had
grown. Her departure for Europe with her mother fed the rumours that
from time to time had connected her name with eligible men. It was even
hinted now that her mother's eyesight, which reached to social greatness
across the Atlantic, was responsible for her celibacy.
"There'll be an announcement before she comes back," the gossip ran.
"They'll land a museum piece of a title."
George didn't know about that, but he did realize that unless he could
progress, one day a rumour would take body. He resented bitterly her
absence this summer, but if things would carry on until the fall he
would manage, he promised himself, to get ahead with Sylvia.
Wandel seemed to enjoy having George near, for, irresolute as he was, he
spent practically the entire summer in town. George, one night when they
had returned from two hours' suffering of a summer show, asked him the
reason. They smoked in Wandel's library.
"I can look around better here," was all Wandel would say.
"But Driggs! Those precious talents!"
Wandel stretched himself in an easy chair.
"What would you suggest, great man?"
George laughed.
"Do you write poetry in secret--the big, wicked, and suffering city,
seen from a tenth-story window overlooking a pretty park?"
Vehemently Wandel shook his head.
"You know what most of our modern American jinglers are up to--talking
socialism or anarchy to get themselves talked about. If only they
wouldn't apply such insincere and half-digested theories to their art!
It's a little like modern popular music--criminal intervals and measures
against all the rules. But crime, you see, is invariably arresting. My
apologies to the fox-trot geniuses. They pretend to be nothing more than
clever mutilators; but the jinglers! They are great reformers. Bah! They
remind me of a naughty child who proudly displays the picture he has
torn into grotesque pieces, saying: 'Come quick, mother, and see what
smart little Aleck has done.' You'll have to try again, George."
George glanced up. His face was serious.
"Don't laugh at me. I mean it. Politics."
"At Princeton I wasn't bad at that," Wandel admitted, smiling
reminiscently. "But politics mixes a man with an unlovely crowd--uncouth
provincials, a lot of them, and some who are to all purposes foreigners.
Do you know, my dear George, that ability to read and write is essential
to occupying a seat in the United States Senate? I was amazed the other
day to hear it was so. You see how simple it is to misjudge."
"Then there's room," George laughed, "for more honest, well-educated,
well-bred Americans."
"Seems to me," Wandel drawled, "that a little broad-minded practicality
in our politics would be more useful than bovine honesty. I could
furnish that. How should I begin?"
"You might get a start in the State Department," George suggested,
"diplomacy, a secretaryship----"
"For once you're wrong," Wandel objected. "In this country diplomacy is
a destination rather than a route. The good jobs are frequently given
for services rendered, or men pay enormous sums for the privilege of
being taken for waiters at their own functions. To start at the
bottom----Oh, no. I don't possess the cerebral vacuity, and you can only
climb out of the service."
"Just the same," George laughed, "you'd make a tricky politician."
Wandel puffed thoughtfully.
"You're a far-seeing, a far-going person," he said. "You are bound to be
a very rich man. You'll want a few practical politicians. Isn't it so?
Never mind, but it's understood if I ever run for President or coroner
you'll back me with your money bags."
George glanced about the room, as striking and costly in its French
fashion as the green study had been.
"You have all the money you need," he said.
"But I'd be a rotten politician," Wandel answered, "if I spent any of my
own money on my own campaigns. So we have an understanding if the
occasion should arise----"
With a movement exceptionally quick for him, suggesting, indeed, an
uncontrollable nervous reaction, Wandel sprang to his feet and went to
the window where he leant out. George followed him, staring over the
park's far-spread velvet, studded with the small but abundant yellow
jewels of the lamps.
"What is it, little man? It's insufferable in town. Why don't you go
play by the sea or in the hills?"
"Because," Wandel answered, softly, "I can't help the feeling that any
occasion may arise. I don't mean our little politics, George. Time
enough for them. I don't want to go. I am waiting."
George understood.
"You mean the murders at Sarajevo," he said. "You're over-sensitive. Run
along and play. Nothing will come of that."
"Tell me," Wandel said, turning slowly, "that you mean what you say.
Tell me you haven't figured on it already."
George shrugged his shoulders.
"You're discreet. All right. I have figured, because, if anything should
come of it, it offers the chance of a lifetime for making money. Mundy's
put me in touch with some useful people in London and Paris. I want to
be ready if things should break. I hope they won't. Honestly, I very
much doubt if they will. Even Germany will think twice before forcing a
general war."
"But you're making ready," Wandel whispered, "on the off-chance."
George pressed a switch and got more light. It was as if a heavy shadow
had filled the delightful room.
"We're growing fanciful," he said, "seeing things in the dark. By the
way, you run into Dalrymple occasionally? I'm told he comes often to
town."
Wandel left the window, nodding.
"How long can he keep it up?" George asked.
"I'm not a physician."
"No, no. I mean financially. I gather his family live up to what they
have."
"I daresay it would pain them to settle Dolly's debts frequently,"
Wandel smiled.
"Then," George said, slowly, "he is fairly sure to come to you--that is,
if this keeps up."
"Why," Wandel asked, "should I encourage Dolly to be charitable to rich
wine agents and under-dressed females?"
George shook his head.
"If he asks you for help don't send him to the money lenders. Send him
discreetly to me. If I didn't have what he'd want, I daresay I could get
it."
Wandel stared, lighting another cigarette.
"I'd like to keep him from the money lenders," George said, easily.
He didn't care whether Wandel thought him a forgiving fool or a
calculating scoundrel. Goodhue and Wandel had long since seen that he
had been put up at a number of clubs. The two had fancied they could
control Dalrymple's resentments. George, following his system, preferred
a whip in his own hand. He harboured no thought of revenge, but he did
want to be able to protect himself. He would use every possible means.
This was one.
"We'll see," Wandel said. "It's too bad great men don't get along with
little wasters."
III
More than once George was tempted to follow Sylvia, trusting to luck to
find means of being near her. Such a trip might, indeed, lead to profit
if the off chance should develop. Still that could be handled better
from this side, and it was, after all, a chance. He must trust to her
coming back as she had gone. His place for the present was with Blodgett
and Mundy.
The chance, however, was at the back of his head when he encountered
Allen late one hot night in a characteristic pose in Times Square. Allen
still talked, but his audience of interested or tolerant college men had
been replaced by hungry, ragged loafers and a few flushed, well-dressed
males of the type that prefers any diversion to a sane return home.
Allen stood in the centre of this group. His arms gestured broadly. His
angular face was passionate. From the few words George caught his
sympathy for these failures was beyond measure. He suggested to them the
beauties of violence, the brilliancies of the social revolution. The
loafers commented. The triflers laughed. Policemen edged near.
"Free liquor!" a voice shrilled.
Allen shook his fist, and continued. The proletariat would have to take
matters into its own hands.
"Fine!" a hoarse and beery listener shouted, "but what'll the cops say
about it?"
The edging policemen didn't bother to say anything at first. They
quietly scattered the scarecrows and the laggards. They indicated the
advisability of retreat for the orator. Then one burst out at Allen.
"God help the proletariat if I have to take it before McGloyne at the
station house."
And George heard another sneer:
"Social revolution! They've been trying to throw Tammany out ever since
I can remember."
