The Guarded Heights
Lambert's indecision, his hands hanging at his sides, hurt George nearly
as much as the lashing would have done. He had to destroy that attitude
of sheer superiority.
"I'm not sure you're a man," he said, thickly, "but you tried to hit me,
so you can put your pretty hands up or take it in the face."
He aimed a vicious blow. Lambert side-stepped and countered. George's
ear rang. He laughed, his self-respect rushing back with the keen joy of
battle. In Lambert's face, stripped of its habitual repression, he
recognized an equal excitement. It was a man's fight, with blood drawn
at the first moment, staining both of them. Lambert boxed skillfully,
and his muscles were hard, but after the first moment George saw
victory, and set out to force it. He looked for fear in the other's eyes
then, and longed to see it, but those eyes remained as unafraid as
Sylvia's until there wasn't left in them much of anything conscious. As
a last chance Lambert clinched, and they went down, fighting like a pair
of furious terriers. George grinned as he felt those eclectic hands
endeavouring in the most brotherly fashion to torture him. He managed to
pin them to the ground. He laughed happily.
"Thought you hated to touch me."
"You fight like a tiger, anyway," Lambert gasped.
"Had enough?"
Lambert nodded.
"I know when I'm through."
George didn't release him at once. His soul expanded with a sense of
power and authority earned by his own effort. It seemed an omen. It
urged him too far.
"Then," he mused, "I guess I'd better let you run home and tell your
father what I've done to you."
"That," Lambert said, "proves I was right, and I'm sorry I fought you."
George tried to think. He felt hot and angry. Was the other, after all,
the better man?
"I take it back," he muttered. "Ought to have had enough sense to know
that a fellow that fights like you's no tattle-tale."
"Thanks, Morton."
George's sense of power grew. He couldn't commence too soon to use it.
"See here, Mr. Planter, I came up here to help with some horses your
people didn't know how to handle, and let myself get shifted to this
other job; but I'm not your father's slave, and anyway I'm getting out."
He increased the pressure on Lambert's arms.
"Just to remind you what we've been fighting about, and that I'm not
your slave, you call me Mr. Morton, or George, just as if I was about as
good as you."
Lambert smiled broadly.
"Will you kindly let me go--George?"
George sprang up, grinning.
"How you feel, Mr. Lam----" He caught himself--"Mr. Planter?"
Lambert struggled to his feet.
"Quite unwell, thanks. I'm sorry you made such a damned fool of yourself
this afternoon. We might have had some pretty useful times boxing
together."
"I'd just as leave tell you," George said, glancing away, "that I never
intended to say it. I didn't realize it myself until it was scared out
of me."
Lambert put on his coat.
"It won't bear talking about."
"It never hit me," George said, huskily, "that even a cat couldn't look
at a queen."
"Perfectly possible," Lambert said as he walked off, feeling his
bruises, "only the queen mustn't see the cat."
IV
George went, obliterating as best he could the souvenirs of battle.
Water, unfortunately, was a requisite, and the nearest was to be found
at his own home. His mother gasped.
"You did! After what I said!"
At the pump he splashed cold water over his face and arms.
"I thrashed him," he spluttered.
"I guess that settles it for your father and me."
"Young Planter won't tell anybody," George assured her. "Although I
don't see how he's going to get away with it unless he says he was run
over by an automobile and kicked by a mule."
"What's come over you?" she demanded. "You've gone out of your head."
He dodged her desire for details. As Lambert had said, the thing
wouldn't bear talking about. For the first time in his life he stood
alone, and whatever he accomplished from now on would have to be done
alone.
He saw his father striding toward them, the anxious light gone from his
eyes. George experienced a vast relief.
"Father looks a little more cheerful," he commented, drying his face.
"Get supper, Ma," the man said as he came up.
She hesitated, held by her curiosity, while he turned on George.
"I don't wonder you couldn't open your mouth to me. You're to be out of
here to-morrow."
"I'd made up my mind to that."
"And Old Planter wants to see you at nine o'clock to-night."
"Since you and Ma," George said, "seem on such good terms with him I
suppose I'll have to go."
"Thank the Lord we are," his father grumbled. "I wouldn't have blamed
him if he had packed us all off. He was more than fair. I've looked
after you so far, but you'll have to shift for yourself now."
"And the only thing I didn't like about it," George mused, "was leaving
you and Ma."
"What did he say to Miss Sylvia?" his mother whispered.
"Said he couldn't get along without her, and was going to have her."
He might have been speaking of one who had ventured to impersonate the
deity.
"And he touched her! Put his arms around her!"
The horror in his mother's face grew.
"Georgie! Georgie! What could you have been thinking of?"
He leaned against the pump.
"I'm thinking now," he said, softly, "it's sort of queer a man's father
and mother believe there's any girl in the world too good for their
son."
"Lots of them," his father snapped. "Sylvia Planter most of all."
"Oh, yes," his mother agreed.
He straightened.
"Then listen," he said, peremptorily. "I don't think so. I told her I
was going to have her, and I will. Just put that down in your books.
I'll show the lot of you that I'm as good as she is, as good as
anybody."
The late sun illuminated the purpose in his striking face.
