In town Goodhue, too, read his discontent.
"You look tired out, George," he said the next morning. "Evidently Blodgett's party wasn't much benefit."
"I'm learning to dislike parties," George answered. "You were wise to duck it. What was the matter? Didn't fancy the Blodgett brand of hospitality?"
"Promised my mother to spend the week-end at Westbury. I'd have enjoyed it. I'm really growing fond of Blodgett."
There it was again, and you couldn't question Goodhue. Always he said just what he meant, or he kept his opinions to himself. Every word of praise for Blodgett reached George as a direct charge of disloyalty, of bad judgment, of narrow-mindedness. His irritation increased. He was grateful for the mass of work in which he was involved. That chained his imagination by day, but at night he wearily reviewed the past five years, seeking his points of weakness, some fatal omission.
Perhaps his chief fault had been too self-centred a pursuit of Sylvia. Because of her he had repressed the instincts to which he saw other men pandering as a matter of course. Dalrymple did, yet she preferred him, perhaps to the point of making a gift of herself. He had avoided even those more legitimate pleasures of which the dice had appealed to him as a type. What was the use of it? Why had he done it? Yet even now, and still because of her, when you came to that, he had no desire to turn aside to the brighter places where plumed creatures flutter fatefully. It was a species of tragedy that he had to keep himself for one who didn't want him.
It stared at him at breakfast from the page of a newspaper. It was amazing that the journal saw nothing grotesque in such a union; found it, to the contrary, sensible and beneficial, not only to the persons involved, but to the entire country.
Planter, the article pointed out, was no longer capable of bringing a resistless energy to his house which was a notable stone in the country's financial structure. Should any chance weaken that the entire building would react. His son was at present too young and inexperienced to watch that stone, to keep it intact. Later, of course—but one had to consider the present. To be sure there were partners, but after the fashion of great egoists Mr. Planter had avoided admitting any outstanding personality to his firm. It was a happy circumstance that Cupid, and so forth—for the senior partner of Blodgett and Sinclair was more than an outstanding personality in Wall Street. Some of his recent achievements were comparable with Mr. Planter's earlier ones. The dissolution of his firm and his induction into the house of Planter and Company were prophesied.
George continued to eat his breakfast mechanically. At least it wasn't Dalrymple, yet that resolution would have been less astonishing. Josiah Blodgett, fat, middle-aged, of no family, married to the beautiful and brilliant Sylvia Planter! But was it grotesque? Wasn't the paper right? He had had plenty of proof that his own judgment of Blodgett was worthless. He crumpled the paper in his hand and stood up. His judgment was worth this: he was willing to swear Sylvia Planter didn't love the man she had elected to marry.
What did other people think?
Wandel was at hand. George stopped on his way out. The little man was still in bed, sipping coffee while he, too, studied that disturbing page; yet, when he had sent his man from the room, he didn't appear to find about it anything extraordinary.
"Good business all round," he commented, "although I must admit I'm surprised Sylvia had the common-sense to realize it. Impulsive sort, didn't you think, George, who would fly to some fellow because she'd taken a fancy to him? Phew! Planter plus Blodgett! It'll make her about the richest girl in America, why not say the world? Some households are uneasy this morning. Well! When you come down to it, what's the difference between railroads and mills? Between mines and real estate? One's about as useful as the others."
"It's revolting," George said.
Wandel glanced over his paper.
"What's up, great man? Nothing of the sort. Blodgett has his points."
"As usual, you don't mean what you say," George snapped.
"But I do, my dear George."
"Blodgett's not like the people he plays with."
"Isn't that a virtue?" Wandel asked. "Perhaps it's why those people like him."
"But do they really?"
"You're purposely blind if you don't see it," Wandel answered. "Why the deuce don't you?"
George feared he had let slip too much. With others he would have to guard his interest closer, and he would delay the final break he had quite decided upon with Blodgett.
"Just the same," he muttered, ill at ease, preparing to leave, "I'd like Lambert's opinion."
"You don't fancy this has happened," Wandel said, "without Lambert's knowing all about it?"
George left without answering. At least he knew. It was simpler, consequently, to discipline himself. His manner disclosed nothing when he made the necessary visit to Blodgett. The round face was radiant. The narrow eyes burned with happiness.
"You're a cagy old Brummell," George said. "I've just seen it in the paper with the rest of the world. When's it coming off?"
Blodgett's content faded a trifle.
"She says not for a long time yet, but we'll see. Trust Josiah to hurry things all he can."
"Congratulations, anyway," George said. "You know you're entitled to them."
But he couldn't offer his hand. With that he had an instinct to tear the happiness from the other's face.
"You bet I am," Blodgett was roaring. "Any fool can see I'm pleased as punch."
George couldn't stomach any more of it. He started out, but Blodgett, rather hesitatingly, summoned him back. George obeyed, annoyed and curious.
"A good many years ago, George," Blodgett began, "I was a damned idiot. I remember telling you that when Papa Blodgett got married it would be to the right girl."
"The convenient girl," George sneered. "Don't you think you're doing it?"
"Now see here, George. None of that. You forget it. I'm sorry I ever thought or said such stuff. You get it through your head just what this is—plain adoration."
He sprang to his feet in an emotional outburst that made George writhe.
"I don't see why God has been so good to me."
George escaped and hurried upstairs. Lambert was there, but he didn't mention the announcement, and George couldn't very well lead him. No one who did talk of it in his presence, however, shared his bitter disapproval. Most men dwelt as Wandel did on the material values of such a match, which, far from diminishing Sylvia's brilliancy, would make it burn brighter than ever.
Occasionally he saw Sylvia and Blodgett together. For him she had that air of seeking an unreal pleasure, but she was always considerate of Blodgett, who seemed perpetually on the point of clasping her publicly in his arms. A recurrent contact was impossible for George. He went to Blodgett finally, and over his spirited resistance broke the last tie.