George got Allen away. The angular man was glad to see him.
"You look overworked," George said. "Come have a modest supper with me."
Allen was hungry, but he managed to grumble discouragement over his
food.
"They laugh. They'll stop listening for the price of a glass of beer."
"Maybe," George said, kindly, "they realize it's no good trying to help
them."
"They've got to be helped," Allen muttered.
"Then," George suggested, "put them in institutions, but don't expect me
nor any one else to approve when you urge them to grab the leadership of
the world. You must have enough sense to see it would mean ruin. I know
they're not all like this lot, but they're all a little wrong or they
wouldn't need help."
"It's because they've never had a chance," Allen protested.
It came to George that Allen had never had a chance either, and he
wondered if he, too, could be led aside by the price of a glass of beer.
"You all want what the other fellow's got," he said. "From that one
motive these social movements draw the bulk of their force. A lot for
nothing is a perfect poor man's creed."
"You're a heathen, Morton."
"That is, a human being," George said, good naturedly. "You're another,
Allen, but you won't acknowledge it."
Because he believed that, George took the other's address. Allen was
loyal, aggressive, and extraordinarily bright, as he had proved at
Princeton. It might be convenient to help him. Besides, he hated to see
a man he knew so well waste his time and look like a fool.
IV
By late July the off chance had pretty thoroughly defined itself except
to the blind. Blodgett, however, was still skeptical. He thought
George's plans were sound, provided a war should come. But there
wouldn't be any war. His correspondents were optimistic.
"Have I your permission to use Mundy in his off time?" George asked.
"As far as I'm concerned," Blodgett said, "Mundy can play parchesi in
his off time."
George telephoned Lambert Planter and sent a telegram to Goodhue. He
took them to luncheon and had Mundy there, too. He outlined his plans
for the formation of the firm of Morton, Planter, and Goodhue.
"He's called the turn of the cards," Mundy offered.
Such cards as he possessed George placed on the table. He furnished the
idea, and the preliminary organization, and what money he had. He took,
therefore, the major share of the profits. The others would give what
time to the business they could, but it was their money he wanted, and
the credit their names would give the firm. Mundy and he had made lists
of buyers and sellers. No man in the Street was better equipped than
Mundy to pick such a force. If Lambert and Goodhue agreed, these men
could be collected within a week. Some would go to Europe. Others would
scatter over the United States. It would cost a lot, but it meant an
immeasurable amount in return, for the war was inevitable.
Goodhue and Lambert were as skeptical as Blodgett, but they agreed to
give him what he needed to get his organization started. By that time,
he promised them, they would see how right he was, and then he could use
more of their money.
"It's the nearest I've ever come to gambling," he thought as he left
them. "Gambling on a war!"
Because of his confidence, before a frontier had been crossed he had
bought or contracted for large quantities of shoes and cloths and
waterproofing. He had taken options on stock in small and wavering
automobile concerns, and outlying machine shops and foundries, some of
them already closed down, some struggling along without hope.
"If the war lasts a month," he told his partners, "those stocks will
come from the bottom of nothing to the sky."
Goodhue became thoroughly interested at last. He cancelled his vacation
and installed himself in the offices George had rented in Blodgett's
building. With the men Mundy had picked, and under Mundy's tutelage, he
took charge of the routine. George went to Blodgett the first of August.
"I want to quit," he said. "I've got a big thing. I want to give it all
my time."
Blodgett mopped his face. His grin was a little sheepish.
"I want to invest some money in your firm," he jerked out.
"I can use it," George said.
"You've got Goodhue there," Blodgett went on in a complaining way, "and
Mundy's working nights for you. Don't desert an old man without notice.
I'll give you plenty of time upstairs. Other things may come off here. I
can use you."
"If you want to pay me when you know my chief interest is somewhere
else," George said, "it's up to you."
"When I think I'm getting stung I'll let you know," Blodgett roared.
George sent for Allen, and urged him to go to London to open an office
with an expert Lambert had got from his father's marble temple. Allen
would be a check on the more experienced men whose scruples might not
stand the temptations of this vast opportunity. Allen said he couldn't
do it; couldn't abandon the work he had already commenced.
"There'll be precious little talk of socialism," George said, "until
this thing is over. It's a great chance for a man to study close up the
biggest change the world has ever undergone. Those fellows will want
everything, and I'll give them everything I can lay my hands on. I'm
ahead of a lot of jobbers here. I'll pay you well to see I don't get
robbed on that side. Come on. Take a shot at hard facts for a change."
Allen gasped at the salary George mentioned. He hesitated. He went.
George was glad to have helped him. He experienced also an ugly sense of
triumph. He felt that he wanted to tell Squibs Bailly right away.
Sylvia and her mother, he heard later, had come home out of the turmoil,
unacquainted with the discomforts of people who had travelled without
the Planter prestige. Whether the war was to blame or not, she had
returned without a single rumour touching fact. He didn't see her right
away, because she clung to Oakmont. More and more, as his success
multiplied, keeping pace with the agony in Europe, he longed to see her.
All at once a return to Oakmont was, in a sense, forced upon him, but he
went without any thought of encountering Sylvia, hoping, indeed, to
avoid her.
It was like his mother to express her letter with telegraphic bluntness
without, however, going to the expense of actually wiring. Where he had
expected her customary stiff gratitude for money sent he found a
scrawled announcement of his father's death, and her plans for the
funeral the following afternoon.
"Of course you won't come," she ended.
Yet it seemed to him that he should go, to arrange her future. This was
the moment to snap the last enslaving tie between the Mortons and
Oakmont. There was, of course, the chance of running into Sylvia, or
some visitor who might connect him with the little house. Suppose
Dalrymple, for example, should be staying with the Planters as he often
did? George shrugged his shoulders. Things were coming rather rapidly to
him. Besides, it was extremely unlikely that any one from the great
house would see the Morton ceremony. The instincts of those people
would be to avoid such sights.
V
About his return there was a compelling thrill. He drove from the
station in one of the cheap automobiles that had made his father
practically a pensioner of the Planters. With an incredulous
appreciation that he had once accepted its horizon as the boundary of
his life, he examined the familiar landscape and the scar made upon it
by the village. Curtly he refused to satisfy the driver's curiosity. He
had some business at the little house on the Planter estate.
There, through the nearly stripped trees, it showed, almost audibly
confessing its debt to the Planter carpenters, painters, and gardeners.
In a clouded light late fall flowers waved from masses of dead leaves.
Their gay colours gave them an appearance melancholy and apprehensive.
Here he was back at last, and he wasn't going in at the great gate.
He walked around the shuttered house and crossed the porch where his
father had liked to sit on warm evenings. He rapped at the door. Feet
shuffled inside. The door swayed open, and his mother stood on the
threshold. Most of the changes had come to him, but in her red eyes
sparkled a momentary and mournful importance. At first she didn't
recognize her son.
"What is it?"
George stooped and kissed her cheek.
"I'm sorry, Mother."
Instead of holding out her arms she drew away, staring with fascination,
a species of terror, at his straight figure, at his clothing, at his
face that wouldn't coarsen now. When she spoke her voice suggested a
placating of this stranger who was her son.
