The Guarded Heights
"I don't know how to advise you. I believe he'll help you delve after
some treasure, though the stains on his own hands won't be visible.
Whether it's just the treasure you want is another matter. Be
inscrutable yourself. Accept his invitations. If you can, find out what
he's up to without committing yourself. You can put it down that he
isn't after you for nothing."
"But why?" George demanded.
Bailly shrugged his narrow shoulders.
"Anyway, I've told you what I could, and you'll go your own way whether
you agree or not."
George did, as a matter of fact. His curiosity carried him a number of
times to Wandel's rooms. Practically always Dalrymple sat aloof,
sullenly sipping whiskey which had no business there. He met a number of
other men of the same crowd who talked football in friendly enough
fashion; and once or twice the suave little fellow made a point of
asking him for a particular day or hour. Always Wandel would introduce
him to some new man, offering him, George felt, as a specimen to be
accepted as a triumph of the Wandel judgment. And in every fresh face
George saw the question he continually asked himself.
Wandel's campaign accomplished one result: Men like Rogers became more
obsequious, considering George already a unit of that hallowed circle.
But George wasn't fooled. He knew very well that he wasn't.
Goodhue, however, was more friendly. Football, after all, George felt,
was quite as responsible for that as Betty Alston or Wandel; for it was
the combination of Goodhue at quarter and George at half that accounted
for the team's work against the varsity, and that beat the Yale and the
Harvard Freshmen. Such a consistent and effectual partnership couldn't
help drawing its members closer out of admiration, out of joy in
success, out of a ponderable dependence that each learned to place upon
the other. That conception survived the Freshman season. George no
longer felt he had to be careful with Goodhue. Goodhue had even found
his lodgings.
"Not palatial," George explained, "because--you may not know it--I am
working my way through college."
Goodhue's voice was a trifle envious.
"I know. It must give you a fine feeling to do that."
Then Betty's vague invitation materialized in a note which mentioned a
date and the fact that Goodhue would be there. Goodhue himself suggested
that George should call at his rooms that evening so they could drive
out together. George had never been before, had not suspected that
Dalrymple lived with Goodhue. The fact, learned at the door, which bore
the two cards, disquieted him, filled him with a sense nearly
premonitory.
When he had entered in response to Goodhue's call his doubt increased.
The room seemed inimical to him, yet it was a normal enough place. What
did it harbour that he was afraid of, that he was reluctant even to look
for?
Goodhue was nearly ready. Dalrymple lounged on a window seat. He glanced
at George languidly.
"Will say, Morton, you did more than your share against those Crimson
Freshmen Saturday."
George nodded without answering. He had found the object the room
contained for which he had experienced a premonitory fear. On one of the
two desks stood an elaborately framed replica of the portrait he himself
possessed of Sylvia Planter. Its presence there impressed him as a
wrong, for to study and commune with that pictured face he had fancied
his unique privilege. Nor did its presence in this room seem quite
honest, for Sylvia, he was willing to swear, wasn't the type to scatter
her likenesses among young men. George had an instinct to turn on
Dalrymple and demand a history of the print, since Goodhue, he was
certain, wouldn't have placed it there without authority. After all,
such authority might exist. What did he know of Sylvia aside from her
beauty, her arrogance, and her breeding? That was it. Her breeding made
the exposure of her portrait here questionable.
"What you staring at?" Dalrymple asked, sullenly.
"Is this your desk?" George demanded.
"Yes. Why?"
George faced him abruptly.
"I was looking at that photograph."
"What for?" Dalrymple demanded, sitting up.
"Because," George answered, evenly, "it happens to be where one sees
it."
Dalrymple flushed.
"Deuced pretty girl," he said with an affectation of indifference. "Of
course you don't know her."
"I have seen her," George said, shortly.
He felt that a challenge had been passed and accepted. He raised his
voice.
"How about it, Goodhue?"
"Coming."
Dalrymple opened his mouth as if to speak, but Goodhue slipped into the
room, and George and he went down the stairs and climbed into Goodhue's
runabout.
"I didn't know," George said when they had started, "that you lived with
Dalrymple."
"We were put together at school, so it seemed simple to start out here."
George was glad to fancy a slight colour of apology, as if such a
companionship needed a reason.
It was a pleasant and intimate little dinner to which they drove. Mr.
and Mrs. Alston recollected meeting George at the Baillys', and they
were kind about his football. A friend of Betty's from a neighbouring
house made the sixth. George was not uncomfortable. His glass had shown
him that in a dinner suit he was rather better looking than he had
thought. Observation had diminished his dread of social lapses. There
flowed, however, rather too much talk of strange worlds, which included
some approaching gaieties in New York.
"You," Betty said casually to him, "must run up to my great affair."
Her aunt, it appeared, would engineer that a short time before the
holidays. George was vague. The prospect of a ballroom was terrifying.
He had danced very little, and never with the type of women who would
throng Betty Alston's debut. Yet he wanted to go.
"Betty," her mother said, dryly, "will have all the lions she can trap."
