PART V

THE NEW WORLD

I

George crushed his uneasy thoughts, trying to dwell instead on the idea

that he was going back to the normal, but all at once he experienced a

dread of the normal, perhaps, because he was no longer normal himself.

Could he limp before Sylvia with his old assurance? Would people pity

him, or would he irritate them because he had a disability? And snatches

of his talks at the front with Wandel etched themselves sharply against

his chaotic recollections of those days. Was Wandel fair? Was it,

indeed, the original George Morton people had always liked? Here, apart

from the turmoil, he didn't believe it, didn't dare believe it. Those

people wouldn't have cared for him except for his assumption of

qualities which he had chosen as from a counter display. Yet was it the

real George Morton that made him in superlative moments break the traces

of 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 part

of him.

But the nearer he drew to home the more he suffered from a depression

that he could only define as homesickness--homesickness for the old

ways, the old habits, the old thoughts; and the memory of his temerity

with Sylvia at the moment of their parting was like a great cloud

threatening the future with destructive storm.

Lambert, wearing a contrivance the doctors had given him in place of

what the country had taken away, accompanied by Betty and the Baillys,

met the transport. Betty and Mrs. Bailly cried, and George shook his

heavy 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, their

understanding, 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 an

answer.

"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 did

Sylvia take it? He wanted to ask Lambert where she was, if anything had

happened to her, any other mad affair, now that the war was over, like

the one with Blodgett; but he couldn't ask, and no one volunteered to

tell him, and it wasn't until his visit to Oakmont, on his first leave

from the hospital, that he learned anything whatever about her, and that

was only what his eyes in a moment told him.

Lambert drove over and got George, explaining that his mother wanted to

see him.

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

hard to leave."

George went reluctantly, belligerently, for since his landing his

feeling of homesickness had increased with the realization that his

victorious country was more radically altered than he had fancied. The

ride, however, had the advantage of an uninterrupted talk with Lambert

which developed gossip that Blodgett, stuffed with business, hadn't yet

given him.

Goodhue and Wandel, for instance, were still abroad, holding down showy

jobs at the peace conference. Dalrymple, on the other hand, had been

home for months.

"Most successful war," Lambert told George. "Scarcely smelled fire, but

got a couple foreign decorations, and a promotion--my poor old leg

wasn't worth it, or yours, George, but what odds now? And as soon as the

show 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. Try

to realize that, and take a new start with him, for he's really likeable

when he keeps to the straight and narrow. Prohibition's going to fit in

very 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 Dalrymple

into the marble temple?

"A small start," Lambert was saying, "but if he makes the grade there's

a 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 on

Dalrymple."

Lambert didn't warn him, so he didn't expect to find Dalrymple enjoying

the early spring graces of Oakmont. He managed the moment of meeting,

however, without disclosing anything. Dalrymple, for the time, was quite

unimportant. It was Sylvia he was anxious about, Sylvia who undoubtedly

nursed 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 them

aside and lowered himself from the automobile.

He disliked old Planter's heartiness, although he could see the physical

effort it cost, for the once-threatening eyes were nearly dark; and the

big shoulders stooped forward as if in a constant effort to escape a

pursuing pain; and the voice, which talked about heroes and the

country's debt and the Planters' debt, quavered and once or twice broke

altogether, then groped doubtfully ahead in an effort to recover the

propelling thought.

Mrs. Planter, at least, spared him any sentimental gratitude. She was

rather grayer and had in her face some unremembered lines, but those

were the only changes George could detect. As far as her manner went

this greeting might have followed the farewell at Upton after only a day

or 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, unannoyingly

primeval.

As he entered the hall he saw Sylvia without warning, and he caught his

breath and watched her as she came slowly down the stairs. He tried to

realize that this was that coveted moment he had so frequently fancied

the war would deny him--the moment that brought him face to face with

Sylvia again, to witness her enmity, to desire to break it down, to want

her more than he had ever done.

She came straight to him, but even in the presence of the others she

didn'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 something

about 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 was

as beautiful, as unforgiving, as intolerant; and he guessed that it was

she and not Betty who had made the arrangement which would take her away

from 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 it

developed during this nervous chatter that they would share the honours

of the bridal party.

So, helplessly, he had to watch her go, and for a moment he felt as if

he had had a strong tonic, for she alone had been able to give him an

impression that the world hadn't altered much, after all.

The reaction came in the quiet hours following. He was at first

resentful that Mrs. Planter should accompany him on the painful walk the

doctors had ordered him, like Old Planter, to take daily. He had wanted

to go back to the little house, highest barrier of all which Sylvia

would never let him climb. Then, glancing at the quiet woman, he squared

his shoulders. Suppose Wandel had been right! Here was a test. At any

rate, the war was a pretty large and black background for so tiny a high

light. Purposefully, therefore, he carried out his original purpose. By

the side of Mrs. Planter he limped toward the little house. They didn't

say much. It wasn't easy for him to talk while he exercised, and perhaps

she understood that.

Even before the clean white building shone in the sun through the trees

he heard a sound that made him wince. It was like a distant drum, badly

played. Then he understood what it was, and his boyhood, and the day of

awakening and revolt, submerged him in a hot wave of shame. He could see

his mother rising and bending rhythmically over fine linen which emerged

from dirty water, making her arms look too red and swollen. He glanced

quickly at Mrs. Planter to whose serenity had gone the upward effort of

many generations. Just how appalling, now that war had mocked life so

dreadfully, now that a pitiless hand had a moment ago stripped all

pretence from the world, was the difference between them?

It was the woman at the tub, curiously enough, who seemed trying to tell

him, trying to warn him to keep his mouth shut. Then the house was

visible through the trees. He raised his stick.

"I wanted to see it again," he said, defiantly, "because I was born

there. I lived there."

She paused and stared with him, without saying anything, without any

change 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 very

little love in his life. Mrs. Bailly, Betty----

He had never dreamed of such gratitude as this. Lambert, home with his

war madness fresh upon him, must have told her, as an example of what a

man might do. But was her action all gratitude? Rather wasn't it a

signpost at the parting of two ages?

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

behind.

II

The memory of that unguarded moment remained in his mind uncomfortably.

He carried it finally from the hospital to his musty apartment, where he

stripped off his uniform and looked in the glass, for the first time in

nearly two years his own master, no man's servant.

Was he his own master as long as he could commit such sentimental

follies, as long as he could suspect that he had told Wandel the truth

on the Vesle? This nostalgia must be the rebound from the war, of which

he had heard so much, which made men weak, or lazy, or indifferent.

