Blow up about your notes any time you please. I'll see they're paid."
He took up his hat and stick.
"Want to run along now and break the news to brother-in-law. Sure to
find him. He's a late bird."
George stood up.
"Wait a minute," he said, quietly. "Got to say you've put one over,
Dalrymple. It was crooked, but it's done. You've settled it, haven't
you?"
"Glad you take it reasonably," Dalrymple laughed, turning for the door.
"Wait a minute," George repeated.
Dalrymple paused, apparently surprised at the tone, even and colourless.
"Lambert's somewheres about the place," George explained. "Just stay
here, and I'll find him and send him in."
"Good business!" Dalrymple agreed, sitting down. "Through all the
sooner."
He smiled.
"A little anxious to get home to my wife."
George tried to close his ears. He didn't dare look at the other. He
hurried out, closed the door, and went to Goodhue's office. At sight of
him Lambert sprang from his chair as if startled by an unforeseen record
of catastrophe.
"What's happened?"
"Dalrymple's in my room," George answered without any expression. "He
wants to see you. He'll tell you all about it."
He raised his hands, putting a stop to Lambert's alarmed questions.
"Can't wait. Do just one thing for me. Give me half an hour. Keep
Dalrymple here for half an hour."
Still Lambert cried for reasons.
"Never mind why. You ought to interest each other for that long."
But Lambert tried to detain him.
"Where are you going? Why do you want me to keep him here? You look as
if you'd been struck in the face! George! What goes on?"
George turned impatiently.
"Ask Dalrymple. Then do that one thing for me."
He ran out of the room, picked up his hat and coat, and hastened to the
elevators.
He was caught by the high tide of the homeward rush, but his only
thought was of the quickest way, so he let himself be swept into the
maelstrom of the subway and was pounded aboard a Lexington Avenue
express. All these people struggling frantically to get somewhere! The
pleasures awaiting them at their journey's end should be colourful and
compelling; yet it was clear to him sordid discontent lurked for some,
and for others unavoidable sorrows. It was beyond belief that their
self-centred haste should let creep in no knowledge of the destination
and the purpose of this companion, even more eager than themselves,
intimately crushed among them.
He managed to free his arm so he could glance at his watch, and he
peered between bobbing heads through the windows at the station signs.
At Eighty-sixth Street he escaped and tore, limping, up the stairs while
people stared at him, or, if in his haste he had brushed unthinkingly
against them, called out remarks angry or sarcastic. His leg commenced
to ache, but he ran across to Fifth Avenue and down it to the Planter
house. While he waited before the huge, heavy glass and iron doors he
caught his breath, counting the seconds.
It was Simpson who opened.
"I'm not sure Miss Planter has returned, sir. If so, she would be
upstairs. When she went out she said something about not being disturbed
this evening. Yes, sir. She left with Mr. Dalrymple less than two hours
ago."
George walked into the vast hall.
"I must see her, Simpson, at once."
He started toward hangings, half-drawn, through which he could see only
partially a dimly lighted room.
"I will tell her, sir."
George swung.
"But not my name, Simpson. Tell her it is a message from her brother, of
the greatest importance."
George held his breath.
"What is it, Simpson?"
The clear contralto voice steadied him. If she was alone in there he
would have a better chance than he had hoped for, and he heard no other
voice; but why should she be alone at this exciting hour in a dimly
lighted room? Was it possible that she hadn't told any one yet what she
had done, had returned to the house and chosen solitude, instead, in a
dim light? Then why? Why?
He dismissed Simpson with a nod and entered between the hangings.
She was alone. She stood before a cold fireplace at the end of the room
as if she had just risen from a chair near by. She was straight and
motionless, but she projected an air of fright, as if she had been
caught at an indiscretion; and, as George advanced, he thought her
colour was too deep, and he believed she had been crying alone in the
dusk of the room which was scarcely disturbed by one shaded lamp.
He paused and stared at her--no longer Sylvia Planter--Dalrymple's wife.
All at once the appearance of modelled stone left her. Her entire body
seemed in motion, surrendered to a neurotic and undirected energy. She
started forward, paused, drew away. Her eyes turned from him to the
door, then questioningly back again. She pulled at the gloves which she
had kept in her hand. Her voice, when she spoke, was unsteady:
"What do you mean--coming in here--unannounced?"
His eyes held her.
"I've had enough of that," he said, harshly. "All I can think of is the
vile name your husband would have called you once if I hadn't choked him
half to death."
For a second her eyes blazed, then her shoulders drooped, and she
covered her face with her hands. With a sharp regret it occurred to him
that he could throw the broken crop away, for at last he had struck
her--hard enough to hurt.
Her voice from behind her hands was uncertain and muffled.
"Who told you?"
"He did--naturally, that--that----"
He broke off, choking.
"By God, Sylvia! It isn't too late. You've got to understand that. Now.
This minute. I tell you it isn't too late."
She lowered her hands. Her fear was sufficiently visible. Her attempt at
a laugh was pitiful, resembled an escaping grief.
"Leave me alone. You have to leave me alone now."
Her brutal definition of the great wall suddenly raised between them
swept his mind clean of everything except her lips, her beauty,
cloistered with his interminable desire in this dim room.
He stumbled blindly forward to his final chance. With a great,
unthinking, enveloping gesture he flung his arms about her drew her so
close to his body that she couldn't resist; and, before she had time to
cry out, pressed his mouth at last against her lips.
He saw her eyes close, guessed that she didn't attempt to struggle,
experienced an intoxicating fancy she was content to have him fulfill
his boast. He didn't try to measure the enormity of his action. Once
more he was the George Morton who could plunge ahead, casting aside
acquired judgments. Then he felt her shudder. She got her lips away. She
tried to lift her hands. He heard her whisper:
"Let me go."
He stared, fascinated, at her lips, half parted, that had just now told
him he had never really wanted anybody else, never could have.
"Sylvia! Forgive me. I didn't know. I've loved you--always; I've never
dreamed how much. And I can't let you go."
He tried to find her lips again, but she fought, and he commenced to
remember. From a point behind his back something held her incredulous
attention. He turned quickly. Dalrymple stood between the hangings.
XVII
George experienced no fear, no impulse to release Sylvia. He was
conscious merely of a sharp distaste that it should have turned out so,
and a feeling of anger that Lambert was responsible through his failure
to grant his request; but Lambert might have been shocked to
forgetfulness by Dalrymple's announcement, or he might have had too
sharp a doubt of George's intentions. Sylvia had become motionless, as
if impressed by the futility of effort. In a moment would she cry out to
Dalrymple just what he had done? He waited for her charge, her
justification, while he continued to stare at Dalrymple's angry and
unbelieving face which the gay flower in his button hole had an air of
mocking. Dalrymple started forward.
"You see that, Lambert----"
Lambert, who must have been standing close behind him, walked into the
room, as amazed as Dalrymple, nearly as shocked.
"Sylvia!"
George let Sylvia go. She sat down in the chair by the fireplace and
looked straight ahead, her lips still half parted. Dalrymple hurried the
length of the room and paused in front of her.
"Be careful what you say, Dalrymple," George warned him.
Dalrymple burst out:
"You'll not tell me what to say. What's this mean, Sylvia? Speak up,
or----"
"Easy, Dolly," Lambert advised.
George waited. Sylvia did not cry out. He relaxed, hearing her say
uncertainly:
"I don't know. I'm sorry. I----"
She paused, looked down, commenced pulling at her gloves again with the
self-absorbed gestures of a somnambulist. George's heart leapt. She had
not accused him, had really said nothing, from her attitude wouldn't
just yet. Dalrymple swung furiously on Lambert.
"God! Am I to believe my eyes? Pretends to despise him, and I find her
in his arms!"
Sylvia glanced up once then, her face crimson, her lips trembling, then
she resumed her blank scrutiny of her gloves at which she still pulled.
George stepped swiftly forward, fancying Dalrymple was going to threaten
her with his hands.
"Why don't you talk up?" Dalrymple cried. "What you got to say? Don't
see there's much? Never would have dreamed it of you. What a scandal!"
"Morton," Lambert said with a leashed fury in his quiet voice, "no one
but you could have done this. Leave us alone now to see what we can make
of it."
George laughed shortly.
"All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't budge me just
yet. And I'll tell you what we'll make of it. Just what she wishes."
"Keep your mouth shut," Dalrymple said, shrilly. "You won't go. We'll
go. Sylvia! Come with me. We'll talk it out alone."
She shrank back in her chair, grasped its arms, looked up startled,
shaking her head.
"I can't go anywhere with you, Dolly," she said in a wondering voice.
"What you mean? You came to church right enough with me this afternoon.
Don't you forget that."
She nodded.