"I didn't think you'd come. I can't believe you're George--my Georgie."
Over her shoulders in the shadowed house he saw the inquisitive faces of
women. It was clear that for them such an arrival was more divertive
than the sharing of a sorrow that scarcely touched their hearts.
George went in. He remembered most of the faces that disclosed
excitement while fawning upon his prosperity. He received an unpleasant
impression that these poor and ignorant people concealed a dangerous
envy, that they would be glad to grasp in one moment, even of violence,
all that it had taken him years of difficult struggle to acquire.
Whether that was so or not they ought not to stand before him as if his
success were a crown. He tried to keep contempt from his voice.
"Please sit down. I want to talk to my mother. Where----"
With slow steps she crossed the kitchen and opened the door of the
parlour, beckoning. He followed, knowing what he would find in that
uncomfortable, gala room of the poor.
He closed the door. In the half light he saw standing on trestles an
oblong box altogether too large for the walls that seemed to crowd it.
He had no feeling that anything of his father was there. He realized
with a sense of helpless regret that all that remained to him of that
unhappy man were the ghosts of such emotions as avarice, fear, and the
instinct to sacrifice one's own flesh and blood for a competence.
"Why don't you look at him, George?"
"I don't think he'd care to have me looking at him now."
She wiped her eyes.
"You are too bitter against your father. After all, he was a good man."
"Why should death," he asked her, musingly, "make people seem better
than they were in life? It isn't so."
"That's wicked. If your father could rise----"
His attention was caught by an air of pointing the oblong box had, as if
to something infinitely farther than ambition and success, yet so close
it angered him he couldn't see or touch it. His father had gone there,
beyond the farthest horizon of all. Old Planter couldn't make trouble
for him now. He was quite safe.
Over in Europe, he reflected, they didn't have enough coffins.
The oblong box for the first time made him think of that war, that was
making him rich, in terms of life instead of dollars and cents. He felt
dissatisfied.
"There should be more light here," he said, defensively.
But his mother shook her head.
He arranged a chair for her and sat near by while they discussed the
details of her departure. She let him see that she shrank from leaving
the house, against which, nevertheless, she had bitterly complained ever
since Old Planter had got it. Evidently she wanted to linger in her
familiar rut, awaiting with the attitude of a martyr whatever fate might
offer. That was the reason people had to be helped, because they
preferred vicious inertia to the efforts and risks of change. Then why
did they want the prizes of those who had had the courage to go forth
and fight? Why couldn't Squibs see that?
Patiently George told her she needn't worry about money again. She had a
sister who years ago had married and moved West to a farm that was not
particularly flourishing. Undoubtedly her sister would be glad to have
her and her generous allowance. So his will overcame his mother's
reluctance to help herself. She glanced up.
"Who is that?"
He listened. The women in the kitchen were standing again. Light feet
crossed the floor.
"Maybe somebody from the big house," his mother whispered. "They sent
Simpson last night."
For a moment the entire building was as silent as the oblong box. Then
the door opened.
Sylvia Planter slipped in and closed the door.
George caught his breath, studying her as she hesitated, accustoming
herself to the insufficient light. She wore a broad-brimmed hat that
gave her the charm and the grace of a portrait by Gainsborough. When she
recognized him, indeed, she seemed as permanently caught as a portrait.
"Miss Sylvia!" his mother worshipped.
"They told me I would find you here," Sylvia said, uncertainly. "I
didn't know----"
She broke off, biting her lip. George strolled around the oblong box to
the window, turning there with a slow bow. Even across that desolate,
dead shell, the obstinate distaste and the challenge were lively in her
glance.
"It was very kind of you to come," he said.
But he was sorry she had come. To see him in such surroundings was a
stimulation of the ugly memories he had struggled to destroy. He read
her instinct to hurt him now as she had hurt the impertinent man,
Morton, who had lived in this house.
"When one of our people is in trouble----" she began, deliberately. "I
thought I might be of some help to your mother."
Even over the feeling of security George had just tried to give her the
old menace reached the uneasy woman.
"You--you remember him, Miss Sylvia?"
"Very well," Sylvia answered. "He used to be my groom."
"The title comes from you," George said, dryly.
His mother's glance fluttered from one to the other. What did she
expect--Old Planter stalking in to carry out his threats?
"After all these years I scarcely knew him myself."
Sylvia's colour heightened. He appraised her rising temper.
"Bad servants," he said, "linger in good employers' memories."
"I know, Miss Sylvia," his mother burst out, "that he wasn't to come
back here, but----"
She unclasped her nervous hands. One indicated the silent cause of his
disobedience. George moved toward the door. Sylvia stepped quickly
aside. He felt, like a physical wave, her desire to hurt.
"At such a time," she said, "it's natural he should come back to his
home. I think my father would be glad to have him with his mother."
George shrugged his shoulders, slipped out, navigated the shoals of
whispering women, and reached the clean air. He buttoned his overcoat
and shuffled through the dead leaves beneath the trees until he found
himself at the spot where Lambert and he had fought. He recalled his
hot boasts of that day. Fulfilment had seemed simple enough then. The
scene just submitted reminded him how short a distance he had actually
travelled.
He knew she would pass that way on her return to the big house, so he
waited, and when he heard her feet disturbing the dead leaves he didn't
turn. She came closer than he had expected, and he heard her contralto
voice, quick and defiant:
"I hadn't expected to see you. I didn't quite realize what I was saying.
I should have had more respect for any one's grief."
Having said that, she was going on, but he turned and stopped her. As he
looked at her he reflected that everything had altered since that
day--she most of all. Then the woman had been a little visible in the
child. Now, he fancied, the child survived in the woman only through the
persistence of this old quarrel. He stared at her lips, recalling his
boast that no man should touch them unless it were George Morton. He was
no nearer them than he had been that day. Unless he got nearer some man
would. It was incredible that she hadn't married. She would marry.
"In the sense you mean, I have no grief," he said.
"Then I needn't have bothered. I once said you were a--a----"
"Something melodramatic. A beast, I think it was," he answered. "If you
don't mind I'll walk on with you for a little way."
"No," she said.
"If you please."
"You've no perception," she cried, angrily.
"Don't you think it time," he suggested, "that you ceased treating me
like a groom? It isn't very convincing to me. I doubt if it is to you. I
fancy it's really only your pride. I don't see why you should have so
much where I am concerned."
Her hand made a quick gesture of repulsion.
"You've not changed. You may walk on with me while I tell you this: If
you were like the men I know and can be friends with you'd leave me
alone. Will you stop this persecution? It comes down to that. Will you
stop forcing me to dance with you, to listen to you?"
He smiled, shaking his head.
"I'll make you dance with me more than ever. I've seen very little of
you lately. I hope this winter----"
She stopped, facing him, her cheeks flaming.
"You see! You remind me every time I meet you of just what you are, just
what you came from, just what you said and did that day."
"That is my aim," he smiled.
He moved his hand in the direction of the little house.
"When we're all like that will it make much difference who our fathers
and mothers were?"
She shivered. She started swiftly away.
"Miss Planter!"
The unexpectedness of the naked command may have brought her around. He
walked to her.
"When will you realize," he asked, "that it is unforgivable to turn your
back on life?"
