The Guarded Heights
there once or twice, and would rather not have seen her at all, she was
so painfully cordial, so bound up in her war work of which he felt
himself the chief victim. He began to fear that he would not see her
alone again before he sailed; that he might never be with her alone
again.
He didn't care either for the pride she took in Dalrymple's presence at
the second camp.
"He's sure to do well," she would say. "He's always had all sorts of
possibilities. Watch the war bring them out."
Why did women like the man? There was no question that they did. They
talked now, in ancient terms, of his permanent exit from the field of
wild oats. He could be so fascinating, so thoughtful--of women. But men
didn't like him. Dalrymple's fascinating ways had caught them too
frequently, too expensively. And George didn't believe in his reform,
saw symptoms, as others did, of its true value when, at the close of the
second camp, Dalrymple got himself assigned to the trains of the
division. It was rumoured he had left Plattsburgh a second lieutenant.
It was fact that he appeared at Upton a captain. Secret intrigues in
Washington by fond parents, men whispered; but the women didn't seem to
care, for Dalrymple hadn't shown himself before any of them carrying
less than the double silver bars of a captain.
George received his prophesied majority at the moment of this
disagreeable arrival. That did impress Sylvia to the point of making her
more cordial in public, more careful than before not to give him a word
in private. As the day of departure approached he grew increasingly
restless. He had never experienced a sensation of such complete
helplessness. He was bound by Upton. She could stand aside and mock him
with her studied politenesses.
Blodgett ran down a number of times, to sit in George's quarters,
working with the three partners over figures. They made tentative lists
of what should be sold at the first real whisper of peace.
"But there'll be no peace for a long time," Blodgett promised. "There's
a lot of money for you boys in this war yet."
They laughed at him, and he looked a little hurt, apparently unable to
see anything humorous in his cheerful promise.
Dalrymple was aware of these conferences, for he was frequently about
the regimental area. George wasn't surprised, when he sat alone one
night, to hear a tap on his window pane, to see Dalrymple's face at the
window.
"Hesitate to disturb a major, and all that," Dalrymple said as he
entered. "Two rooms. You're lucky."
"Not luck; work," George said, shortly. "What is it? Didn't come here to
envy my rank, did you?"
Although he was in far better shape nervously and physically than he had
been that day in George's office, Dalrymple bore himself with much the
same confused and hesitant manner. It recalled to George the existence
of the note which the other had made no effort to redeem.
"You know," Dalrymple began, vaguely, "there's a lot of--what do you
call it--bunk--about this hurrah for the dear old soldier business. Fact
is, the more chance there is of a man's getting blown up the nastier
some people become."
George laughed shortly.
"You mean when you owe them money."
"As Driggs used to say," Dalrymple answered, "'you're a very penetrating
person.'"
He hesitated, then went on with an increasing difficulty:
"You're one of the people I owe money to."
Wandel had taken George's hint, evidently. George was sorry he had ever
let it drop. But was he? Mightn't it be as well in the end? In spite of
all this talk of people's leaving their bones in France, there was a
fair chance that both Dalrymple and he would bring theirs, unaltered,
back to America.
"Don't worry," George said. "I shan't press you."
"Handsome enough," Dalrymple thanked him in a voice scarcely above a
whisper. "But everybody isn't that decent. It's this talk of the
division sailing that's turned them nasty."
George fingered a pamphlet about poison gases. He didn't much blame
debtors for turning nasty.
"You want to borrow some more money from me," he said.
Dalrymple's face lightened.
"If you'd be that good; but it's a lot."
"Why," George asked, quietly, "don't you go to someone you're closer
to?"
Dalrymple flushed. He wouldn't meet George's eyes.
"Dicky would give it me," he said, "but I can't ask him; I've made him
too many promises. So would Lambert, but it would be absurd for me to go
to him."
"Why absurd?" George asked, quietly.
"Wholly impossible," was all Dalrymple would say. "Quite absurd."
There came back to George his ugly sensations at Blodgett's, and he knew
he would give Dalrymple a lot of money now, as he had given him a
little then, and for precisely the same reason.
"I'm afraid I've been a bit hard on my friends," Dalrymple admitted. "As
a rule they've dried up."
"So you come to one who isn't a friend?" George asked.
"Now see here, Morton, that's scarcely fair."
"You haven't forgotten that day in my office," George accused him, "when
you made a brutal ass of yourself."
"Said I was sorry. Don't you ever forget anything?"
Dalrymple was angry enough himself now, but his worry apparently forced
him on.
"I wouldn't have come to you at all, only Driggs said--and you said
yourself once, and you can spare it. I know that. See here. Unless
somebody helps me these people will go to Division Headquarters or
Washington. They'll stop my sailing. They'll----"
"Don't cry," George interrupted. "You want money, and you don't give a
hang where it comes from. That's it, isn't it?"
"I have to have money," Dalrymple acknowledged.
"Then you ought to have sense enough to know the only reason I'd give it
to you. Do you think I'd care if they held you in this country for your
silly debts? What you borrow you have to pay back in one way or another.