"Impertinent servant!" he cried. "Stable boy! Beast! It's pretty rough
to make her marry all that. It's my only business from now on."
V
He went to his room, leaving his parents aghast. With a nervous hurry he
rid himself of his riding breeches, his puttees, his stock.
"That," he told himself, "is the last time I shall ever wear anything
like livery."
When he had dressed in one of his two suits of ordinary clothing he took
the broken riding crop and for a long time stared at it as though the
venomous souvenir could fix his resolution more firmly. Once his hand
slipped to the stock where Sylvia's fingers had so frequently tightened.
He snatched his hand away. It was too much like an unfair advantage, a
stolen caress.
"Georgie! Georgie!"
His mother's voice drifted to him tentatively.
"Come and get your supper."
He hid the broken crop and went out. His father glanced disapproval.
"You'd do better to wear Old Planter's clothes while you can. It's
doubtful when you'll buy any more of your own."
George sat down without answering. Since his return from the ride that
afternoon his parents and he had scarcely spoken the same language, and
by this time he understood there was no possible interpreter. It made
him choke a little over his food.
The others were content to share his silence. His father seemed only
anxious to have him away; but his mother, he fancied, looked at him with
something like sorrow.
Afterward he fled from that nearly voiceless scrutiny and paced one of
the park paths, counting the minutes until he could answer Old Planter's
summons. He desired to have the interview over so that he could snap
every chain binding him to Oakmont, every chain save the single one
Sylvia's contempt had unwittingly forged. He could not, moreover, plan
his immediate future with any assurance until he knew what the great man
wanted.
"Only to make me feel a little worse," he decided. "What else could he
do?"
What, indeed, could a man of Planter's wealth and authority not do? It
was a disturbing question.
Through the shrubbery the lights of the house gleamed. The moonlight
outlined the immense, luxurious mass. Never once had he entered the
great house. He was eager to study the surrounding in which women like
Sylvia lived, which she, to an extent, must reflect.
In that serene moonlight he realized that his departure, agreeable and
essential as it was, would make it impossible for him during an
indefinite period to see that slender, adolescent figure, or the
features, lovely and intolerant, that had brought about this revolution
in his life. He acknowledged now that he had looked forward each day to
those hours of proximity and contemplation; and there had been from the
first, he guessed, adoration in his regard.
It was no time to dwell on the sentimental phase of his situation. He
despised himself for still loving her. His approaching departure he must
accept gladly, since he designed it as a means of coming closer--close
enough to hurt.
He wondered if he would have one more glimpse of her, perhaps in the
house. He glanced at his watch. He could go at last. He started for the
lights. Would he see her?
At the corner of the building he hesitated before a fresh dilemma. His
logical entrance lay through the servants' quarters, but he squared his
shoulders and crossed the terrace. It was impossible now that he should
ever enter the house in which she lived by the back door.
It was a warm night, so the door stood open. The broad spaces of the
hall, the rugs, the hangings, the huge chairs, the portraits in gilt
frames against polished walls, the soft, rosy light whose source he
failed to explore, seemed mutely to reprove his presumption.
He rang. He did not hear the feet of the servant who answered. The vapid
man that had trotted for his father that afternoon suddenly shut off his
view.
"You must wear rubbers," George said.
"What you doing here? Go 'round to the back."
"Mr. Planter," George explained, patiently, "sent for me."
"All right. All right. Then go 'round to the back where you belong."
George reached out, caught the other's shoulder, and shoved him to one
side. While the servant gave a little cry and struggled to regain his
balance, George walked in. A figure emerged painfully from an easy chair
in the shadows by the fireplace.
"What's all this, Simpson?"
The polished voice gave the impression of overcoming an impediment,
probably a swollen lip.
"It's young Morton, Mr. Lambert," Simpson whined. "I told him to go to
the back door where he belongs."
"What an idea!" Lambert drawled. "Enter, Mr. Morton. My dear Mr. Morton,
what is the occasion? What can we do for you? I must beg you to excuse
my appearance. I had a trifling argument with my new hunter this
afternoon."
George grinned.
"Must be some horse."
None the less, he felt a bruise. It would have been balm to destroy
Lambert's mocking manner by a brusque attack even in this impressive
hall.
"Your father sent for me."
"Shall I put him out, sir?" Simpson quavered.
Lambert burst into a laugh.
"I shouldn't try it. We can't afford too many losses in one day. Go
away, Simpson, and don't argue with your betters. You might not be as
clever as I at explaining the visible results. I'll take care of Mr.
Morton."
Simpson was bewildered.
"Quite so, sir," he said, and vanished.
"My father," Lambert said, "is in the library--that first door. Wait.
I'll see if he's alone."
Painfully he limped to the door and opened it, while George waited,
endeavouring not to pull at his cap.
"Father," Lambert said, smoothly, "Mr. Morton is calling."
A deep voice, muffled by distance, vibrated in the hall.
"What are you talking about?"
Lambert bowed profoundly.
"Mr. Morton from the lodge."
George stepped close to him.
"Want me to thrash you again?"
Lambert faced him without panic.
"I don't admit that you could, but, my dear--George, I'm too fatigued