The Guarded Heights
"How much?" George demanded, stopping his feeble lies.
Dalrymple, George suspected, because of his manner, asked for less than
half what he had come to get.
"What say to a couple thousand? Make it five hundred more if you can.
Not much in the way of security."
"Never mind the security."
George pressed a button, and directed the clerk who responded to draw up
a note.
"Got to sign something?" Dalrymple asked, suspiciously.
George smiled.
"Do you mind my keeping a little record of where my money goes--in place
of security?"
Dalrymple was quite red.
"All right, if you insist."
"I insist. Care to change your mind?"
"No. Only thought it was just a little loan between--friends."
The word left his tongue with difficulty. George guessed that the other
retained enough decency to loathe himself for having to use it. The
nervousness of the long fingers increased while the clerk prepared the
note and George wrote the check. George put a pen in the unsteady hand.
"Sign here, please."
Dalrymple obeyed with a signature, shaky, barely legible.
"Nice of you to do me a favour. Appreciate it. Thanks."
To George it would have been worth that money to find out just how
Sylvia's extended engagement had affected Dalrymple. Was it responsible
for his speeding up on the dangerous path of pleasure? Of that he could
learn only what the other chose to disclose, probably nothing. But what
was he waiting for now that he had the money? Why were his fingers
twitching faster than ever?
"Didn't see Lambert when I came in," he managed.
"I daresay he's about," George said. "Want him?"
Dalrymple raised his hand.
"That's just it," he whispered. "Rather not see Lambert. Rather this
little transaction were kept sub rosa. You understand. No point
Lambert's knowing."
"Why not?" George asked, coolly, feeling himself on the edge of the
truth.
"I'm a little off the Planters," Dalrymple said.
"Since when?"
Dalrymple's face became redder than ever. For a moment his nervousness
abandoned him. He seemed to stiffen with violent thoughts.
"Don't like buying and selling of women in any family. Not as decent as
slavery."
George rose quietly. He hadn't expected just this.
"Be careful," he warned. "What are you talking about?"
"What the whole town talks about," Dalrymple burst out. "You know her. I
ask you. Hasn't she enough without selling herself, body and soul? No
better than an unmentionable----"
George sprang. He didn't stop to tell himself that Dalrymple was
unaccountable, in a sense, out of his head. He didn't dare stop, because
he knew if Dalrymple finished that sentence he would try to kill him.
Dalrymple's mouth fell open, in fact, before the unexpected attack. He
couldn't complete the sentence, didn't try to; drew back against the
desk instead; grasped a convenient ink container; threw it; called
shrilly for help.
George shook the streaming black liquid from his face. With his stained
hands he grasped Dalrymple. His fingers tightened with a feeling of
profound satisfaction. No masks now! Finally the enmity of years was
unleashed. He had Dalrymple where he had always wanted him.
"One more word----You been saying that kind of thing----"
The hurrying of many feet in the outer office recalled him. The
impulsive George Morton crept back beneath the veneer. He let Dalrymple
go, drew out his handkerchief, looked distastefully at the black stains
on his clothing.
Lambert and Goodhue closed the door on the curious clerks.
"What in heaven's name----"
It was Lambert who had spoken. Goodhue merely shrugged his shoulders, as
if he had all along expected such a culmination.
Dalrymple, fingering his throat spasmodically, sank in a chair. His face
infused. His breath came audibly.
"Caught him harder than I realized," George reflected. He spoke aloud
with his whimsical smile.
"Looks as if I'd lost my temper. I don't often do it."
He had no regret. He was happy. He believed himself nearer Sylvia than
he had ever been. He felt in grasping Dalrymple's throat as if he had
touched her hands.
He failed to give its true value, consequently, to Lambert's angry
turning on him after Dalrymple's shaking accusation.
"Sorry, Lambert. Had to--to do what I could. He--he was rotten
impertinent about--about--Sylvia."
XVIII
Goodhue caught Lambert's arm. In a flash George read the meaning of
Dalrymple's charge. Naturally he was the one to do something of the
sort, had to try it. He had been afraid of Lambert's knowing of the
loan. How much less could he let Lambert learn why George had
justifiably shut his mouth.
"Keep quiet," George warned Lambert. "Dicky! Can you get him out of
here. He needs attention. I'm not a doctor. He hasn't been himself since
he came."
But Lambert wouldn't have it.
"Repeat that, Dolly," he commanded.
George walked to Dalrymple.
"You'll not say another word."
Dalrymple stood up, weaving his fingers in and out; as it were, clasping
his hands to George.
"I'm sorry, Morton. Damn sorry. Forget--forget----"
His voice wandered into a difficult silence, as if he had seen this way,
too, a chance of implicating himself with Sylvia's brother; but his eyes
continued to beg George. They were like the eyes of an animal, caught in
a net, beseeching release.
Goodhue gave him his hat. He took it but drew away from the other's
touch on his arm.
"Don't think I'm not all right," he said in a frightened voice. "Took me
by surprise, but I'm all right--quite all right. Going home."
He glanced at Lambert and again at George, then left the room, pulling
at his necktie, Goodhue anxiously at his heels.
"What about it?" Lambert asked George sharply.
George sat down, still trying to rid himself of the black souvenirs of
the encounter.
