He smiled, shaking his head.
"I'll make you dance with me more than ever. I've seen very little of you lately. I hope this winter——"
She stopped, facing him, her cheeks flaming.
"You see! You remind me every time I meet you of just what you are, just what you came from, just what you said and did that day."
"That is my aim," he smiled.
He moved his hand in the direction of the little house.
"When we're all like that will it make much difference who our fathers and mothers were?"
She shivered. She started swiftly away.
"Miss Planter!"
The unexpectedness of the naked command may have brought her around. He walked to her.
"When will you realize," he asked, "that it is unforgivable to turn your back on life?"
Had he really meant to suggest that she could possess life only through him? Doubtless the sublime effrontery of that interpretation reached her. She commenced to laugh, her colour rising. She glanced away, and her laughter died.
"You may as well understand," he said, "that I am never going to leave you alone."
She started across the leaf-strewn grass. He kept pace with her.
"Are you going to force me to make a scene?" she asked.
"Except with your father," he said, "I don't think it would make much difference."
He felt that if she had had anything in her hands then she would have struck at him.
"It's not because I'm a beast," he said, quietly, "that I have no grief for my father. He was through. Life had nothing to offer him. He had nothing to offer life. Don't think I'm incapable of grief. I experienced it the day I thought you might be dead. That was because you had so much to offer life—rather more than life had to offer you."
He saw her shrink from him but she walked on, repressing her pain and her anger.
"Since I've known intimately girls of your class," he said, "I've realized that not all of them would have turned and tried to wound as you did that day. Some would have laughed. Some would have been sorry and sympathetic. I don't think many would have made such a scene."
He smiled down at her.
"I want you to realize it is your own fault. You started this. I'm not scolding. I'm glad you were such a little fury. Otherwise, I might have gone on working for your father or for somebody else's father. But you're to blame for my persistence, so learn to put up with it. As long as I keep the riding crop with which you tried to cut my face I'll remember what I said I'd do, and I'll do it."
She didn't answer, but if she tried to give him the impression she wasn't listening she failed utterly.
Around a curve in the path came a bent, white old man, bundled in a heavy muffler and coat. In one hand he carried a thick cane. The other rested on the arm of a young fellow of the private secretary stamp. There, George acknowledged, advanced the single person with whom a scene might make a serious difference, yet a more compelling thought crept in and overcame his sense of danger. That was the type of man who made wars. That man, indeed, was helping to finance this war. George was obsessed by the dun day: by the leaves, fallen and rotten; by the memory of the oblong box. Everything reminded him that not far away Death marched with a bland, black triumph, greeting science as an ally instead of an enemy.
"Suppose," he mused, "America should get in this thing."
At last she spoke.
"What did you say? Do you see my father?"
He nodded.
"Wouldn't it be wiser," she asked, "to leave me alone?"
"Your father," he said, "looks a good deal older."
Old Planter had, in fact, gone down hill since George's last glimpse of him in New York, or else he didn't attempt here to assume a strength he no longer possessed. He was quite close before he gave any sign of seeing the pair, and then he muttered to his secretary who answered with a whisper. He limped up and took Sylvia's hand.
"Where has my little girl been?"
She laughed harshly.
"To a rendezvous in the forest. You shouldn't let me go out alone."
Planter glanced from clouded eyes at George. His lips between the white hair smiled amiably.
"I don't believe I remember——"
"It's one of Lambert's business friends," Sylvia said, hastily. "Mr. Morton."
The old man shifted his cane and held out his hand.
"Lambert," he joked, "says he's going to make more money through you than I can hope to leave him. You seem to have got the jump on a lot of shrewd men. I'll see you at dinner? Lambert isn't coming to-night?"
George briefly clasped the hand of the big man.
"I must go back to town this afternoon."
"Then another time."
Planter shifted his cane and leant again on his secretary.
"Let's get on, Straker. Doctor's orders."
"Why," George asked when Sylvia and he were alone, "didn't you spring at the chance?"
"I prefer to fight my own battles," she said, shortly.
"Don't you mean," he asked, quizzically, "that you're a little ashamed of what you did that day?"
She shook her head.
"I was a frightened child. I have changed."
"Isn't it," he laughed, "a little because I, too, have changed? It never occurred to your father to connect me with the Mortons living on his place."
Again she shook her head, turning away. He held out his hand.
"I must go back. Let's admit we've both changed. Let us be friends."
She didn't answer. She made no motion to take his hand.
"One of the promises I made that day," he reminded her, "was to teach you not to be afraid of my touch."
"Does it amuse you to threaten me?" she asked.
Suddenly he reached out, caught her right hand before she could avoid him, and gave it a quick pressure.
"Of course you're right," he laughed. "Actions are more useful than threats."
While she stared, flushed and incredulous, at the hand he had pressed, George walked swiftly away, tingling with life, back to the house of death.
At the funeral he submitted to the amazed scrutiny of the country people. They couldn't hurt him, because they impinged not at all on his world; but he was relieved when the oblong box had been consigned to the place reserved for it, and he could, after arranging the last details of his mother's departure, take the train back to New York.
Blodgett didn't even bother to ask where he had been. He was content these days to let George go his own way. He hadn't forgotten that the younger man had seen farther off than he the greatest opportunity for money making the world had ever offered the greedy. He personally was more interested in the syndicating of foreign external loans. The Planters weren't far from the head of that movement, and George rather resented his stout employer's working hand in hand with the Planters. George longed to ask him how often he was trying to appear graceful at Oakmont these days.
The firm of Morton, Planter, and Goodhue had grown so rapidly that it took practically all of George's and Lambert's time. Mundy, to whom George had given a small interest, asked Blodgett if he couldn't leave to devote himself entirely to the offices upstairs.
"Go to it," Blodgett agreed, good naturedly. "Draw your profits and your salary from Morton after this."
George mulled over the sacrifice. Did it mean that Blodgett was so close to the Planters that a merger was possible?
"There's no use," he told Blodgett. "I'm earning practically nothing in your office, because I'm never here. I want to resign."
"Run along, sonny," Blodgett said. "Your salary is a small portion of the profits your infant firm is bringing me. I like you around the office once a day. Old Planter hasn't fired his boy, has he, and he's upstairs all the time, and he's taken over some of the old man's best clerks."