"My remaining on your pay-roll," he complained, "is pure charity. I don't want it. I won't have it. God knows I'm grateful for all you've done for me. It's been a lot."
"Never forget you've done something for Blodgett," the stout man said, warmly. "There's no question but you've earned every penny you've had from me. We've played and worked together a long time, George. I don't see just because you've grown up too fast why you've got to make Papa Blodgett unhappy."
George had no answer, but he didn't have to see much of the beaming beau after that, nor for a long time did he encounter Sylvia at all intimately. Lambert, himself, unwittingly brought them together in the spring.
"Why not run down to Oakmont with me?" he said, casually, one Friday morning. "Father's always asking why you're never around."
"Your father might be pleased to know why," George said.
"Dark ages!" Lambert said. "We're in the present now. Come ahead."
The invitation to enter the gates! But it brought to George none of the glowing triumph he had anticipated. He knew why Lambert had offered it, because he considered Sylvia removed from any possible unpleasant aftermath of the dark ages. The man Morton didn't need any further chastisement; but he went, because he knew what Lambert didn't, that the man Morton wasn't through with Sylvia yet; that he was going to find out why she had chosen Blodgett when, except on the score of money, she might have beckoned better from nearly any direction; that he was curious why she had told the man Morton first of all.
They rolled in at the gate. There he had stood, and there she, when she had set her dog on him. Then around the curve to the great house and in at the front door with an aging Simpson and a younger servant to compete for his bag and his coat and hat. How Simpson scraped—Simpson who had ordered him to go where he belonged, to the back door. What was the matter with him that he couldn't experience the elation with which the moment was crowded?
Mrs. Planter met him with her serene manner of one beyond human frailties. You couldn't expect her to go back and remember. Such a return to her would be beyond belief.
"You've not been kind to us, Mr. Morton. You've never been here before."
And that night she had walked through the doorway treating him exactly as if he had been a piece of furniture which had annoyingly got itself out of place.
Lambert's eyes were quizzical.
Old Planter wasn't at all the bear, cracking cumbersome jokes about the young ferret that had stolen a march on the sly old foxes of Wall Street. So that was what his threats amounted to! Or was it because there was nothing whatever of the former George Morton left?
He examined curiously the bowed white head and the dim eyes in which some fire lingered. He could still approximate the emotions aroused by that interview in the library. He felt the old instinct to give this man every concession to a vast superiority. In a sense, he was still afraid of him. He had to get over that, for hadn't he come here to accomplish just that against which Old Planter had warned him?
"Where," Lambert asked, "is the blushing Josiah?"
George caught the irony of his voice, but his mother explained in her unemotional way that Sylvia and Blodgett were riding.
Certainly all along those early days had been in Lambert's mind, for he led George to the scene of their fight. He faced him there, and he laughed.
"You remember?"
"Why not?" George said. "I was born that day."
"Morton! Morton!" Lambert mused.
George swung and caught Lambert's shoulders quickly. There was more than sentiment in his quick, reminiscent outburst. It seemed even to himself to carry another threat.
"You call me Mr. Morton, or just George, as if I were about as good as you."
Lambert laughed.
"We've had some fair battles since then, haven't we, George? You've done a lot you said you would that day."
"I've scarcely started," George answered. "I'm a dismal failure. Perhaps I'll brace up."
"You're hard to satisfy," Lambert said.
George dug at the ground with his heel.
"All the greater necessity to find ultimate satisfaction," he grumbled.
Lambert glanced at him inquiringly.
"I suppose," George continued, "I ought to thank you and your sister for not reminding your parents what I was some years ago, for not blurting it out to a lot of other people."
"You've shown me," Lambert said, "it would have been vicious to have put any stumbling blocks in your way. Driggs is right. He usually is. You're a very great man."
But George shook his head, and accompanied Lambert back to the house with the despondency of failure.
Sylvia and Blodgett were back, lounging with Mr. and Mrs. Planter about a tea table which servants had carried to a sunny spot on the lawn. At sight of George Sylvia's colour heightened. Momentarily she hesitated to take his offered hand, then bowed to the presence of the others.
"You didn't tell me, Lambert, you were bringing any one."
Blodgett's welcome was cordial enough to strike a balance.
"Never see anything of you these days, George. He makes money, Mrs. Planter, too fast to bother with an old plodder like me. Thank the Lord I've still got cash in his firm."
That he should ever call that quiet, assured figure mother-in-law! Mrs. Planter, however, showed no displeasure. She commenced to chat with Lambert. Sylvia, George reflected, might with profit have borrowed some of her mother's serenity. Still she managed to entertain him over the tea cups as if he had been any casual, uninteresting guest.
That hour, nevertheless, furnished George an ugly ordeal, for Blodgett's attentions were perpetual, and Sylvia appeared to appreciate them, treating him with a consideration that let through at least that affection the man had surprisingly drawn from so many of his acquaintances.
A secretary interrupted them, hurrying from the house with an abrupt concern stamped on his face, standing by awkwardly as if not knowing how to commence.
"What is it, Straker?" Mr. Planter asked.
"Mr. Brown's on the 'phone, sir. I think you'd better come. He said he didn't want to bother you until he was quite sure. There seems no doubt now."
"Of what, Straker?" Mr. Planter asked. "Wouldn't it have kept through tea time?"
The secretary seemed reluctant to speak. The women glanced at him uneasily. Lambert started to rise. In spite of his preoccupation George had a suspicion of the truth. All at once Blodgett half expressed it, bringing his fist noisily down on the table.
"The Huns have torpedoed an American boat!"
Straker blurted out the truth.
"Oh, no, Mr. Blodgett. It's theLusitania, but apparently the losses are serious."
For a moment the silence was complete. Even the servants forgot their errands and remained immobile, with gaping faces. An evil premonition swept George. There were many Americans on theLusitania. He knew a number quite well. Undoubtedly some had gone down. Which of his friends? One properly asked such questions only when one's country was at war. The United States wasn't at war with Germany. Would they be now? How was the sinking of theLusitaniagoing to effect him?
