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."
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 coöperation, 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."
Wandel and Goodhue came home, suffering from this universal restlessness.
"Ah,monbrave!" 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."
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 débutante."
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 débutante 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."
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."
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.
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 débutante 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 coöperative 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."
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.
"Jealous old fellow!" Dalrymple chaffed. "No congratulations for Dolly. Blow up about your notes any time you please. I'll see they're paid."
He took up his hat and stick.
"Want to run along now and break the news to brother-in-law. Sure 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.
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.
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.