"He's Mr. Planter's son," George reminded him.
"And ain't you like a good son to me," the other leered, "making money for papa Blodgett?"
"Why did you let Mundy go so peacefully?" George asked, suspiciously.
"Because," Blodgett said, "he's been here a good many years, and he can make more money this way. Didn't want to stand in his light, and I had somebody in view."
But George wouldn't credit Blodgett with such altruism. Why was the man so infernally good natured, exuding an oily content? Goodhue hinted at a reason one day when they were talking of Sinclair and his lack of interest in the office.
"I've heard rather privately," Goodhue said, "that Sinclair got pretty badly involved a few months ago. If it hadn't been for Blodgett he'd have gone on the rocks a total wreck. Josiah puffed up and towed him away whole. Naturally Sinclair and his lady are grateful. I daresay this winter Blodgett's receiving invitations he's coveted, and if he gives any parties himself he'll have some of the people he's always wanted."
George hid his disapproval. Blodgett didn't even have a veneer. Money was all he could offer. And was Sinclair a great fool, or Blodgett the cleverest man in Wall Street, that Sinclair didn't know who had involved him and why?
As a matter of fact, Blodgett did appear at several dances, wobbling about the room to the discomfort of slender young things, getting generally in everyone's way. George hated to see him attempting to dance with Sylvia Planter. Sylvia seemed rather less successful in avoiding him than she did in keeping out of George's way. Until Blodgett's extraordinary week-end in February, indeed, George didn't have another chance to speak to her alone.
"Of course you'll come, George," Blodgett said. "If this weather holds there'll be skating and sleighing—horses always, if you want 'em; and a lot of first-class people."
"Who?" George asked.
"How about another financial chick—one of your partners?"
"Lambert Planter?"
The puffy face expanded.
"And the Sinclairs, because I'm a bachelor, and——"
But, since he could guess Sylvia would be there, George didn't care for any more names. He wondered why Lambert or his sister should go. Had her attitude toward the fat, coarse man conceivably altered because of his gambolling at Oakmont? While he talked business with Mundy, Lambert, and Goodhue, George's mind was distracted by a sense of imponderable loss. Was it the shadow of what Sylvia had lost by accepting such an invitation?
He didn't go until Saturday afternoon—there was too much to occupy him at the office. This making money out of Europe's need had a good deal constricted his social wanderings. It was why he hadn't frequently seen Dalrymple close enough for annoyance; why he had met Betty only briefly a very few times. He hadn't expected to run into either of them at Blodgett's, but both were there. Betty was probably Lambert's excuse for rushing out the night before.
George felt sorry for Mrs. Sinclair. Still against the corpulent crudities of her host she could weigh the graces of his guests. It pleased George that her greeting for him should be so warm.
The weather, too, had been considerate of Blodgett, refraining from injuring his snow or ice. A musical and brassy sleigh met George at the station. Patches of frosty white softened the lines of the house and draped the self-conscious nudity of the sculpture in the sunken garden.
"And it'll snow again to-night, sir," the driver promised, as if even the stables pulled for the master's success.
Everyone was out, but it was still early, so George asked for a horse and hurried into his riding clothes. He had been working rather too hard recently. The horse a groom brought around was a good one, and by no means overworked. George was as eager as the animal to limber up and go. Off they dashed at last along a winding bridle-path, broken just enough to give good footing. The war, and his share of helping the allies—at a price; his uncomfortable fear that the Baillys didn't like him to draw success from such a disaster; his disapproval of Sylvia's coming here—all cleared from his head as he galloped or trotted through the sharp air.
One thing: Blodgett hadn't spoiled these woodland bridle-paths; yet George had a sensation of always looking ahead for a nude marble figure at a corner, or an urn elaborately designed for simple flowers, or some iron animals to remind a hunter that Blodgett knew what a well-bred forest was for. Instead he saw through the trees ice swept clear of snow across which figures glided with joyful sounds.
"Some of his flashy guests," George thought.
He rode slowly to the margin of the pond, which shared the colour of the sky. Several of the skaters cried greetings. He recognized Dalrymple then, skating with a girl. Dalrymple veered away, waving a careless hand, Lambert came on, fingers locked with Betty's, and scraped to a halt at the pond's edge.
"So the war's stopped for the week-end at last?" Lambert called.
"I wondered if you'd come at all," Betty cried.
George dismounted, smothering his surprise.
"A men and youths' general furnisher," he said, "has to stick pretty much to the store. I never dreamed of seeing you here, Betty."
Perhaps Lambert caught George's real meaning.
"She's staying with Sylvia," he explained, "so, of course, she came."
George mounted and rode on, his mood suddenly as sunless as the declining afternoon. Those two still got along well enough. Certainly it was time for a rumour to take shape there. He had a sharp appreciation of having once been younger. Suppose, because of his ambition, he should see all his friends mate, leaving him as rich as Blodgett, and, like him, unpaired? He quickened the pace of his horse. It was inconceivable. No matter what Sylvia did he would never slacken his pursuit. In every other direction he had forged ahead. Eventually he would in that one. Then why did it hurt him to picture Betty gone beyond his reach?
He crossed the Blodgett boundaries, and entered a country road as undisturbed and enticing as the private bridle-paths had been. He took crossroads at random, keeping only a sense of direction, trying to understand why he was sorry he had to be with Betty when he had come only to be near Sylvia.
The thickening dusk warned him, and he chose a road leading toward Blodgett's. First he received the horseman's sense of something ahead of him. Then he heard the muffled tread of horses in the snow, and occasionally a laugh.
"More of Josiah's notables," he hazarded.
He put spurs to his horse, and in a few minutes saw against the snow three dark figures ambling along at an easy trot. When he had come closer he knew that two of the riders were men, the other a woman. It was easy enough to identify Blodgett. A barrel might have ridden so if it had had legs with which to balance itself; and that slender figure was probably the trapped Sinclair. George hurried on, his premonition assuming ugly lines of reality. Even at that distance and from the rear he guessed that the graceful woman riding between the two men was Sylvia. Why had she chosen an outing with the ridiculous Blodgett? Sinclair, no man possessed sufficient charm to offset the disadvantages of such a companionship.
