The Guarded Heights
insisted on the fact that his candidate was working his way through
college, and would always be near the top scholastically. He represented
a section of the class that the more fortunate of the students were
prone to forget. And so on--a condensation of his complaints to George.
The room filled with suspense, which broke into loud laughter when Allen
named a man of absolutely no importance or colour, who couldn't poll
more than the votes of his personal friends. A trick, George guessed it,
and everyone else. But Wandel was quickly moving that the nominations be
closed. Allen glanced around with a worried, expectant air. Then George
saw that Rogers was up--a flushed, nervous figure--and had got the
floor. He spoke rapidly, nearly unintelligibly.
"My candidate doesn't need any introduction," he recited. "All factions
can unite on him--the man that smashed the Yale and Harvard Freshmen.
The man who is going to smash the Yale and Harvard varsities this
year--George Morton!"
A cheer burst out, loud, from the heart. George saw that it came from
both sides. The poor men had been stampeded, too.
Goodhue was on his feet, his arms upraised, demanding recognition.
Suddenly George realized what this meant to Goodhue, and temper replaced
his amazement. He sprang up, shouting:
"I won't have it----"
A dozen pairs of hands dragged him down. A dozen voices cried in his
ears:
"Shut up, you damned fool!"
XXIV
Goodhue got the floor and withdrew his name, but the chairman wouldn't
see or hear George. He declared the nominations closed. It was as if he
and all the lesser men, who weren't leading factions, had seen in
George the one force that could pull the class together. The vote was
perfunctory, and Allen lazily moved to make it unanimous. George took
the chair, frowning, altogether unhappy in his unforeseen victory. He
had a feeling of having shabbily repaid Goodhue's loyalty and sacrifice,
yet it hadn't been his fault; but would Goodhue know that?
"Speech! Shoot something, George! Talk up there, Mr. President!"
He'd give them a speech to chew over.
"Back-door politicians have done their best to split the class. The
class has taken matters into its own hands. There isn't going to be a
split. It won't be long before you'll have Prospect Street off your
minds. That seems to be two thirds of the trouble. Let's forget it, and
pull together, and leave Princeton a little better than we found it. If
you think anything needs reform let's talk about it openly and sensibly,
clubs and all. I appreciate the honour, but Dick Goodhue ought to have
had it, would have had it, if he hadn't been born with a silver spoon.
Ought a man's wealth or poverty stand against him here? Think it over.
That's all."
There was no opposition to Goodhue's election as Secretary.
Allen slipped to George at the close of the meeting.
"About what I'd have expected of you, anyway."
But George was looking for Goodhue, found him, and walked home with him.
"Best thing that could have happened," Goodhue said. "They're all
marvelling at your nerve for talking about Prospect Street as you did."
George spied Rogers, and beckoned the freshly prominent youth.
"See here, young man, please come to my room after practice."
Rogers, with a frightened air, promised. Wandel appeared before, quite
as if nothing had happened. He wouldn't even talk about the election.
"Just the same, Warwick," George said, "I'm not at all sure a poler
named Allen couldn't tell you something about juggling crowns."
"A penetrating as well as a great president," Wandel smiled. "I haven't
thanked you yet for joining our club."
George looked straight at him.
"But I've thanked Dicky for it," he said.
Rogers, when he arrived after Wandel's departure, didn't want to
confess, but George knew how to get it out of him.
"You've put your finger in my pie without my consent," he said. "I'll
hold that against you unless you talk up. Besides, it won't go beyond
Goodhue and me. It's just for our information."
"All right," Rogers agreed, nervously, "provided it doesn't go out of
this room. And there's no point mentioning names. A man we all know came
to me this morning and talked about the split in the class. He couldn't
get Goodhue elected because he didn't have any way of buying the support
of the poor men. Allen, he figured, was going to nominate a lame duck,
and then have somebody not too rich and not too poor spring his own
name, figuring he would get the votes of the bulk of the class which
just can't help being jealous of Goodhue and his little crowd. This chap
thought he could beat Allen at that game by stampeding the class for you
before Allen could get himself up, and he wanted somebody representative
of the bulk of the class, that holds the balance of power, to put you in
nomination. He figured even the poor men would flock to you in spite of
Allen's opposition."
"And what did he offer you?" George sneered.
Rogers turned away without answering.
"Like Driggs," Goodhue said, when Rogers had gone. "He couldn't have
what he wanted, but he got about as good. Politically, what's the
difference? Both offices are in his crowd, but he's avoided making you
look like his president."
George grinned.
"I don't wonder you call him Spike."
XXV
George, filled with a cold triumph, stared for a long time at Sylvia's
portrait that night. If she thought of him at all she would have to
admit he had come closer. At Princeton he was as big a man as her rich
brother was at Yale. He belonged to a club where her own kind gathered.
Give him money--and he was going to have that--and her attitude must
alter. He bent the broken crop between his fingers, his triumph fading.
He had come closer, but not close enough to hurt.
The Baillys and Betty congratulated him at practice the next day.