Old Planter, Blodgett, and Lambert were already on their feet, starting for the door. Mrs. Planter rose, but unhurriedly, and went close to her husband's side. In that movement George fancied he had caught at last something warm and human. Probably she had weighed the gravity of this announcement, and was determined to wheedle the old man from too much excitement, from too great a temper, from too thorough a preoccupation with the changes bound to reach Wall Street from this tragedy.
"I want to talk to Brown, too, if you please," Blodgett roared.
They crowded into the hall, all except Sylvia and George who had risen last. He had measured his movements by hers. They entered the library together while the others hurried through to Mr. Planter's study where the telephone stood, anxious to speak with Brown's voice. She wanted to follow, but he stopped her by the table where his cap had rested that night, from which he had taken her photograph.
"You might give me a minute," he said.
She faced him.
"What do you want? Why did you come here, Mr. Morton?"
"For this minute."
"You've heard what's happened," she said, scornfully, "and you can persist in such nonsense."
"Call it anything you please," he said. "To me such nonsense happens to be vital. It's your fault that I have to take every chance, even make one out of a tragedy like that."
He nodded toward the study door through which strained voices vibrated.
"Children, too!—Vanderbilt!—More than a thousand!—Good God, Brown!"
And Blodgett's roar, throaty with a new ferocity:
"We'll fight the swine now."
George experienced a fresh ill-feeling toward the man, who impressed him as possessing something of the attributes of such animals. He glanced at Sylvia's hands.
"You're not going to marry him."
She smiled at him pityingly, but her colour was fuller. He wondered why she should remain at all when it would be so easy to slip through the doorway to the protection of Blodgett and the others. Of course to hurt him again.
"I don't believe you love him. I'm sure you don't. You shan't throw yourself away."
Her foot tapped the rug. He watched her try to make her smile amused. Her failure, he told himself, offered proof that he was right.
"One can no longer even be angry with you," she said. "Who gave you a voice in my destiny?"
"You," he answered, quickly, "and I don't surrender my rights. If I can help it you're not going to throw away your youth. Why did you tell me first of all you were going to be married?"
She braced herself against the table, staring at him. In her eyes he caught a fleeting expression of fright. He believed she was held at last by a curiosity more absorbing than her temper.
"What do you mean?"
Old Planter's bass tones throbbed to them.
"Nothing can keep us out of the war now."
The words came to George as from a great distance, carrying no tremendous message. In the whole world there existed for him at that moment nothing half so important as the lively beauty of this woman whose intolerance he had just vanquished.
"Your youth belongs to youth," he hurried on, knowing she wouldn't answer his question. "I've told you this before. I won't see you turn your back on life. Fair warning! I'll fight any way I can to prevent it."
She straightened, showing him her hands.
"You're very brave. You fight by attacking a woman, by trying behind his back to injure a very dear man. And you've no excuse whatever for fighting, as you call it."
"Yes, I have," he said, quickly, "and you know perfectly well that I'm justified in attacking any man you threaten to marry."
"You're mad, or laughable," she said. "Why have you? Why?"
"Because long ago I told you I loved you. Whether it was really so then, or whether it is now, makes no difference. You said I shouldn't forget."
He stepped closer to her.
"You said other things that gave me, through pride if nothing else, a pretty big share in your life. You may as well understand that."
Her anger quite controlled her now. She raised her right hand in the old impulsive gesture to punish his presumption with the maximum of humiliation; and this time, also, he caught her wrist, but he didn't hold it away. He brought it closer, bent his head, and pressed his lips against her fingers.
He was startled by the retreat of colour from her face. He had never seen it so white. He let her wrist go. She grasped the table's edge. She commenced to laugh, but there was no laughter in her blank, colourless expression. A feminine voice without accent came to them:
"Sylvia! How can you laugh?"
He glanced up. Mrs. Planter stood in the study doorway. Sylvia straightened; apparently controlled herself. Her colour returned.
"It was Mr. Morton," she explained, unevenly. "He said something so absurdly funny. Perhaps he hasn't grasped this tragedy."
The others came in, a voluble, horrified group.
"What's the matter with you, George?" Blodgett bellowed. "Don't you understand what's happened?"
"Not quite," George said, looking at Sylvia, "but I intend to find out."
To find out, George appreciated at once, would be no simple task. Immediately Sylvia raised new defences. She seemed abetted by this incredible happening on a gray sea.
"I shall go," Lambert said. "How about you, George?"
"Why should I go?" George asked. "I haven't thought about it yet."
The scorn in Sylvia's eyes made him uneasy. Why did people have to be so impulsive? That was the way wars were made.
During the days that followed he did think about it too absorbingly for comfort, weighing to the penny the sacrifice his unlikely going would involve. An inherent instinct for a fight could scarcely be satisfied at such a cost. Patriotism didn't enter his calculations at all. He believed it had resounding qualities only because it was hollow, being manufactured exactly as a drum is made. Surely there were enough impulsive and fairly useless people to do such a job.
Then without warning Wandel confused his apparently flawless logic. Certainly Wandel was the least impulsive of men and he was also capable of uncommon usefulness, yet within a week of the sinking he asked George if he didn't want to move to his apartment to keep things straight during a long absence.
"Where are you going, Driggs?"
"I've been drifting too long," Wandel answered. "Unless I go somewheres, do something, I'll become as mellow as Dolly. I've not been myself since the business started. I suppose it's because I happen to be fond of the French and the British and a few ideas of theirs. So I'm going to drive an ambulance for them."
George fancied Wandel's real motive wasn't so easily expressed. He longed to know it, but you couldn't pump Wandel.
"You're an ass," was all he said.
"Naturally," Wandel agreed. "Only asses go to war."
"Do you think it will help for you to get a piece of shell through your head?"
"Quite as much as for any other ass."
"Why don't you say what you mean?" George asked, irritably.