George, when he was sure, reined in, surprised at his reflections. Blodgett, heaven knew, had been good to him, and he had once liked the man. Why, then, had he turned so viciously against him? Adjectives his mind had recently applied to Blodgett flashed back: "Coarse," "fat," "ridiculous." Was it just? Why did he do it in spite of himself?
Sinclair turned and saw him. The party reined in, Sylvia, as one would have expected, impatiently in advance of the others. Her nod and something she said were lost in the men's cheery greetings. Since she was in advance, and edging on, as if to get farther away from him, George's opportunity was plain. The road wasn't wide enough for four abreast. If he could move forward with her Blodgett and Sinclair would have to ride together.
"Since I'm the last," he interrupted them, "mayn't I have first place?"
Quite as a matter of course he put his horse through and reined in at her side. They started forward.
"You ride as well as ever," he commented.
She shot a glance at him. Calmly he studied the striking details of her face. Each time he saw her she seemed more desirable. How was he to touch those lips that had filled his boy's heart with bursting thoughts? For the first time since that day they rode together, only now he was at her side, instead of heeling like a trained dog. In his man's fashion he was as well clothed as she. When they got back he would enter the great house with her instead of going to the stables. Whether she cared to acknowledge it or not he was of her kind—more so than the millionaire Blodgett ever could be. So he absorbed her beauty which fired his imagination. Such a repetition seemed ominous of a second climax in their relations.
Her quick glance, however, disclosed only resentment for his intrusion. He excused it.
"You see, I couldn't very well ride behind you."
She turned away.
"Hurry a little," Blodgett called.
It was what George wished, as she wished to crawl, never far in advance of the others.
"Come," he said, and flecked her horse with his crop.
"Don't do that again!"
He had gathered his own horse, and was galloping. Hers insisted on following. When George pulled in to keep at her side they were well in advance of the others. Now that he was alone with her he found it difficult to speak, and evidently she would limit his opportunity, for as he drew in she spurred her horse. He caught her, laughing.
"You may as well understand that I'll never ride behind you again."
She pressed her provocative lips together. So in silence, except for the crunching and scattering of the snow, they tore on through the dusk, rounding curves between hedges, rising to heights above bare, white stretches of landscape, dipping into hollows already won by the night. And each moment they came nearer the house.
In the night of the hollows he battled his desire to reach over and touch her, and cry out:
"Sylvia! You've got to understand!"
And in one such place her horse stumbled, and she pulled in and bent low over her saddle, and said, as if he had really spoken:
"I can't understand——"
Her outline was blurred, but her face was like a light in that shadowed valley. He didn't speak until they were up the hill and the wind had caught them.
"What?" he asked then.
Was it the glow, offered by the white earth rather than the sky, that made him fancy her lips quivered?
"Why you always try to hurt me."
He thought of her broken riding crop, of her attempts to hurt him every time he had seen her since the day she had tried to cut him with it. A single exception clung to his memory—the night of Betty's dance, years ago, when she had failed to remember him. Her words, therefore, carried a thrill, a colour of surrender, since from the very first she had made him attack for his own defence.
"That's an odd thing for you to say."
There were lights ahead, accents in the closing night for Blodgett's huge and ugly extravagance. They rode slowly up the drive.
"Will you ever stop following me? Will you ever leave me alone?"
He stared at her, answering softly:
"It is impossible I should ever leave you alone."
At the terrace he sprang down, tossed his reins to a groom, and went to her, raising his hands. For a moment she looked at him, hesitating. There were two grooms. So she took his hands and leapt down. It was a quick, uncertain touch her fingers gave him.
"Thanks," she said, and crossed the terrace at his side.
That moment, he reflected, was in itself culminating, yet he couldn't dismiss the feeling that their relations approached a larger climax. All the better, since things couldn't very well go on as they were. Was it that fleeting contact that had altered him, or her companionship in the gray night? He only knew as he walked close to her that the bitterness in his heart had diminished. He was willing to relinquish the return blow if she would ease the hurt she had given him. He told himself that she had never been nearer. An odd fancy!
The others rode up as they reached the door, and the hall was noisy with people just returned from the pond, so that their solitude was destroyed. While he bathed and dressed he tried to understand just what had happened. The alteration in his own heart could only be accounted for by a change in hers. Perhaps his mood was determined by her unexpected wonder that he should always try to hurt. He couldn't drive from his mind the definite impression of her having come nearer.
"Winter sentiment!" he sneered, and hurried, for it was late.
Lambert dropped in and lounged in a satin-covered chair while George wrestled with his tie. He gave Lambert the freshest news from the office, but his mind wasn't on business, nor, he guessed, was Lambert's.
"Blodgett does one rather well," Lambert said, glancing around the room.
George agreed.
"Only a marquise might feel more at ease in this room than a mere male."
He turned, smiling.
"I'm always afraid the furniture won't hold. Why should he have raised such a monster?"
"Maybe," Lambert offered, "to have it ready for a wife."
"Who would marry him?" George flashed.
"Nearly any girl," Lambert said. "So much money irons out a lot of fat. Then, when all's said and done, he's amusing and generous. He always tries to please. Why? What's made you scornful of Josiah?"
"There are some things," George said, "that one oughtn't to be able to buy with money."
Lambert arose, walked over to George, put his hands on his shoulders, and stared at him quizzically.
"You're a curious brute."
"I know what you mean," George said, "but let me remind you that money was just one of three things I started for."
Lambert's grasp tightened.
"And in a way you've got them all."
George shook off Lambert's grasp.
In a way!
"Let's go down."
In a way! It was rather cooling. It reminded him, too, that Squibs Bailly remained unpaid; and there was Sylvia, only a trifle nearer, and that, perhaps, in an eager imagination. Certainly he had forced some success, but would he actually ever complete anything? Would he ever be able to say I have acquired an exterior exactly as genuine as that one inherits, or I am a great millionaire, or I have proved myself worthy of all Squibs has given me, or I am Sylvia Planter's husband? Of course he had succeeded, but only in a way. Where was his will that he couldn't conquer altogether?
