The Guarded Heights
absurdly funny. Perhaps he hasn't grasped this tragedy."
The others came in, a voluble, horrified group.
"What's the matter with you, George?" Blodgett bellowed. "Don't you
understand what's happened?"
"Not quite," George said, looking at Sylvia, "but I intend to find out."
XIV
To find out, George appreciated at once, would be no simple task.
Immediately Sylvia raised new defences. She seemed abetted by this
incredible happening on a gray sea.
"I shall go," Lambert said. "How about you, George?"
"Why should I go?" George asked. "I haven't thought about it yet."
The scorn in Sylvia's eyes made him uneasy. Why did people have to be so
impulsive? That was the way wars were made.
During the days that followed he did think about it too absorbingly for
comfort, weighing to the penny the sacrifice his unlikely going would
involve. An inherent instinct for a fight could scarcely be satisfied at
such a cost. Patriotism didn't enter his calculations at all. He
believed it had resounding qualities only because it was hollow, being
manufactured exactly as a drum is made. Surely there were enough
impulsive and fairly useless people to do such a job.
Then without warning Wandel confused his apparently flawless logic.
Certainly Wandel was the least impulsive of men and he was also capable
of uncommon usefulness, yet within a week of the sinking he asked George
if he didn't want to move to his apartment to keep things straight
during a long absence.
"Where are you going, Driggs?"
"I've been drifting too long," Wandel answered. "Unless I go somewheres,
do something, I'll become as mellow as Dolly. I've not been myself since
the business started. I suppose it's because I happen to be fond of the
French and the British and a few ideas of theirs. So I'm going to drive
an ambulance for them."
George fancied Wandel's real motive wasn't so easily expressed. He
longed to know it, but you couldn't pump Wandel.
"You're an ass," was all he said.
"Naturally," Wandel agreed. "Only asses go to war."
"Do you think it will help for you to get a piece of shell through your
head?"
"Quite as much as for any other ass."
"Why don't you say what you mean?" George asked, irritably.
"Perhaps you ask that," Wandel drawled, "because you don't understand
what I mean to say."
"I won't take care of your apartment," George snapped. "I won't have any
hand in such a piece of foolishness."
With Goodhue, however, he went to the pier to see Wandel off; absorbed
with the little man the sorrowful and apprehensive atmosphere of the
odorous shed; listened to choked farewells; saw brimming eyes; shared
the pallid anticipations of those about to venture forth upon an
unnatural sea; touched at last the very fringe of war.
"Why is he doing it?" George asked as Goodhue and he drove across town
to the subway. "I've never counted Driggs a sentimentalist."
"I'm not sure," Goodhue answered, "this doesn't prove he isn't. He's
always had an acute appreciation of values. Don't you remember? We used
to call him 'Spike'."
* * * * *
George let himself drift with events, but Wandel's departure increased
his uneasiness. Suppose he should be forced by circumstances to abandon
everything; against his better judgment to go? Automatically his
thoughts turned to Squibs. He recalled his advice.
"Don't let your ideas smoulder in your head. Come home and talk them
over."
He sent a telegram and followed it the next day. The Baillys met him at
the station, affectionately, without any reproaches for his long
absence. The menace was in the air here, too, for Mrs. Bailly's first
question, sharply expressed, was:
"You're not going, if----"
"I don't want to go," he answered.
Bailly studied him, but he didn't say anything.
That afternoon there was a boat race on Lake Carnegie. The Alstons drove
the Baillys and George down some hospitable resident's lane to an
advantageous bank near the finish line. They spread rugs and made
themselves comfortable there, but the party was subdued. Squibs and Mr.
Alston didn't seem to care to talk. Betty asked Mrs. Bailly's question,
received an identical answer, and fell silent, too. Only Mrs. Alston
appeared to detect no change in the world, remaining cheerfully imperial
as if alarms couldn't possibly approach her abruptly.
Even to George such a scene, sharing one planet with the violences of
Europe, appeared contradictory. The fancifully garbed undergraduates,
who ran along the bank; the string of automobiles on the towpath
opposite; the white and gleaming pleasure boats in the canal; the shells
themselves, with coloured oar-blades that flashed in the sunlight; most
of all the green frame for this pleasantly exciting contest had an air
of telling him that everything unseen was rumour, dream stuff; either
that, or else that the seen was visionary, while in those remote places
existed the only material world, the revolting and essential realities.
Bailly at last interrupted his revery, with his long, thin arm making a
gesture that included the athletes; the running, youthful partisans.
"How many are we going to lose or get back with twisted minds?"
"Keep quiet," his wife said in a panic.
Mrs. Alston laughed pleasantly.
"Don't worry. Woodrow will keep us out of it."
XV
Back in the little study Bailly expressed his doubt.
"He may do it now, but later----"
"Remember you're not going, George," Mrs. Bailly cried.
"I think not."
She patted his hand, while Bailly looked on with his old expression of
doubt and disapproval. When Mrs. Bailly had left them, George told the
tutor of Wandel's surprising venture, asking his opinion.
"It's hard to form one," Bailly admitted. "He's always puzzled me. Would
it surprise you if I said I think he at least has grafted on his brain
some of Allen's generous views?"