"It was wrong of me," she whispered. "I lost my temper. I didn't know at
all----"
"How did you find out?" Dalrymple sneered. "From him? But you're my
wife. Come away with me----"
She stood up swiftly, facing him.
"You shan't say such things to me, and I am not coming with you. I don't
know what's going to happen, but that--I know----"
She turned helplessly to Lambert.
"Make him understand."
Lambert took her hand and led her to the door.
"Go to Betty," he said.
"But make him understand," she pled.
"Why did you marry him if you didn't love him?" Lambert asked.
She turned and glanced at Dalrymple.
"I was fond of him. I didn't quite realize. There's a difference--he
must see that I've done an impossible thing, and I won't go on with it."
They were at the door. Lambert led her through, returning immediately.
George watched her go, blaming himself for her suffering. He had,
indeed, dragged her from her high horse, but he had not realized he
would bring her at once and starkly face to face with facts she had all
along refused to recognize; yet, he was convinced from his long
knowledge of her, she would not alter her decision, and he was happy,
knowing that he had accomplished, after a fashion, what he had come here
to do.
"You're married," Lambert was saying dryly to Dalrymple. "The problem
seems to be how to get you unmarried."
"You shan't do that," Dalrymple cried, hotly. "You'll talk her around
instead."
"Scarcely a chance," Lambert answered, "and really I don't see why I
should try. You've played a slippery trick. You may have had an
understanding with Sylvia, but I am perfectly convinced that she
wouldn't have let anything come of it if you hadn't caught her at a
moment when she couldn't judge reasonably. So it's entirely up to her."
"We'll see about it," Dalrymple said. "I have my side. You turn nasty. I
turn nasty. You Planters want an annulment proceeding, or a public
divorce with this rotter as co-respondent?"
"Dolly! You don't know what you're saying."
"I'll fight for my rights," Dalrymple persisted, sullenly.
"See here," George put in, "I stayed to say one thing. Sylvia had
nothing to do with what you saw. She couldn't help herself. Your
crookedness, Dalrymple, made me forget everything except that----Never
mind. Lambert understands. Maybe I was out of my head. Anyway, I didn't
give her a chance. She had to suffer it. Is that quite clear?"
Lambert smiled incredulously.
"That'll sound well in court, too," Dalrymple threatened.
"Drop that!" Lambert cried. "Think who you are; who Sylvia is."
"My wife," Dalrymple came back. "I'll have her or I'll go to court."
George started for the door.
"Don't fret, Lambert," he advised. "Money will go a long way with him.
If I might, I'd like to know what the two of you settle. I mean, if you
want to keep it away from your father and mother, my money's available.
I haven't much use for it any more----"
He broke off. What had he just meant to say: that since he had held
Sylvia in his arms all that had marked the progress of his ambition had
become without value? He would have to find that out. Now he waited at
the door, interested only in Dalrymple's response to his bald proposal.
Dalrymple thrust his hands in his pockets, commenced to pace the room,
but all he said was:
"Teach you all not to make a fool of Dolly."
"Remember," George said. "What she wants. And undesired scandals can be
paid for in various ways."
He glanced at Lambert. Evidently Sylvia's brother on that ground would
meet him as an ally. So he left the house and walked slowly through the
eastern fringe of the park, wishing to avoid even the few people
scattered along the pavements of the avenue, for the touch of Sylvia's
lips was still warm on his mouth. He felt himself apart. He wanted to
remain apart as long as possible with that absorbing memory.
Her angry responses in the past to his few daring gestures were
submerged in the great, scarcely comprehensible fact that she had not
rebuked him when he had tumbled over every barrier to take her in his
arms; nor had she, when cornered by Dalrymple and Lambert, assumed her
logical defence. Had that meant an awakening of a sort?
He smiled a little, thinking of her lips.
Their touch had sent to his brain flashes of pure illumination in which
his once great fondness for Betty had stood stripped of the capacity for
any such avid, confused emotions as Sylvia had compelled; flashes that
had exposed also his apparent hatred of the girl Sylvia as an obstinate
love, which, unable to express itself according to a common-place
pattern, had shifted its violent desires to conceptions of wrongs and
penalties. Blinded by that great light, he asked himself if his
ambition, his strength, and his will had merely been expressions of his
necessity for her.
Of her words and actions immediately afterward he didn't pretend to
understand anything beyond their assurance that Dalrymple's romance was
at an end. Not a doubt crept into his strange and passionate exaltation.
He was surprised to find himself at his destination. When he reached his
apartment he got out the old photograph and the broken riding crop, and
with them in his hands sat before the fire, dreaming of the long road
over which they had consistently aided him. He compared Sylvia as he had
just seen her with the girlish and intolerant Sylvia of the photograph,
and he found he could still imagine the curved lips moving to form the
words:
"You'll not forget."
He lowered his hands, and took a deep breath like one who has completed
a journey. To-night, in a sense, he had reached the heights most
carefully guarded of all.
XVIII
He heard the ringing of the door bell. His servant slipped in.
"Mr. Lambert Planter, sir."
George started, placed the crop and the photograph in a drawer, and
looked at the man with an air of surprise.
"Of course, I should like to see him. And bring me something on a tray,
here in front of the fire."
Lambert walked in.
"Don't mind my coming this way, George?"
"I'm glad I'm no longer 'Morton'," George said, dryly. "Sit down. I'm
going to have a bite to eat."
He glanced at his watch.
"Good Lord! It's after ten o'clock."
"Yes," Lambert said, choosing a chair, "there was a lot to talk about."
Little of the trouble had left Lambert's face, but George fancied
Sylvia's brother looked at him with curiosity, with a form of respect.
"I'm glad you've come," George said, "but I don't intend to apologize
for what I did this evening. I think we all, no matter what our
inheritance, fight without thought of affectations for our happiness.
That's what I did. I love your sister, Lambert. Never dreamed how much
until to-night. Not a great deal to say, but it's enormous beyond
definition to think. You have Betty, so perhaps you can understand."
Lambert smiled in a superior fashion.
"I'm a little confused," he said. "She's led me to believe all along
she's disliked you; has kept you away from Oakmont; has made it
difficult from the start. Then I find her, whether willingly or not--at
least not crying out for help--in your arms."
"I had to open her eyes to what she had done," George answered. "I
wasn't exactly accountable, but I honestly believe I took the only
possible means. I don't know whether I succeeded."
"I fancy you succeeded," Lambert muttered.
George stretched out his hand, looked at Lambert appealingly.
"She didn't say so--she----"
Lambert shook his head.
"She wouldn't talk about you at all."
He waited while the servant entered and arranged George's tray.
"Of course you've dined?"
"After a fashion," Lambert answered. "Not hungry. You might give me a
drink."
"I feel apologetic about eating," George said when they were alone
again. "Don't see why I should have an appetite."
Lambert fingered his glass.
"Do you know why she didn't have you drawn and quartered?"
"No. Don't try to create happiness, Lambert, where there mayn't be any."
"I'm creating nothing. I'm asking a question, in an effort to
understand why she won't, as I say, mention your name; why she can't
bear to have it mentioned."
"If you were right, if things could be straightened out," George said,
"you--you could put up with it?"
"Easily," Lambert answered, "and I'll confess I couldn't if it were
Corporal John Smith. I've been fond of you for a long time, George, and
I owe you a great deal, but that doesn't figure. You're worthy even of
Sylvia; but I don't say I'm right. You can't count on Sylvia. And even
if I were, I don't see any way to straighten things out."
George returned to his meal.
"If you had taken the proper attitude," he scolded, "you could have
handled Dalrymple. He's weak, avaricious, cowardly."
"Oh, Dalrymple! I can handle him. It's Sylvia," Lambert said. "In the
long run Dolly agreed to about everything. Of course he wanted money,
and he'll have to have it; but heaven knows there's plenty of money.
Trouble is, the wedding can't be hushed up. That's plain. It will be in
every paper to-morrow. We arranged that Dolly was to live in the house
for a time. They would have been together in public, and Dolly agreed
eventually to let her go and get a quiet divorce--at a price. It sounds
revolting, but to me it seemed the only way."
George became aware of an ugly and distorted intruder upon his
happiness, yet Lambert was clearly right. Sylvia and Dalrymple,
impulsively joined together, were nothing to each other, couldn't even
resume their long friendship.
"Well?" George asked.
"Mother, Betty, and I talked it over with Sylvia," Lambert answered.
"You see, we've kept Father in ignorance so far. He's scarcely up to
such a row. Mother will make him wise very gently only when it becomes
necessary."
"But what did Sylvia say?" George demanded, bending toward Lambert, his
meal forgotten.