As he came down the stairs he saw Sylvia in a dazzling gown standing in front of the great fireplace surrounded by a group which included Dalrymple and Rogers who had managed an invitation and had just arrived with Wandel. Wandel brought excuses from Goodhue. It was like Goodhue, George thought, to avoid such a party.
Dalrymple smirked and chatted. George left Lambert and went straight to them. Sylvia could always be depended upon to be gracious to Dalrymple. She glanced at George and nodded. Although she continued to talk to Dalrymple she didn't turn away. George thought, indeed, that he detected a slight movement as if to make room for him. It was as if he had been any man of her acquaintance coming up. Then he had been right?
"Josiah said we'd have you," Dalrymple drawled. "Why didn't you skate? Anything to get on a horse, what? Freezing pleasure this weather."
George smiled at Sylvia.
"Not with the right horse and companionship."
Any one could see that Dalrymple had already swallowed an antidote for whatever benefit the day's fresh air and exercise had given him. Still in the weak face, across which the firelight played, George read other traits, settled, in a sense admirable; more precious than any inheritance a son could expect from a washerwoman mother and a labouring father. Then what was it Dalrymple had always coveted? What had made him rude to the poor men at Princeton? Something he hadn't had. Money. America, George reflected, could breed people like that. There was more than one way of being a snob. He wondered if Dalrymple would ever submerge his pride enough to come to him for money. He might go to Blodgett first, but George wasn't at all sure Blodgett would find it worth his while to buy up the young man.
Blodgett just then joined them. The white waistcoat encircling his rotund middle was like an advance agent, crying aloud: "The great Josiah is arriving just behind me."
"Everybody having a good time?" he bellowed.
Mrs. Sinclair, sitting near by, looked up, but her husband smiled indulgently. George watched Sylvia. Blodgett put the question to her.
"That was a fine ride, wasn't it? I'm always a little afraid for the horse I ride, though; might bend him in the middle."
George couldn't understand why she gave that friendly smile he coveted to Blodgett.
"I'd give a lot to ride like this young man," Blodgett went on, patting George's back. He preened himself. "Still we can't all be born in the saddle."
The thing was so obvious George laughed outright. Even Sylvia conceded its ugly, unintentional humour. A smile drew at the corners of her mouth. If she could enjoy that she was, indeed, for the moment nearer.
Two servants glided around with trays.
Blodgett gulped the contents of his glass and smacked his lips.
"That fellow of mine," he boasted, "has his own blend. Not bad."
Sylvia drank hers with Dalrymple, while Betty over there shook her head. Probably it was his ungraceful inheritance that made George dislike a glass in Sylvia's fingers. Dalrymple slipped away.
"Dividends in the smoking-room!" Blodgett roared.
"Dalrymple's drawing dividends," George thought.
The procession for the dining-room formed and disbanded. Blodgett had Mrs. Sinclair and Sylvia at either hand. It was natural enough, but George resented the arrangement, particularly with Dalrymple next to Sylvia on the other side. Betty sat between Dalrymple and Lambert. George was nearly opposite, flanked by fluffy clothes and hair; and straightway each ear was choked with fluffy chatter—the theatre; the opera, from the side of sartorial criticism; the east coast of Florida—"but why should I go so far to see exciting bathing suits out of season and tea tables wabbling under palm trees?"—a scandal or two—that is such details as were permissible in his presence. He divided his ears sufficiently to catch snatches from neighbouring sections of the table.
"Of course, we'll keep out of it."
It was Wandel, speaking encouragingly to a pretty girl. Out of what? Confound this chatter! Oh! The war, of course. It was the one remark of serious import that reached him throughout the dinner, and the country faced that possibility, and an increasing unrest of labour, and grave financial questions. The diners might have been people who had fled to a high mountain to escape an invasion, or happy ones who lived on a peak from which the menace was invisible. But it wasn't that. At other social levels, he knew, there was the same closing of the shutters, the same effort to create an enjoyable sunlight in a cloistered room. On the summit, he honestly believed, men did more and thought more. Perhaps where sensible men gathered together the curtains weren't drawn against grave fires in an abnormal night. Then it was the women. Did all men, like Wandel, choose to keep such things from the women? Did the women want them kept? Hang it! Then let them have the vote. Make them talk.
"You're really not going to Palm Beach, Mr. Morton?"
"I've too much to do."
"Men amuse me," the young lady fluffed. "They always talk about things to do. If one has a good time the things get done just the same."
God! What a point of view! Yet he wasn't one to pass judgment since he was more interested in the winning of Sylvia than he was in the winning of the war.
He watched her as he could, talking first to Blodgett then to Dalrymple. The brilliant Sylvia Planter had no business sitting between two such men. The fact that Blodgett had got the right people stared him in the face, but even so the man wasn't good enough to be Sylvia Planter's host. Nor did George like the way she sipped her wine. She seemed forcing herself to a travesty of enjoyment. Betty, on the other hand, drank nothing. He questioned if she was sorry Sylvia had brought her. She seemed glad enough, at least, to be with Lambert. He appeared to absorb her, and, in order to listen to him, she left Dalrymple nearly wholly to Sylvia. Once or twice she glanced across and smiled at George, but her kindliness had an air of coming from a widening distance. George was trapped—a restless giant tangled in a snarl of fluff.
He sighed his relief when the women had gone. He didn't remain long behind, wandering into the deserted hall where he stood frowning at the fire. He heard a reluctant step on the stairs and swung around. Sylvia walked slowly down, a cloak about her shoulders. In a sort of desperation he raised his hand.
"This party has got on my nerves."
He couldn't read the expression in her eyes.
"It's stifling in here," she said.
She walked the length of the hall, opened the door, and went through to the terrace.
George's heart quickened. She was out there alone. What had her eyes meant? He had never seen them just like that. They had seemed without challenge.
There was a coat closet at the rear of the hall. He ran to it, got a cap and somebody's overcoat, and followed her out.
She sat on the railing, far from the house. The only light upon her was the nebulous reflection from the white earth. He hurried to her, his heart beating to the rhythm of nearer—nearer—nearer——
She stirred.
"As usual with you," she said, "I am unfortunate. I didn't think you would follow me. I came here because I wanted to be alone. I wanted to think. Can you appreciate that?"