"Perhaps you ask that," Wandel drawled, "because you don't understand what I mean to say."
"I won't take care of your apartment," George snapped. "I won't have any hand in such a piece of foolishness."
With Goodhue, however, he went to the pier to see Wandel off; absorbed with the little man the sorrowful and apprehensive atmosphere of the odorous shed; listened to choked farewells; saw brimming eyes; shared the pallid anticipations of those about to venture forth upon an unnatural sea; touched at last the very fringe of war.
"Why is he doing it?" George asked as Goodhue and he drove across town to the subway. "I've never counted Driggs a sentimentalist."
"I'm not sure," Goodhue answered, "this doesn't prove he isn't. He's always had an acute appreciation of values. Don't you remember? We used to call him 'Spike'."
George let himself drift with events, but Wandel's departure increased his uneasiness. Suppose he should be forced by circumstances to abandon everything; against his better judgment to go? Automatically his thoughts turned to Squibs. He recalled his advice.
"Don't let your ideas smoulder in your head. Come home and talk them over."
He sent a telegram and followed it the next day. The Baillys met him at the station, affectionately, without any reproaches for his long absence. The menace was in the air here, too, for Mrs. Bailly's first question, sharply expressed, was:
"You're not going, if——"
"I don't want to go," he answered.
Bailly studied him, but he didn't say anything.
That afternoon there was a boat race on Lake Carnegie. The Alstons drove the Baillys and George down some hospitable resident's lane to an advantageous bank near the finish line. They spread rugs and made themselves comfortable there, but the party was subdued. Squibs and Mr. Alston didn't seem to care to talk. Betty asked Mrs. Bailly's question, received an identical answer, and fell silent, too. Only Mrs. Alston appeared to detect no change in the world, remaining cheerfully imperial as if alarms couldn't possibly approach her abruptly.
Even to George such a scene, sharing one planet with the violences of Europe, appeared contradictory. The fancifully garbed undergraduates, who ran along the bank; the string of automobiles on the towpath opposite; the white and gleaming pleasure boats in the canal; the shells themselves, with coloured oar-blades that flashed in the sunlight; most of all the green frame for this pleasantly exciting contest had an air of telling him that everything unseen was rumour, dream stuff; either that, or else that the seen was visionary, while in those remote places existed the only material world, the revolting and essential realities.
Bailly at last interrupted his revery, with his long, thin arm making a gesture that included the athletes; the running, youthful partisans.
"How many are we going to lose or get back with twisted minds?"
"Keep quiet," his wife said in a panic.
Mrs. Alston laughed pleasantly.
"Don't worry. Woodrow will keep us out of it."
Back in the little study Bailly expressed his doubt.
"He may do it now, but later——"
"Remember you're not going, George," Mrs. Bailly cried.
"I think not."
She patted his hand, while Bailly looked on with his old expression of doubt and disapproval. When Mrs. Bailly had left them, George told the tutor of Wandel's surprising venture, asking his opinion.
"It's hard to form one," Bailly admitted. "He's always puzzled me. Would it surprise you if I said I think he at least has grafted on his brain some of Allen's generous views?"
"Oh, come, sir. You can't make war an ideal expression of the brotherhood of man. Far better that all men should be suspicious strangers."
Bailly drew noisily at his pipe.
"It often pleases you to misunderstand," he said. "Wandel, I fancy, would take Allen's theories and make something more practical of them. Understand I am a pacifist—thorough-paced. War is folly. War is dreadful. It cannot be conceived in a healthy brain. But when a fact rises up before you you'd better face it. Wandel probably does. The Allens probably don't—don't realize that we must win this war as the only alternative to the world pacing of an autocratic foot that would crush social progress like a serpent, that would boot back the brotherhood of man, since you seem to enjoy the phrase, unthinkable years."
"After admitting that," George asked, quickly, "you can still tell me that I ought to accept the point of view of your rotten, illogical Socialists?"
"Even in this war," Bailly confessed, "most socialists are pacifists. No, they're not an elastic crowd. It amuses me that a lot of the lords of the land, leading an unthinking portion of the proletariat, will permit them to carry on their work in spite of themselves."
"I despise such theorists," George burst out. "They are unsound. They are dangerous."
Bailly smiled.
"Just the same, the very ones they want to reform are going to give them the opportunity to do it."
"They're all like Allen," George sneered, "purchasable."
Bailly shook his head, waved his pipe vehemently.
"Virtue's flaws don't alter its really fundamental quality."
"Then you agree all Socialists are knaves or fools," George stormed.
"Perhaps, George," Bailly said, patiently, "you'll define a conservative for me. There. Never mind. Somewhere in between we may find an honest generosity, a wise sympathy. It may come from this war—a huge and wise balance of power of the right, an honest recognition of men as individuals rather than as members of classes. Perhaps your friend Wandel is on the track of something of the sort. I like to think it is really what the war is being fought for."
"The war," George said, "is being fought for men with fat paunches and pocket-books."
"Then you're quite sure you don't want to go?"
"Why should I as long as my stomach and my pocket-book are comfortable? But I'm not sure whether I'll go or not. That's what worries me."
"You've made," Bailly said, testily, "enough out of the war to warrant your giving it something."
George grinned. It was quite like old times.
"Even myself, on top of all the rest I might make out of it by staying back?"
"You're not as selfish as you'd have me believe," Bailly cried.
George quoted a phrase of Wandel's since Bailly seemed just now to approve of the adventurer.
"The man that keeps himself makes the world better."
Bailly drove him out of the room to dress for dinner.
"I won't talk to you any more," he said. "I won't curse the loiterer at the base until I am sure he isn't going to climb."
At least George wouldn't have to decide at once. When it became clear that for the present Mrs. Alston's optimism was justified he breathed easier. With Goodhue, Lambert, and Mundy he applied himself unreservedly to his work. Consequently he didn't visit much, didn't see Sylvia again until the fall when he met her at a dinner at the Goodhues'. She shrank from him perceptibly, but there was no escape. He studied her with an easier mind. No date for her wedding had been set. Until that moment should come there was nothing he could do. What he would be able to accomplish then was problematical. Something. She shouldn't throw herself away on Blodgett.