"Oh, come, sir. You can't make war an ideal expression of the
brotherhood of man. Far better that all men should be suspicious
strangers."
Bailly drew noisily at his pipe.
"It often pleases you to misunderstand," he said. "Wandel, I fancy,
would take Allen's theories and make something more practical of them.
Understand I am a pacifist--thorough-paced. War is folly. War is
dreadful. It cannot be conceived in a healthy brain. But when a fact
rises up before you you'd better face it. Wandel probably does. The
Allens probably don't--don't realize that we must win this war as the
only alternative to the world pacing of an autocratic foot that would
crush social progress like a serpent, that would boot back the
brotherhood of man, since you seem to enjoy the phrase, unthinkable
years."
"After admitting that," George asked, quickly, "you can still tell me
that I ought to accept the point of view of your rotten, illogical
Socialists?"
"Even in this war," Bailly confessed, "most socialists are pacifists.
No, they're not an elastic crowd. It amuses me that a lot of the lords
of the land, leading an unthinking portion of the proletariat, will
permit them to carry on their work in spite of themselves."
"I despise such theorists," George burst out. "They are unsound. They
are dangerous."
Bailly smiled.
"Just the same, the very ones they want to reform are going to give them
the opportunity to do it."
"They're all like Allen," George sneered, "purchasable."
Bailly shook his head, waved his pipe vehemently.
"Virtue's flaws don't alter its really fundamental quality."
"Then you agree all Socialists are knaves or fools," George stormed.
"Perhaps, George," Bailly said, patiently, "you'll define a
conservative for me. There. Never mind. Somewhere in between we may find
an honest generosity, a wise sympathy. It may come from this war--a huge
and wise balance of power of the right, an honest recognition of men as
individuals rather than as members of classes. Perhaps your friend
Wandel is on the track of something of the sort. I like to think it is
really what the war is being fought for."
"The war," George said, "is being fought for men with fat paunches and
pocket-books."
"Then you're quite sure you don't want to go?"
"Why should I as long as my stomach and my pocket-book are comfortable?
But I'm not sure whether I'll go or not. That's what worries me."
"You've made," Bailly said, testily, "enough out of the war to warrant
your giving it something."
George grinned. It was quite like old times.
"Even myself, on top of all the rest I might make out of it by staying
back?"
"You're not as selfish as you'd have me believe," Bailly cried.
George quoted a phrase of Wandel's since Bailly seemed just now to
approve of the adventurer.
"The man that keeps himself makes the world better."
Bailly drove him out of the room to dress for dinner.
"I won't talk to you any more," he said. "I won't curse the loiterer at
the base until I am sure he isn't going to climb."
XVI
At least George wouldn't have to decide at once. When it became clear
that for the present Mrs. Alston's optimism was justified he breathed
easier. With Goodhue, Lambert, and Mundy he applied himself unreservedly
to his work. Consequently he didn't visit much, didn't see Sylvia again
until the fall when he met her at a dinner at the Goodhues'. She shrank
from him perceptibly, but there was no escape. He studied her with an
easier mind. No date for her wedding had been set. Until that moment
should come there was nothing he could do. What he would be able to
accomplish then was problematical. Something. She shouldn't throw
herself away on Blodgett.
"It must be comforting," he heard her say to Goodhue, "to know if
trouble comes your wonderful firm will be taken care of."
George guessed she had meant him to hear that.
"I'm sure I hope so," Goodhue answered her, "but what do you mean?"
"I heard Mr. Morton say once he didn't think he'd care to go to war.
Didn't I, Mr. Morton?"
Goodhue, clearly puzzled by her manner, laughed.
"Give us something more useful, Sylvia. He's a born fighter."
"I believe I said it," George answered her. "There might be problems
here I couldn't very well desert."
Her eyes wavered. He recalled her hysterical manner that evening at
Oakmont. She still sought chances to hurt him. In spite of Blodgett,
then, she recognized a state of contest between them. He smiled
contentedly, for as long as that persisted his cause was alive.
XVII
It languished, however, during the winter as did Blodgett's hopes of a
speedy wedding. The Planters' Fifth Avenue home remained closed, because
of Mr. Planter's health. Sylvia and her mother went south with him.
Blodgett made a number of flying trips, deserting his affairs to that
extent to be with Sylvia. George was satisfied for the present to let
things drift.
Dalrymple certainly had drifted with events. He had taken no pains to
hide the shock of Sylvia's engagement. George of all people could
understand his disappointment, his helpless rage; but Dalrymple hadn't
bothered him, and he had about decided he never would.
One spring day, quite without warning, he appeared in George's office.
It was not long after the Planters' return to Oakmont. What did he want
here? Was there any point spending money on him as matters stood?
He looked at Dalrymple, a good deal surprised, reading the dissipation
recorded in his face, the nervousness exposed by the mobile hands. All
at once he understood why he had come at last. Dalrymple had wandered
too far. The patience of his friends had been exhausted. Perhaps Wandel
had taken George's hint. At any rate, he had let himself in for it.
"An opportunity to make a little money," Dalrymple was mumbling
uneasily. "Need capital. Not much. You said at Blodgett's--just happened
to remember it, and was near----"