He continued to stare in the glass, angry, amazed. He had to overcome

this homesick feeling. He had to prepare himself for harder battles than

he had ever fought. He had had plenty of warning of the selfishness that

was creeping over the world like a black pestilence. Where was his own

self-will that had carried him so far?

He locked himself, as it were, in his apartment. He sat down and called

on his will. With a systematic brutality he got himself in hand. He

reviewed his aims: to make more money, to get Sylvia. He emerged at

last, hard and uncompromising, ready for the selfish ones, and went down

town. Blodgett greeted him with a cheer.

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

again."

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

maybe."

He wanted it to go. He desired enormously to rid himself of the last

reminder of his service.

Lambert was definitely caught by the marble temple, but Goodhue and he

would stay together, more or less tied to Blodgett, to accept the

opportunities George foresaw for dragging money by sharp reasoning from

the reconstruction period. He applied himself to exchange. From their

position they could run wild in the stock market at little risk, but

there were big things to be made out of exchange, about which the

cleverest men didn't seem to know anything worth a penny in any

currency.

Everyone noticed his recovery, and everyone congratulated him except

Bailly. When George went down to Betty's wedding the long tutor met him

at 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 I

wouldn'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, you

among 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't

intend to be scolded about it. I suppose I've got to rush right out to

the 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 Dickinson

Street, attacked him, and quite innocently, from a different direction.

"It was the wish of my life, George, that you should have Betty, and you

might have had. I can't help feeling that."

"You're prejudiced," George laughed.

He went to the Alstons, nevertheless, almost unwillingly, and he delayed

his arrival until the last minute. The intimate party had gathered for a

dinner and a rehearsal that night. The wedding was set for the next

evening.

The Tudor house had an unfamiliar air, as though Betty already had taken

from it every feature that had given it distinction in George's mind.

And Betty herself was caught by all those detailed considerations that

surround a girl, at this vital moment of her life, with an atmosphere

regal, mysterious, a little sacred. So George didn't see her until just

before dinner, or Sylvia, who was upstairs with her. Lambert and

Blodgett were about, however, and so was Dalrymple. George was glad

Lambert had asked Blodgett to usher; he owed it to him, but he was

annoyed that Dalrymple should have been included in the party, for it

was another mark, on top of his presence in the marble temple, of a

tightening bond of intimacy between him and the Planters. George

examined the man, therefore, with an eager curiosity. He looked well

enough, but George remained unconvinced by his apparent reformation,

suspecting its real purpose was to impress a willing public, for he had

studied Dalrymple during many years without uncovering any real

strength, or any disposition not to answer gladly to every appeal of the

senses. At least he was restless, rising from his chair too often to

wander about the room, but George conceded with a smile that his own

arrival might be responsible for that. The matter of the notes hadn't

been mentioned, but they existed undoubtedly even in Dalrymple's

careless mind, which must have forecasted an uncomfortable day of

payment.

Lambert seemed sure enough of his friend.

"Dolly's sticking to the job like a leech," he said to George when they

went 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 reminds

me. I don't see any of your dearly beloved brothers of the ranks in your

bridal party. Have you put private Oscar Liporowski up for any of your

clubs 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 mind

isn't filled with romance, threatens to become the socialist of the

family."

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 beauties

in Bolshevism. It's played in some of the best houses. You must have

observed it--how wonderfully it helps get through a tea or a dinner."

III

George went to his own room, amused and curious. Could Sylvia talk

communism, even parrot-like, and deny him the rights of a brother? He

became more anxious than before to see her. He shrank, on the other

hand, from facing Betty who was about to take this enormous step

permanently away from him. Out of his window he could see the tree

beneath which he had made his confession in an effort to kill Betty's

kindness. If he had followed her to the castle then Lambert wouldn't be

limping about exposing a happiness that made George envious and

discontented. It was a reminder with a vengeance that his friends were

mating. Was he, like Blodgett, doomed to a revolting celibacy?

Blodgett, as far as that went, seemed quite to have recovered from the

blow Sylvia had given his pride and heart. With his increasing fortune

his girth had increased, his cheeks grown fuller, his eyes smaller.

He was chatting, when George came down, with Old Planter, who sat

slouched in an easy chair in the library, and Mr. Alston. It was evident

that 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 a

share in a cooperative apartment in town. Without Betty the house will

be like a world without a sun."

Blodgett, George guessed, was tottering on the threshold of expansive

sympathy. He drew back, beckoning George.

"Here's your purchaser, Alston. I never knew a half back stay single so

long. 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 the

man, after his recent experience, make cumbersome jokes of that colour?

"There was a time," Mr. Alston went on, "when I fancied you were going

to 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't

been for the war. If you ever have a daughter--just one--you'll know

what I mean."

From the three men George received an impression of imminence, shared it

himself. They talked merely to cover their suspense. They were like

people in a throne room, attentive for the entrance of a figure,

exalted, powerful, nearly legendary. Betty, he reflected, had become

that because she was about to marry. He found himself fascinated, too,

looking at the door, waiting with a choked feeling for that girl who had

unconsciously tempted him from their first meeting. Her arrival, indeed,

had about it something of the processional. Mrs. Planter entered the

doorway first, nodding absent-mindedly to the men. Betty's mother

followed, as imperial as ever, more so, if anything, George thought, and

quite unaffected by the deeper elements that gave to this quiet wedding

in a country house a breath of tragedy. Betty Alston Planter! That

evolution clearly meant happiness for her. She tried to express it

through vivacious gestures and cheerful, uncompleted sentences. Betty

next--after a tiny interval, entering not without hesitation exposed in

her walk, in her tall and graceful figure, in her face which was

unaccustomedly colourful, in her eyes which turned from one to another,

doubtful, apprehensive, groping. George didn't want to look at her; her

appearance placed him too much in concord with her reluctant father; too

much in the position of a man making a hurtful and unasked oblation.

Momentarily Betty, the portion of his past shared with her, its

undeveloped possibilities, were swept from his brain. Last of all,

fitting and brilliant close for the procession, came Sylvia between two

bridesmaids. George scarcely saw the others. Sylvia filled his eyes, his

heart, slowly crowded the dissatisfaction from his mind, centred again

his thoughts and his ambitions. Nearly automatically he took Betty's

hands, spoke to her a few formalities, yielded her to her father, and

went on to Sylvia. For nearly two years he hadn't seen her in an evening

gown. What secret did she possess that kept her constant? Already she

was past the age at which most girls of her station marry, yet to him

her beauty had only increased without quite maturing. And why had she

calmly avoided during all these years the nets thrown perpetually by

men? Only Blodgett had threatened to entangle her, and one day had found

her fled. And she wasn't such a fool she didn't know the years were

slipping by. More poignantly than ever he responded to a feeling of

danger, imminent, unavoidable, fatal.