"It must be comforting," he heard her say to Goodhue, "to know if trouble comes your wonderful firm will be taken care of."
George guessed she had meant him to hear that.
"I'm sure I hope so," Goodhue answered her, "but what do you mean?"
"I heard Mr. Morton say once he didn't think he'd care to go to war. Didn't I, Mr. Morton?"
Goodhue, clearly puzzled by her manner, laughed.
"Give us something more useful, Sylvia. He's a born fighter."
"I believe I said it," George answered her. "There might be problems here I couldn't very well desert."
Her eyes wavered. He recalled her hysterical manner that evening at Oakmont. She still sought chances to hurt him. In spite of Blodgett, then, she recognized a state of contest between them. He smiled contentedly, for as long as that persisted his cause was alive.
It languished, however, during the winter as did Blodgett's hopes of a speedy wedding. The Planters' Fifth Avenue home remained closed, because of Mr. Planter's health. Sylvia and her mother went south with him. Blodgett made a number of flying trips, deserting his affairs to that extent to be with Sylvia. George was satisfied for the present to let things drift.
Dalrymple certainly had drifted with events. He had taken no pains to hide the shock of Sylvia's engagement. George of all people could understand his disappointment, his helpless rage; but Dalrymple hadn't bothered him, and he had about decided he never would.
One spring day, quite without warning, he appeared in George's office. It was not long after the Planters' return to Oakmont. What did he want here? Was there any point spending money on him as matters stood?
He looked at Dalrymple, a good deal surprised, reading the dissipation recorded in his face, the nervousness exposed by the mobile hands. All at once he understood why he had come at last. Dalrymple had wandered too far. The patience of his friends had been exhausted. Perhaps Wandel had taken George's hint. At any rate, he had let himself in for it.
"An opportunity to make a little money," Dalrymple was mumbling uneasily. "Need capital. Not much. You said at Blodgett's—just happened to remember it, and was near——"
"How much?" George demanded, stopping his feeble lies.
Dalrymple, George suspected, because of his manner, asked for less than half what he had come to get.
"What say to a couple thousand? Make it five hundred more if you can. Not much in the way of security."
"Never mind the security."
George pressed a button, and directed the clerk who responded to draw up a note.
"Got to sign something?" Dalrymple asked, suspiciously.
George smiled.
"Do you mind my keeping a little record of where my money goes—in place of security?"
Dalrymple was quite red.
"All right, if you insist."
"I insist. Care to change your mind?"
"No. Only thought it was just a little loan between—friends."
The word left his tongue with difficulty. George guessed that the other retained enough decency to loathe himself for having to use it. The nervousness of the long fingers increased while the clerk prepared the note and George wrote the check. George put a pen in the unsteady hand.
"Sign here, please."
Dalrymple obeyed with a signature, shaky, barely legible.
"Nice of you to do me a favour. Appreciate it. Thanks."
To George it would have been worth that money to find out just how Sylvia's extended engagement had affected Dalrymple. Was it responsible for his speeding up on the dangerous path of pleasure? Of that he could learn only what the other chose to disclose, probably nothing. But what was he waiting for now that he had the money? Why were his fingers twitching faster than ever?
"Didn't see Lambert when I came in," he managed.
"I daresay he's about," George said. "Want him?"
Dalrymple raised his hand.
"That's just it," he whispered. "Rather not see Lambert. Rather this little transaction were kept sub rosa. You understand. No point Lambert's knowing."
"Why not?" George asked, coolly, feeling himself on the edge of the truth.
"I'm a little off the Planters," Dalrymple said.
"Since when?"
Dalrymple's face became redder than ever. For a moment his nervousness abandoned him. He seemed to stiffen with violent thoughts.
"Don't like buying and selling of women in any family. Not as decent as slavery."
George rose quietly. He hadn't expected just this.
"Be careful," he warned. "What are you talking about?"
"What the whole town talks about," Dalrymple burst out. "You know her. I ask you. Hasn't she enough without selling herself, body and soul? No better than an unmentionable——"
George sprang. He didn't stop to tell himself that Dalrymple was unaccountable, in a sense, out of his head. He didn't dare stop, because he knew if Dalrymple finished that sentence he would try to kill him. Dalrymple's mouth fell open, in fact, before the unexpected attack. He couldn't complete the sentence, didn't try to; drew back against the desk instead; grasped a convenient ink container; threw it; called shrilly for help.
George shook the streaming black liquid from his face. With his stained hands he grasped Dalrymple. His fingers tightened with a feeling of profound satisfaction. No masks now! Finally the enmity of years was unleashed. He had Dalrymple where he had always wanted him.
"One more word——You been saying that kind of thing——"
The hurrying of many feet in the outer office recalled him. The impulsive George Morton crept back beneath the veneer. He let Dalrymple go, drew out his handkerchief, looked distastefully at the black stains on his clothing.
Lambert and Goodhue closed the door on the curious clerks.
"What in heaven's name——"
It was Lambert who had spoken. Goodhue merely shrugged his shoulders, as if he had all along expected such a culmination.
Dalrymple, fingering his throat spasmodically, sank in a chair. His face infused. His breath came audibly.
"Caught him harder than I realized," George reflected. He spoke aloud with his whimsical smile.
"Looks as if I'd lost my temper. I don't often do it."
He had no regret. He was happy. He believed himself nearer Sylvia than he had ever been. He felt in grasping Dalrymple's throat as if he had touched her hands.
He failed to give its true value, consequently, to Lambert's angry turning on him after Dalrymple's shaking accusation.
"Sorry, Lambert. Had to—to do what I could. He—he was rotten impertinent about—about—Sylvia."