George received an unpleasant impression of having been warned. It
didn't affect him strongly, because warnings were wasted there; he was
too much the slave of a photograph and a few intolerable memories.
Sylvia would almost certainly be at that dance.
Wandel appeared after dinner.
"I tried to get Dolly to come," he said, "but he was in a most
villainous temper about something, and couldn't be budged. Don't mind
saying he missed a treat. I hired a pert little mare at Marlin's. If I
can find anything in town nearly as good I'll break the two to tandem
this winter."
George's suppressed enthusiasm blazed.
"I'd like to help you. I'd give a good deal for a real fight with a
horse."
He was afraid he had plunged in too fast. He met the surprise of the
others by saying he had played here and there with other people's
horses; but the conversation had drifted to a congenial topic, and it
got to polo.
"Because a man was killed here once," Wandel said, "is no reason why the
game should be damned forever."
"If you young men," Mr. Alston offered, "want to get some ponies down in
the spring, or experiment with what I've got, you're welcome to play
here all you please, and it might be possible to arrange games with
scrub teams from Philadelphia and New York."
"Do you play, Mr. Morton?" Betty asked, interestedly.
"I've scrubbed around," he said, uncertainly.
She laughed.
"Then he's a master. That's what he told dear old Squibs about his
football."
George wanted to get away from horses. He could score only through
action. Talking was dangerous. He was relieved when he could leave with
Goodhue and Wandel.
The runabout scurried out of Wandel's way. The pert little mare sensed a
rival in the automobile, and gave Wandel all the practice he wanted.
George smiled at the busy little man as his cart slithered from side to
side of the driveway.
"That's Spike's one weakness," Goodhue laughed as they hurried off.
"He's not a natural horseman, but he loves the beasts, so he takes his
falls. By the way, I rather think I can guess what he's up to with you."
"What?" George asked.
Goodhue shook his head.
"Learn from Spike. Anyway, I may be wrong."
Then why had Goodhue spoken at all? To put him on his guard?
"Wandel," George promised himself, "will get away with nothing as far as
I am concerned."
Yet all that night the thought of the little man made him uncomfortable.
XIV
George watched his first big varsity game the following Saturday. It was
the last of the season, against Yale. He sat with Goodhue and other
members of the Freshman eleven in an advantageous part of the stands.
The moment the blue squad, greeted by a roar, trotted on the field, he
recognized Lambert Planter's rangy figure. Lambert's reputation as a
fullback had come to Princeton ahead of him, and it had scarcely been
exaggerated. Once he had torn through the line he gave the Princeton
backs all they wanted to do. He kicked for Yale. Defensively he was the
deadliest man on the field. He, George and Goodhue agreed, would
determine the outcome. As, through him, the balance of the contest
commenced to tip, George experienced a biting restlessness. It wasn't
the prospect of the defeat of Princeton by Yale that angered him so much
as the fact that Lambert Planter would unquestionably be the cause.
George felt it unjust that rules should exist excluding him from that
bruising and muddy contest. More than anything else just then he wanted
to be on the field, stopping Planter, avoiding the reluctance of such an
issue.
"We ought to be out there, Morton," Goodhue muttered. "If nothing
happens, we will be next year."
"It's that fellow Planter," George answered. "He could be stopped."
"You could stop him," Goodhue said. "You could outkick him."
George's face was grim.
"I'm stronger than Planter," he said, simply. "I could beat him."
The varsity, however, couldn't. Lambert, during the last quarter,
slipped over the line for the deciding touchdown. The game ended in a
dusky and depressing autumn haze. George and Goodhue watched sullenly
the enemy hosts carry Planter and the other blue players about the
field. Appearing as if they had survived a disaster, they joined the
crowd of men and women, relatives and friends of the players, near the
field house. The vanquished and the substitutes had already slipped
through and out of sight. The first of the steaming Yale men appeared
and threaded a path toward the steps. Lambert, because he had been
honoured most, was the last to arrive, and at that moment out of the
multitude there came into George's vision faces that he knew, as if they
had waited to detach themselves for this spectacular advent.
He saw the most impressive one first of all, and he stood, as he had
frequently stood before her portrait, staring in a mood of wilful
obstinacy. It was only for a few moments, and she was quite some
distance away. Before he could appreciate the chance, she had withdrawn
herself, after a quick, approving tap of her brother's shoulder, among
the curious, crowding people. George had seen her face glow with a happy
pride in spite of her effort at repression; but in the second face which
he noticed there was no emotion visible at all. The hero's mother simply
nodded. Dalrymple stood between mother and daughter, smiling inanely.
Lambert forged ahead, filthy and wet. The steam, like vapour from an
overworked animal, wavered about him. The Baillys and the Alstons pushed
close to George and Goodhue, who were in Lambert's path, pressed there
and held by the anxious people.
At sight of Betty, Lambert paused and stretched out his hand. She was,
George thought, whiter than ever.
"You'll say hello even to an Eli?"
She gave her hand quickly, the colour invading her pallor. For an
instant George thought Lambert was going to draw her closer, saw his
lips twitch, heard him say:
"Don't hold it against me, Betty."