"My companion in the ceremonies," he said.

"I understood that was the arrangement," she answered, without looking

at him.

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

others."

"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 ever

met."

"That's a stupendous indictment these days," he said with a smile, but

he didn't take her seriously at all, didn't apply her charge to his

soul.

"I'm so glad you're here," he went on, "that we're to be together. I've

wanted it for a long time. You must know that."

She gave him an uncomfortable sense of being captive, of seeking blindly

any 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. George

moved away, aching to prevent such interference by any means he could.

His emotion made him uneasy. To what resolution were his relations with

Dalrymple drifting? How far was he capable of going to keep the other in

his place?

He stood by the mantel, speaking only when it was necessary and then

without consciousness, his whole interest caught by the picture

Dalrymple and Sylvia made, close together by the centre table in the

soft light of a reading lamp.

A servant entered with cocktails. George's interest sharpened. Betty

took hers with the others. Only Sylvia and Dalrymple shook their heads.

Clearly it was an understanding between them--a little denial of hers to

make his infinitely greater one less difficult. She smiled up at him,

indeed, comprehendingly; but George's glance didn't waver from

Dalrymple, and it caught an increase in the other's restlessness, a

following nearly hypnotic, by thoughtful eyes, of the tray with the

little glasses as it passed around the room. George relaxed. He was

conscious enough of Blodgett's bellow:

"Here's to the blushing bride!"

What lack of taste! But how much greater the lack of taste that restless

inheritor exposed! Couldn't even join a formal toast, didn't dare

probably, or was it that he only dared not risk it in public, in front

of Sylvia? And she pandered to his weakness, smiled upon it as if it

were an epic strength. He was sufficiently glad now that Dalrymple had

got into him for so much money.

IV

For George dinner was chiefly a sea of meaningless chatter continually

ruffled by the storm of Blodgett's voice.

"Your brother tells me," he said to Sylvia, "that you're irritating

yourself with socialism."

She looked at him with a little interest then.

"I've been reading. It's quite extraordinary. Odd I should have lived so

long without really knowing anything about such things."

"Not odd at all," George contradicted her. "I should call it odd that

you 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 she

couldn't possibly understand, that she would interpret always in a wrong

or unsafe manner? She, too, was restless.

That was the only possible explanation. From Blodgett she had sprung to

war-time fads. From those she had leaped at this convenient one which

tempted people to make sparkling and meaningless phrases.

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

red, 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, and

demanded an answer. They had accomplished the farce of a rehearsal,

source of cumbersome jokes for Blodgett and the clergyman; of doubts and

dreary prospects for Mr. Alston, who had done his share as if submitting

to an undreamed-of punishment.

There was the key-ring joke. It must be a part of the curriculum of all

the theological seminaries. George acted up to it, promising to tie a

string around his finger, or to pin the circlet to his waistcoat.

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

bells."

George stared at him. How could the man, Sylvia within handgrasp, grin

and feed such a mood? It suddenly occurred to him that once more he was

reading Blodgett wrong, that the man was admirable, far more so than he

could be under an equal trial. Would he, a little later, be asked to

face such an ordeal?

With the departure of the clergyman a cloud of reaction descended upon

the party. Some yawns were scarcely stifled. Sporadic attempts to dance

to a victrola faded into dialogues carried on indifferently, lazily,

where the dancers had chanced to stop with the music. Mr. Alston had

relinquished Sylvia to George at the moment the record had stuttered

out. They were left at a distance from any other couple. George pointed

out a convenient chair, and she sat down and glanced about the room

indifferently.

"At dinner," George said, "I asked you if it didn't impress you as

strange 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 has

always been my origin, my ridiculous position trotting watchfully behind

the most unsocial Miss Planter. Am I not right?"

"You are entirely wrong," she said, wearily. "That has never had

anything to do with my--my dislike. I think I shall go----"

"Wait," he said. "You are not telling me the truth. If you are

consistent you will turn your enmity to friendship at least. You will

decide there was nothing unusual in my asking you to marry me. You will

even find in that a reason for my anxiety at Upton. You will understand

that 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 the

evening's opportunities had closed.

V

For him the house became like a room at night out of which the only lamp

has been carried.

The others drifted away. George tried to read in the library. His

uneasiness, his anger, held him from bed. When at last he went upstairs

he fancied everyone was asleep, but moving in the hall outside his room

he saw a figure in a dressing gown. It paused as if it didn't care to be

detected going in the direction of the stairs. George caught the

figure'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 in

my room worth bothering with."

George smiled, the memory of Blodgett's admirable behaviour crowding his

mind. What better time than now to let his anger dictate to him, as it

had 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, guessing

that Dalrymple feared the subject of the notes.

"Bad humour!" George said. "You seem to be the only one up. I don't mind

chatting with you before turning in. Fact is, these wedding parties are

stupid, don't you think?"

Possibly George's manner was reassuring to Dalrymple. At any rate, he

yielded. George took off his coat, sat in an easy chair, and pressed the

call button.

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

"Sit down," George said. "Stupid and dry, these things! I'm going to try

to 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 right

that was his own business.

"Before prohibition offers the steps?" he laughed.

"Nothing to do with it," Dalrymple muttered. "Got my reasons--good

enough ones, too."

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

whistle."

And when the sleepy servant had come George asked him for some whiskey

and soda water. He talked of the Alstons, of the war, of anything to

tide the wait for the caraffe and the bottles and glasses; and during

that period Dalrymple's restlessness increased. Just what had he been

sneaking downstairs for in the middle of the night? George watched the

other'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----Have

a 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 my

mind--up here--one friendly drop----"

George watched the friendly drop expand to half a tumbler full, and he

observed that the hand that poured was not quite steady. It wouldn't be

long now before he would know whether or not Dalrymple's reformation was

merely a pose in public, a pose for Sylvia.

Dalrymple sighed, sat down, and talked quite pleasantly about the

horrors of Chaumont. After a time he refilled his glass, and repeated

the performance a number of times with diminishing intervals. George

smiled. A child could tell the other was breaking no extended

abstinence. He drifted from war to New York and his apparent success

with the house of Planter.