Goodhue caught Lambert's arm. In a flash George read the meaning of Dalrymple's charge. Naturally he was the one to do something of the sort, had to try it. He had been afraid of Lambert's knowing of the loan. How much less could he let Lambert learn why George had justifiably shut his mouth.
"Keep quiet," George warned Lambert. "Dicky! Can you get him out of here. He needs attention. I'm not a doctor. He hasn't been himself since he came."
But Lambert wouldn't have it.
"Repeat that, Dolly," he commanded.
George walked to Dalrymple.
"You'll not say another word."
Dalrymple stood up, weaving his fingers in and out; as it were, clasping his hands to George.
"I'm sorry, Morton. Damn sorry. Forget—forget——"
His voice wandered into a difficult silence, as if he had seen this way, too, a chance of implicating himself with Sylvia's brother; but his eyes continued to beg George. They were like the eyes of an animal, caught in a net, beseeching release.
Goodhue gave him his hat. He took it but drew away from the other's touch on his arm.
"Don't think I'm not all right," he said in a frightened voice. "Took me by surprise, but I'm all right—quite all right. Going home."
He glanced at Lambert and again at George, then left the room, pulling at his necktie, Goodhue anxiously at his heels.
"What about it?" Lambert asked George sharply.
George sat down, still trying to rid himself of the black souvenirs of the encounter.
"Don't be a fool. I said nothing about your sister—nothing whatever."
He couldn't get rid of Dalrymple's begging eyes, yet why should he spare him at all?
"The rest of it," he went on, easily, "is between Dalrymple and me."
"I'm not sure," Lambert challenged.
He reminded George of the younger Lambert who had advanced with a whip in his hand.
"See here," he said. "You can't make me talk about anything I don't care to. I've told you I didn't mention your sister. I couldn't to that fellow."
Lambert spread his hands.
"What is there about you and Sylvia—ever since that day? I believe you, but I tried to give you a licking for her sake once, and I'd do it again."
George laughed pleasantly.
"You make me feel young."
Clearly Lambert meant to warn him, for he went on, still aggressive:
"I care more for her than anybody in the world."
The laughter left George's face.
"Anybody?"
Lambert was self-conscious now.
"Just about. See here. What are you driving at?"
George yawned.
"I must wash up. I've a lot of work to do."
"I'd like to know what went on here," Lambert said.
"Why don't you ask Dalrymple, then?"
"Dolly isn't all bad," Lambert offered as he left. "He's been my friend a good many years."
"Then by all means keep him," George answered, "and keep him to yourself; but when he comes around hang on to the ink pots."
His apparent good humour didn't survive the closing of the door. His dislike of Dalrymple fattened on his memory of the incident. It had left a sting. He hadn't stopped the man in time. Selling herself! Was she? She appeared to his mind, no longer intolerant, rather with an air of shame-faced apology for all the world. That was what hurt. He hadn't stopped Dalrymple in time.
But there was no sale yet, nothing whatever, except an engagement which, after a year, showed no symptoms of fruition. Blodgett was aware of it, and couldn't hide his anxiety. Evidently he wanted to talk about it, did talk about it to George when he met him in the hall not long after Dalrymple's visit.
"Why don't you ever run down to Oakmont with Lambert?" he asked.
Only Blodgett would have put such a question, and perhaps even he designed it merely as an entrance to his favourite topic. George evaded with a fairly truthful account of office pressure.
"Old Planter asks after you," Blodgett went on, uncomfortably. "Admires you, because you've done about what he had at your age, and it was easier then. Old man's not well. That's tough on Josiah."
"Tough?"
Blodgett mopped his face with a brilliant handkerchief. His rotund stomach rose and fell with a sigh.
"His gout's worse—all sorts of complications. She's the apple of his eye. Guess you know that. Won't desert him now. Wants to wait till he's better, or—or——"
He added naïvely:
"Hope to heaven he bucks up soon."
George watched Blodgett's hopes dwindle, for Old Planter didn't buck up, nor did he grow perceptibly worse. From time to time he visited his marble temple, but for the most part men went to him at Oakmont; Blodgett, of course, with his double errand of business and romance, most frequently of all. And Sylvia did cling to her father, but George's satisfaction increased, for he agreed with Wandel: she was capable of a feeling far more powerful than filial devotion. Blodgett, clearly, had failed to arouse it.
Her sense of duty, however, kept her nearly entirely away from George; for Lambert, either because Sylvia had spoken to him, or because he himself had sensed a false step, failed to repeat his invitation to Oakmont. The row with Dalrymple, although that had not been mentioned again, made it unlikely that he ever would.
Dalrymple had dropped out of sight. George heard vaguely that he was taking a rest cure in the northern part of the state. He couldn't fancy meeting him again without desiring to add to the punishment he had already given. The man was impossible. He had sneaked from that room, leaving the note in George's hands, the check in his own pocket. And the check had been cashed. No madness of excitement could account for that.
It wasn't until summer that he ran into him, and with a black temper saw Sylvia at his side. If she only knew! She ought to know. It increased his bad humour that he couldn't tell her.
He regretted the necessity that had made such a meeting possible. It had, however, for a long time impressed him. Even flabby old Blodgett had noticed, and had advised less work and more play. To combat his feeling of staleness, the relaxing of his long, carefully conditioned muscles, George had forced himself to play polo at a Long Island club into which he had hurried because of his skill at the game, or to take an occasional late round of golf, which he didn't care for particularly but which he managed very well in view of his inexperience. It was while he was ordering dinner with Goodhue one night at the Long Island club that Sylvia and Dalrymple drove up with the Sinclairs. The older pair came straight to the two, while Sylvia and Dalrymple followed with an obvious reluctance.
"We spirited her away for the night," Mrs. Sinclair explained.
She turned to Sylvia.
"My dear, I'll see that you don't cloister yourself any more. Your father's going on for years."