"Don't be a fool. I said nothing about your sister--nothing whatever."
He couldn't get rid of Dalrymple's begging eyes, yet why should he spare
him at all?
"The rest of it," he went on, easily, "is between Dalrymple and me."
"I'm not sure," Lambert challenged.
He reminded George of the younger Lambert who had advanced with a whip
in his hand.
"See here," he said. "You can't make me talk about anything I don't care
to. I've told you I didn't mention your sister. I couldn't to that
fellow."
Lambert spread his hands.
"What is there about you and Sylvia--ever since that day? I believe you,
but I tried to give you a licking for her sake once, and I'd do it
again."
George laughed pleasantly.
"You make me feel young."
Clearly Lambert meant to warn him, for he went on, still aggressive:
"I care more for her than anybody in the world."
The laughter left George's face.
"Anybody?"
Lambert was self-conscious now.
"Just about. See here. What are you driving at?"
George yawned.
"I must wash up. I've a lot of work to do."
"I'd like to know what went on here," Lambert said.
"Why don't you ask Dalrymple, then?"
"Dolly isn't all bad," Lambert offered as he left. "He's been my friend
a good many years."
"Then by all means keep him," George answered, "and keep him to
yourself; but when he comes around hang on to the ink pots."
XIX
His apparent good humour didn't survive the closing of the door. His
dislike of Dalrymple fattened on his memory of the incident. It had left
a sting. He hadn't stopped the man in time. Selling herself! Was she?
She appeared to his mind, no longer intolerant, rather with an air of
shame-faced apology for all the world. That was what hurt. He hadn't
stopped Dalrymple in time.
But there was no sale yet, nothing whatever, except an engagement which,
after a year, showed no symptoms of fruition. Blodgett was aware of it,
and couldn't hide his anxiety. Evidently he wanted to talk about it, did
talk about it to George when he met him in the hall not long after
Dalrymple's visit.
"Why don't you ever run down to Oakmont with Lambert?" he asked.
Only Blodgett would have put such a question, and perhaps even he
designed it merely as an entrance to his favourite topic. George evaded
with a fairly truthful account of office pressure.
"Old Planter asks after you," Blodgett went on, uncomfortably. "Admires
you, because you've done about what he had at your age, and it was
easier then. Old man's not well. That's tough on Josiah."
"Tough?"
Blodgett mopped his face with a brilliant handkerchief. His rotund
stomach rose and fell with a sigh.
"His gout's worse--all sorts of complications. She's the apple of his
eye. Guess you know that. Won't desert him now. Wants to wait till he's
better, or--or----"
He added naively:
"Hope to heaven he bucks up soon."
George watched Blodgett's hopes dwindle, for Old Planter didn't buck up,
nor did he grow perceptibly worse. From time to time he visited his
marble temple, but for the most part men went to him at Oakmont;
Blodgett, of course, with his double errand of business and romance,
most frequently of all. And Sylvia did cling to her father, but George's
satisfaction increased, for he agreed with Wandel: she was capable of a
feeling far more powerful than filial devotion. Blodgett, clearly, had
failed to arouse it.
Her sense of duty, however, kept her nearly entirely away from George;
for Lambert, either because Sylvia had spoken to him, or because he
himself had sensed a false step, failed to repeat his invitation to
Oakmont. The row with Dalrymple, although that had not been mentioned
again, made it unlikely that he ever would.
Dalrymple had dropped out of sight. George heard vaguely that he was
taking a rest cure in the northern part of the state. He couldn't fancy
meeting him again without desiring to add to the punishment he had
already given. The man was impossible. He had sneaked from that room,
leaving the note in George's hands, the check in his own pocket. And the
check had been cashed. No madness of excitement could account for that.
It wasn't until summer that he ran into him, and with a black temper saw
Sylvia at his side. If she only knew! She ought to know. It increased
his bad humour that he couldn't tell her.
He regretted the necessity that had made such a meeting possible. It
had, however, for a long time impressed him. Even flabby old Blodgett
had noticed, and had advised less work and more play. To combat his
feeling of staleness, the relaxing of his long, carefully conditioned
muscles, George had forced himself to play polo at a Long Island club
into which he had hurried because of his skill at the game, or to take
an occasional late round of golf, which he didn't care for particularly
but which he managed very well in view of his inexperience. It was while
he was ordering dinner with Goodhue one night at the Long Island club
that Sylvia and Dalrymple drove up with the Sinclairs. The older pair
came straight to the two, while Sylvia and Dalrymple followed with an
obvious reluctance.
"We spirited her away for the night," Mrs. Sinclair explained.
She turned to Sylvia.
"My dear, I'll see that you don't cloister yourself any more. Your
father's going on for years."
Yet it occurred to George, as he looked at her, that her cloistering had
accomplished no change. The alteration in Dalrymple, on the other hand,
was striking. George, as he met him with a difficult ease of manner,
quite as if nothing had happened, couldn't account for it; for the
light-headed look had gone from Dalrymple's eyes, and much of the stamp
of dissipation from his face. His hands, too, were quiet. Was it
credible he had forgotten the struggle in George's office? No. He had
cashed the check; yet his manner suggested a blank memory except,
perhaps, for its too-pronounced cordiality.
There was nothing for it but a dinner together. The Sinclairs expected