"Slavery, this office stuff!" he rattled on, "but good fun to get things

done, 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 caraffe

emptied. No extended abstinence, George reflected, but almost certainly

a 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 beastly

notes I owe you. Know they're over due. Don't think I'd ever forget

that. Want to do right thing, Morton. You used hard words when I

borrowed that money, but forget, and all that. White of you to let me

have it, and I'll do right thing."

A sickly look of content overspread his face. He expanded. His assurance

seemed 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 not

often."

His content sought expression in a smile.

"Dolly's off the hootch."

George lighted a cigarette. He noticed that his fingers were quite

steady, yet he was perfectly conscious of each beat of his heart.

"May I ask," he said, "what possible connection there can be between my

not worrying about your notes and your keeping off the hootch, as you

call it?"

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

"Every connection," he answered. "Expect you have a right to know. Don't

you 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 deserve

fair. Good thing college education. Congratulate me, Morton. But secret

for you, 'cause you old Shylock. Wouldn't say anything to Sylvia till

she lets it loose."

As George walked quietly to the door, which the servant a long time ago

had 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 held

precariously all of Sylvia's happiness and his.

He didn't hesitate. He walked straight to the table. Dalrymple had

slumped down in his chair, the content and triumph of his inflamed eyes

replaced 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 and

fascinated 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 Planter

alone."

Dalrymple relaxed. He commenced incredulously and nervously to laugh,

but in his eyes, which followed George, the fear and the curiosity

increased.

"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 I

might remind you if you started a rumpus, the first questions the

aroused house would ask would be, 'Why did Dolly fall off the wagon, and

where 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 he

undoubtedly 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 or

later, it had to be."

His manner disclosed little of his anxiety, nothing whatever of his

determination, 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 room

until you've agreed to give up any idea of this preposterous marriage

you pretend to have arranged. Perhaps you have. That makes no

difference. I'm quite satisfied its disarranging will break no hearts."

Dalrymple had a little controlled himself. George's brusque campaign had

steadied him, had hastened a reaction that gave to his eyes an unhealthy

and 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 what

you borrow you have to pay back in one way or another. This is where we

settle, and I've outlined the terms."

Dalrymple whistled.

"You complete rotter! You mean to blackmail--because you know I haven't

got your filthy money, and can't raise it in a minute."

"Never mind that," George snapped. "Your opinion of what I'm doing

doesn't interest me. I've thought it out. I know quite thoroughly what

I'm about."

He did, and he was not without distaste for his methods, nor without

realization that they might hurt him most of all with the very person

they were designed to serve; yet he couldn't hesitate, because no other

way 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 anything

you'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 and

contempt; and George suspected that Dalrymple had all along sounded his

chief ambition; had, in fact, made his secretive announcement just now,

because, his judgment drugged, he had desired to call a rival's

attention to his triumphant posture on the steps of attainment.

"I've no intention of discussing causes," George answered, evenly, "but

I do imagine the entire family would be noticeably affected by my

story."

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

tell."

"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 strength

of this approaching marriage you announce its chief purpose quite

distinctly. I fancy Old Planter, ill as he is, would want to take a club

to you. You've always wished, haven't you, to keep your borrowings from

Lambert? You can't do it if you persist in involving the Planters in

your extravagances. And remember you gave me a pretty thorough list of

your debtors--not reading for women, but Lambert would understand, and

make its meaning clear. Then let us go back to that afternoon in my

office, when you tried to say unspeakable things----"

Impulsively Dalrymple bared his teeth.

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

impertinent----"

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 God

knows what; God knows where?"

"Fortunately," George said, "Lambert and his sister share that supernal

knowledge. 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 before

the 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 from

her? If there is really an understanding, will you so arrange things

that 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 George

shrugged his shoulders and stepped to the hall. Dalrymple, abruptly

active, 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 real

trouble, 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 a

chance to think it over. Now see here, Morton, I won't ask you another

favour, and I'll do nothing in the meantime. I couldn't very well. I

mean, status quo, and all that----"

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

month."

"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 eagerness

confessed 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 long

as any other means existed. The more Dalrymple thought, the more

thoroughly he must realize George had him. From the first George had

manoeuvred to avoid the necessity of shocking habits of thought and

action 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 see

that for yourself."

"Then," George said, "you arrange to get yourself out of the way as soon

as Lambert and Betty return. Meantime, if you go back on your word, I'll

get 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 George

early, hurried him from his bed, sent him downstairs in a depressed,

self-censorious mood, as if he and not Dalrymple had finished the

caraffe. That necessary battle behind a locked door continued to fill

his mind like the memory of a vivid and revolting nightmare. He fled

from the increasing turmoil of an exceptional agitation, but he could

not escape his own evil temper. Even the flowering lanes where Goodhue

and he had run so frequently during their undergraduate days mocked his

limping steps, his heavy cane; seemed asking him what there was in

common between that eager youth and the man who had come back to share a

definite farewell with Betty; to stand, stripped of his veneer, against

a wall to avoid a more difficult parting from Sylvia. There was one

thing: 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 his

threats to Dalrymple, of his probable course with the Planters? If he

were consistent he would have to; yet people were so seldom consistent.

It was even likely that George's repetition of Dalrymple's shocking

insults would be frowned upon more blackly than the original,

unforgiveable wrong. George straightened and walked back toward the

house. 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 her

life to Dalrymple's, and certainly Lambert could be made to understand

why that had to be.

The warm sun cheered him a little. Dalrymple was scared. He wouldn't

make George take any further steps. It was going to be all right. But

why didn't women see through Dalrymple, or rather why didn't he more

thoroughly give himself away to them? Because, George decided, guarded

women from their little windows failed to see the real world.

Dalrymple obsessed him even when, after luncheon, he sat with Lambert

upstairs, discussing business chiefly. He wanted to burst out with:

"Why don't you wake up? How can you approve of this intimacy between

your sister and a man like that?"

He didn't believe the other knew that intimacy had progressed; and when

Lambert spoke of Dalrymple, calling attention again to his apparent

reformation, George cleansed his mind a trifle, placing, as it were, the

foundation for a possible announcement of a more active enmity.

"Don't see why you admire anything he does, Lambert. It isn't

particularly 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 I

wouldn't meet him halfway. I don't fancy he'd ever start in my

direction, but if he did I wouldn't meet him. Sorry. That's definite. I

must 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 to

have any man for a friend."