Yet it occurred to George, as he looked at her, that her cloistering had accomplished no change. The alteration in Dalrymple, on the other hand, was striking. George, as he met him with a difficult ease of manner, quite as if nothing had happened, couldn't account for it; for the light-headed look had gone from Dalrymple's eyes, and much of the stamp of dissipation from his face. His hands, too, were quiet. Was it credible he had forgotten the struggle in George's office? No. He had cashed the check; yet his manner suggested a blank memory except, perhaps, for its too-pronounced cordiality.
There was nothing for it but a dinner together. The Sinclairs expected it, and couldn't be made to understand why it should embarrass any one. Dalrymple really helped matters. His mind worked clearly, and he could, George had to acknowledge, exert a certain charm when he tried. Moreover, he didn't drink, even refusing the cocktail a waiter offered him just before they went inside.
As always George disliked speaking to Sylvia in casual tones of indifferent topics. She met him at first pleasantly enough on that ground—too pleasantly, so that he found himself waiting for some acknowledgment that she had not forgotten; that she still believed in their quarrel. It came at last rather sharply through the topic that was universal just then of General Wood's civilian training camps at Plattsburgh. Lambert had gone. Goodhue would follow the next month, having agreed to that arrangement for the sake of the office. Even Blodgett was there. Sylvia took a great pride in the fact, pointed it at George.
"Although," she laughed, "I'm told he's not popular with his tent mates. I hear he has a telephone fastened to his tent pole. I don't know whether that's true. He's never mentioned it. But I do know he has three secretaries in a house just off the reservation. Of course it's a sacrifice for him to be at Plattsburgh at all."
George stared at her. There was no question. Her voice, her face, expressed a tolerant liking for the man. The engagement had lasted considerably more than a year, and now she had an air of giving a public reminder of its ultimate outcome. Or was it for him alone, as her original announcement had been?
"I'm off next month," Goodhue said. "Lambert writes it's good fun and not at all uncomfortable."
"I'll be with you, Dicky," Dalrymple put in. "Beneficial affair, besides duty, and all that."
George experienced relief at the very moment he resented her attack most. It was still worth while trying to hurt him.
"Practically everyone has gone or is going. It's splendid. When are you booked for, Mr. Morton?"
Even the Sinclairs had silently asked that question. They looked at him expectantly.
"I'm not going at all," he answered, bluntly.
"I remember," she said. "You didn't believe in war or something, wasn't it? But this isn't exactly war."
George smiled.
"Scarcely," he said. "It's hiking, singing, playing cards, rattling off stories, largely done by some old men who couldn't get a job in the army of Methuselah. Why should I waste my time at that?"
"It's a start," Mr. Sinclair said, seriously. "We have to do something."
George hid his sneer. Everywhere the spirit was growing to make any kind of a drum that would bang.
"If you don't think Wilson will keep us out of it," he asked, earnestly, "why not get after Wilson and make him start something general, efficient, fundamental? I've never heard of a President who wasn't sensitive to the pressure of the country."
There was no use talking that way. These people were satisfied with the noise at Plattsburgh. He was glad when the meal ended, when he could get away.
At the automobile he managed to help Sylvia into her cloak, and he took the opportunity to whisper:
"When is the great event coming off?"
She turned, looked at him, and didn't answer. She mounted to the back seat beside Dalrymple.
George didn't see her again until winter. He heard through the desolate Blodgett that she had gone with her parents to the Canadian Rockies.
Nearly everyone seemed to flee north that summer as if in a final effort to cajole play. The Alstons moved to Maine unusually early, and didn't return until late fall. Betty put it plainly enough to him then.
"I'm sorry to be back. Don't you feel the desire to get as far away as possible from things, to escape?"
"To escape what, Betty?"
"That's just it. One doesn't know. Something one doesn't want to know."
It was queer that Betty never asked why he hadn't been to Plattsburgh, never urged a definite decision as to what he would do if——
The "if" lost a little of its power with him. At times he was even inclined to share Mrs. Alston's optimism. It was easy to drift with Washington. Besides, he was too busy to worry about much except his growing accumulation of profits from bloodshed. He was brought back momentarily when Lambert and Goodhue received commissions as captains in the reserve corps. The Plattsburgh noise still echoed. He couldn't help a feeling of relief when people flocked back and the town became normal again, encouraging him to believe that nothing could happen to tear him away from this fascinating pursuit of getting rich for Sylvia while he waited for her next move.
That came with a stark brutality a few weeks after the holidays. He had seen her only the evening before, sitting next to Blodgett at dinner with a remote expression in her eyes that had made him hopeful. The article in the morning newspaper, consequently, took him more by surprise than the original announcement of the engagement had done. Sylvia and Blodgett would be married on the fifteenth of the following August.
On top of that shock events combined to rebuke his recent confidence. His desires had taken too much for granted. The folly of the Mrs. Alstons and the wisdom of the Baillys and Sinclairs were forced upon him. Wilson wasn't going to keep them out of it. George stood face to face with the decision he had shirked when theLusitaniahad taken her fatal dive.
It couldn't be shirked again, for the declaration of war appeared to be a matter of days, weeks at the most. The drum was beginning to sound with a rising resonance. Lambert and Goodhue would be among the first to leave. Already they made their plans. They didn't seem to care what became of the business.
"What are you up to, George?" they asked.
He put them off. He wanted to think it out. He didn't care to have his decision blurred by the rattling of a drum. Yet it was patent to him if he should go at all it would be with his partners, among the first. The thought of such a triple desertion appalled him. Mundy was incomparable for system and routine, but if he had possessed the rare selective foresight demanded for the steering of a big business he would long since have been at the helm of his own house. It would be far better, if George had to go, to sell the stock and the mass of soaring securities the firm had acquired; in short, to close out before competitors could squeeze the abandoned ship from the channel.
Why dwell on so wasteful an alternative? Why not turn sanely from so sentimental a choice? It was clear enough to him that it would not long survive the war, all this singing and shouting, this driving forth by older people on the winds of a safe enthusiasm of countless young men to grotesque places of death.