"Sylvia," Lambert replied, spreading his hands helplessly, "would agree
to nothing. In the first place, she wouldn't consent to Dolly's staying
in the house even to save appearances. I don't know what's the matter
with her. She worried us all. She wasn't hysterical exactly, but she
cried a good deal, which is quite unusual for her, and she
seemed--frightened. She wouldn't let any one go near her--even Mother. I
couldn't understand that."
George stared at the fire, his hands clasped. When at last he spoke he
scarcely heard his own voice:
"She will get a divorce--as soon as possible?"
Lambert emptied his glass and set it down.
"That's just it," he answered, gloomily. "She won't listen to anything
of the sort."
George glanced up.
"What is there left for her to do?"
Lambert frowned.
"Something seems to have changed her wholly. She declares she'll never
see Dolly again, and in the same breath talks about the church and a
horror of divorce, and the necessity of her suffering for her mistake;
and she wants to pay her debt to Dolly by giving him, instead of
herself, all of her money--a few such pleasant inconsistencies. See
here. Why didn't you run wild yesterday, or the day before?"
"Do you think," George asked, softly, "it would have been quite the same
thing, would have had quite the same effect?"
"I wonder," Lambert mused.
George arose and stood with his back to the fire.
"And of course," he said, thoughtfully, "you or I can't tell just what
the effect has been. See here, Lambert. I have to find that out. I must
see her once, if only for five minutes."
He watched Lambert, who didn't answer at first.
"I'll not run wild again," he promised. "If she'd only agree--just five
minutes' talk."
"I told you," Lambert said at last, "she wouldn't mention your name or
let any one else; but, on the theory that you are really responsible for
what's happened, I'd like you to see her. You might persuade her that a
divorce is absolutely necessary, the only way out. You might get her to
understand that she can't go through life tied to a man she'll never
see, while people will talk many times more than if she took a train
quietly west."
"If she'll see me," George said, "I'll try to make it plain to her."
"Betty has a scheme----" Lambert began, and wouldn't grow more explicit
beyond saying, "Betty'll probably let you hear from her in the morning.
That's the reason I wanted you to know how things stand. I'm hurrying
back now to our confused house."
George followed him to the door.
"Dalrymple--where is he?" he asked.
"Gone to his parents. He'll try to play the game for the present."
"At a price," George said.
Lambert nodded.
"Rather well-earned, too, on the whole," he answered, ironically.
XIX
George slept little that night. The fact that Lambert believed him
responsible for the transformation in Sylvia was sufficiently exciting.
In Sylvia's manner her brother must have read something he had not quite
expressed to George. And why wouldn't she mention him? Why couldn't she
bear to have the others mention him? With his head bowed on his hands he
sat before the desk, staring at the diminishing fire, and in this
posture he fell at last asleep to be startled by Wandel who had not
troubled to have himself announced. The fire was quite dead. In the
bright daylight streaming into the room George saw that the little man
held a newspaper in his hand.
"Is it a habit of great men not to go to bed?"
George stood up and stretched. He indicated the newspaper.
"You've come with the evil tidings?"
"About Sylvia and Dolly," Wandel began.
George yawned.
"I must bathe and become presentable, for this is another day."
"You've already seen it?" Wandel asked, a trifle puzzled.
"No, but what else should there be in the paper?"
Wandel stared for a moment, then carefully folded the paper and tossed
it in the fireplace.
"Nothing much," he answered, lighting a cigarette, "except hold-ups,
murders, new strikes, fresh battles among our brethren of the Near
East--nothing of the slightest consequence. By by. Make yourself, great
man, fresh and beautiful for the new day."
XX
George wondered why Wandel should have come at all, or, having come, why
he should have left in that manner; and he was sorry he had answered as
he had, for Wandel invariably knew a great deal, more than most people.
In this case he had probably come only to help, but in George's brain
nothing could survive for long beyond hazards as to what the morning
might develop. Betty was going to communicate with him, and she would
naturally expect to find him at his office, so he hurried down town and
waited, forcing himself to the necessary details of his work. For the
first time the mechanics of making money seemed dreary and unprofitable.
Goodhue came in with a clearly designed lack of curiosity. Had his
partner all along suspected the truth, or had Wandel been talking? For
that matter, did Goodhue himself experience a sense of loss?
"Not so surprising, George. Dolly's always been after her--even back in
the Princeton days, and she's played around with him since they were
children; yet I was a little shocked. I never thought it would quite
come off."
It was torture for George to listen, and he couldn't possibly talk about
it, so he led Goodhue quite easily to the day's demands; but Blodgett
appeared not long after with a drooping countenance. Why did they all
have to come to him to discuss the unannounced wedding of Sylvia
Planter?
"She ought to have done better," Blodgett disapproved funereally.
He fingered a gaudy handkerchief. He thrust it in his pocket, drew it
forth again, folded it carefully with his pudgy hands.
"Don't think I've ever ceased to regret----" he started rather
pitifully.
After a moment's absorbed scrutiny of George he went on.
"If she had picked somebody like you I wouldn't have minded. Papa
Blodgett would have given you both his blessing."
So they had all guessed something! George questioned uneasily if
Blodgett's suspicions had lived during the course of his own unfortunate
romance, and he was sorrier than ever he had had to help destroy that.
He got rid of Blodgett and refused to see any one else, but he had to
answer the telephone, for that would almost certainly be Betty's means
of communication. Each time the pleasant bell tinkled he seized the
receiver, and each time cut short whatever masculine worries reached
him. The uneven pounding of the ticker punctuated his suspense. It was a
feverish morning in the market, but not once did he rise to glance at
the tape which streamed neglected into the basket.
It was after one o'clock when he snatched the receiver from the hook
again with a hopeless premonition of another disappointment. Then he
heard Betty's voice, scarcely more than an anxious whisper "George!"
"Yes, yes, Betty."
"My car will be somewhere between Altman's and Tiffany's at two o'clock,
as near the corner of Thirty-fifth Street as they'll let me get. Lambert
knows. It's all right."
"But, Betty----"
"Just be there," she said, and must have hung up.
He glanced at his watch. He could start now. He hurried from the
building, but there was no point in haste. He had plenty of time, too
much time; and Betty hadn't said he would see Sylvia; hadn't given him
time to ask; but she must have arranged an interview, else why should
she care to see him at all, why her manner of a conspirator?
He reached the rendezvous well ahead of time, but he recognized Betty's
car just beyond the corner, and saw her wave to him anxiously. He
stepped in and sat at her side. She laughed nervously.
"I guessed you would be a little ahead," she said as the car commenced
to crawl north.
"Am I to see Sylvia?"
Betty nodded.
"Just once. This noon, before I telephoned, she acknowledged that she
wanted to see you--to talk to you for the last time. That's the way she
put it."
Betty smiled sceptically.
"You know I don't believe anything of the sort."
"What do you think can be done?" George asked.
She didn't suggest anything, merely repeating her faith, going on while
she looked at George curiously.
"So all the time, George--and I didn't really guess, but I might have
known you would. I can remember now that day at Princeton when I asked
you about her dog, and your anxiety one night at Josiah's when you
wanted to know if she was going to be married--oh, plenty of hints now.
George! Why did you let it go so far?"
"Couldn't help myself, Betty."
She looked at him helplessly.
"And what have you done to her?"
"If you can't guess----" George said.
Betty smiled reminiscently.
"Perhaps I can guess. You would do just that, George, when there was
nothing else."
"You don't blame me?" he asked. "You don't ask, as Lambert did, why I
waited so long?"
She shook her head.
"I'm sure," she said, "when you came last night you saw a Sylvia none of
us had ever met before. Don't you think it had come upon her all at once
that she was no longer Sylvia Planter, that in defeating you she had
destroyed herself? If that is so, she has every bit of sympathy I'm
capable of, and we must think first of all of her. The pride's still
there, but quite a different thing. She's never known fear before,
George, and now she's afraid, terribly afraid, most of all, I think, of
herself."
George counted the corners, was relieved when beyond Fiftieth Street the
traffic thinned and they went faster. He took Betty's hand, and found
that the touch steadied and encouraged, because at last her fingers
seemed to reach his mind again.
"Betty! Do you think she cares at all?"
"I'm prejudiced," Betty laughed, "but I think the harder she'd been the
more she's cared; but she wouldn't talk about you except to say she
would see you for a minute this once. Lambert's lunching with Dolly."
"We are conspirators," George said, "and I don't like it, but I must see
her once."
They drew up at the curb, got out, and entered the hall. The house was
peculiarly without sound. George glanced at the entrance to the room
where he had found Sylvia last night.
"I think she's in Mr. Planter's study," Betty said. "He hasn't come
downstairs yet."