George had an uncomfortable sense of having received a warning, but

Blodgett blundered in just then with news from the feminine side of the

house.

"Some people downstairs already, and I've just had word--from one of

those little angels that talk like the devil--that Betty's got all her

war-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 keep

you out of people's way, and tell you what to answer, and see generally

you don't make an idiot of yourself. Josiah, if he faints, help me pick

him up."

Blodgett's gardenia bobbed.

"Weddings make Josiah feel old. Say, George, you're no spring chicken

yourself. 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 heard

music, and found themselves involved in Betty's great moment.

At first George could only think of Betty as she had stood long ago in

the doorway of Bailly's study, and it was difficult to find in this

white-clothed, veiled, and stately woman the girl he had seen first of

all that night. This, after a fashion, was his last glimpse of her. She

appeared to share that conception, for she carried to the improvised

altar in the drawing-room an air of facing far places, divided by

boundaries she couldn't possibly define from all that she had ever

known. After the ceremony she smiled wonderingly at George while she

absorbed the vapid and pattered remarks of, perhaps, a hundred old

friends of the family. George, who knew most of them, resented their

sympathy and curiosity.

"If they don't stop asking me about the war," he whispered to Blodgett

during a lull, "I'm going to call for help."

Some, however, managed to interest him with remarks about the rebirth of

football. Green had been at Princeton all along, Stringham was coming

back in the fall, and there were brilliant team prospects. Would George

be able to help with the coaching? He indicated his injured leg. He

hadn't the time, anyway. He was going to stick closer than ever to Wall

Street. He fancied that Sylvia, who stood near him, resented the lively

interest of these people. She spoke to him only when she couldn't

possibly avoid it, glancing, George noticed, at Dalrymple who rather

pointedly kept away from her. So far so good. Then Dalrymple did realize

George would have his way. George looked at Sylvia, thinking

whimsically:

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

more."

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 herself

nothing whatever to him, chatting by preference with any one convenient,

even with Blodgett whom she had treated so shabbily. Very early she left

the room with Betty and Mrs. Alston, and George experienced a strong

desire to escape also, to flee anywhere away from this house and the

bitter dissatisfactions he had found within its familiar walls. He saw

Mrs. 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 she

stopped 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 to

Lambert's room; yet Mrs. Bailly had increased his uneasiness. Perhaps it

was the too-frequent repetition of that question that had made Sylvia

turn temporarily to Blodgett; that was, possibly, focussing her eyes on

Dalrymple now; yet why, from such a field, did she choose these men?

What was one to make of her mind and its unexpected reactions? The

matter of marriage was, not unnaturally, in the air here. Lambert faced

him 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 dark

ages 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, and

Bugler Ignatius Chronos. No men better! Chairs at the club! Legs under

the 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 own

fault. Whose else could it possibly be? And I'm sorry, have been for

years."

"It isn't my fault," George said. "The situation exists. I'm glad you

recognize it. You'll understand it's a subject I can't let you joke

about."

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

trouble."

VIII

Betty had plenty of colour to-night. As she passed George, her head bent

against the confetti, he managed to touch her hand, felt a quick

responsive pressure, heard her say:

"Good-bye, George."

The whispered farewell was like a curtain, too heavy ever to be lifted

again, abruptly let down between two fond people.

IX

Unexpectedly the companionships of the little house in Dickinson Street

failed to lighten George's discontented humour. Mrs. Bailly's question

lingered in his mind, coupling itself there with her disappointment that

he, instead of Lambert, hadn't married Betty; and, when she retired, the

tutor went back to his unwelcome demands of the day before. Hadn't

George made anything of his great experience? Was it possible it had

left him quite unchanged? What were his immediate plans, anyway?

"You may as well understand, sir," George broke in, impatiently, "that I

am going to stay right in Wall Street and make as much money and get as

much power as I can."

"Why? In the name of heaven, why?" Bailly asked, irritably. "You are

already a very rich man. You've dug for treasure and found it, but can

you tell me you've kept your hands clean? Money is merely a

conception--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 of

men in the mines and the factories----"

"And in the Senate and the House," George jeered, "and in Russia and

Germany, and in little, ambitious corners. If you're against the League

of Nations it's because, like all those people, you're willing Rome

should burn as long as personal causes can be fostered and selfish

schemes forwarded. No agitator, naturally, wants the suffering world

given a sedative----"

Bailly smiled.

"Even if you're wrong-headed, I'm glad to hear you talk that way. At

last 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 and

tired 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 young

eyes filled with sympathy.

"Does that wound still bother you, George?"

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

ever did."

X

One virtue of the restlessness of which Bailly had reminded him was its

power to swing George's mind for a time from his unpleasant

understanding with Dalrymple. It had got even into Blodgett's blood.

"About the honestest man I can think of these days," he complained to

George one morning, "is the operator of a crooked racing stable. All the

cards are marked. All the dice are loaded. If they didn't have to let us

in 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'd

sell 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 the

least bit out of line yourself?"

Blodgett mopped his face with one of his brilliant handkerchiefs. His

eyes twinkled.

"I've been shrewd at times, George, but isn't that legitimate? I may

have made some crowds pretty sick by cutting under them, but that's

business. I won't say I haven't played some cute little tricks with

stocks, 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's

head and asked him to hand over his clothes as well as his cash. That's

the spirit we're up against now. That's why Papa Blodgett advises

selling out those mill stocks we kept big blocks of at the time of the

armistice."

"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 into

cooperation, 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 world

nowadays! 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 to

manufacture them?"

Blodgett pursed his lips. George stared from the window at the forest of

buildings which impressed him, indeed, as giant tree trunks from which

all the foliage had been stripped. Had there been awakened in the world

an illiberal individuality with the power to fell them every one, and to

turn up the system out of which they had sprung as from a rich soil? Was

that what he had helped fight the war for?

"You're talking about the dark ages," he said, feeling the necessity of

faith and stability. "Sell your stocks if you want, I choose to keep

mine."

Blodgett yawned.

"We'll go down together, George. I won't jump from a sinking ship as

long 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 universal

restlessness.

"Ah, _mon_ brave!" Wandel greeted George. "_Mon vieux Georges, grand et

incomparable!_ 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 back

to 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 on

skirts, use snuff, or practise gossiping."

For a time he refused to apply himself to anything that didn't lead to

pleasure. Goodhue went at once to Rhode Island for a visit with his

father and mother, while Wandel flitted from place to place, from house

to house, as if driven by his restlessness to the play he had abandoned

during 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 of

class presidents? Perfect henchman type. When one goes into politics one

must have henchmen."