He paced his room. That was just it. It was the present he had to consider, and the present thoughts of people who hadn't yet returned to their inevitable practicality, forgetfulness, and ingratitude; most of all to the present thoughts of Sylvia. To him she had made those thoughts sufficiently plain. Among non-combatant enthusiasts she would be the most exigent. Why swing from choice to choice any longer? To be as he had fancied she would wish, he had struggled, denied, kept himself clean, sought minutely for the proper veneer; and so far he had kept his record straight. With her it was his one weapon. He couldn't throw that away.
He stopped his pacing. He sat before his desk, his head in his hands, listening to the cacophanous beating of drums by the majority for the anxious marching of a few.
It was settled. He had always known it would be, in just that way.
George took his physical examination at Governor's Island with the earliest of the candidates for the First Officers' Training Camp. As soon as he had returned to his office he wrote to Bailly:
"I'm going to your cheerful war, after all. I'll drop in the end of the week."
He summoned Lambert and Goodhue. Until then he had told them nothing definite.
"Of course," he said, "we'll have a few months, but before we leave America everything will have to be settled. We'll have to know just where we stand."
Into the midst of their sombre discussion slipped the tinkling of the telephone. George answered. He glanced at the others.
"It's Blodgett. Wants me right away. Something important."
He hurried down, wondering what was up. Blodgett's voice had vibrated with an unaccustomed passion that had left with George an impression of whole-hearted revolt; and when he got in the massive, over-decorated office his curiosity grew, for Blodgett looked as if he had dressed against time and without valet or mirror. The straggly pale hair about the ears was rumpled. His necktie was awry. The pudgy hands shook a trifle. George's heart quickened. Blodgett had had bad news. What was the worst news Blodgett could have?
"I know," Blodgett began, "that you and your partners have passed and are going to Plattsburgh to become officers."
All at once George caught the meaning of Blodgett's disarray, and his hope was replaced by a mirth he had difficulty hiding.
"You don't mean you've been over to Governor's Island——"
Blodgett stood up.
"Yes," he confessed, solemnly. "Just got back from my physical examination. Would you believe it, George, the darned fools wouldn't have me, because I'm too fat? Called it obese, as if it was some kind of a disease, instead of just my natural inclination to fleshiness."
One of his pudgy hands struck his chest.
"Never stopped to see that my heart's all right, and that's what we want, people whose hearts are all right."
Momentarily the enmity aroused by circumstances fled from George. The man was genuine, suffering from a devastating disappointment; but surely he hadn't called him downstairs only to witness this outbreak.
Blodgett lowered himself to his chair. He wiped his face with one of his gay handkerchiefs. He spoke reasonably.
"My place is at home. All right. I'll make it easier then for the thin people that can go. I'm going to look after you boys. Mundy's not big enough. I've got a man in view I can keep tabs on, and Blodgett'll always be sitting down here seeing you don't get stung."
He sighed profoundly.
"Guess that'll have to be my share."
George would rather have had the man curse him. It struck directly at his pride to submit to this unmasking of his jealous opinion. He strangled his quick impulse to reach forward, to grasp Blodgett's hand, to beg his pardon. Instead he tried to find ways of avoiding the generous gift.
"We can't settle anything yet. A dozen circumstances may arise. The war may end——"
"When you go, George," Blodgett said, wistfully.
And George knew that in the end he couldn't refuse without disclosing everything; that his partners wouldn't let him. It added strangely enough to his discomfort that he should leave the disappointed man with a confident feeling that he need make no move to see Sylvia before going to Plattsburgh. In any case, the camp ought to be over before the fifteenth of August.
His partners were pleased enough by his recital, and determined to accept Blodgett's offer.
"He's the most generous soul that ever lived," Goodhue said, warmly.
Lambert agreed, but George thought he detected a troubled light in his eyes.
Blodgett's generosity continued to worry George, to accuse him. After all, Blodgett had accomplished a great deal more than he. With only one of the necessities he had made friends, had become engaged to Sylvia Planter. No. There was something besides that. He had had an unaffected personality to offer, and—he had said it himself—a heart that was all right.
George asked himself now if Blodgett had helped him in the first place, not because he had been Mr. Alston and Dicky Goodhue's friend, but simply because he had liked him. He was inclined to believe it. He had reached the point where he admitted that many people had been friendly and useful to him because he had what Blodgett lacked, an exceptional appearance, a rugged power behind acquired graces. Squibs, he realized, had put his finger on that long ago. He was glad he was going down. The tutor would give him his usual disciplinary tonic.
But it was a changed Squibs that met George; a nearly silent Squibs, who spoke only to praise; a slightly apprehensive Squibs. George tried to reassure Mrs. Bailly.
"Three months at Plattsburgh, then nobody knows how much longer to whip our division into shape. The war will probably be over before we get across."
But she didn't believe it, nor did her husband.
"You'll be in it, George, before the war's over. Do you know, you're nearer paying me back than you've ever been."
George was uncomfortable before such adulation.
"Please don't think," he protested, "that I'm going over for any tricky ideals or to save a lot of advanced thinkers from their utter folly."
"Then what are you going for?" Bailly asked.
George was surprised that he lacked an answer.
"Oh, because one has to go," he evaded.
Bailly's smile was contented.
"What better reason could any man want?"
They had an air of showing him about Princeton as if he must absorb its beauties for the last time. Their visit to the Alstons was shrouded with all the sullen accompaniments of a permanent farewell. George was inclined to smile. He hadn't got as far as weighing his chances of being hit; the present was too crowded, stretched too far; included Betty, for instance, and Lambert whom he was surprised to find in the Tudor house, prepared to remain evidently until he should leave for Plattsburgh. The Alstons misgivings centred rather obviously on Lambert. George, when he took Betty's hand to say good-bye that evening, felt with a desolate regret that for the first time in all their acquaintance her fingers failed to reach his mind.