He sat on the railing close to her.
"You never want me. I have to grasp what opportunities I can."
He waited for her to rise and wander away. He was prepared to urge her to remain. She didn't move.
"I can't always be running away from you," she said.
She stared straight ahead over the garden, nearly phosphorescent with its snow.
"Nearer, nearer, nearer," went through his head.
"It has been a long time since I've seen you," he said, "but even so I wish you hadn't come here."
"Why did you come?" she asked.
"Because I thought I should find you."
"Why did you think that?"
"I'd heard Blodgett had been a good deal at Oakmont. I guessed if Lambert came you would, too."
"It is impertinent you should interest yourself in my movements. Why—why do you do it?"
"Because everything you do absorbs me. Why else do you suppose I took the trouble at Betty's dance years ago to tell you who I was?"
She drew back without answering. Her movement caught his attention. The change in her manner, the white night, made him bold.
"I've often wondered," he said, "why you didn't remember me that day in Princeton, or that night. It hadn't been long. Don't you see it was an acknowledgment that I wasn't the old George Morton even then?"
"Oh, no," she answered with a little laugh, "because I remembered you perfectly well."
"Remembered me!" he cried. "And you danced with me, and said you didn't remember, and let me take you aside, and——"
He moved swiftly nearer until his face was close to hers, until he stared into her eyes that he could barely see.
"Why did you do that?"
She didn't answer.
"Why do you tell me now?" he urged with an increasing excitement.
Such a confession from her had the quality of a caress! He felt himself reaching up to touch the summit.
"Why? You've got to answer me."
She arose with easy grace and stood looking down at him.
"Because," she said, "I want you to stop being ridiculous and troublesome; and, really, the whole thing seems so unimportant now that I am going to be married."
He cried out. He sprang to his feet. He caught her hands, and crushed them as if he would make them a part of his own flesh so that she could never escape to accomplish that unbearable act.
"Sylvia! Sylvia!"
She fought, gasping:
"You hurt! I tell you you hurt! Let me go you—you——Let me go——"
George stared at Sylvia as if she had been a child expressing some unreasonable and incredible intention. "What are you talking about? How can I let you go?"
Even in that light he became aware of the distortion of her face, of an unexpected moisture in her eyes; and he realized quite distinctly where he was, what had been said, just how completely her announcement for the moment had swept his mind clean of the restraints with which he had so painstakingly crowded it. Now he appreciated the power of his grasp, but he watched a little longer the struggles of her graceful body; for, after all, he had been right. How could he let her go to some man whose arms would furnish an inviolable sanctuary? He shook his head. No such thing existed. Hadn't he, indeed, foreseen exactly this situation, and hadn't he told himself it couldn't close the approach to his pursuit? But he had never reconnoitred that road. Now he must find it no matter how forbidding the places it might thread. So he released her. She raised her hands to her face.
"You hurt!" she whispered. "Oh, how you hurt!"
"Please tell me who it is."
She turned, and, her hands still raised, started across the terrace. He followed.
"Tell me!"
She went on without answering. He watched her go, suppressing his angry instinct to grasp her again that he might force the name from her. He shrugged his shoulders. Since she had probably timed her attack on him with a general announcement, he would know soon enough. He could fancy those in the house already buzzing excitedly.
"I always said she'd marry so and so;" or, "She might have done better—or worse;" perhaps an acrid, "It's high time, I should think"—all the banal remarks people make at such crises. But what lingered in George's brain was his own determination.
"She shan't do it. Somehow I'll stop her."
He glanced over the garden, dully surprised that it should retain its former aspect while his own outlook had altered as chaotically as it had done that day long ago when he had blundered into telling her he loved her.
He turned and approached the house to seek this knowledge absolutely vital to him but from which, nevertheless, he shrank. Two names slipped into his mind, two disagreeable figures of men she had recently chosen to be a good deal with.
George acknowledged freely enough now that he had taken his later view of his employer from an altitude of jealousy. Blodgett offered a possibility in some ways quite logical. With war finance he worked closer and closer to Old Planter. He had become a familiar figure at Oakmont. George had seen Sylvia choose his companionship that afternoon, had watched her a little while ago make him happy with her smiles; yet if she could tolerate Blodgett why had she never forgiven George his beginnings?
Dalrymple was a more likely and infinitely less palatable choice. He was good-looking, entirely of her kind, had been, after a fashion, raised at her side; and Sylvia's wealth would be agreeable to the Dalrymple bank account. George had had sufficient evidence that he wanted her—and her money. A large portion of the enmity between them, in fact, could be traced to the day he had found her portrait displayed on Dalrymple's desk. The only argument against Dalrymple was his weakness, and people smiled at that indulgently, ascribing it to youth—even Sylvia who couldn't possibly know how far it went.
Suspense was intolerable. He walked into the house and replaced the coat and cap in the closet. He commenced to look for Sylvia. No matter whose toes it affected he was going to have another talk with her if either of his hazards touched fact.
He caught the rising and falling of a perpetual mixed conversation only partially smothered by a reckless assault on a piano. He traced the racket to the large drawing-room where groups had gathered in the corners as if in a hopeless attempt to escape the concert. Sylvia sat with none. One of the fluffy young ladies was proving the strength of the piano. Rogers was amorously attentive to her music. Lambert and Betty sat as far as possible from everyone else, heads rather close. Blodgett hopped heavily from group to group.
Over the frantic attempts of the young performer the human voice triumphed, but the impulse to this conversation was multiple. From no group did Sylvia's name slip, and George experienced a sharp wonder; so far, evidently, she had chosen to tell only him.
The young lady at the piano crashed to a brief vacation. The chatter, following a perfunctory applause, rose gratefully.
"Fine! Fine!" Blodgett roared. "Your next stop ought to be Carnegie Hall."
"She ought to play in a hall," someone murmured unkindly.
George retreated, relieved that Blodgett wasn't with Sylvia; and a little later he found Dalrymple in the smoking-room sipping whiskey-and-soda between erratic shots at billiards. Wandel was at the table most of the time, counting long strings with easy precision.
"What's up, great man?" he wanted to know.
Dalrymple, too, glanced curiously at George over his glass. "Nothing exceptional that I know of," George snapped and left the room.
