The Guarded Heights
"You mean we're crooked, too?" George asked.
"Only by infection," Blodgett defended himself, "but honest, George, I'd
sell out if I could. I'm disgusted."
George couldn't hide a smile.
"In the old days when you were coming up, you never did anything the
least bit out of line yourself?"
Blodgett mopped his face with one of his brilliant handkerchiefs. His
eyes twinkled.
"I've been shrewd at times, George, but isn't that legitimate? I may
have made some crowds pretty sick by cutting under them, but that's
business. I won't say I haven't played some cute little tricks with
stocks, but that's finesse, and the other fellow had the same chance.
I'm not aware that I ever busted a bank, or held a loaded gun to a man's
head and asked him to hand over his clothes as well as his cash. That's
the spirit we're up against now. That's why Papa Blodgett advises
selling out those mill stocks we kept big blocks of at the time of the
armistice."
"They're making money," George said.
Blodgett tapped a file of reports.
"Have you read the opinions of the directors?"
"Yes," George answered, "and at a pinch they might have to go into
cooperation, but they'd still pay some dividends."
Blodgett puffed out his cheeks.
"You're sure the unions would want a share in the business?"
"Why not?" George asked. "Isn't that practical communism?"
"Hay! Here's a fellow believes there's something practical in the world
nowadays! Sell out, son."
"Then who would run our mills?"
"Maybe some philanthropist with more money than brains."
"You mean," George asked, "that our products, unless conditions improve,
will disappear from the world, because no one will be able to afford to
manufacture them?"
Blodgett pursed his lips. George stared from the window at the forest of
buildings which impressed him, indeed, as giant tree trunks from which
all the foliage had been stripped. Had there been awakened in the world
an illiberal individuality with the power to fell them every one, and to
turn up the system out of which they had sprung as from a rich soil? Was
that what he had helped fight the war for?
"You're talking about the dark ages," he said, feeling the necessity of
faith and stability. "Sell your stocks if you want, I choose to keep
mine."
Blodgett yawned.
"We'll go down together, George. I won't jump from a sinking ship as
long as you cling to the bridge."
"The ship isn't sinking," George cried. "It's too buoyant."
XI
Wandel and Goodhue came home, suffering from this universal
restlessness.
"Ah, _mon_ brave!" Wandel greeted George. "_Mon vieux Georges, grand et
incomparable!_ So the country's dry! Jewels are cheaper than beefsteaks!
Congress is building spite fences! None the less, I'm glad to be home."
"Glad enough to have you," George said. "I'm not sure we won't go back
to our bargain pretty soon. I'm about ready for a pet politician."
"Let me get clean," Wandel laughed. "You must have a lot of money."
"I can control enough," George said, confidently.
"_Bon!_ But don't send me to Washington at first. I don't want to put on
skirts, use snuff, or practise gossiping."
For a time he refused to apply himself to anything that didn't lead to
pleasure. Goodhue went at once to Rhode Island for a visit with his
father and mother, while Wandel flitted from place to place, from house
to house, as if driven by his restlessness to the play he had abandoned
during five years. Once or twice George caught him with Rogers in town,
and bluntly asked him why.
"An eye to the future, my dear George. Are you the most forgetful of
class presidents? Perfect henchman type. When one goes into politics one
must have henchmen."
But George had an unwelcome feeling that Rogers, eyes always open, was
taking advantage, in his small way, of the world's unsettled condition.
People were inclined to laugh at him, but they treated him well for
Wandel's sake.
"Still in the bond business," he explained to George. "It isn't what it
was befo' de war. I'm thinking of taking up oil stocks and corners in
heaven, although I doubt if there are as many suckers as fell for P. T.
B. Trouble nowadays is that the simplest of them are too busy trying to
find somebody just a little simpler to sting. Darned if they don't
usually hook one. Still bum securities are a great weakness with most
people. Promise a man a hundred per cent. and he'll complain it isn't a
hundred and fifty."
George reflected that Rogers was bound for disillusionment, then he
wasn't so sure, for America seemed more than ever friendly to that
brisk, insincere, back-bending type. Out of the sea of money formed by
the war examples sprang up on nearly every side, scarcely troubled by
racial, religious, or educational handicaps; loudly convinced that they
could buy with money all at once every object of matter or spirit the
centuries had painstakingly evolved. One night in the crowds of the
theatre district, when with Wandel he had watched the hysterical
competition for tickets, cabs, and tables in restaurants where the
prices of indigestion had soared nearly beyond belief, he burst out
angrily:
"The world is mad, Driggs. I wouldn't be surprised to hear these people
cry for golden gondolas to float them home on rivers of money. Stark,
raving mad, Driggs! The world's out of its head!"
Wandel smiled, twirling his cane.
"Just found it out, great man? Always has been; always will be--chronic!
This happens to be a violent stage."
XII
It was Wandel, indeed, who drew George from his preoccupation, and
reminded him that another world existed as yet scarcely more than
threatened by the driving universal invaders. George had looked in at
his apartment one night when Wandel was just back from a northern
week-end.
"Saw Sylvia. You know, George, she's turning back the years and prancing
like a debutante."
George sat down, uneasy, wondering what the other's unprepared
announcement was designed to convey.