Had he really meant to suggest that she could possess life only through
him? Doubtless the sublime effrontery of that interpretation reached
her. She commenced to laugh, her colour rising. She glanced away, and
her laughter died.
"You may as well understand," he said, "that I am never going to leave
you alone."
She started across the leaf-strewn grass. He kept pace with her.
"Are you going to force me to make a scene?" she asked.
"Except with your father," he said, "I don't think it would make much
difference."
He felt that if she had had anything in her hands then she would have
struck at him.
"It's not because I'm a beast," he said, quietly, "that I have no grief
for my father. He was through. Life had nothing to offer him. He had
nothing to offer life. Don't think I'm incapable of grief. I experienced
it the day I thought you might be dead. That was because you had so
much to offer life--rather more than life had to offer you."
He saw her shrink from him but she walked on, repressing her pain and
her anger.
"Since I've known intimately girls of your class," he said, "I've
realized that not all of them would have turned and tried to wound as
you did that day. Some would have laughed. Some would have been sorry
and sympathetic. I don't think many would have made such a scene."
He smiled down at her.
"I want you to realize it is your own fault. You started this. I'm not
scolding. I'm glad you were such a little fury. Otherwise, I might have
gone on working for your father or for somebody else's father. But
you're to blame for my persistence, so learn to put up with it. As long
as I keep the riding crop with which you tried to cut my face I'll
remember what I said I'd do, and I'll do it."
She didn't answer, but if she tried to give him the impression she
wasn't listening she failed utterly.
Around a curve in the path came a bent, white old man, bundled in a
heavy muffler and coat. In one hand he carried a thick cane. The other
rested on the arm of a young fellow of the private secretary stamp.
There, George acknowledged, advanced the single person with whom a scene
might make a serious difference, yet a more compelling thought crept in
and overcame his sense of danger. That was the type of man who made
wars. That man, indeed, was helping to finance this war. George was
obsessed by the dun day: by the leaves, fallen and rotten; by the memory
of the oblong box. Everything reminded him that not far away Death
marched with a bland, black triumph, greeting science as an ally instead
of an enemy.
"Suppose," he mused, "America should get in this thing."
At last she spoke.
"What did you say? Do you see my father?"
He nodded.
"Wouldn't it be wiser," she asked, "to leave me alone?"
"Your father," he said, "looks a good deal older."
Old Planter had, in fact, gone down hill since George's last glimpse of
him in New York, or else he didn't attempt here to assume a strength he
no longer possessed. He was quite close before he gave any sign of
seeing the pair, and then he muttered to his secretary who answered with
a whisper. He limped up and took Sylvia's hand.
"Where has my little girl been?"
She laughed harshly.
"To a rendezvous in the forest. You shouldn't let me go out alone."
Planter glanced from clouded eyes at George. His lips between the white
hair smiled amiably.
"I don't believe I remember----"
"It's one of Lambert's business friends," Sylvia said, hastily. "Mr.
Morton."
The old man shifted his cane and held out his hand.
"Lambert," he joked, "says he's going to make more money through you
than I can hope to leave him. You seem to have got the jump on a lot of
shrewd men. I'll see you at dinner? Lambert isn't coming to-night?"
George briefly clasped the hand of the big man.
"I must go back to town this afternoon."
"Then another time."
Planter shifted his cane and leant again on his secretary.
"Let's get on, Straker. Doctor's orders."
"Why," George asked when Sylvia and he were alone, "didn't you spring at
the chance?"
"I prefer to fight my own battles," she said, shortly.
"Don't you mean," he asked, quizzically, "that you're a little ashamed
of what you did that day?"
She shook her head.
"I was a frightened child. I have changed."
"Isn't it," he laughed, "a little because I, too, have changed? It never
occurred to your father to connect me with the Mortons living on his
place."
Again she shook her head, turning away. He held out his hand.
"I must go back. Let's admit we've both changed. Let us be friends."
She didn't answer. She made no motion to take his hand.
"One of the promises I made that day," he reminded her, "was to teach
you not to be afraid of my touch."
"Does it amuse you to threaten me?" she asked.
Suddenly he reached out, caught her right hand before she could avoid
him, and gave it a quick pressure.
"Of course you're right," he laughed. "Actions are more useful than
threats."
While she stared, flushed and incredulous, at the hand he had pressed,
George walked swiftly away, tingling with life, back to the house of
death.
VI
At the funeral he submitted to the amazed scrutiny of the country
people. They couldn't hurt him, because they impinged not at all on his
world; but he was relieved when the oblong box had been consigned to the
place reserved for it, and he could, after arranging the last details of
his mother's departure, take the train back to New York.
Blodgett didn't even bother to ask where he had been. He was content
these days to let George go his own way. He hadn't forgotten that the
younger man had seen farther off than he the greatest opportunity for
money making the world had ever offered the greedy. He personally was
more interested in the syndicating of foreign external loans. The
Planters weren't far from the head of that movement, and George rather
resented his stout employer's working hand in hand with the Planters.
George longed to ask him how often he was trying to appear graceful at
Oakmont these days.
The firm of Morton, Planter, and Goodhue had grown so rapidly that it
took practically all of George's and Lambert's time. Mundy, to whom
George had given a small interest, asked Blodgett if he couldn't leave
to devote himself entirely to the offices upstairs.
"Go to it," Blodgett agreed, good naturedly. "Draw your profits and your
salary from Morton after this."
George mulled over the sacrifice. Did it mean that Blodgett was so close
to the Planters that a merger was possible?
"There's no use," he told Blodgett. "I'm earning practically nothing in
your office, because I'm never here. I want to resign."
"Run along, sonny," Blodgett said. "Your salary is a small portion of
the profits your infant firm is bringing me. I like you around the
office once a day. Old Planter hasn't fired his boy, has he, and he's
upstairs all the time, and he's taken over some of the old man's best
clerks."
"He's Mr. Planter's son," George reminded him.
"And ain't you like a good son to me," the other leered, "making money
for papa Blodgett?"
"Why did you let Mundy go so peacefully?" George asked, suspiciously.
"Because," Blodgett said, "he's been here a good many years, and he can
make more money this way. Didn't want to stand in his light, and I had
somebody in view."
But George wouldn't credit Blodgett with such altruism. Why was the man
so infernally good natured, exuding an oily content? Goodhue hinted at a
reason one day when they were talking of Sinclair and his lack of
interest in the office.
"I've heard rather privately," Goodhue said, "that Sinclair got pretty
badly involved a few months ago. If it hadn't been for Blodgett he'd
have gone on the rocks a total wreck. Josiah puffed up and towed him
away whole. Naturally Sinclair and his lady are grateful. I daresay this
winter Blodgett's receiving invitations he's coveted, and if he gives
any parties himself he'll have some of the people he's always wanted."
George hid his disapproval. Blodgett didn't even have a veneer. Money
was all he could offer. And was Sinclair a great fool, or Blodgett the
cleverest man in Wall Street, that Sinclair didn't know who had involved
him and why?
As a matter of fact, Blodgett did appear at several dances, wobbling
about the room to the discomfort of slender young things, getting
generally in everyone's way. George hated to see him attempting to dance
with Sylvia Planter. Sylvia seemed rather less successful in avoiding
him than she did in keeping out of George's way. Until Blodgett's
extraordinary week-end in February, indeed, George didn't have another
chance to speak to her alone.