It added to his anger that his mind should let through its discontent. At least Sylvia wasn't with Blodgett or Dalrymple, and he tried to tell himself his jealousy was too hasty. All the eligible men weren't gathered in this house. He wandered from room to room, always seeking Sylvia. Where could she have gone?
He met guests fleeing from drawing-room to library, as if driven by the tangled furies of a Hungarian dance.
"Will that girl never stop playing?" he thought.
Betty came up to him.
"Talk to me, George."
He found himself reluctant, but two tables of bridge were forming, and Betty didn't care to play. Lambert did, and sat down. George followed Betty to a window seat, telling himself she wanted him only because Lambert was for the time, lost to her.
"Now," she said, directly, "what is it, George?"
"What's what?" he asked with an attempt at good-humour.
Her question had made him uneasy, since it suggested that she had observed the trouble he was endeavouring to bury. Would he never learn to repress as Goodhue did? But even Goodhue, he recalled, had failed to hide an acute suffering at a football game; and this game was infinitely bigger, and the point he had just lost vastly more important than a fumbled ball.
"You've changed," Betty was saying. "I'm a good judge, because I haven't really seen you for nearly a year. You've seemed—I scarcely know how to say it—unhappy?"
"Why not tired?" he suggested, listlessly. "You may not know it, but I've been pretty hard at work."
She nodded quickly.
"I've heard a good deal from Lambert what you are doing, and something from Squibs and Mrs. Squibs. You haven't seen much of them, either. Do you mind if I say I think it makes them uneasy?"
"Scold. I deserve it," he said. "But I've written."
"I don't mean to scold," she smiled. "I only want to find out what makes you discontented, maybe ask if it's worth while wearing yourself out to get rich."
"I don't know," he answered. "I think so."
It was his first doubt. He looked at her moodily.
"You're not one to draw the long bow, Betty. Honestly, aren't you a little cross with me on account of the Baillys?"
"Not even on my own account."
Her allusion was clear enough. George was glad Blodgett created a diversion just then, lumbering in and bellowing to Lambert for news of his sister. George listened breathlessly.
"Haven't seen her," Lambert said, and doubled a bid.
"Miss Alston?" Blodgett applied to Betty.
"Where should she be?" Betty answered.
"Got me puzzled," Blodgett muttered. "Responsibility. If anything happened!"
Betty laughed.
"What could happen to her here?"
George guessed then where Sylvia had gone, and he experienced a strong but temporal exaltation. Only a mental or a bodily hurt could have driven Sylvia to her room. He didn't believe in the first, but he could still feel the shape of her slender fingers crushed against his. The greater her pain, the greater her knowledge of his determination and desire.
"Guess I'll send Mrs. Sinclair upstairs," Blodgett said, gropingly.
He hurried out of the room. Betty rose.
"I suppose I ought to go."
"Nonsense," George objected. "She isn't the sort to come down ill all at once."
He followed Betty to the hall, however. Mrs. Sinclair was halfway up the stairs. Blodgett had gone on, always pandering, George reflected, to his guests.
"I'll wait here," Betty said to Mrs. Sinclair. "I mean, if anything should be wrong, if Sylvia should want me."
Mrs. Sinclair nodded, disappearing in the upper hall.
Finally George faced the moment he had avoided with a persistent longing. For the first time since the night of his confession he was quite alone with Betty. He tried not to picture her swaying away from him in a moonlight scented with flowers; but he couldn't help hearing her frightened voice: "Don't say anything more now," and he experienced again her hand's delightful and bewitching fragility. Why had his confession startled? What had it portended for her?
He sighed. There was no point asking such questions, no reason for avoiding such dangerous moments now; too many factors had assumed new shapes. The long separation had certainly not been without its effect on Betty, and hadn't he recently seen her absorbed by Lambert? Hadn't she just now scolded him with a clear appreciation of his shortcomings? In the old days she had unconsciously offered him a pleasurable temptation, and he had been afraid of yielding to it because of its effect on his aim. Sylvia just now had tried to convince him that his aim was permanently turned aside. He knew with a hard strength of will that it wasn't. Nothing could tempt him from his path now—even Betty's kindness.
"Betty—have you heard anything of her getting married?"
She glanced at him, surprised.
"Who? Sylvia?"
He nodded.
"Only," she answered, "the rumours one always hears about a very popular girl. Why, George?"
"The rumours make one wonder. Nothing comes of them," he said, sorry he had spoken, seeking a safe withdrawal. "You know there's principally one about you. It persists."
There was a curious light in her eyes, reminiscent of something he had seen there the night of his confession.
"You've just remarked," she laughed, softly, "that rumours seldom materialize."
What did she mean by that? Before he could go after an answer Mrs. Sinclair came down, joined them, and explained that Sylvia was tired and didn't want any one bothered. George's exaltation increased. He hoped he had hurt her, as he had always wanted to. Blodgett, accompanied by Wandel and Dalrymple, wandered from the smoking-room, seeking news. George felt every muscle tighten, for Blodgett, at sight of Mrs. Sinclair, roared:
"Where is Sylvia?"
The gross familiarity held him momentarily convinced, then he remembered that Blodgett was eager to make progress with such people, quick to snatch at every advantage. Sylvia wasn't here to rebuke him. Under the circumstances, the others couldn't very well. As a matter of fact, they appeared to notice nothing. Of course it wasn't Blodgett.
"In her room with a headache," Mrs. Sinclair answered. "She may come down later."
"Headaches," Wandel said, "cover a multitude of whims."
George didn't like his tone. Wandel always gave you the impression of a vision subtle and disconcerting.
Dalrymple, in spite of his confused state, was caught rattling off questions at Mrs. Sinclair, too full of concern, while George watched him, wondering—wondering.
"Must have her own way," Blodgett interrupted. "Bridge! Let's cut in or make another table. George?"
George and Betty shook their heads, so Blodgett, with that air of a showman leading his spectators to some fresh surprise, hurried the others away. George didn't attempt to hide his distaste. He stared at the fire. Hang Blodgett and his familiarities!
"What are you thinking about, George?"
"Would you have come here, Betty, of your own wish?"
"Why not?"
"Blodgett."