She led him through the library to a small, square room--a quiet and
comfortable book-lined retreat where Old Planter had been accustomed to
supplement his work down town. George looked eagerly around, but the
light wasn't very good, and he didn't at first see Sylvia.
"Sylvia!" Betty called softly. "I've brought George."
XXI
Almost before George realized it Betty was gone and the door was closed.
"Sylvia!"
Her low voice reached him from a large chair opposite the single,
leaded, opaque window.
"I'm over here----"
Yes, there was fear in her enunciation, as if she groped through shadowy
and hazardous places. It cautioned him. With a choked feeling, a racking
effort after repression, he walked quietly around and stared down at
her.
She looked up once quickly, then glanced away. He was grateful for her
colour, but the fear was in her face, too, and the pride, as Betty had
said, but a transformed pride that he couldn't quite understand. She lay
back in the large chair, her head to one side resting against the
protruding arm. Her eyes were bright with tears she had shed or wanted
to shed.
"Please sit down."
The ring of exasperated contempt and challenge had gone from her voice.
He hadn't known it could stir him so. He drew up a chair and sat close
to her.
"You are not angry about what I did last night?" he whispered.
She shook her head.
"I am grateful. I wanted to see you to tell you that, and how sorry I
am--so beastly sorry, George."
Her voice drifted away. It made him want his arms about her, made him
want her lips again. The room became a black and restless background for
this shadowy, desired, and forbidden figure.
Impulsively he slipped to his knees and placed his head against the side
of her chair. Across his hair he fancied a fugitive brushing of fingers.
She burst out with something of her former impetuous manner.
"I used to want that! Now you shan't!"
He arose, and she stooped swiftly forward, as if propelled objectively,
and, before he realized what she was doing, touched the back of his hand
with her lips.
She sprang upright and faced him from the mantel, more afraid than ever,
staring at him, her cheeks wet with tears.
"That's all," she whispered. "It's what I wanted to tell you. Please go.
We mustn't see each other again."
In the room he was aware only of her, but he knew, in spite of his own
blind instinct, that between them was a wall as of transparent and heavy
glass against which he would only break his strength.
"Sylvia," he whispered in spite of that knowledge, "I want to touch your
lips."
"They've never been anybody else's," she cried in a sudden outburst.
"Never could have been. I see that now. That's why I've hated you----"
"Yet you love me now. You do love me, Sylvia?"
"I love you, George," she said, wearily. "I think I always have."
"Then why--why----"
She turned on him, nearly angry.
"How can you ask that? You haven't forgotten that first day, either,
have you? You took something of me then, and I couldn't forget it. That
was what hurt and humiliated; I couldn't forget, couldn't get out of my
mind what you--one of the--the stablemen--had taken of me, Sylvia
Planter. And I thought you could never give it back, but last night you
did, and I----Everything went to pieces----And it had to be last night,
after I'd lost my temper. I see that. That's the tragedy of it."
"I don't quite understand, Sylvia."
She smiled a little through her tears.
"Betty would. Any woman would. You must go now--please."
"When will I see you again?" he asked.
"This way? Never."
"What nonsense! You'll get a divorce. You must."
She straightened. Her head went back.
"I won't lie that way."
"I'll hit on some means," he boasted. "You belong to me."
"And I've found it out too late," she said, "and I don't believe I could
have found it out before. Think of that, George, when it seems too hard.
I had to be caught by my own rotten temper before I'd let you wake me
up."
She drew a little away, and when he started forward motioned him back.
Her face flooded with colour, but she met his eyes bravely.
"That was something. I will never forget that, either, but it doesn't
make me feel--unclean, as I did that day at Oakmont and afterward. I
don't want to forget it ever. Now you understand."
She ran swiftly to the door and opened it. He followed her and saw Betty
at the farther end of the room talking to Mr. Planter.
"Why do you do that?" he asked, desperately.
"I want to tell you why I'll never forget," she answered in a half
whisper. "Because I love you. I love you. I want to say it. I think it
every minute, so don't you see you have to help me keep it straight and
beautiful always, George?"
XXII
"Who has made my little girl cry?"
The quavering tones reminded George. He walked from the little room
toward the others, and he saw that Old Planter had caught Sylvia's hand,
had drawn her to him, had felt the tears on her cheeks.
There rushed back to George that ancient interview in the library at
Oakmont, and here he was back at it, even in Old Planter's presence,
making her cry again. He wondered what Old Planter had said when Lambert
had told him who George Morton really was.
"You see, sir," he said, moodily, "I haven't changed so much from the
stable boy, Morton, you once threatened to send to smash if----"
Sylvia broke in sharply.
"He's never been told----"
"What are you talking about?" the old man quavered. "Was there ever a
Morton on my place, Sylvia? An old man, yes. He's dead. A young one----"
Slowly he shook his head from side to side. He peered suspiciously at
George out of his dim eyes.
"I don't remember."
Suddenly he cried out with a flash of the old authority:
"I'm growing sensitive, Morton. No jokes! What's he talking about?"
Sylvia took his hand. Her lips trembled.
"Never mind, Father. Come."
And as he let her guide him he drifted on.
"Sylvia! Have you got everything you want? I'll give you anything you
want if only you won't cry."
Outside rain had commenced to drizzle. From a tree in the little yard
yellow leaves fluttered down. Old Planter hobbled into his study, Sylvia
at his side. Betty followed George to the hall.
"Tell Sylvia I am very happy," he said.
She pressed his hand, whispering:
"The great George Morton!"
XXIII
Again George walked to his apartment and sat brooding over the fire,
trying to find a way; but Sylvia must have searched, too, and failed.
There was no way, or none that she would take. He crushed his heady
revolt at the realization, for he believed she had been right. Without
her great mistake she couldn't have given him that obliterative moment
last evening, or his glimpse this afternoon of happiness through heavy,
transparent glass. So he could smile a little, nearly cheerfully. There
was really a quality of happiness in his knowledge that she had never
forgotten his tight clasping at Oakmont, his blurted love, his threat
that he would teach her not to be afraid of his touch. How she must have
despised herself in the great house, among her own kind, when she found
she couldn't forget Morton, when she tried, perhaps, to escape the shame
of wanting Morton! No wonder she had attempted through Blodgett and
Dalrymple, men for whom she could have had no such urgent feeling, to
divide herself from him, to prevent the fulfilment of his boasts of
which he had perpetually reminded her. She must have looked at him a
good deal more than he had guessed in those far days. And now his touch
had taught her to be more afraid than ever, but not of him. With a
growing wonder he recalled her surrender. Of course, Sylvia, like her
placid mother, like everyone, was, beneath the veneer even of endless
generations, necessarily primitive. For that discovery he could thank
Dalrymple. He continued to dream.
What, indeed, lay ahead for him? In a sense he had already reached the
summit which he had set out to find, and every thrilling mood of hers
that afternoon flamed in his mind. He had a desolate feeling that there
was no longer anything for him down town, or anywhere else beyond a
wait, possibly endless, for Sylvia; and as he brooded there he longed
for a mother to whom he could have gone with his happiness that was more
than half pain. His mother had said that there were lots of girls too
good for him. His father had added, "Sylvia Planter most of all." His
father was dead. His mother might as well have been. All at once her
swollen hands seemed to rest passively between him and the fire.
He was glad when Wandel came in, even though he found him without
lights, for the second time that day in an unaccustomed and reflective
posture.
"Snap the lamps on, will you, Driggs?"
Wandel obeyed, and George blinked, laughing uncomfortably.
"You'll fancy I've caught the poet's mood."
"Not at all, my dear George," Wandel answered. "Why not say, thinking
about the war? Nobody will let you talk about it, and I'm told if you
write stories or books that mention it the editors turn their thumbs
down. So much, says a grateful country, for the poor soldier. What more
natural then than this really pitiful picture of the dejected veteran
recalling his battles in a dusky solitude?"
"Oh, shut up, Driggs. Maybe you'll tell me why they ever called you
'Spike.'"
Wandel yawned.
"Certainly. Because, being small, I got hit on the head a great deal. I
sometimes think it's why I'm too dull to make you understand what I mean
to say."
George looked at him.
"I think I do, Driggs; and thanks."
"Then," Wandel said, brightly, "you'll come and dine with me."
"I will. I will. Where shall we go? Not to the club."
"I fancy one club wouldn't be pleasant for you this evening," Wandel
said, quietly.
George caught his breath.
"Why not?"
But Wandel wouldn't satisfy him until they were in a small restaurant
and seated at a wall table sufficiently far from people to make quiet
tones safe.
"It's too bad," he said then, "that great men won't take warnings."
"I caught your warning," George answered, "and I acted on it as far as I
could. I couldn't dream, knowing her, of a runaway marriage, and I'll
guarantee you didn't, either."