"Of course you'll come, George," Blodgett said. "If this weather holds
there'll be skating and sleighing--horses always, if you want 'em; and a
lot of first-class people."
"Who?" George asked.
"How about another financial chick--one of your partners?"
"Lambert Planter?"
The puffy face expanded.
"And the Sinclairs, because I'm a bachelor, and----"
But, since he could guess Sylvia would be there, George didn't care for
any more names. He wondered why Lambert or his sister should go. Had her
attitude toward the fat, coarse man conceivably altered because of his
gambolling at Oakmont? While he talked business with Mundy, Lambert, and
Goodhue, George's mind was distracted by a sense of imponderable loss.
Was it the shadow of what Sylvia had lost by accepting such an
invitation?
He didn't go until Saturday afternoon--there was too much to occupy him
at the office. This making money out of Europe's need had a good deal
constricted his social wanderings. It was why he hadn't frequently seen
Dalrymple close enough for annoyance; why he had met Betty only briefly
a very few times. He hadn't expected to run into either of them at
Blodgett's, but both were there. Betty was probably Lambert's excuse for
rushing out the night before.
George felt sorry for Mrs. Sinclair. Still against the corpulent
crudities of her host she could weigh the graces of his guests. It
pleased George that her greeting for him should be so warm.
The weather, too, had been considerate of Blodgett, refraining from
injuring his snow or ice. A musical and brassy sleigh met George at the
station. Patches of frosty white softened the lines of the house and
draped the self-conscious nudity of the sculpture in the sunken garden.
"And it'll snow again to-night, sir," the driver promised, as if even
the stables pulled for the master's success.
Everyone was out, but it was still early, so George asked for a horse
and hurried into his riding clothes. He had been working rather too hard
recently. The horse a groom brought around was a good one, and by no
means overworked. George was as eager as the animal to limber up and go.
Off they dashed at last along a winding bridle-path, broken just enough
to give good footing. The war, and his share of helping the allies--at a
price; his uncomfortable fear that the Baillys didn't like him to draw
success from such a disaster; his disapproval of Sylvia's coming
here--all cleared from his head as he galloped or trotted through the
sharp air.
One thing: Blodgett hadn't spoiled these woodland bridle-paths; yet
George had a sensation of always looking ahead for a nude marble figure
at a corner, or an urn elaborately designed for simple flowers, or some
iron animals to remind a hunter that Blodgett knew what a well-bred
forest was for. Instead he saw through the trees ice swept clear of snow
across which figures glided with joyful sounds.
"Some of his flashy guests," George thought.
He rode slowly to the margin of the pond, which shared the colour of the
sky. Several of the skaters cried greetings. He recognized Dalrymple
then, skating with a girl. Dalrymple veered away, waving a careless
hand, Lambert came on, fingers locked with Betty's, and scraped to a
halt at the pond's edge.
"So the war's stopped for the week-end at last?" Lambert called.
"I wondered if you'd come at all," Betty cried.
George dismounted, smothering his surprise.
"A men and youths' general furnisher," he said, "has to stick pretty
much to the store. I never dreamed of seeing you here, Betty."
Perhaps Lambert caught George's real meaning.
"She's staying with Sylvia," he explained, "so, of course, she came."
George mounted and rode on, his mood suddenly as sunless as the
declining afternoon. Those two still got along well enough. Certainly it
was time for a rumour to take shape there. He had a sharp appreciation
of having once been younger. Suppose, because of his ambition, he should
see all his friends mate, leaving him as rich as Blodgett, and, like
him, unpaired? He quickened the pace of his horse. It was inconceivable.
No matter what Sylvia did he would never slacken his pursuit. In every
other direction he had forged ahead. Eventually he would in that one.
Then why did it hurt him to picture Betty gone beyond his reach?
He crossed the Blodgett boundaries, and entered a country road as
undisturbed and enticing as the private bridle-paths had been. He took
crossroads at random, keeping only a sense of direction, trying to
understand why he was sorry he had to be with Betty when he had come
only to be near Sylvia.
The thickening dusk warned him, and he chose a road leading toward
Blodgett's. First he received the horseman's sense of something ahead of
him. Then he heard the muffled tread of horses in the snow, and
occasionally a laugh.
"More of Josiah's notables," he hazarded.
He put spurs to his horse, and in a few minutes saw against the snow
three dark figures ambling along at an easy trot. When he had come
closer he knew that two of the riders were men, the other a woman. It
was easy enough to identify Blodgett. A barrel might have ridden so if
it had had legs with which to balance itself; and that slender figure
was probably the trapped Sinclair. George hurried on, his premonition
assuming ugly lines of reality. Even at that distance and from the rear
he guessed that the graceful woman riding between the two men was
Sylvia. Why had she chosen an outing with the ridiculous Blodgett?
Sinclair, no man possessed sufficient charm to offset the disadvantages
of such a companionship.
George, when he was sure, reined in, surprised at his reflections.
Blodgett, heaven knew, had been good to him, and he had once liked the
man. Why, then, had he turned so viciously against him? Adjectives his
mind had recently applied to Blodgett flashed back: "Coarse," "fat,"
"ridiculous." Was it just? Why did he do it in spite of himself?
Sinclair turned and saw him. The party reined in, Sylvia, as one would
have expected, impatiently in advance of the others. Her nod and
something she said were lost in the men's cheery greetings. Since she
was in advance, and edging on, as if to get farther away from him,
George's opportunity was plain. The road wasn't wide enough for four
abreast. If he could move forward with her Blodgett and Sinclair would
have to ride together.
"Since I'm the last," he interrupted them, "mayn't I have first place?"
Quite as a matter of course he put his horse through and reined in at
her side. They started forward.
"You ride as well as ever," he commented.
She shot a glance at him. Calmly he studied the striking details of her
face. Each time he saw her she seemed more desirable. How was he to
touch those lips that had filled his boy's heart with bursting thoughts?
For the first time since that day they rode together, only now he was at
her side, instead of heeling like a trained dog. In his man's fashion he
was as well clothed as she. When they got back he would enter the great
house with her instead of going to the stables. Whether she cared to
acknowledge it or not he was of her kind--more so than the millionaire
Blodgett ever could be. So he absorbed her beauty which fired his
imagination. Such a repetition seemed ominous of a second climax in
their relations.
Her quick glance, however, disclosed only resentment for his intrusion.
He excused it.
"You see, I couldn't very well ride behind you."
She turned away.
"Hurry a little," Blodgett called.
It was what George wished, as she wished to crawl, never far in advance
of the others.
"Come," he said, and flecked her horse with his crop.
"Don't do that again!"
He had gathered his own horse, and was galloping. Hers insisted on
following. When George pulled in to keep at her side they were well in
advance of the others. Now that he was alone with her he found it
difficult to speak, and evidently she would limit his opportunity, for
as he drew in she spurred her horse. He caught her, laughing.
"You may as well understand that I'll never ride behind you again."