But George had an unwelcome feeling that Rogers, eyes always open, was

taking advantage, in his small way, of the world's unsettled condition.

People were inclined to laugh at him, but they treated him well for

Wandel's sake.

"Still in the bond business," he explained to George. "It isn't what it

was befo' de war. I'm thinking of taking up oil stocks and corners in

heaven, 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 to

find somebody just a little simpler to sting. Darned if they don't

usually hook one. Still bum securities are a great weakness with most

people. Promise a man a hundred per cent. and he'll complain it isn't a

hundred and fifty."

George reflected that Rogers was bound for disillusionment, then he

wasn't so sure, for America seemed more than ever friendly to that

brisk, insincere, back-bending type. Out of the sea of money formed by

the war examples sprang up on nearly every side, scarcely troubled by

racial, religious, or educational handicaps; loudly convinced that they

could buy with money all at once every object of matter or spirit the

centuries had painstakingly evolved. One night in the crowds of the

theatre district, when with Wandel he had watched the hysterical

competition for tickets, cabs, and tables in restaurants where the

prices of indigestion had soared nearly beyond belief, he burst out

angrily:

"The world is mad, Driggs. I wouldn't be surprised to hear these people

cry 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, and

reminded him that another world existed as yet scarcely more than

threatened by the driving universal invaders. George had looked in at

his apartment one night when Wandel was just back from a northern

week-end.

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

like a debutante."

George sat down, uneasy, wondering what the other's unprepared

announcement was designed to convey.

"I'll lay you what you want," Wandel went on, lighting a cigar, "that

she forgets the Blodgett fiasco, and marries before snow falls."

Had it been designed as a warning? George studied Wandel, trying to read

his expression, but the light was restricted by heavy, valuable, and

smothering 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 in

France; but George had guessed then that he must have known of his

persistent ambition, and had wondered why his unexpected

communicativeness hadn't included it. At least a lack of curiosity now

was valueless, so George said:

"Who's the man?"

"I don't suggest a name," Wandel drawled. "I merely call attention to a

possibility. Perhaps discussing the charming lady at all we're a trifle

out of bounds; but we've known the Planters many years; years enough to

wonder why Sylvia hasn't been caught before, why Blodgett failed at the

last minute."

George stirred impatiently.

"It was inevitable he should. I once disliked Josiah, but that was

because I was too young to see quite straight. Just the same, he wasn't

up to her. Most of all, he was too old."

"I daresay. I daresay," Wandel said. "So much for jolly Josiah. But the

others? It isn't exaggeration to suggest that she might have had about

any man in this country or England. She hasn't had. She's still the

loveliest thing about, and how many years since she was

introduced--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 too

much?

"Why do you ask me?"

Wandel yawned.

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

some light."

"How should I have?" George demanded.

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

men."

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 any

time since I'd have fallen cheerfully at her feet if I'd ever become a

big man, a great man, like you."

Before he had weighed those words, unquestionably pointed and

significant, 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 through

the 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 Josiah

straight. Hasn't your view of Dolly always been from a prejudiced

angle?"

"I've always disliked him," George said, frankly. "He's given me reasons

enough. You know some of them."

"I know," Wandel drawled, "that he isn't what even Sylvia would call a

little man, and he has the faculty of making himself exceptionally

pleasant 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 amused

tone:

"Forgive me, George. Somewhere in your pockets you carry the Pilgrim

Fathers. Most men are shaggy birds of evil habit, while most young women

are delicately feathered nestlings, and quite helpless; yet the two must

mate. Dolly, by the way, drains a pitcher of water every time he sees a

violation of prohibition."

"He drinks in sly places," George said.

"After all," Wandel said, slowly, "why do we cling to the suggestion of

Dolly? Although I fancy he does figure--somewhere in the odds."

For a time George said nothing. He was quite convinced that Wandel had

meant to warn him, and he had received that warning, straight and hard

and painfully. During several weeks he hadn't seen Dalrymple, had been

lulled into a sense of security, perhaps through the turmoil down town;

and Lambert and Betty had lingered beyond their announced month. Clearly

Wandel had sounded George's chief aim, as he had once satisfied himself

of his origin; and just now had meant to say that since his return he

had witnessed enough to be convinced that Dalrymple was still after

Sylvia, and with a chance of success. To George that meant that

Dalrymple had broken the bargain. He felt himself drawn irresistibly

back 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 the

beautiful Sylvia Planter, and out of its eyes can watch her debutante

frivolities. 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 renounce

the veil."

XIII

George fulfilled his resolution thoroughly. With the migratory bachelors

he ran from house to house, found Sylvia or not, and so thought the

effort worth while or not. The first time he saw her, indeed, he

appreciated Wandel's wisdom, for she stood with Dalrymple at the edge of

a high lawn that looked out over the sea. Her hair in the breeze was a

little astray, her cheeks were flushed, and she bent if anything toward

her companion who talked earnestly and with nervous gestures. George

crushed his quick impulse to go down, to step between them, to have it

out with Dalrymple then and there, even in Sylvia's presence; but they

strolled back to the house almost immediately, and Sylvia lost her

apparent good humour, and Dalrymple descended from satisfaction to a

fidgety 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 find

you--and you, Dalrymple."

"Nobody said you were expected," Dalrymple grumbled. "Everybody said you

were 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 the

week?"

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, authoritative

tone.

"Just a minute, Sylvia," Dalrymple apologized uneasily. "Little

business. 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 got

himself thrown over----"

"I don't believe you," George said.

"Why not?"

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

avoid 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 a

broken 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's

not 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 romance

really in the same class as the one with Blodgett? If so, why did she

involve herself in restive affairs with less obvious men? As best he

could he tried to find out that night when she was a little off guard

because of some unquiet statements she had just made of Russian

rumours.

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

they mean."

Through her quick resentment she let herself be caught in a corner, as

it were. Everyone was preparing to leave the house for a dance in

benefit of some local charity. Momentarily they were left alone. He

indicated 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 your

life. You're asking for rationed food; for a shakedown, maybe, in a

garret. You're asking for a task in a kitchen or a field. Why not a

negro's kitchen; a Chinaman's field?"

He looked at her, asking gravely:

"Do you quite understand the principles of communism as they affect

women?"

He fancied a heightening of her colour.

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

people."

He shook his head vehemently.