"I once pointed out to you," Wandel objected, "that she was the
impulsive sort who would fly to some man--only I fancied then it would
ultimately be you."
"Why, Driggs?"
Wandel put his hand on George's knee.
"You don't mind my saying this? A long time ago I guessed she loved you.
Even as far back as Betty's debut, when I danced with her right after
you two had had some kind of a rumpus, I saw she was a bundle of emotion
and despised herself for it. Of course I hadn't observed then all that I
have since."
"Why did you never warn me of that?" George asked.
Wandel laughed lightly.
"What absurd questions you ask! Because, being well acquainted with
Sylvia, I couldn't see how she was to be made to realize she cared for
you."
George crumbled a piece of bread.
"I daresay," he muttered, "you know everything that's happened. It's
extraordinary the way you find out things--things you're not supposed to
know at all."
Wandel laughed again, this time on a note of embarrassed disapproval.
"Not extraordinary in this case."
George glanced up.
"You said something about the club not being pleasant for me
to-night----"
"Because," Wandel answered with brutal directness, "Dolly's been there."
George clenched his hands. Wandel looked at them amusedly.
"Very glad you weren't about, Hercules."
"It was that bad?" George asked.
"Why not," Wandel drawled, "say rather worse?"
"Drunk?" George whispered.
"A conservative diagnosis," Wandel answered. "His language sounded quite
foreign, but with effort its sense could be had; and the rooms were
fairly full. You know, just before dinner--the usual crowd."
"Somebody should have shut him up," George cried.
"We did, with difficulty, and not all at once," Wandel protested.
"Dicky's taken him home with the aid of a pair of grinning hyenas. They
did make one think of that."
"It's not to be borne," George muttered. "He ought to be killed."
"By all means, my dear George," Wandel agreed, "but we're back in New
York. I mean, with the armistice murder ceased to be praiseworthy.
They're punishing it in the usual fashion. You quite understand that,
George?"
George tried to laugh.
"Quite. Go ahead."
"He really had some excuse," Wandel went on, "because when he first came
in no one realized how bad he was--and they jumped him with
congratulations and humour, and he went right out of his head--became
stark, raving mad; or drunk, as you choose."
"What did he say?" George asked, softly.
Wandel half closed his eyes.
"Don't expect me to repeat any such crazy, disconnected stuff. It's
enough that he let everybody guess Sylvia had sold him at the very
moment he had fancied he had bought her. I've been thinking it over, and
I'm not sure it isn't just as well he did. Everybody will talk his head
off for a few days and drop it. Otherwise, curious things would have
been noticed and suspected from time to time, and the talk, with fresh
impetus, would have gone on forever. Besides, nobody's looking for much
trouble with the Planters."
George had difficulty with his next question.
"He--he didn't mention me?"
"Why, yes," Wandel answered, gravely, "but rather incoherently."
"Rotten of him!"
"No direct accusations," Wandel hurried on, "just vile temper; and while
it makes it temporarily more unpleasant that's just as well, too. The
fact that people know what to expect kills more talk later. I suppose
she'll manage a fairly quiet divorce."
"Won't listen to it," George snapped.
"How stupid of me!" Wandel drawled. "Of course she wouldn't."
He sighed.
"I mean to sympathize with you, my George, but all the time I envy you,
and have to restrain myself from offering congratulations. Behold the
oysters! They're really very good here."
George tried to smile.
"Then shall we talk about shell fish?"
"Bivalves, George. Or we might discuss the great strike. Which one? Take
your choice. Or, by the way, have you received your shock yet? They're
raising rents in our house more than a hundred per cent."
"The hell after war!" George grinned.
Wandel smiled back.
"Let us hope not a milestone on the road."
XXIV
Through pure will George resumed his routine, but it no longer had the
power to capture him, becoming a drudgery without a clear purpose.
Always he was conscious of the effort to force himself from recollection
and imagination, to drive Sylvia from his mind; and, even so, he never
quite succeeded. Were there then no heights beyond?
Lambert was painstakingly considerate, catching him for luncheon from
time to time, or calling at unexpected moments at his office, and always
he said something about Sylvia. She was well. Naturally she was keeping
to herself. Betty and she were at Princeton, and Sylvia was going to
stay on with the Alstons for a time. Once he let slip a sincere
admiration, a real regret.
"It's extraordinary, George. You've very nearly made every word good."
George took the opening to ask a question that had been in his mind for
many days.
"Where is he? What's he up to? I haven't seen him, but, naturally, I
keep to myself, too, and Dicky, bless him, mentions nothing."
Lambert frowned.
"He hasn't been around the office much since. He's taking his own sweet
will with himself now. He's gone away--to Canada. It's cold there, but
it's also fairly wet."
"If one could only be sure he had the virtue of loving her!" George
mused.
"He hasn't," Lambert said, impatiently. "Since I talked with him that
hectic night I've admitted that Dolly's never had the capacity to love
any one except himself. So he's probably happy in his own unpleasant
way."
A thought came to George. He smiled a little.
"I've been wondering if Sylvia is going in harder than ever on the side
of the downtrodden."
Lambert laughed.
"As far as I know, hasn't mentioned a cossack since that night; and I
have to confess, hard-headed reactionary, the ranks are making me see
too many bad qualities among the good."
"Perhaps," George suggested, "the ranks are saying something of the sort
about us. Besides, I don't see why you call me reactionary."
"Would you have minded it a while back?" Lambert asked.
"Just the same," George answered, "I'd like to get their point of view."
What would Squibs say to that from him? Squibs, undoubtedly, would be
pleased. After Lambert had gone he sat for a long time thinking. He was
glad Lambert had come, for the other had suggested that in endeavouring
to capture such a point of view, in pleasing Squibs, he might at last
find a real interest, and one of use to somebody besides himself. If the
men on the heights didn't get at it pretty soon, a different kind of
climber would appear, with black hands, inflamed eyes, and a mind
stripped, by passion, of all logic. Gladly he found it possible to bring
to this new task the energy with which he had attacked the narrower
puzzles of the university and Wall Street.
Sylvia had called him the most selfish person she had ever met, and, as
he tried to strip from the facts of the world's disease the perpetual,
clinging propaganda, he applied her charge to his soul. From the first
he had been infected, yet his selfishness had been neither inefficient
nor dangerous. This increasing pestilence was. Lambert guessed what he
was at, and George jeered at him for his war madness, but Lambert had
found again an absorbing interest. Because of his missing leg it was
rather pitiful to watch his enthusiasm for a reawakened activity.
"You've got to see Harvard swallow your old Tiger, George," he said one
Friday. "After all, why not? You don't need to come out to the Alstons,
although I'm not sure there would be any harm in that. Talk's about
done, I fancy."
George flushed.
"Do you know I'd love to spill you again, Lambert? I'd like to bring you
down so hard the seismographs would make a record."
"Too bad we can't try to kill each other," Lambert said, regretfully.
"Why not watch younger brutes?"
"I've wanted it for days," George acknowledged. "I'll wire Squibs."
George was perfectly sure that Squibs knew nothing, for he wasn't
socially curious, and Betty would have hesitated to talk about what had
happened even to Mrs. Squibs, yet he was conscious, after the first
moment of meeting, of a continued scrutiny from Squibs, of a hesitancy
of manner, of an unusually careful choice of words.
He had small opportunity to test this impression, for it was noon when
he reached the house in Dickinson Street, and there were many of the
tutor's products in the dining-room, snatching a cold bite while they
roared confused pessimism about the game.
"You're going to the side-lines," Squibs said when they had climbed the
ramp to their section of the stadium.
"I'd be in the way," George objected.
Bailly stared at him.
"George Morton on a football field could only be in the way of Harvard
and Yale."
George experienced a quick, ardent wish for thick turf underfoot, for a
seat on the bench among players exhaling a thick atmosphere of eager and
absorbed excitement. So he let the tutor lead him down the steps. Squibs
called to Green, who was distrait.
"What is it, Mr. Bailly?"
"I've got Morton."
Green sprang to life.
"Mr. Stringham! An omen! An omen!"
He met George at the gate and threw his arms around him. Stringham
hurried up. Green crowed.
"I believe we'll lick these fellows or come mighty close to it."
"Of course you'll lick them, Green. Hello, Stringham! May I sit down?"
"The stadium's yours," Stringham said, simply.
As he walked along the line of eager players, smothered in blankets or
sweaters, George caught snatches of the curiosity of youth, because of
nervousness, too audibly expressed.
"Who's the big fellow?"
"That? Longest kicker, fastest man for his weight ever played the game.
George Morton--the great Morton."
"He never played with that leg! What's the matter with his leg?
Football?"