"What about the old dear?"
George started, turned, and looked full at her. There was no question. She meant it, and earlier in the evening Lambert had said nearly any girl would marry Blodgett. What had become of his own judgment? He felt the necessity of defending it.
"He's too precious happy to have people like you in his house. You know perfectly well he hasn't always been able to do it."
"Isn't that why everyone likes him," she asked, "because he's so completely unaffected?"
George understood he was on thin ice. He didn't deviate.
"You mean he's all the more admirable because he hasn't plastered himself with veneer?"
Her white cheeks flushed. She was as nearly angry as he had ever seen her.
"I thought you'd never go back to that," she said. "Didn't I make it clear any mention of it in the first place was quite unnecessary?"
"I thought you had a reproof for me, Betty. You don't suppose I ever forget what I've had to do, what I still have to accomplish."
She half stretched out her hand.
"Why do you try to quarrel with me, George?"
"I wouldn't for the world," he denied, warmly.
"But you do. I told you once you were different. You shouldn't compare yourself with Mr. Blodgett or any one. What you set out for you always get."
He smiled a little. She was right, and he must never lose his sense of will, his confidence of success.
She started to speak, then hesitated. She wouldn't meet his glance.
"Why," she asked, "did you tell me that night?"
"Because," he answered, uncomfortably, "you were too good a friend to impose upon. I had to give you an opportunity to drive me away."
"I didn't take it," she said, quickly, "yet you went as thoroughly as if I had."
She spread her hands.
"You make me feel as if I'd done something awkward to you. It isn't fair."
Smiling wistfully, he touched her hand.
"Don't talk that way. Don't let us ever quarrel, Betty. You've never meant anything but kindness to me. I'd like to feel there's always a little kindness for me in your heart."
Her long lashes lowered slowly over her eyes.
"There is. There always will be, George."
For some time after Betty had left him George remained staring at the fire. The chatter and the intermittent banging of the piano made him long for quiet; but it was good discipline to stay downstairs, and Mrs. Sinclair had said Sylvia might show herself later. So he waited, struggling with his old doubt, asking himself if he had actually acquired anything genuine except his money.
Later he wandered again from room to room, seeking Sylvia, but she didn't appear, and he couldn't understand her failure. Had it any meaning for him? Why, for that matter, should she strike him before any other knew of the weapon in her hand? From time to time Dalrymple expressed a maudlin concern for her, and George's uncertainty increased. If it should turn out to be Dalrymple, he told himself hotly, he would be capable of killing.
The young man quite fulfilled his promise of the early evening. Long after the last of the women had retired he remained in the smoking-room. Rogers abetted him, glad, doubtless, to be sportive in such distinguished company. Wandel loitered, too, and was unusually flushed, refilling his glass rather often. Lambert, Blodgett, and he were at a final game of billiards.
"You've been with Dalrymple all evening," George said, significantly, to Wandel.
"My dear George," Wandel answered, easily, "I observe the habits of my fellow creatures. Be they good or bad I venture not to interfere."
"An easy creed," George said. "You're not your brother's keeper."
"Rather not. The man that keeps himself makes the world better."
George had a disturbing fancy that Wandel accused him.
"You don't mean that at all," he said. "When will you learn to say what you mean?"
"Perhaps," Wandel replied, sipping, "when I decide not to enter politics."
"Your shot," Blodgett called, and Wandel strolled to the table.
Dalrymple didn't play, his accuracy having diminished to the point of laughter. He edged across to George.
"Old George Morton!" he drawled. "Young George Croesus! And all that."
The slurred last phrase was as abhorrent as "why don't you stick to your laundry?" It carried much the same implication. But Dalrymple was up to something, wanted something. He came to it after a time with the air of one conferring a regal favour.
"Haven't got a hundred in your pocket, Croesus? Driggs and bridge have squeezed me dry. Blodgett's got bones. Never saw such a man. Has everything. Driggs is running out. Recoup at bones. Everybody shoot. Got the change, save me running upstairs? Bad for my heart, and all that."
He grinned. George grinned back. It was a small favour, but it was a start, for the other acquired bad habits readily. Ammunition against Dalrymple! He had always needed it, might want it more than ever now. At last Dalrymple himself put it in his hand.
He passed over the money, observing that the other moved so as to screen the transaction from those about the table.
"Little night-cap with me?" Dalrymple suggested as if by way of payment.
George laughed.
"Haven't you already protected the heads of the party?"
Dalrymple made a wry face.
"Do their heads a lot more good than mine."
The game ended.
Dalrymple turned away shouting.
"Bones! Bones!"
Blodgett produced a pair of dice with his air of giving each of his patrons his heart's desire. Wandel yawned. Dalrymple rattled the dice and slithered them across the billiard table.
"Coming in, George?" Blodgett roared.
"Thanks. I'm off to bed."
But he waited, curious as to the destination of the small loan he had just made.
Blodgett with tact threw for reasonable stakes. Roger's play was necessarily small, and he seemed ashamed of the fact. Lambert put plenty on the table, but urged no takers. Wandel varied his wagers. Dalrymple covered everything he could, and had luck.
George studied the intent figures, the eager eyes, as the dice flopped across the table; listened to the polished voices raised to these toys in childish supplications that sang with the petulant accents of negroes. Simultaneously he was irritated and entertained, experiencing a vague, uneasy fear that a requisite side of life, of which this folly might be taken as a symbol, had altogether escaped him. He laughed aloud when Wandel sang something about seven and eleven. His voice resembled a negro's as the peep of a sparrow approaches an eagle's scream.
"What you laughing at, great man? One must talk to them. Otherwise they don't behave, and you see I rolled an eleven. Positive proof."
He gathered in the money he had won.
"Shooting fifty this time."
"Why not shoot?" Dalrymple asked George. "'Fraid you couldn't talk to 'em?"
"Thing doesn't interest me."
"No sport, George Morton."
It was the way it was said that arrested George. Trust Dalrymple when he had had enough to drink to air his dislikes. The others glanced up.
"How much have you got there?" George asked quietly.
With a slightly startled air Dalrymple ran over his money.
"Pretty nearly three. Why?"
"Call it three," George said.
He gathered the dice from the table. The others drew back, leaving, as it were, the ring clear.
