The Guarded Heights
She had told him and no one else. Was the thing calculation, quite
bereft of love? Oh, no. George couldn't imagine he was of such
importance she would flee that far to be rid of him; but he went to bed
at last, confessing the situation had elements he couldn't grasp.
Perhaps, when he knew surely who the man was, they would become
sufficiently ponderable.
XI
He was up early after a miserable night, and failed to rout his
depression with a long ride over country roads. When he got back in
search of breakfast he found the others straggling down. First of all he
saw Dalrymple, white and unsteady; heard him asking for Sylvia. Sylvia
hadn't appeared.
"Who's for church?" Blodgett roared.
Mrs. Sinclair offered to shepherd the devout. They weren't many. Men
even called Blodgett names for this newest recreation he had appeared to
offer.
"How late did you play?" George asked Blodgett.
"Until, when I looked at my watch, I thought it must be last evening.
These young bloods are too keen for Papa Blodgett."
"Get into you?" George laughed.
"I usually manage to hang on to my money," Blodgett bragged, "but the
stakes ran bigger and bigger. I'll say one thing for young Dalrymple.
He's no piker. Wrote I. O. U's until he wore out his fountain pen. I
could paper a room with what I got. I'd be ashamed to collect them."
"Why?" George asked, shortly. "When he wrote them he knew they had to be
redeemed."
Blodgett grinned.
"I expect he was a little pickled. Probably's forgot he signed them. I
won't make him unhappy with his little pieces of paper."
"Daresay he'll be grateful," George said, dryly.
His ride had brought no appetite. After breakfast he avoided people with
a conviction that his only business here was to see Sylvia again, then
to escape. It was noon before she appeared with Betty. He caught them
walking from the hall to the library, and he studied Sylvia's face with
anxious curiosity. It disappointed, repelled him. It was quite
unchanged, as full of colour as usual, as full of unfriendliness. She
nodded carelessly, quite as if nothing had happened--gave him the
identical, remote greeting to which he had become too accustomed. And
last evening he had fancied her nearer! He noticed, however, that she
had put her hands behind her back.
"I hope you're feeling better."
"Better! I haven't been ill," she flashed.
Betty helped him out.
"Last night Mrs. Sinclair told us you had a headache."
"You ought to know, Betty, that means I was tired."
But George noticed she no longer looked at him. She hurried on.
"Dolly!" he heard her laugh. "You must have sat up rather late."
"Trying to forget my worry about you, Sylvia. Guess it gave me your
headache."
George shrugged his shoulders and edged away, measuring his chances of
seeing her alone. They were slender, for as usual she was a magnet, yet
luck played for him and against her after luncheon, bringing them at the
same moment from different directions to the empty hall. She wanted to
hurry by, as if he were a disturbing shadow, but he barred her way.
"I suppose I should say I'm sorry I hurt you last night. I'll say it, if
you wish, but I'm not particularly sorry."
She showed him her hands then, spread them before him. They trembled,
but that was all. They recorded no marks of his precipitancy.
"I shouldn't expect you to be sorry. After that certainly you will never
speak to me again."
"Will you tell me now who it is?" he asked.
Her temper blazed.
"I ought always to know what to expect from you."
She ran back to the door through which she had entered.
"Oh, Dolly!"
Dalrymple met her on the threshold.
"Take me for a walk," she said. "It won't hurt you."
Dalrymple indicated George.
"Morton coming?"
She shook her head and ran lightly upstairs.
"No, I'm not going," George said. "She's right. The fresh air will do
you good."
"Thanks," Dalrymple answered, petulantly. "I'm quite capable of
prescribing for myself."
He went out in search of his hat and coat.
George watched him, letting all his dislike escape. Continually they
hovered on the edge of a break, but Dalrymple wouldn't quite permit it
now. George was confident that the seed sown last night would flower.
He was glad when Mundy telephoned before dinner about some difficulties
of transportation that might have been solved the next day. George
sprang at the excuse, however, refused Blodgett's offer of a car to
town, and drove to the station.
Dalrymple and Sylvia hadn't returned.
XII
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."
XIII
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,