Don't make any mistake. If I give you money it's to be able to make you
pay as I please. You've always had a knife out for me. I don't mind
putting one in my own hands. If you want money on those terms come to my
office with your accounts Saturday afternoon. We'll see what can be
done."
Dalrymple was quite white. He moistened his lips. As he left he
muttered:
"I can't answer back. I have to have money. You've got me where you
want."
VII
Dalrymple's necessities turned out to be greater than George had
imagined. They measured pretty accurately the extent of his
reformation. George got several notes to run a year in return for
approximately twenty thousand dollars.
"Remember," he said at the close of the transaction, "you pay those back
when and how I say."
"I wouldn't have come to you if I could have helped it," Dalrymple
whined. "But don't forget, Morton, somebody will pull me out at a pinch.
I'm going to work to pay you if I live. I'm through with nonsense. Give
me a chance."
George nodded him out, and sent for his lawyer. In case of his death
Dalrymple's notes would go back to the man. Everything else he had
divided between his mother and the Baillys. He wrote his mother a long
letter, telling her just what to do. Quite honestly he regretted his
inability to get West to say good-bye. The thought of bringing her to
New York or Upton had not occurred to him.
For during these days of farewells everyone flocked to Upton, sitting
about the hostess houses all day and evening for an occasional chat with
their hurried men. Then they let such moments slip by because of a
feeling of strangeness, of dumb despair.
The Alstons and the Baillys were there, and so, of course, was Sylvia,
with her mother, more minutely guarded than she had ever been. His few
glimpses of her at luncheon or supper at Officers' House increased the
evil humour into which Dalrymple had thrown him. Consequently he looked
at her, impressing upon his morose mind each detail of her beauty that
he knew very well he might never study again. The old depression of
complete failure held him. She was going to let him go without a word.
Even this exceptional crisis was without effect upon her intolerant
memory. He would leave her behind to complete a destiny which he,
perhaps, after all, had affected only a very little.
With the whispered word that there would be no more meetings at
Officers' House, that before dawn the regiment would have slipped from
Upton, George turned to his packing with the emotions of a violently
constricted animal. He wouldn't even see her again. When Lambert came to
confer with him about some final dispositions he watched him like such
an animal, but Lambert let him see that he, too, was at a loss. He had
sent word by an orderly that he couldn't get to Officers' House that
evening.
"I couldn't make it any plainer. If they've any sense they'll know and
hunt me up."
They were wise, and a little of George's strain relaxed, for they found
Lambert in his quarters, and they made it clear that they had come to
say good-bye to George, too. After many halting efforts they gave up
trying to express themselves.
"The Spartans were better at this sort of thing," Bailly said at the
last as he clasped George's hand.
"Every Hun I kill or capture, sir, I'll think of as your Hun."
Without words, without tears, Mrs. Bailly kissed his lips. George tried
to laugh.
Betty wouldn't say good-bye, wouldn't even shake hands.
"I shan't think of killing," she said. "Just take care of yourselves,
and come back."
George stared at her, alarmed. He had never seen her so white. Lambert
followed her from the room. The Baillys went out after them. Why did
Mrs. Planter linger? There she stood near the door, looking at George
without the slightest betrayal of feeling. He had an impression she was
going to say:
"We've really quite enjoyed Upton."
At least she held Sylvia a moment longer, Sylvia who had said nothing,
who had not met his eyes, who had seemed from the first anxious to
escape from this plank room littered with the paraphernalia of battle.
Mrs. Planter held out her hand, smiling.
"Good-bye, Major. One doesn't need to wish you success. You inspire
confidence."
He was surprised at the strength of her white hand, felt it draw him
closer, watched her bend her head, heard her speak in his ear so low
that Sylvia couldn't hear--a whisper intense, agonized, of a quality
that seemed like a white-hot iron in his brain:
"Take care of my son. Bring him back to me."
She straightened, releasing his hand.
"Come, Sylvia," she said, pleasantly.
Without looking back she went out.
"Good luck, Major," Sylvia said, and prepared to follow.
Quickly George reached out, caught her arm, and drew her away from the
door.
"You're not going to say good-bye like this."
In her effort to escape, in her flushed face, in her angry eyes, he read
her understanding that no other man she knew could have done just this,
that it was George Morton's way. Why not? He had no time for veneer now.
It was his moment, probably his last with her.
With her free hand she reached behind her to steady herself against the
table. Her fingers touched the gas mask that lay there, then stiffened
and moved away. Some of the colour left her face. Her arm became passive
in his grasp.
"Let me go. How do you want me to say good-bye?"
He caught her other arm.
"Give me something to take. Oh, God, Sylvia! Let me have my kiss."
VIII
Never since he had walked out of the great gate with Sylvia's dog at his
heels to a wilful tutoring of his body and brain had George yielded to
such untrammelled emotion, to so unbounded a desire. This moment of
parting, in which he had felt himself helpless, had swept it all
away--the carefully applied manner, the solicitous schooling of an
impulsive brain, the minute effort to resemble the class of which he had