She pressed her provocative lips together. So in silence, except for the
crunching and scattering of the snow, they tore on through the dusk,
rounding curves between hedges, rising to heights above bare, white
stretches of landscape, dipping into hollows already won by the night.
And each moment they came nearer the house.
In the night of the hollows he battled his desire to reach over and
touch her, and cry out:
"Sylvia! You've got to understand!"
And in one such place her horse stumbled, and she pulled in and bent low
over her saddle, and said, as if he had really spoken:
"I can't understand----"
Her outline was blurred, but her face was like a light in that shadowed
valley. He didn't speak until they were up the hill and the wind had
caught them.
"What?" he asked then.
Was it the glow, offered by the white earth rather than the sky, that
made him fancy her lips quivered?
"Why you always try to hurt me."
He thought of her broken riding crop, of her attempts to hurt him every
time he had seen her since the day she had tried to cut him with it. A
single exception clung to his memory--the night of Betty's dance, years
ago, when she had failed to remember him. Her words, therefore, carried
a thrill, a colour of surrender, since from the very first she had made
him attack for his own defence.
"That's an odd thing for you to say."
There were lights ahead, accents in the closing night for Blodgett's
huge and ugly extravagance. They rode slowly up the drive.
"Will you ever stop following me? Will you ever leave me alone?"
He stared at her, answering softly:
"It is impossible I should ever leave you alone."
At the terrace he sprang down, tossed his reins to a groom, and went to
her, raising his hands. For a moment she looked at him, hesitating.
There were two grooms. So she took his hands and leapt down. It was a
quick, uncertain touch her fingers gave him.
"Thanks," she said, and crossed the terrace at his side.
That moment, he reflected, was in itself culminating, yet he couldn't
dismiss the feeling that their relations approached a larger climax. All
the better, since things couldn't very well go on as they were. Was it
that fleeting contact that had altered him, or her companionship in the
gray night? He only knew as he walked close to her that the bitterness
in his heart had diminished. He was willing to relinquish the return
blow if she would ease the hurt she had given him. He told himself that
she had never been nearer. An odd fancy!
The others rode up as they reached the door, and the hall was noisy with
people just returned from the pond, so that their solitude was
destroyed. While he bathed and dressed he tried to understand just what
had happened. The alteration in his own heart could only be accounted
for by a change in hers. Perhaps his mood was determined by her
unexpected wonder that he should always try to hurt. He couldn't drive
from his mind the definite impression of her having come nearer.
"Winter sentiment!" he sneered, and hurried, for it was late.
VII
Lambert dropped in and lounged in a satin-covered chair while George
wrestled with his tie. He gave Lambert the freshest news from the
office, but his mind wasn't on business, nor, he guessed, was Lambert's.
"Blodgett does one rather well," Lambert said, glancing around the room.
George agreed.
"Only a marquise might feel more at ease in this room than a mere male."
He turned, smiling.
"I'm always afraid the furniture won't hold. Why should he have raised
such a monster?"
"Maybe," Lambert offered, "to have it ready for a wife."
"Who would marry him?" George flashed.
"Nearly any girl," Lambert said. "So much money irons out a lot of fat.
Then, when all's said and done, he's amusing and generous. He always
tries to please. Why? What's made you scornful of Josiah?"
"There are some things," George said, "that one oughtn't to be able to
buy with money."
Lambert arose, walked over to George, put his hands on his shoulders,
and stared at him quizzically.
"You're a curious brute."
"I know what you mean," George said, "but let me remind you that money
was just one of three things I started for."
Lambert's grasp tightened.
"And in a way you've got them all."
George shook off Lambert's grasp.
In a way!
"Let's go down."
In a way! It was rather cooling. It reminded him, too, that Squibs
Bailly remained unpaid; and there was Sylvia, only a trifle nearer, and
that, perhaps, in an eager imagination. Certainly he had forced some
success, but would he actually ever complete anything? Would he ever be
able to say I have acquired an exterior exactly as genuine as that one
inherits, or I am a great millionaire, or I have proved myself worthy of
all Squibs has given me, or I am Sylvia Planter's husband? Of course he
had succeeded, but only in a way. Where was his will that he couldn't
conquer altogether?
As he came down the stairs he saw Sylvia in a dazzling gown standing in
front of the great fireplace surrounded by a group which included
Dalrymple and Rogers who had managed an invitation and had just arrived
with Wandel. Wandel brought excuses from Goodhue. It was like Goodhue,
George thought, to avoid such a party.
Dalrymple smirked and chatted. George left Lambert and went straight to
them. Sylvia could always be depended upon to be gracious to Dalrymple.
She glanced at George and nodded. Although she continued to talk to
Dalrymple she didn't turn away. George thought, indeed, that he detected
a slight movement as if to make room for him. It was as if he had been
any man of her acquaintance coming up. Then he had been right?
"Josiah said we'd have you," Dalrymple drawled. "Why didn't you skate?
Anything to get on a horse, what? Freezing pleasure this weather."
George smiled at Sylvia.
"Not with the right horse and companionship."
Any one could see that Dalrymple had already swallowed an antidote for
whatever benefit the day's fresh air and exercise had given him. Still
in the weak face, across which the firelight played, George read other
traits, settled, in a sense admirable; more precious than any
inheritance a son could expect from a washerwoman mother and a labouring
father. Then what was it Dalrymple had always coveted? What had made him
rude to the poor men at Princeton? Something he hadn't had. Money.
America, George reflected, could breed people like that. There was more
than one way of being a snob. He wondered if Dalrymple would ever
submerge his pride enough to come to him for money. He might go to
Blodgett first, but George wasn't at all sure Blodgett would find it
worth his while to buy up the young man.
Blodgett just then joined them. The white waistcoat encircling his
rotund middle was like an advance agent, crying aloud: "The great Josiah
is arriving just behind me."
"Everybody having a good time?" he bellowed.
Mrs. Sinclair, sitting near by, looked up, but her husband smiled
indulgently. George watched Sylvia. Blodgett put the question to her.
"That was a fine ride, wasn't it? I'm always a little afraid for the
horse I ride, though; might bend him in the middle."
George couldn't understand why she gave that friendly smile he coveted
to Blodgett.
"I'd give a lot to ride like this young man," Blodgett went on, patting
George's back. He preened himself. "Still we can't all be born in the
saddle."
The thing was so obvious George laughed outright. Even Sylvia conceded
its ugly, unintentional humour. A smile drew at the corners of her
mouth. If she could enjoy that she was, indeed, for the moment nearer.
Two servants glided around with trays.
Blodgett gulped the contents of his glass and smacked his lips.
"That fellow of mine," he boasted, "has his own blend. Not bad."
Sylvia drank hers with Dalrymple, while Betty over there shook her head.
Probably it was his ungraceful inheritance that made George dislike a
glass in Sylvia's fingers. Dalrymple slipped away.
"Dividends in the smoking-room!" Blodgett roared.
"Dalrymple's drawing dividends," George thought.
The procession for the dining-room formed and disbanded. Blodgett had
Mrs. Sinclair and Sylvia at either hand. It was natural enough, but
George resented the arrangement, particularly with Dalrymple next to
Sylvia on the other side. Betty sat between Dalrymple and Lambert.