"I'm for the palace," he laughed, "and I fancy it means more to me than

it could to a man who's never used his brain. Let those stay in the

hovel 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 me

admirable 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 are

you unlike these other women? Why did you turn to Blodgett? Why have you

made 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 of

her entire body as if to a defensive attitude. He held out his hand to

her.

"Sylvia! We are growing old."

Yet in her radiant presence it was preposterous to speak of age. She

drew 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 keep

the 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 door

drifted a growing medley of voices. She hurried to the door, but he

followed her, and purposefully climbed into the automobile she had

entered, but they were no longer alone. Only once, when he made her

dance with him in a huge, over-decorated tent, did he manage a whisper.

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

unhappiness."

XIV

George returned to New York with an uneasy spirit, filled with doubt as

to Dalrymple's statement of renunciation, and of his own course in

saying what he had of Dalrymple to Sylvia. Mightn't that very expression

of disapproval, indeed, tend to swing her back to the man? When Lambert

walked 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. Through

eyes clouded by such happiness Lambert couldn't be expected to see very

far into the dangerous and avaricious discontent of the majority. How

much 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. Would

Dalrymple go to Oakmont after the breaking off of even a secret

engagement; or, defeated in his main purpose, was he hanging about for

what crumbs might yet fall from the Planters' table. Nearly without

reflection 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 said

easily:

"Stop worrying about him, then. Giving a friend encouragement doesn't

mean asking him into the family. That idea seems to obsess you. What

difference does it make to you, anyway, what man Sylvia marries? I'll

say 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 a

chance of it."

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

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

myself."

"See here. Dalrymple isn't to be trusted. You've been too occupied. You

haven't watched your sister. How can you tell what's in her mind? You

didn't forecast the affair with Josiah, eh? There's only one way I can

play my game--the thorough way. If it came to a real engagement I should

have to say things, Lambert--things I'd hate myself for; things that

would hurt me, perhaps, more than any one else. If necessary I shall say

them. Will you tell me, if--if----"

Lambert smiled uneasily.

"You're shying at phantoms, but you've always played every game to that

point, and perhaps you're justified. I'll come to you if circumstances

ever promise to prove you right."

"Thanks," George said, infinitely relieved; yet he had an unpleasant

feeling that Lambert had held his temper and had agreed because he was

aware of the existence of a great debt, one that he could never quite

pay.

XV

This creation of a check on Dalrymple and the assurance that Lambert

would warn him of danger came at a useful time for George, since the

market-place more and more demanded an undisturbed mind. He conceded

that Blodgett's earlier pessimism bade fair to be justified. He watched

a succession of industrial upheavals, seeking a safe course among

innumerable and perilous shoals that seemed to defy charting; conquering

whatever instinct he might have had to sympathize with the men, since he

judged their methods as hysterical, grabbing, and wasteful.

"But I don't believe," he told Blodgett, "these strikes have been

ordered from the Kremlin; still, other colours may quite easily combine

to 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 of

passion. George knew that Old Planter had sent for him, and he found

something quite pitiful in that final surrender of the great man who was

now worse off than the youngest, grimiest groveller in the furnaces; so

he was not surprised when it was announced that Blodgett would shortly

move over to the marble temple, a partner at last with individuality and

initiative, one, in fact, who would control everything for Old Planter

and his heirs until Lambert should be older. Lambert was sufficiently

unhappy over the change, because it painted so clearly the inevitable

end. The Fifth Avenue house was opened early that fall as if the old

man desired to get as close as possible to the centre of turbulent

events, hoping that so his waning sight might serve.

Consequently George had more opportunities of meeting Sylvia; did meet

her from time to time in the evenings, and watched her gaiety which

frequently impressed him as a too noticeably moulded posture. It served,

nevertheless, admirably with the men of all ages who flocked about her

as if, indeed, she were a debutante once more.

In these groups George was glad not to see Dalrymple often, but he

noticed that Goodhue was near rather more than he had been formerly, and

he 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 fluttered

near Sylvia might indicate that his real interest lay carefully

concealed, some distance away. He had, moreover, always stood singularly

aside from the pursuit of the feminine.

George's first meeting with Betty since her return was coloured by a

frank acceptance on her part of new conditions that revived his sense of

a sombre and helpless nostalgia. All was well with Betty. If there had

ever been any doubt in her Lambert had swept it away. Whatever emotion

she experienced for George was, in fact, that of a fond sister for a

brother; and George, studying her and Lambert, longed as he had never

done to find some such eager and confident content. The propulsion of

pure ambition slipped from his desire for Sylvia. With a growing wonder

he found himself craving through her just the satisfied simplicity so

clearly experienced by Lambert and Betty. Could anything make her

brilliancy less hard, less headstrong, less cruel?

George cast about for the means. Lambert was on watch. There was still

time--plenty of time.

He hadn't spoken again to Lambert about Dalrymple. There hadn't seemed

any point, for Lambert was entirely trustworthy, and, since Betty and he

lived for the present in the Fifth Avenue house, he saw Sylvia

constantly. Their conversation instead when they met for luncheon, as

they did frequently, revolved about threats which a few years back they

hadn't dreamed would ever face them. Blodgett, George noticed, didn't

point 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 him

little, their total loss would not materially affect his fortune, and he

was glad through them to have a personal share in the irritating and

absorbing evolution in the mills. He heard of Allen frequently as a

fiery and fairly successful organizer of trouble, and he sent for him

when he thought the situation warranted it. Allen came readily enough,

walking into the office, shorn of his London frills, but evidently

retentive of the habit of keeping neat and clean. The eyes, too, had

altered, but not obviously, letting through, perhaps, a certain

disillusionment.

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

Allen, surprisingly, didn't once lose his temper, listening to George's

complaints without change of expression while he wandered about, his

eyes taking in each detail of the richly furnished office.

"The directors report that the men have refused to enter into a fair and

above-board cooperative arrangement, and we've figured all along it was

turning 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 want

this straight."

Allen paused in his walk, and looked closely at George. There was no

change in his face even when he commenced to speak.

"A share in a business," he said, softly, "carries uncomfortable

responsibilities. You can't go to yourself, for instance, and say: 'Give

me more wages--more than the traffic will bear; then you sweat about it

in 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, the

candlestick maker. The capitalist most of all. Why not the man that

turns the wheels?"

George whistled.

"You'd crush essential industries off the face of the earth! You'd go

back to the stone age!"