George caught no answer. He sat down among the respectful youths,
thinking whimsically:
"The war's so soon over, but thank God they can't forget football!"
XXV
At the very end of the first half, when the Princeton sections
experienced the unforeseen glow of a possible victory, George caught a
glimpse of Lambert and Wandel close to the barrier, as if they had left
their places to catch someone with the calling of time. Just then the
horn scrunched its anxious message. George called.
"Lambert Planter!"
Stringham paused, grinning.
"Come over here, you biting bulldog."
Lambert made his way through the barrier and grasped Stringham's hand.
"Come along to the dressing-room," Stringham suggested, cordially. "Nice
bulldog, although once I loved to see Morton chew you up."
Lambert glanced down.
"Thanks. I'd better stay here. One of my runners is off, Stringham."
"Then sit with the boys next half," Stringham said. "Coming, Morton?"
George shook his head, and urged the anxious coach away, for Wandel had
caught his eye.
"Tell them to keep their heads," George called after Stringham. "If they
keep their heads they've got Harvard beaten."
He glanced inquiringly at Wandel.
"Why not cease," Wandel said, "imagining yourself a giddy, heroic cub?
Come up and sit with mature people the last half."
The invitation startled George. Then Sylvia wasn't there?
"Is Sylvia all right?" he asked Lambert under his breath.
Lambert was a trifle ill at ease.
"Oh, quite. Betty asked us to get you. Wants to see you. Have my place.
I'm going to accept Stringham's fine invitation, and sit here with the
young--a possible Yale scout on the Princeton side-lines."
"Stringham's no fool," George laughed. "Anyway, he has you fellows
beaten right now."
Lambert thrust his hand in his pocket.
"How much you got?"
Wandel grasped George's arm.
"Come with me before you get in a college brawl."
"Plenty when we're not chaperoned, Lambert," George called, and followed
Wandel through the restless crowd and up the concrete steps.
Was Sylvia really there? Was he going to see her? The idea of finding
him had sprung from Betty, and Lambert had been ill at ease.
He saw Betty and her father and mother, then beyond them, a vacant place
between, Sylvia to whom the open air and its chill had given back all
her dark, flushed brilliancy. Wandel slid through first, and made
himself comfortable at Sylvia's farther side. George followed, stopping
to speak to the Alstons, to accept Betty's approving glance.
"Conspirator!" he whispered, and went on, and sat down close to Sylvia,
and yielded himself to the delight of her proximity. She glanced at him,
her colour deepening.
"Betty said it was all right, and I must. So many people----"
The air was sharp enough to make rugs comfortable. He couldn't see her
hands because they were beneath the rug across her knees, a covering she
shared with Wandel and him.
As he drew the rug up one of his hands touched hers, and his fingers,
beyond his control, groped for her fingers. He detected a quick, nervous
movement away; then it was stopped, and their hands met, clasped, and
clung together.
For a moment they looked at each other, and knew they mustn't, since
there were so many people; but the content of their clasped hands
continued because it couldn't be observed.
The supreme football player sat there staring at a blur of autumn colour
between the lake and the generous mouth of the stadium; and, when the
second half commenced, saw, as if from an immeasurable distance, pygmy
figures booting a football, or carrying it here and there, or throwing
each other about; and he didn't know which were Harvard's men or which
were Princeton's, and he didn't seem to care----
Vaguely he heard people suffering. A voice cut through a throaty and
grieving murmur.
"Somebody's lost his head!"
"What's the matter?" he asked Sylvia.
"George! You're destroying my hand."
Momentarily he remembered, and relaxed his grasp, while she added
quickly:
"But I don't mind at all, dear."
XXVI
Lambert stood in front of them, glancing down doubtfully. Evidently the
game was over, for people were leaving, talking universally and
discontentedly.
"Betty and I," Lambert said, dryly, "fancied we'd invented and patented
that rug trick."
Sylvia stood up.
"Don't scold, Lambert."
She turned to George, trying to smile.
"I shall be happy as long as my hand hurts. Good-bye, George."
"You'd better go," Betty whispered as he lingered helplessly.
So he drifted aimlessly through the crowd, hearing only a confused
murmur, seeing nothing beyond the backs directly in front of him, until
he found the Baillys waiting at the ramp opening.
"If you'd only been there, George! Although this morning we'd have been
glad enough to think of a tie score."
He submitted then to Bailly's wonder at each miracle; to his grief for
each mistake; and little by little, as the complaining voice hurried on,
the world assumed its familiar proportions and movements. He caught a
glimpse of Allen walking slowly ahead. The angular man was alone, and
projected even to George an air of profound dissatisfaction. Bailly
caught his arm and shook hands with him.
"Whither away?" George asked.
"To the specials."
He fell in beside George, and for a time kept pace with him.
"What's bothering you, Allen?"
With a haggard air Allen turned his head from side to side, gazing at
the hastening people.
"Lords of the land!" he muttered. "Lords of the land!"
"Why?" George asked. "Because they have an education? Well, so have
you."
Allen nodded toward the emptying stadium.
"Lords of the land!" he repeated. "I've been sitting up there with them,
but all alone. I wish I hadn't liked being with them. I wish I hadn't
been sorry for myself because I was alone."
Allen's words, his manner of expressing them, defined a good deal for
George, urged him to form a quick resolution.
"Catch your special," he said, "but come to my office Tuesday morning. I
may have work for you that you can do with a clear conscience. If you
must get, get something worth while."
Allen glanced at him quickly.
"Morton, you've changed," he said. "I'll come."
XXVII
Very slowly the excitement of the game cleared from Squibs' brain. That
night he could talk of nothing else, begging George for an opinion of
each player and his probable value against Yale the following Saturday.
George, to cover his confusion, generalized.
"We'll beat Yale," he said, "as we ought to have beaten Harvard, because
this team isn't afraid of colours and symbols. Most of these youngsters
have been in the bigger game, so final football matches no longer appeal
to them as matters of life and death and even of one's chances in the
hereafter."
Bailly looked slightly sheepish.
"I'm afraid, George, I'm going to New Haven to look at a struggle of
life and death, but then I was only in the Y. M. C. A. I'd feel many
times better if you were sound and available."
"You might speak to the dean about me," George laughed.
By the next evening, however, the crowd had departed, and with
Princeton's return to normal Squibs for the time overcame his anxieties.
That night George and he sat in a corner of the lounge of the Nassau
Club, waiting for Lambert and Wandel to drive in from the Alstons.
George grew a trifle uncomfortable, because he suspected Squibs was
staring at him with yesterday's curious scrutiny. Abruptly the tutor
asked:
"What did you say to Allen after the game?"
"Offered him another job," George answered, shortly.
Bailly frowned.
"See here, George. What are you up to? Is that fair and decent? Allen is
struggling--for the right."
"Allen," George answered, "has put some of his views to the test, and
the results have made him discouraged and uneasy. He's been tainted by
the very men he's tried to help. I've no idea of debauching him. Quite
the reverse. Please listen."
And he entered upon a sort of penitence, speaking, while the tutor's
wrinkled face flushed with pleasure, of his recent efforts to understand
the industrial situation and its probable effects on society.
"I have to acknowledge," he said, softly, "that pure material success
has completely altered its meaning for me. I'd like to use my share of
it, and what small brains I have, to help set things straight; but I'm
not so sure this generation won't have too sticky feet to drag itself
out of the swamp of its own making."
Lambert and Wandel arrived just then, talking cheerfully about football.
"What do you mean to do?" Bailly asked George as the others sat down.
George smiled at Wandel.
"I'm not sure, Driggs, that the hour hasn't struck for you."
Wandel raised his hands.
"You mean politics!"
"I used to fancy," George said, "that I'd need you for my selfish
interests. Now my idea is quite different."
He turned to Squibs.
"See here, sir. You've got to admit that the soul of the whole thing is
education. I don't mean education in the narrow sense that we know it
here or in any other university. I mean the opening of eyes to real
communal efficiency; the comprehension of the necessity of building
instead of tearing down; the birth of the desire to climb one's self
rather than to try to make stronger men descend."
Bailly's eyes sparkled.
"I don't say you're not right, George. You may be right."
A fire blazed comfortably in front of them. The chairs were deep.
Through a window the Holder tower, for all its evening lack of
definition, seemed an indestructible pointer of George's thoughts. For a
long time he talked earnestly.
"I climbed," he ended. "So others can, and less selfishly and more
usefully, if they're only told how; if they'll only really try."
"You're always right, great man," Wandel drawled, "but we mustn't forget
you climbed from fundamentals. That's education--the teaching of the
fundamentals."
"It means an equal chance for everybody," George said, "and then, by
gad, we won't have the world held back by those who refuse to take their
chance. We won't permit the congenitally unsound to set the pace for the
healthy. We'll take care of the congenitally unsound."
