The Guarded Heights
Certainly something was understood between these two, or Lambert, at
least, believed so.
Betty freed her hand and caught at George's arm.
"Look at him," she said clearly, indicating Planter. "You're going to
take care of him next fall. You're not going to let him laugh at us
again."
George managed a smile.
"I'll take care of him, Miss Alston."
Lambert's dirty face expanded.
"These are threats! And it's--George. Then we're to have a return bout
next fall. I'll look forward to it. Hello, Dick. Good-bye, Betty. Till
next fall--George."
He passed on, leaving an impression of confidence and conquest.
"Why," Betty said, impulsively, in George's ear, "does he speak to you
that way? Why does he call you George like that?"
For a moment he looked at her steadily, appealingly.
"It's partly my own fault," he said at last, "but it hurts."
Her voice was softer than before.
"That's wrong. You mustn't let little things hurt, George."
For the first time in his memory he felt a stinging at his eyes, the
desire for tears. He didn't misunderstand. Her use of his first name was
not a precedent. It had been balm applied to a wound that she had only
been able to see was painful. Yet, as he walked away with Goodhue, he
felt as if he had been baptized again.
XV
Wandel, quite undisturbed, joined them.
"You and Dicky," the little man said, "look as if you had come out of a
bad wreck. What's up? It's only a game."
"Of course you're right," George answered, "but you have to play some
games desperately hard if you want to win."
"Now what are you driving at, great man?" Wandel wanted to know.
"Come on, Spike," Goodhue said, irritably. "You're always looking for
double meanings."
George walked on with them, desolately aware of many factors of his life
gone awry. The game; Lambert's noticeable mockery, all the more
unbearable because of its unaffectedness; Dalrymple's adjacence to
Sylvia--these remembrances stung, the last most of all.
"Come on up, you two," Goodhue suggested as they approached the building
in which he lived, "I believe Dolly's giving tea to Sylvia Planter and
her mother."
George wanted to see if the photograph was still there, but he couldn't
risk it. He shook his head.
"Not into the camp of the enemy?" Wandel laughed.
Of course, George told himself as he walked off, Wandel's words couldn't
possibly have held any double meaning.
He fought it out that night, sleeping scarcely at all. In the rush of
his progress here he had failed to realize how little he had really
advanced toward his ultimate goal. Lambert had offhand, perhaps
unintentionally, shown him that afternoon how wide the intervening space
still stretched. Was it because of moral cowardice that he shrank from
challenging a crossing? The answer to such a challenge might easily mean
the destruction of all he had built up, the heavy conditioning of his
future which now promised so abundantly.
He faced her picture with his eyes resolute, his jaw thrust out.
"I'll do it," he told the lifeless print. "I'll make you know me. I'll
teach your brother not to treat me as a servant who has forgotten his
place."
The last, in any case, couldn't be safely put off. Lambert's manner had
already aroused Betty's interest. Had she known its cause she might not
have resented it so sweetly for George. There was no point in fretting
any more. His mind was made up to challenge at the earliest possible
moment.
In furtherance of his resolution he visited his tailor the next day, and
during the evening called at the Baillys'. He came straight to the
point.
"I want some dancing lessons," he said. "Do you know anybody?"
Bailly limped up, put his hands on George's shoulder, and studied him.
"Is this traceable to Wandel?"
"No. To what I told you last summer."
"He's going to Betty Alston's dance," Mrs. Bailly cried.
"If I'm asked," George admitted, "but as a general principle----"
Mrs. Bailly interrupted, assuming control.
"Move that table and the chairs," she directed the two men. "You'll keep
my husband's secret--tinkling music hidden away between grand opera
records. It will come in handy now."
George protested, but she had her own way. Bailly sat by, puffing at his
pipe, at first scornful.
"I hate to see a football player pirouetting like a clown."
But in a little while he was up, awkwardly illustrating steps, his
cheeks flushed, his cold pipe dangling from his lips.
"You dance very well as it is," Mrs. Bailly told George. "You do need a
little quieting. You must learn to remember that the ballroom isn't a
gridiron and your partner the ball."
And at the end of a fortnight she told him he was tamed and ready for
the soft and perfumed exercise of the dance floor.
He was afraid Betty wouldn't remember. Her invitation had been informal,
his response almost a refusal.
On free afternoons Goodhue and he often ran together, trying to keep in
condition, already feeling that the outcome of next year's big games
would depend on them. They trotted openly through the Alston place,
hoping for a glimpse of Betty as a break in their grind. When she saw
them from the house she would come out and chat for a time, her yellow
hair straying in the wind, her cheeks flushed from the cold. During
these brief conferences it was made clear that she had not forgotten,
and that George would go up with Goodhue and be a guest at his home the
night of the dance.
George was grateful for that quality of remoteness in Goodhue which at
first had irritated him. Now he was well within Goodhue's vision, and
acceptably so; but the young man had not shown the slightest interest in
his past or his lack of the right friends before coming to Princeton. At
any moment he might.