"I'll throw you just once," George said, "for three hundred. High man to throw. On?"
"Sure," Dalrymple said, thickly.
George counted out his money and placed it on the table. He threw a five. Dalrymple couldn't do better than a four. George rattled the dice, and, rather craving some of the other's Senegambian chatter, rolled them. They rested six and four. Dalrymple didn't try to hide his delight.
"Stung, old George Morton! Never come a ten again."
"There'll come another ten," George promised.
He continued to roll, a trifle self-conscious in his silence, while Dalrymple bent over the table, desirous of a seven, while the others watched, absorbed.
Sixes and eights fell, and other numbers, but for half-a-dozen throws no seven or ten.
"Come you seven!" Dalrymple sang.
"You've luck, George," Lambert commented. "I wouldn't lay against you now. I'll go you fifty, Driggs, on his ten."
"Done!"
The next throw the dice turned up six and four.
"The very greatest of men," Wandel said, ruefully.
While George put the money in his pocket Dalrymple straightened, frowning.
"Double or quits! Revenge!"
"I said once," George reminded him. "I'm off to bed."
The others resumed their play. Dalrymple stared at George, an ugly light in his eyes. George nodded, and the other followed him to the door. George handed him a hundred dollars.
"Save you running upstairs. How much do you owe me now?"
"Couple hundred."
"I shouldn't worry about that," George laughed. "When you want a good deal more and it's inconvenient to run upstairs I might save you some trouble."
"Now that's white of you," Dalrymple condescended, and went, a trifle unsteadily, back to the table.
George carried to his room an impression that he had thoroughly soiled his hands at last, but unavoidably. Of course he had scorned Blodgett for involving Sinclair. His own case was very different. Besides, he hadn't actually involved Dalrymple yet, but he had made a start. Dalrymple had always gunned for him. More than ever since Sylvia's announcement, George felt the necessity of getting Dalrymple where he could handle him. If she had chosen Dalrymple, of course, money would serve only until the greedy youth could get his fingers in the Planter bags. He shook with a quick repugnance. No matter who won her it mustn't be Dalrymple. He would stop that at any cost.
He sat for some time on the edge of the bed, studying the pattern of the rug. Was Dalrymple the man to arouse a grand passion in her? She had said:
"I can't always be running away from you."
She had told him and no one else. Was the thing calculation, quite bereft of love? Oh, no. George couldn't imagine he was of such importance she would flee that far to be rid of him; but he went to bed at last, confessing the situation had elements he couldn't grasp. Perhaps, when he knew surely who the man was, they would become sufficiently ponderable.
He was up early after a miserable night, and failed to rout his depression with a long ride over country roads. When he got back in search of breakfast he found the others straggling down. First of all he saw Dalrymple, white and unsteady; heard him asking for Sylvia. Sylvia hadn't appeared.
"Who's for church?" Blodgett roared.
Mrs. Sinclair offered to shepherd the devout. They weren't many. Men even called Blodgett names for this newest recreation he had appeared to offer.
"How late did you play?" George asked Blodgett.
"Until, when I looked at my watch, I thought it must be last evening. These young bloods are too keen for Papa Blodgett."
"Get into you?" George laughed.
"I usually manage to hang on to my money," Blodgett bragged, "but the stakes ran bigger and bigger. I'll say one thing for young Dalrymple. He's no piker. Wrote I. O. U's until he wore out his fountain pen. I could paper a room with what I got. I'd be ashamed to collect them."
"Why?" George asked, shortly. "When he wrote them he knew they had to be redeemed."
Blodgett grinned.
"I expect he was a little pickled. Probably's forgot he signed them. I won't make him unhappy with his little pieces of paper."
"Daresay he'll be grateful," George said, dryly.
His ride had brought no appetite. After breakfast he avoided people with a conviction that his only business here was to see Sylvia again, then to escape. It was noon before she appeared with Betty. He caught them walking from the hall to the library, and he studied Sylvia's face with anxious curiosity. It disappointed, repelled him. It was quite unchanged, as full of colour as usual, as full of unfriendliness. She nodded carelessly, quite as if nothing had happened—gave him the identical, remote greeting to which he had become too accustomed. And last evening he had fancied her nearer! He noticed, however, that she had put her hands behind her back.
"I hope you're feeling better."
"Better! I haven't been ill," she flashed.
Betty helped him out.
"Last night Mrs. Sinclair told us you had a headache."
"You ought to know, Betty, that means I was tired."
But George noticed she no longer looked at him. She hurried on.
"Dolly!" he heard her laugh. "You must have sat up rather late."
"Trying to forget my worry about you, Sylvia. Guess it gave me your headache."
George shrugged his shoulders and edged away, measuring his chances of seeing her alone. They were slender, for as usual she was a magnet, yet luck played for him and against her after luncheon, bringing them at the same moment from different directions to the empty hall. She wanted to hurry by, as if he were a disturbing shadow, but he barred her way.
"I suppose I should say I'm sorry I hurt you last night. I'll say it, if you wish, but I'm not particularly sorry."
She showed him her hands then, spread them before him. They trembled, but that was all. They recorded no marks of his precipitancy.
"I shouldn't expect you to be sorry. After that certainly you will never speak to me again."
"Will you tell me now who it is?" he asked.
Her temper blazed.
"I ought always to know what to expect from you."
She ran back to the door through which she had entered.
"Oh, Dolly!"
Dalrymple met her on the threshold.
"Take me for a walk," she said. "It won't hurt you."
Dalrymple indicated George.
"Morton coming?"
She shook her head and ran lightly upstairs.
"No, I'm not going," George said. "She's right. The fresh air will do you good."
"Thanks," Dalrymple answered, petulantly. "I'm quite capable of prescribing for myself."
He went out in search of his hat and coat.
George watched him, letting all his dislike escape. Continually they hovered on the edge of a break, but Dalrymple wouldn't quite permit it now. George was confident that the seed sown last night would flower.
He was glad when Mundy telephoned before dinner about some difficulties of transportation that might have been solved the next day. George sprang at the excuse, however, refused Blodgett's offer of a car to town, and drove to the station.
Dalrymple and Sylvia hadn't returned.