George was nearly opposite, flanked by fluffy clothes and hair; and
straightway each ear was choked with fluffy chatter--the theatre; the
opera, from the side of sartorial criticism; the east coast of
Florida--"but why should I go so far to see exciting bathing suits out
of season and tea tables wabbling under palm trees?"--a scandal or
two--that is such details as were permissible in his presence. He
divided his ears sufficiently to catch snatches from neighbouring
sections of the table.
"Of course, we'll keep out of it."
It was Wandel, speaking encouragingly to a pretty girl. Out of what?
Confound this chatter! Oh! The war, of course. It was the one remark of
serious import that reached him throughout the dinner, and the country
faced that possibility, and an increasing unrest of labour, and grave
financial questions. The diners might have been people who had fled to a
high mountain to escape an invasion, or happy ones who lived on a peak
from which the menace was invisible. But it wasn't that. At other social
levels, he knew, there was the same closing of the shutters, the same
effort to create an enjoyable sunlight in a cloistered room. On the
summit, he honestly believed, men did more and thought more. Perhaps
where sensible men gathered together the curtains weren't drawn against
grave fires in an abnormal night. Then it was the women. Did all men,
like Wandel, choose to keep such things from the women? Did the women
want them kept? Hang it! Then let them have the vote. Make them talk.
"You're really not going to Palm Beach, Mr. Morton?"
"I've too much to do."
"Men amuse me," the young lady fluffed. "They always talk about things
to do. If one has a good time the things get done just the same."
God! What a point of view! Yet he wasn't one to pass judgment since he
was more interested in the winning of Sylvia than he was in the winning
of the war.
He watched her as he could, talking first to Blodgett then to Dalrymple.
The brilliant Sylvia Planter had no business sitting between two such
men. The fact that Blodgett had got the right people stared him in the
face, but even so the man wasn't good enough to be Sylvia Planter's
host. Nor did George like the way she sipped her wine. She seemed
forcing herself to a travesty of enjoyment. Betty, on the other hand,
drank nothing. He questioned if she was sorry Sylvia had brought her.
She seemed glad enough, at least, to be with Lambert. He appeared to
absorb her, and, in order to listen to him, she left Dalrymple nearly
wholly to Sylvia. Once or twice she glanced across and smiled at George,
but her kindliness had an air of coming from a widening distance. George
was trapped--a restless giant tangled in a snarl of fluff.
He sighed his relief when the women had gone. He didn't remain long
behind, wandering into the deserted hall where he stood frowning at the
fire. He heard a reluctant step on the stairs and swung around. Sylvia
walked slowly down, a cloak about her shoulders. In a sort of
desperation he raised his hand.
"This party has got on my nerves."
He couldn't read the expression in her eyes.
"It's stifling in here," she said.
She walked the length of the hall, opened the door, and went through to
the terrace.
George's heart quickened. She was out there alone. What had her eyes
meant? He had never seen them just like that. They had seemed without
challenge.
There was a coat closet at the rear of the hall. He ran to it, got a cap
and somebody's overcoat, and followed her out.
She sat on the railing, far from the house. The only light upon her was
the nebulous reflection from the white earth. He hurried to her, his
heart beating to the rhythm of nearer--nearer--nearer----
She stirred.
"As usual with you," she said, "I am unfortunate. I didn't think you
would follow me. I came here because I wanted to be alone. I wanted to
think. Can you appreciate that?"
He sat on the railing close to her.
"You never want me. I have to grasp what opportunities I can."
He waited for her to rise and wander away. He was prepared to urge her
to remain. She didn't move.
"I can't always be running away from you," she said.
She stared straight ahead over the garden, nearly phosphorescent with
its snow.
"Nearer, nearer, nearer," went through his head.
"It has been a long time since I've seen you," he said, "but even so I
wish you hadn't come here."
"Why did you come?" she asked.
"Because I thought I should find you."
"Why did you think that?"
"I'd heard Blodgett had been a good deal at Oakmont. I guessed if
Lambert came you would, too."
"It is impertinent you should interest yourself in my movements.
Why--why do you do it?"
"Because everything you do absorbs me. Why else do you suppose I took
the trouble at Betty's dance years ago to tell you who I was?"
She drew back without answering. Her movement caught his attention. The
change in her manner, the white night, made him bold.
"I've often wondered," he said, "why you didn't remember me that day in
Princeton, or that night. It hadn't been long. Don't you see it was an
acknowledgment that I wasn't the old George Morton even then?"
"Oh, no," she answered with a little laugh, "because I remembered you
perfectly well."
"Remembered me!" he cried. "And you danced with me, and said you didn't
remember, and let me take you aside, and----"
He moved swiftly nearer until his face was close to hers, until he
stared into her eyes that he could barely see.
"Why did you do that?"
She didn't answer.
"Why do you tell me now?" he urged with an increasing excitement.
Such a confession from her had the quality of a caress! He felt himself
reaching up to touch the summit.
"Why? You've got to answer me."
She arose with easy grace and stood looking down at him.
"Because," she said, "I want you to stop being ridiculous and
troublesome; and, really, the whole thing seems so unimportant now that
I am going to be married."
He cried out. He sprang to his feet. He caught her hands, and crushed
them as if he would make them a part of his own flesh so that she could
never escape to accomplish that unbearable act.
"Sylvia! Sylvia!"
She fought, gasping:
"You hurt! I tell you you hurt! Let me go you--you----Let me go----"
VIII
George stared at Sylvia as if she had been a child expressing some
unreasonable and incredible intention. "What are you talking about? How
can I let you go?"
Even in that light he became aware of the distortion of her face, of an
unexpected moisture in her eyes; and he realized quite distinctly where
he was, what had been said, just how completely her announcement for the
moment had swept his mind clean of the restraints with which he had so
painstakingly crowded it. Now he appreciated the power of his grasp, but
he watched a little longer the struggles of her graceful body; for,
after all, he had been right. How could he let her go to some man whose
arms would furnish an inviolable sanctuary? He shook his head. No such
thing existed. Hadn't he, indeed, foreseen exactly this situation, and
hadn't he told himself it couldn't close the approach to his pursuit?
But he had never reconnoitred that road. Now he must find it no matter
how forbidding the places it might thread. So he released her. She
raised her hands to her face.
"You hurt!" she whispered. "Oh, how you hurt!"
"Please tell me who it is."
She turned, and, her hands still raised, started across the terrace. He
followed.
"Tell me!"
She went on without answering. He watched her go, suppressing his angry
instinct to grasp her again that he might force the name from her. He
shrugged his shoulders. Since she had probably timed her attack on him
with a general announcement, he would know soon enough. He could fancy
those in the house already buzzing excitedly.
"I always said she'd marry so and so;" or, "She might have done
better--or worse;" perhaps an acrid, "It's high time, I should
think"--all the banal remarks people make at such crises. But what
lingered in George's brain was his own determination.
"She shan't do it. Somehow I'll stop her."
He glanced over the garden, dully surprised that it should retain its
former aspect while his own outlook had altered as chaotically as it had
done that day long ago when he had blundered into telling her he loved
her.
He turned and approached the house to seek this knowledge absolutely
vital to him but from which, nevertheless, he shrank. Two names slipped
into his mind, two disagreeable figures of men she had recently chosen
to be a good deal with.