He turned to Bailly.
"And you and your excitable socialists have got to realize that you
can't make the world sane through makeshifts, or all at once, but with
foresight it can be done. You've raised the devil with me ever since I
was a sub-Freshman about service and the unsound and the virtue of
soiled clothing. Now raise the devil with somebody else about the virtue
of sound service and clean clothes. This education must start in the
schools. We may be able to force it into public schools through the
legislatures; but in Princeton and the other great universities it has
to come from within, and that's hard; that, in a way, is up to you and
other gentle sectarians like you. And your clubs have got to stand in
some form--everywhere, if only as objectives of physical and
intellectual content. Nothing good torn from the world! Only the
evil----"
He tapped Wandel's arm.
"Driggs! If you want to go among the time-servers, to stand alone for
the people; perhaps for people yet unborn----"
"For a long time," Wandel said, "I've been looking for something I could
really want to do. I rather fancy you've found it for me, George. I want
to climb, too, always have--not to the heights we once talked about at
your unhealthy picnic, but to the furtherest heights of all, which are
guarded by selfishness, servility, sin--past which people have to be
led."
Squibs cried out enthusiastically.
"And from which you can look down with a clear conscience on the
climbers to whom you will have pointed out the path."
"I see now," Lambert put in, "that that is the only way in which one
with self-respect can look down on lesser men."
George laughed aloud.
"An ally that can't escape! Driggs is a witness. We'll hold that fine
democracy of the Argonne over your head forever."
"You see," Wandel drawled, "that was bound to fail, because it was based
on the ridiculous assumption that every man that fought was good and
great."
"I fancy," George said, "we're commencing to find out why we went to
war--To appreciate the world's and our own astigmatism."
As they walked back to the little house in Dickinson Street, Bailly
tried to express something.
"I guess," he managed, "that I'll have to call it square, George."
"I'm glad," George said, quickly, "but you must give some of the credit
to Lambert Planter's sister."
He smiled happily, wistfully.
"You know she's the most useful socialist of you all."
After a time he said under his breath:
"There are some things I never dreamed of being able to repay you, sir.
For instance this--this feeling that one is walking home."
"That debt," Bailly said, brightly, "cancels itself."
His mood changed. He spoke with a stern personal regret.
"You young men! You young men! How much farther you see! How much more
you can do!"
XXVIII
George returned to New York happy in his memory of his intimate hour on
a crowded stand with Sylvia. Dalrymple had given him that, too. It
amazed him that so much beauty could spring from so ugly a source.
He heard that Dalrymple was back from Canada, then that he had wandered
away, pockets full, on another journey, pandering to his twisted
conception of pleasure. One day George took his notes from the
safe-deposit box and gave them to Lambert.
"Get them back to him," he said.
And Lambert must have understood that George would never let the
Planters' money redeem them.
"It's pretty decent, George."
"It's nothing of the kind. They make my hands feel dirty, and I've lots
of money, and I'm making more every day; yet I wonder if it's going to
be enough, even with Driggs' and Blodgett's and yours, old Argonne
democrat."
For he had spoken of his plans to Blodgett, and had been a little
surprised to learn how much thought Blodgett had given the puzzle
himself, although most of his searching had been for makeshifts, for
anything to tide over immediate emergencies.
"I don't know," Blodgett roared, "whether this cleaning out the sore and
getting to the bottom of it will work or not; but I'm inclined to look
to the future with you for a permanent cure. Anyway, I'd help you
finance a scheme to make the ocean dry, because you usually get what
you're after. So we'll send Wandel and Allen and some more as a little
leaven to Albany and to that quilting party in Washington. I don't envy
them, though."
George realized that his content could be traced to this new interest,
as that went back to Sylvia. He had at last consciously set out to
explore the road of service. For the first time in his life, with his
eyes open, he was working for others, yet he never got rid of the sense
of a great personal need unfulfilled; always in his heart vibrated the
cry for Sylvia, but he knew he mustn't try to see her, for Betty would
have let him know, and Betty hadn't sent for him again.
After the holidays, at the urging of Wandel and Lambert, he showed
himself here and there, received at first curious glances, fancied some
people slightly self-conscious, then all at once found himself welcomed
on the old frank and pleasant basis. Yes, the talk had pretty well died,
and men and women were inclined to like Sylvia Planter and George Morton
better than they did Dalrymple.
He saw Dalrymple in the club one stormy January evening. He hadn't heard
he was in town, and examined him curiously as he sat alone in a corner,
making a pretence of reading a newspaper, but really looking across the
room at the fire with restless eyes. George, prepared as he had been,
was surprised by the haggard, flushed countenance, and the neurotic
symptoms, nearly uncontrollable.
Beyond question Dalrymple saw him, and pretended that he didn't.
Heartily glad of that, George joined a group about the fireplace, and
after a few minutes saw Dalrymple rise and wander unevenly from the
room.
George met him several times afterward under similar circumstances, and
always Dalrymple shortly disappeared, because, George thought, of his
arrival; but other people tactfully put him straight. Dalrymple, it
seemed, remained in no public place for long, as if there was something
evilly secretive to call him perpetually away.
Wandel told him toward the end of the month that Dalrymple was about to
make a trip to Havana for the remainder of the winter.
"Where there's horse-racing, gambling, and unlimited alcohol--where one
may sin in public. Why talk about it? Although he doesn't mean to,
George, he's in a fair way of doing you a favour."
But George didn't dream how close Dalrymple's offering was. His first
thought, indeed, was for Sylvia when the influenza epidemic of January
and February promised for a time to equal its previous ugly record.
Lambert tried to laugh his worry away.
"She's going south with father and mother very soon. Anyway, she hasn't
the habit of catching things."
And it was Lambert a day or two later who brought him the first
indication of the only way out, and he tried to tell himself he mustn't
want it. Even though he had always despised Dalrymple and his weakness,
even though Dalrymple stood between him and his only possible happiness,
he experienced a disagreeable and reluctant sense of danger in such a
solution.
"All his life," Lambert was saying, "Dolly's done everything he could to
make himself a victim."
"Where is he?" George asked.
"At his home. It's fortunate he hadn't started south."
"Or," George said, "he should have started sooner."
"I've an uncomfortable feeling," Lambert mused, "that he was planning to
run away from this very chance. Put it off a little too long. Seems he
went to bed four days ago. I didn't know until to-day because you see
he's been a little outcast since that scene in the club. He sent for me
this afternoon, and, curiously enough, asked for you. Will you go up? I
really think you'd better."
But George shrank from the thought.
"I don't want to be scolded by a man who is possibly dying."
"Let's hope not," Lambert said. "You'll go. Around five o'clock."
George hesitated.
"Did he ask for Sylvia?"
"He didn't ask me, but I telephoned her."
"Why?" George asked, sharply.
"Every card on the table now, George!" Lambert warned. "We have to think
of the future, in case----"
"Of course, you're right," George answered. "I'm sorry, and I'll go."
When he entered the Dalrymple house at five o'clock he came face to face
with Sylvia in the hall. He had never seen her so controlled, and her
quiet tensity frightened him.
"Lambert told me," she whispered, "you were coming now. Dolly hasn't
asked for me, but I'd feel so much better--if things should turn out
badly, for I'm thinking with all my heart of the boy I used to be so
fond of, and it's, perhaps, my fault----"
"It is not your fault," George cried. "He's always asked for it. Lambert
will tell you that."
George relaxed. Dalrymple's mother came down the stairs with the doctor,
and George experienced a quick sympathy for the retiring, elderly woman
he had scarcely seen before. She gave Sylvia her hand, while George
stepped out with the physician. In reply to George's questions the quiet
man shook his head and frowned.
"If it were any one else of the same age--I've attended in this house
many years, Mr. Morton, and I've watched him since he was a child. I've
marvelled how he's got so far."
He added brutally:
"Scarcely a chance with the turn its taking."
"If there's anything," George muttered, "any great specialist
anywhere----Understand money doesn't figure----"
"Everything possible is being done, Mr. Morton. I'm truly sorry, but I
can tell you it's quite his own fault."
So even this cold-blooded practitioner had heard the talk, and
sympathized, and not with Dalrymple. A trifle dazed George reentered the
house.
"It's good of you to come, Mr. Morton," Mrs. Dalrymple said. "Shall we
go upstairs now?"
There was no bitterness in her voice, and she had taken Sylvia's hand,
yet undoubtedly she knew everything. Abruptly George felt sorrier for
Dalrymple than he had ever done.
"Please wait, Sylvia," she said.
He followed Mrs. Dalrymple upstairs and into the sick-room.
"It's Mr. Morton, dear."