"I'll lay you what you want," Wandel went on, lighting a cigar, "that
she forgets the Blodgett fiasco, and marries before snow falls."
Had it been designed as a warning? George studied Wandel, trying to read
his expression, but the light was restricted by heavy, valuable, and
smothering shades; and Wandel sat at some distance from the nearest,
close to a window to catch what breezes stole through. Confound the man!
What was he after? He hadn't mentioned Sylvia that self-revealing day in
France; but George had guessed then that he must have known of his
persistent ambition, and had wondered why his unexpected
communicativeness hadn't included it. At least a lack of curiosity now
was valueless, so George said:
"Who's the man?"
"I don't suggest a name," Wandel drawled. "I merely call attention to a
possibility. Perhaps discussing the charming lady at all we're a trifle
out of bounds; but we've known the Planters many years; years enough to
wonder why Sylvia hasn't been caught before, why Blodgett failed at the
last minute."
George stirred impatiently.
"It was inevitable he should. I once disliked Josiah, but that was
because I was too young to see quite straight. Just the same, he wasn't
up to her. Most of all, he was too old."
"I daresay. I daresay," Wandel said. "So much for jolly Josiah. But the
others? It isn't exaggeration to suggest that she might have had about
any man in this country or England. She hasn't had. She's still the
loveliest thing about, and how many years since she was
introduced--many, many, isn't it, George?"
"What odds?" George muttered. "She's still young."
He felt self-conscious and warm. Was Wandel trying to make him say too
much?
"Why do you ask me?"
Wandel yawned.
"Gossiping, George. Poking about in the dark. Thought you might have
some light."
"How should I have?" George demanded.
"Because," Wandel drawled, "you're the greatest and most penetrating of
men."
George's discomfort grew. He tried to turn Wandel's attack.
"How does it happen you've never entered the ring?"
Wandel laughed quietly.
"I did, during my school days. She was quite splendid about it. I mean,
she said very splendidly that she couldn't abide little men; but any
time since I'd have fallen cheerfully at her feet if I'd ever become a
big man, a great man, like you."
Before he had weighed those words, unquestionably pointed and
significant, George had let slip an impulsive question.
"Can you picture her fancying a figure like Dalrymple?"
He was sorry as soon as it was out. Anxiously he watched Wandel through
the dusk of the room. The little man spoke with a troubled hesitation,
as if for once he wasn't quite sure what he ought to reply.
"You acknowledged a moment ago that you had failed to see Josiah
straight. Hasn't your view of Dolly always been from a prejudiced
angle?"
"I've always disliked him," George said, frankly. "He's given me reasons
enough. You know some of them."
"I know," Wandel drawled, "that he isn't what even Sylvia would call a
little man, and he has the faculty of making himself exceptionally
pleasant to the ladies."
"Yet he couldn't marry any one of mine," George said under his breath.
"If I had a sister, I mean, I'd somehow stop him."
Wandel laughed on a sharp note, caught himself, went on with an amused
tone:
"Forgive me, George. Somewhere in your pockets you carry the Pilgrim
Fathers. Most men are shaggy birds of evil habit, while most young women
are delicately feathered nestlings, and quite helpless; yet the two must
mate. Dolly, by the way, drains a pitcher of water every time he sees a
violation of prohibition."
"He drinks in sly places," George said.
"After all," Wandel said, slowly, "why do we cling to the suggestion of
Dolly? Although I fancy he does figure--somewhere in the odds."
For a time George said nothing. He was quite convinced that Wandel had
meant to warn him, and he had received that warning, straight and hard
and painfully. During several weeks he hadn't seen Dalrymple, had been
lulled into a sense of security, perhaps through the turmoil down town;
and Lambert and Betty had lingered beyond their announced month. Clearly
Wandel had sounded George's chief aim, as he had once satisfied himself
of his origin; and just now had meant to say that since his return he
had witnessed enough to be convinced that Dalrymple was still after
Sylvia, and with a chance of success. To George that meant that
Dalrymple had broken the bargain. He felt himself drawn irresistibly
back to his narrow, absorbing pursuit.
"You're becoming a hermit," Wandel was saying.
"You've become a butterfly," George countered.
"Ah," Wandel answered, "but the butterfly can touch with its wings the
beautiful Sylvia Planter, and out of its eyes can watch her debutante
frivolities. Why not come away with me Friday?"
"Whither?"
"To the Sinclairs."
George got up and wandered to the door.
"By by, Driggs. I think I might slip off Friday. I've a mind to renounce
the veil."
XIII
George fulfilled his resolution thoroughly. With the migratory bachelors
he ran from house to house, found Sylvia or not, and so thought the
effort worth while or not. The first time he saw her, indeed, he
appreciated Wandel's wisdom, for she stood with Dalrymple at the edge of
a high lawn that looked out over the sea. Her hair in the breeze was a
little astray, her cheeks were flushed, and she bent if anything toward
her companion who talked earnestly and with nervous gestures. George
crushed his quick impulse to go down, to step between them, to have it
out with Dalrymple then and there, even in Sylvia's presence; but they
strolled back to the house almost immediately, and Sylvia lost her
apparent good humour, and Dalrymple descended from satisfaction to a