"You were the logical man," Betty said, "but the politicians didn't seem
to want you."
Bailly drew him aside.
"It was scandal in the forum," he said, "that money and the clubs were
an issue in this election."
George fingered his headgear, laughing unpleasantly.
"Yes, and they elected a poor man; a low sort of a fellow with a
shadowed past."
"Forget your past," Bailly pled, "and remember in the present that the
poor men, who helped elect you, are looking for your guidance. They need
help."
"Then," George said, "why didn't they get themselves elected so they
could help themselves?"
"Into the world there are born many cripples," Bailly said, softly.
"Would you condemn them for not running as fast as the congenitally
sound?"
"Trouble is, they don't try to run," George answered.
He looked at the other defiantly. Bailly had to know. It was his right.
"I can guess what house I'm going to on Prospect Street."
"Which?" Bailly sighed.
"To the very home of reaction," George laughed. "But it's easier to
reform from the inside."
"No," Bailly said, gravely. "The chairs are too comfortable."
He pressed George's arm.
"It isn't the clubs here that worry me in relation to you. It's the
principle of the lights behind the railing in the restless world. Try
not to surrender to the habit of the guarded light."
George was glad when Stringham called from the field.
"Jump in here, Morton!"
He took his turn at the dummy scrimmage. Such exercise failed to offer
its old zest, nor was it the first day he had appreciated that. The
intrusion of these unquiet struggles might be responsible, yet, with
them determined in his favour, his anxiety did not diminish. Was Bailly
to blame with his perpetual nagging about the outside world where grave
decisions waited? George frankly didn't want to face them. They seemed
half-decipherable signposts which tempted him perplexingly and
precariously from his path. What had just happened, added to the passage
of a year and his summer in Wall Street, had brought that headlong world
very close, had outlined too clearly the barriers which made it
dangerous; so even here he spent some time each night studying the
changing lines in the battle for money.
Yet Goodhue, with a settled outlook, shared George's misgivings at the
field.
"It isn't the fun it was Freshman year," he grumbled one night. "We used
to complain then that they worked us too hard. Now I don't believe they
work us hard enough."
That was a serious doubt for two men who realized they alone might save
inferior if eager material from defeat; and it grew until they resumed
surreptitiously the extra work they had attempted hitherto only outside
of the season or just at its commencement. Then it had not interfered
with Green's minutely studied scheme of physical development. Now it
did. The growth of their worry, moreover, measured the decline of their
condition. These apprehensions had a sharper meaning for George than for
his room-mate. Almost daily he saw his picture on the sporting pages of
newspapers. "Morton of Princeton, the longest kicker in the game." "The
keystone of the Princeton attack." "The man picked to lead Stringham's
hopes to victory over Harvard and Yale." And so on. Exaggeration, George
told himself, that would induce the university, the alumni, the Baillys,
Betty, and Sylvia--most of all Sylvia--to expect more than he could
reasonably give at his best.
"Don't forget you've promised to take care of Lambert Planter----"
In some form Betty repeated it every time George saw her. It irritated
him--not that it really made any difference--that Lambert Planter should
occupy her mind to that extent. No emotion as impersonal as college
spirit would account for it; and somehow it did make a difference.
George suspected the truth a few days before the Harvard game, and
persuaded Goodhue to abandon all exercise away from Green's watchful
eye; but he went on the field still listless, irritable, and stale.
That game, as so frequently happens, was the best played and the
prettiest to watch of the season. George wondered if Sylvia was in the
crowd. There was no question about her being at New Haven next week. He
wanted to save his best for that afternoon when she would be sure to see
him, when he would take her brother on for another thrashing. But it
wasn't in him to hold back anything, and the cheering section, where
Squibs sat, demanded all he had. To win this game, it became clear after
the first few plays, would take an exceptional effort. Only George's
long and well-calculated kicking held down the Harvard attack. Toward
the close of the first half a fumble gave Princeton the ball on
Harvard's thirty-yard line, and Goodhue for the first time seriously
called on George to smash the Harvard defence. With his effort some of
the old zest returned. Twice he made it first down by inches.
"Stick to your interference," Goodhue was begging him between each play.
Then, with his interference blocked and tumbling, George yielded to his
old habit, and slipped off to one side at a hazard. The enemy secondary
defence had been drawing in, and there was no one near enough to stop
him within those ten yards, and he went over for a touchdown, and
casually kicked the goal.
When, a few minutes later, he walked off the field, he experienced no
elation. He realized all at once how tired he was. Like a child he
wanted to go to Stringham and say:
"Stringham, I don't want to play any more games to-day. I want to lie
down and rest."
He smiled as he dreamed of Stringham's reply.
It was Stringham, really, who came to him as he sat silently and with
drooping shoulders in the dressing-room.
"What's wrong here? When you're hurt I want to know it."
George got up.
"I'm not hurt. I'm all right."
Green arrived and helped Stringham poke while George submitted, wishing
they'd leave him alone so he could sit down and rest.