"Not," Allen answered, slowly, "as long as the profits of the past can

be 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 a

lot of others will follow my example. I am going to get rid of those

stocks if I have to throw them out of the window, then you'll have no

gun 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 less

honest 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 expression

didn't alter materially.

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

my own veins."

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

XVI

George found himself thinking and talking of Allen's views quite enough

to please even Bailly. Blodgett, on the other hand, perhaps because of

the heavy, settled atmosphere of the marble temple, had changed his

tune.

"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 is

going to interfere with that?"

Something of quite a different nature bothered Lambert, and for a few

days George thought it a not unnatural resentment at seeing Blodgett in

his 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 a

good deal."

It was quite certain Lambert hadn't come to announce only that, so

George shrank from his next words, confident that something definite

must have happened. He controlled his anxiety with the thought that

Lambert had, indeed, come to him, and that Dalrymple couldn't permit the

announcement of an engagement without meeting the fulfilment of George's

penalties.

"It's been on my mind for the past week," Lambert went on. "I mean, he

hasn't been seeing her much in public, but he's been hanging around the

house, and last night I spoke to Sylvia about it, told her I didn't

think father would want him any more than I did, pointed out his

financial 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 did

you even guess it? I've never opened my mouth."

"He'd milked everybody else dry," Lambert answered, "and Driggs

mentioned a long time ago you'd had a curiously generous notion you'd

like to help Dolly if he ever needed it."

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

more blunders?"

"You're scarcely one to accuse," Lambert answered. "You put me up to it

in the first place, although I'll admit now, I'd have spoken anyway. I

don't want Sylvia marrying him. I don't want him down town as more than

a salaried man, unless he changes more than he has. I didn't feel even

last night that Sylvia really loved him, but I made her furious, and

you're right. I shouldn't have said that. I daresay she guessed, too, it

wasn't all generosity that had led you to pay Dolly's debts. Anyway, she

wouldn'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 I

daresay she'd have been glad to do it again last night. I spoke to

Mother. She said Sylvia hadn't said anything to her, but she added, if

Sylvia wanted him, she wouldn't oppose her. Naturally she wouldn't,

seeing only Dolly's good points, which are regularly displayed for the

benefit 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 them

together----"

"I've always wanted to help Dolly as you would any old friend who had

wandered 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 for

Sylvia. Let's forget all that. What are these important and unpleasant

things you have to tell me? I daresay you know where the money you

loaned Dolly went."

George pressed his lips tight. He frowned. Even now he hesitated to soil

his hands, to divide himself, perhaps, permanently from Sylvia at the

very moment of saving her; and he wasn't quite sure, in view of her

pride and her quick temper, that his very effort wouldn't defeat its own

purpose. If only Lambert hadn't made that worst of all possible

blunders. He wondered how a man felt on the rack. He bent swiftly and

picked up the telephone.

"I shall talk with Dalrymple first," he said. "I'm going to ask him to

come over here at once. I think he'll come."

But Lambert shook his head, stopped him before he could take the

receiver from the hook.

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

then."

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

He telephoned, while Lambert wandered about the room, or paused to slip

through his fingers the tape that emerged like a long and listless

serpent from the now silent ticker. After a question or two George

replaced 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 itself

little by little in yellow points of light which gave to the clouds and

the circling columns of steam a mauve quality as if the world, instead

of night, faced the birth of a dawn, new, abnormal, frightening.

He had to make one more effort with Dalrymple before sending Lambert to

Sylvia with his reasons why she shouldn't marry the man. In the

singular, unreal light he glanced at his hands. He had to see Dalrymple

once more first----

He turned and snapped on the lights.

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

catch 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. No

more 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 the

doorway was blocked by Dalrymple. George stared, trying to value the

alteration in the man. The weak, rather handsome face was bold and

contemptuous. Clearly he had come here for blows of his own choosing,

and had just now borrowed courage from some illicit bar, but he had

taken only enough, George gathered, to make him assured and not too

calculating. He was clothed as if he had returned from an affair, with a

flower in his buttonhole, and a top hat held in the hand with his stick

and gloves.

"Come in!"

Dalrymple closed the door and advanced, smiling.

Not for a moment did George's glance leave the other. He felt taut, hard

to the point of brittleness.

"It's fortunate you've come," he said, quietly. "I've just been trying

to 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 rough

stuff and you'll spend the night in a cell, or under bail."

"If you lived nine lives," George commented, "you'd never be able to

intimidate me."

Yet the other's manner troubled, and George's doubtful curiosity grew as

he watched Dalrymple commence to draw the strings of the mask.

Dalrymple put down his hat and cane, bent swiftly, placed the palms of

his hands on the desk, stared at George, his face inflamed, his eyes

choked with malicious exultation.

"Your blackmail," he cried, "is knocked into a cocked hat. I married

Sylvia 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. That

was why he experienced a dreadful realization of defeat, for a moment

let through a flickering impression of the need for violence, but--and

Dalrymple couldn't be expected to understand that--violence against

George Morton who had let this situation materialize, who experienced,

tumbling about his head, the magnificent but incomplete efforts of many

years. That sensation of boundless, imponderable wreckage crushing upon

him 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 awakening

clamour.

"What difference does the money make now?" Dalrymple jibed. "And she'll

believe nothing else you may tell her, and violence would only make a

laughing stock of you. It's done."

"How was it done?" George whispered.

"No objections to amusing you," Dalrymple mocked. "Lambert interfered

last night, and spoiled his own game by dragging you in. By gad, she has

got it in for you! Don't see why you ever thought----Anyway, she agreed

right enough then, and I didn't need to explain it was wiser, seeing how

Lambert felt about it, and her father, and you, of all people, to get

the thing over without any brass bands. Had a bit of luck ducking the

reporters at the license bureau. Tied the knot half an hour ago. She's

gone home to break the glad news."

He grinned.

"But I thought it only decent to jump the subway and tell you your

filthy money's all right and that you can plant a tombstone on your

pound of flesh."

He laughed again.

In George's brain the echoes of Dalrymple's triumph reverberated more

and more intelligibly. Little by little during the recital his slumped

attitude had altered.

"In a way! In a way! In a way!" had sung through his brain, deriding

him.

Then, as he had listened, had flashed the question: "Is it really too

late?" And he had recalled his old determination that nothing--not even

this--should bar the road to his pursuit. So, at the close of

Dalrymple's explanation, he was straight in his chair, his hands

grasping the arms, every muscle, every nerve, stretched tight, and in

his 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.