She beckoned to the nurse, and George remained in the room alone with
the feverish man in the bed. He walked over and took the hot hand.
"Morton!" came Dalrymple's hoarse voice, "I believe you're sorry for
me!"
"I am sorry," George said, quietly, "and you must get well."
Dalrymple shook his head.
"I know all the dope, and I guess I'm off in a few days. Not so bad now
I can't talk a little and sorta clean one or two things up. No silly
deathbed repentance. I'm jealous of you, Morton; always have been,
because you were getting things I couldn't, and I figured from the first
you were an outsider."
The dry lips smiled a little.
"When you get like this it makes a lot of difference, doesn't it, how
you came into the world? I'll be the real outsider in a few days----"
"Don't talk that way."
A quick temper distorted Dalrymple's face.
"They oughtn't to bring a man into the world as I was brought, without
money."
George couldn't think of anything to say, but Dalrymple hurried on:
"I wanted to thank you for the notes. Don't have to leave those to my
family, anyway. And I'm not sure hadn't better apologize all 'round. I
don't forget I've had raw deal--lots of ways; but no point not saying
Sylvia had pretty raw one from Dolly. Lucky escape for her--mean Dolly's
not domestic animal, and all that."
George was aware of a slight shiver as Dalrymple's hoarse voice slipped
into its old, not quite controlled mannerisms.
"Mean," Dalrymple rambled on, "Dolly won't haunt anybody. Blessings 'n'
sort of thing. Best thing, too. Sorry all 'round. That's all. Thanks
coming, George."
And all George could say was:
"You have to get well, Dolly."
But Dalrymple turned his head away. After a moment George proposed
tentatively:
"Sylvia's downstairs. She wants very much to see you."
Dalrymple shook his head.
"Catching."
"For her sake," George urged.
Dalrymple thought.
"All right," he said at last. "Long enough for me to tell her all right.
But not near. Nurse in the room. Catching, and all that."
George clasped the hot hand.
"Thanks, Dolly. You've done a decent thing, and you're going to get
well."
But as he left the room George felt that the physician had been right.
He spoke to the nurse, who sat in the upper hall, then he told Sylvia.
She went up, and he waited for her. He felt he had to wait. He hoped
Mrs. Dalrymple wouldn't appear again.
Sylvia wasn't long. She came down dry-eyed. She didn't speak even when
George followed her to her automobile, even when he climbed in beside
her; nor did he try to break a silence that he felt was curative. In the
light and surrounded by a crowd they could clasp hands; in this obscure
solitude there was nothing they could do or say. Only on the steps of
her home she spoke.
"Good-night, George, and thank you."
"Good-night, dear Sylvia," he said, and returned to the automobile, and
told the man to drive him to his apartment.
XXIX
George didn't hear from Dalrymple again, nor did he expect to, but he
was quite aware five days later of Goodhue's absence from the office and
of his black clothing when he came in during the late afternoon. He
didn't need Goodhue's few words.
"It's hard not to feel sorry, to believe, on the whole, it's rather
better. Still, when any familiar object is unexpectedly snatched away
from one----"
"We had a talk the other evening," George began.
Goodhue's face lighted.
"I'm glad, George."
He sighed.
"I've got to try to catch up. Mundy says rails have taken a queer turn."
"When you think for a minute not so queer," George commenced to explain.
A few days later Lambert told him that Sylvia had gone to Florida.
"They'll probably stay until late in the spring. It agrees with Father."
"How did Sylvia seem?" George asked, anxiously.
"Wait awhile," Lambert advised, "but I don't think there are going to be
any spectres."
He smiled engagingly.
"If there shouldn't be," he went on, "a few matters will have to be
arranged, because Sylvia and I share alike. Josiah and I had a long,
careful talk with Father last night about what we'd do with Sylvia's
husband if she married. He left it to my judgment, advising that we
might take him in if he were worth his salt. Josiah wanted to know with
his bull voice what Father would think if it should turn out to be you.
Very seriously, George, Father was pleased. He pointed out that you were
a man who made things go, but that you would end by running us all, and
he added that if we wanted that we would be lucky to get you as long as
it made Sylvia happy. You know we want you, George."
George felt as he had that day on the Vesle when Wandel had praised him.
No longer could Lambert charge him with having fulfilled his boasts, in
a way; yet he hadn't consciously wanted this, nor was he quite sure that
he did now.
"At least," George said, "you know what my policy would be to make
Planter and Company something more than a money making machine."
Lambert imitated Blodgett's voice and manner.
"George, if you wanted to grow hair on a bald man's head I'd say go to
it."
"And there must be room for Dicky," George went on.
"We've played together too long to break apart now; but why talk about
it? It depends on Sylvia."
That was entirely true. For the present there was nothing whatever to be
done. Constantly George conquered the impulse to write to Sylvia, but
she didn't write or give any sign, unless Lambert's frequent quotations
from her letters could be accepted as thoughtful messages.
He visited the Baillys frequently now, for it was stimulating to talk
with Squibs, and he liked to sit quietly with Mrs. Bailly. She had an
unstudied habit, nevertheless, of turning his thoughts to his mother.
Sylvia had seen her. She knew all about her. After all, his mother had
given him the life with which he had accomplished something. He couldn't
bear that their continued separation should prove him inconsistent; so
early in the spring he went west.
His mother was more than ever ill at ease before his success; more than
ever appreciative of the comforts he had given her; even more than at
Oakmont appalled at the prospect of change. She wouldn't go east. She
couldn't very well, she explained; and, looking at her tired figure in
the great chair before the fire which she seldom left, he had an impulse
to shower upon her extravagant and fantastic gifts, because before long
it would be too late to give her anything at all. The picture made him
realize how quickly the generations pass away, drifting one into the
other with the rapidity of our brief and colourful seasons. He nodded,
satisfied, reflecting that the cure for everything lies in the future,
although one must seek it in the diseased present.
He left her, promising to come back, but he carried away a sensation
that he had intruded on a secluded content that couldn't possibly
survive the presence of the one who had created it.
Lambert had no news for him on his return. It was late spring, in fact,
before he told George the family had come north, pausing at a number of
resorts on the way up.
"When am I to see Sylvia, Lambert?"
"How should I know?"
It was apparent that he really didn't, and George waited, with a growing
doubt and fear, but on the following Friday he received a note from
Betty, dated from Princeton. All it said was:
"Spring's at its best here. You'd better come to-morrow--Friday."
He hurried over to the marble temple.
"You didn't tell me Betty was in Princeton," he accused Lambert.
"Must I account to you for the movements of my wife?"
"Then Sylvia----" George began.
Lambert smiled.
"Maybe you'd better run down to Princeton with me this afternoon."
George glanced at his watch.
"First train's at four o'clock. Let Wall Street crash. I shan't wait
another minute."
XXX
Betty had been right. Spring was fairly vibrant in Princeton, and for
George, through its warm and languid power, it rolled back the years;
choked him with a sensation of youth he had scarcely experienced since
he had walked defiantly out of the gate of Sylvia's home to commence his
journey.
Sylvia wasn't at the station. Neither was Betty. Abruptly uneasy, he
drove with Lambert swiftly to the Alstons through riotous, youthful
foliage out of which white towers rose with that reassuring illusion of
a serene and unchangeable gesture. Undergraduates, surrendered to the
new economic eccentricity of overalls, loafed past them, calling to each
other contented and lazy greetings; but George glanced at them
indifferently; he only wanted to hurry to his journey's end.
At the Tudor house Betty ran out to meet them, and Lambert grinned at
George and kissed her, but evidently it was George that Betty thought of
now, for she pointed, as if she had heard the question that repeated
itself in his mind, to the house; and he entered, and breathlessly
crossed the hall to the library, and saw Sylvia--the old Sylvia, it
occurred to him--colourful, imperious, and without patience.
She stood in the centre of the room in an eager, arrested attitude,
having, perhaps, restrained herself from impetuously following Betty.
George paused, staring at her, suddenly hesitant before the culmination
of his great desire.
"It's been so long," she whispered. "George, I'm not afraid to have you
touch me----You mean I must come to you----"
He shook off his lassitude, but the wonder grew.
As in a dream he went to her, and her curved lips moved beneath his, but
he pressed them closer so that she couldn't speak; for he felt
encircling them in a breathless embrace, as his arms held her, something
thrilling and rudimentary that neither of them had experienced before;
something quite beyond the comprehension of Sylvia Planter and George
Morton, that belonged wholly to the perplexing and abundant future.
THE END
BOOKS BY WADSWORTH CAMP
THE ABANDONED ROOM
THE GRAY MASK
THE GUARDED HEIGHTS
THE HOUSE OF FEAR
SINISTER ISLAND
WAR'S DARK FRAME