George acknowledged freely enough now that he had taken his later view
of his employer from an altitude of jealousy. Blodgett offered a
possibility in some ways quite logical. With war finance he worked
closer and closer to Old Planter. He had become a familiar figure at
Oakmont. George had seen Sylvia choose his companionship that afternoon,
had watched her a little while ago make him happy with her smiles; yet
if she could tolerate Blodgett why had she never forgiven George his
beginnings?
Dalrymple was a more likely and infinitely less palatable choice. He was
good-looking, entirely of her kind, had been, after a fashion, raised at
her side; and Sylvia's wealth would be agreeable to the Dalrymple bank
account. George had had sufficient evidence that he wanted her--and her
money. A large portion of the enmity between them, in fact, could be
traced to the day he had found her portrait displayed on Dalrymple's
desk. The only argument against Dalrymple was his weakness, and people
smiled at that indulgently, ascribing it to youth--even Sylvia who
couldn't possibly know how far it went.
Suspense was intolerable. He walked into the house and replaced the coat
and cap in the closet. He commenced to look for Sylvia. No matter whose
toes it affected he was going to have another talk with her if either of
his hazards touched fact.
IX
He caught the rising and falling of a perpetual mixed conversation only
partially smothered by a reckless assault on a piano. He traced the
racket to the large drawing-room where groups had gathered in the
corners as if in a hopeless attempt to escape the concert. Sylvia sat
with none. One of the fluffy young ladies was proving the strength of
the piano. Rogers was amorously attentive to her music. Lambert and
Betty sat as far as possible from everyone else, heads rather close.
Blodgett hopped heavily from group to group.
Over the frantic attempts of the young performer the human voice
triumphed, but the impulse to this conversation was multiple. From no
group did Sylvia's name slip, and George experienced a sharp wonder; so
far, evidently, she had chosen to tell only him.
The young lady at the piano crashed to a brief vacation. The chatter,
following a perfunctory applause, rose gratefully.
"Fine! Fine!" Blodgett roared. "Your next stop ought to be Carnegie
Hall."
"She ought to play in a hall," someone murmured unkindly.
George retreated, relieved that Blodgett wasn't with Sylvia; and a
little later he found Dalrymple in the smoking-room sipping
whiskey-and-soda between erratic shots at billiards. Wandel was at the
table most of the time, counting long strings with easy precision.
"What's up, great man?" he wanted to know.
Dalrymple, too, glanced curiously at George over his glass. "Nothing
exceptional that I know of," George snapped and left the room.
It added to his anger that his mind should let through its discontent.
At least Sylvia wasn't with Blodgett or Dalrymple, and he tried to tell
himself his jealousy was too hasty. All the eligible men weren't
gathered in this house. He wandered from room to room, always seeking
Sylvia. Where could she have gone?
He met guests fleeing from drawing-room to library, as if driven by the
tangled furies of a Hungarian dance.
"Will that girl never stop playing?" he thought.
Betty came up to him.
"Talk to me, George."
He found himself reluctant, but two tables of bridge were forming, and
Betty didn't care to play. Lambert did, and sat down. George followed
Betty to a window seat, telling himself she wanted him only because
Lambert was for the time, lost to her.
"Now," she said, directly, "what is it, George?"
"What's what?" he asked with an attempt at good-humour.
Her question had made him uneasy, since it suggested that she had
observed the trouble he was endeavouring to bury. Would he never learn
to repress as Goodhue did? But even Goodhue, he recalled, had failed to
hide an acute suffering at a football game; and this game was infinitely
bigger, and the point he had just lost vastly more important than a
fumbled ball.
"You've changed," Betty was saying. "I'm a good judge, because I haven't
really seen you for nearly a year. You've seemed--I scarcely know how to
say it--unhappy?"
"Why not tired?" he suggested, listlessly. "You may not know it, but
I've been pretty hard at work."
She nodded quickly.
"I've heard a good deal from Lambert what you are doing, and something
from Squibs and Mrs. Squibs. You haven't seen much of them, either. Do
you mind if I say I think it makes them uneasy?"
"Scold. I deserve it," he said. "But I've written."
"I don't mean to scold," she smiled. "I only want to find out what makes
you discontented, maybe ask if it's worth while wearing yourself out to
get rich."
"I don't know," he answered. "I think so."
It was his first doubt. He looked at her moodily.
"You're not one to draw the long bow, Betty. Honestly, aren't you a
little cross with me on account of the Baillys?"
"Not even on my own account."
Her allusion was clear enough. George was glad Blodgett created a
diversion just then, lumbering in and bellowing to Lambert for news of
his sister. George listened breathlessly.
"Haven't seen her," Lambert said, and doubled a bid.
"Miss Alston?" Blodgett applied to Betty.
"Where should she be?" Betty answered.
"Got me puzzled," Blodgett muttered. "Responsibility. If anything
happened!"
Betty laughed.
"What could happen to her here?"
George guessed then where Sylvia had gone, and he experienced a strong
but temporal exaltation. Only a mental or a bodily hurt could have
driven Sylvia to her room. He didn't believe in the first, but he could
still feel the shape of her slender fingers crushed against his. The
greater her pain, the greater her knowledge of his determination and
desire.
"Guess I'll send Mrs. Sinclair upstairs," Blodgett said, gropingly.
He hurried out of the room. Betty rose.
"I suppose I ought to go."
"Nonsense," George objected. "She isn't the sort to come down ill all at
once."
He followed Betty to the hall, however. Mrs. Sinclair was halfway up the
stairs. Blodgett had gone on, always pandering, George reflected, to his
guests.
"I'll wait here," Betty said to Mrs. Sinclair. "I mean, if anything
should be wrong, if Sylvia should want me."
Mrs. Sinclair nodded, disappearing in the upper hall.
Finally George faced the moment he had avoided with a persistent
longing. For the first time since the night of his confession he was
quite alone with Betty. He tried not to picture her swaying away from
him in a moonlight scented with flowers; but he couldn't help hearing
her frightened voice: "Don't say anything more now," and he experienced
again her hand's delightful and bewitching fragility. Why had his
confession startled? What had it portended for her?
He sighed. There was no point asking such questions, no reason for
avoiding such dangerous moments now; too many factors had assumed new
shapes. The long separation had certainly not been without its effect on
Betty, and hadn't he recently seen her absorbed by Lambert? Hadn't she
just now scolded him with a clear appreciation of his shortcomings? In
the old days she had unconsciously offered him a pleasurable temptation,
and he had been afraid of yielding to it because of its effect on his
aim. Sylvia just now had tried to convince him that his aim was
permanently turned aside. He knew with a hard strength of will that it
wasn't. Nothing could tempt him from his path now--even Betty's
kindness.
"Betty--have you heard anything of her getting married?"
She glanced at him, surprised.
"Who? Sylvia?"
He nodded.
"Only," she answered, "the rumours one always hears about a very popular
girl. Why, George?"
"The rumours make one wonder. Nothing comes of them," he said, sorry he
had spoken, seeking a safe withdrawal. "You know there's principally one
about you. It persists."
There was a curious light in her eyes, reminiscent of something he had
seen there the night of his confession.