The Goodhue house was uptown between Fifth and Madison avenues. It was
as unexpected to George as Wandel's green study had been. The size of
its halls and rooms, the tasteful extravagance of its decorations, the
quiet, liveried servants took his breath. It was difficult not to say
something, to withhold from his glance his admiration and his lack of
habit.
There he was at last, handing his hat and coat to one who bent
obsequiously. He felt a great contempt. He told himself he was unjust,
as unjust as Sylvia, but the contempt persisted.
There were details here more compelling than anything he had seen or
fancied at Oakmont. The entire household seemed to move according to a
feudal pattern. Goodhue's father and mother welcomed George, because
their son had brought him, with a quiet assurance. Mrs. Goodhue, George
felt, might even appreciate what he was doing. That was the outstanding,
the feudal, quality of both. They had an air of unprejudiced judgment,
of removal from any selfish struggle, of being placed beyond question.
Goodhue and George dined at a club that night. They saw Wandel and
Dalrymple, the latter flushed and talking louder than he should have
done in an affected voice. They went to the theatre, and afterward drove
up Fifth Avenue to Betty's party. George was dazzled, and every moment
conscious of the effort to prevent Goodhue's noticing it. His excitement
increased as he came to the famous establishment in the large ballroom
of which Betty was waiting, and, perhaps, already, Sylvia. To an extent
the approaching culmination of his own campaign put him at ease; lifted
him, as it were, above details; left him free to face the moment of his
challenge.
The lower halls were brilliant with pretty, eager faces, noisy with
chatter and laughter, a trifle heady from an infiltration of perfumes.
Wandel joined them upstairs and took George's card, returning it after a
time nearly filled.
"When you see anybody you particularly want to dance with," he advised
secretly, "just cut in without formality. The mere fact of your presence
ought to be introduction enough. You see everybody here knows, or thinks
he knows, everybody else."
George wondered why Wandel went out of his way, and in that particular
direction. Did the little man suspect? The succeeding moments brushed
the question aside.
Betty was radiant, lovelier in her white-and-yellow fashion than George
had ever seen her. He shrank a little from their first contact, all the
more startling to him because he was so little accustomed to the ritual
familiarity of dancing. With his arm around her, with her hand in his,
with her golden hair brushing his cheek, with her lips and eyes smiling
up at him, he felt like one who steals. Why not? Didn't people win their
most prized possessions through theft of one kind or another? It was
because those pliant fingers were always at his mind that he wanted to
release them, wanted to run away from Betty since she always made him
desire to tell her the truth.
"I'm glad you could come. It isn't as bad as football, is it? Have we
any more? If I show signs of distress do cut in if you're not too busy."
He overcame his fear of collisions, avoiding other couples smoothly and
rhythmically. Dalrymple, he observed, was less successful, apologizing
in a high, excited voice. As in a haze George watched a procession of
elderly women, young girls, and men of every age, with his own tall
figure and slightly anxious face greeting him now and then from a
mirror. This repeated and often-unexpected recognition encouraged him.
He was bigger and better looking than most; in the glasses, at least, he
appeared as well-dressed. More than once he heard girls say:
"Who is that big chap with Betty Alston?"
With all his heart he wanted to ask Betty why she had been so kind to
him from the beginning, why she was so kind now. He longed to tell her
how it had affected him. She glanced up curiously. Without realizing it
his grasp had tightened. He relaxed it, wondering what had been in his
mind. It was this odd proximity to a beautiful girl who had been kind to
him that had for a moment swung him from his real purpose in coming
here, the only purpose he had. He resumed his inspection of the crowding
faces. He didn't see Lambert or Sylvia. Had he been wrong? It was
incredible they shouldn't appear.
The music stopped.
"Thanks," he said. "Three after this."
His voice was wistful.
"I did like that."
He desired to tell her that he didn't care to dance with any one else,
except Sylvia, of course.
"I enjoyed it, too. Will you take me back?"
But her partner met them on the way, and he commenced to trail his.
It was halfway through the next number that he knew he had not planned
futilely. It was like Sylvia to arrive in that fashion--a distracting
element in a settled picture, or as one beyond the general run for whom
a special welcome was a matter of course. To George's ears the orchestra
played louder, as if to call attention to her. To his eyes the dancers
slackened their pace. The chatter certainly diminished, and nearly
everyone glanced toward the door where she stood a little in advance of
her mother and two men.
George was able to judge reasonably. In dress and appearance she was the
most striking woman in the room. Her dark colouring sprang at one,
demanding attention. George saw Dalrymple unevenly force a path in her
direction. He caught his breath. The dance resumed its former rhythm. In
its intricacies Sylvia was for a time lost.
Sometime later Lambert drifted in. George saw him dancing with Betty. He
also found Sylvia. He managed to direct his partner close to her a
number of times. She must have seen him, but her eyes did not waver or
her colour heighten. He wouldn't ask for an introduction. There was no
point. His imagination pictured a number of probable disasters. If he
should ask her to dance would she recognize him, and laugh, and demand,
so that people could hear, how he had forced a way into this place?