The Guarded Heights
fidgety apprehension. Sylvia met George's hand briefly.
"You'll be here long?"
The question expressed a wish.
"Only until Monday. I wish it might be longer, for I'm glad to find
you--and you, Dalrymple."
"Nobody said you were expected," Dalrymple grumbled. "Everybody said you
were working like a horse."
George glanced at Sylvia, smiling blandly.
"Every horse goes to grass occasionally."
He turned back to Dalrymple.
"I daresay you know Lambert and Betty are due back the first of the
week?"
Sylvia nodded carelessly, and started along the verandah. Dalrymple,
reddening, prepared to heel, but George beckoned him back.
"I'd like a word with you."
Sylvia glanced around, probably surprised at the sharp, authoritative
tone.
"Just a minute, Sylvia," Dalrymple apologized uneasily. "Little
business. Hard to catch Morton. Must grasp opportunity, and all that."
And when they were alone he went close to George eagerly.
"No need to wait for Betty and Lambert, Morton. It's done. Dolly's got
himself thrown over----"
"I don't believe you," George said.
"Why not?"
"What are you doing here?" George asked. "It was understood you should
avoid her."
Dalrymple's grin was sickly.
"Way she's tearing around now I'd have exactly no place to go."
"You seemed rather too friendly," George pointed out, "for parties to a
broken engagement."
George fancied there was something of anger in the other's face.
"Must say I'm not flattered by that. Guess you were right. One heart's
not smashed, anyway."
George turned on his heel. Dalrymple caught him.
"What about those notes?"
"I don't trust you, Dalrymple. I'll keep my eye on you yet awhile."
"Ask Sylvia if you want," Dalrymple cried.
George smiled.
"I wonder if I could."
He went to his room, trying to believe Dalrymple. Was that romance
really in the same class as the one with Blodgett? If so, why did she
involve herself in restive affairs with less obvious men? As best he
could he tried to find out that night when she was a little off guard
because of some unquiet statements she had just made of Russian
rumours.
"You don't mean those things," he said, "or else you've no idea what
they mean."
Through her quick resentment she let herself be caught in a corner, as
it were. Everyone was preparing to leave the house for a dance in
benefit of some local charity. Momentarily they were left alone. He
indicated the over-luxurious and rather tasteless room.
"You're asking for the confiscation of all this, and your own Oakmont,
and every delightful setting to which you've been accustomed all your
life. You're asking for rationed food; for a shakedown, maybe, in a
garret. You're asking for a task in a kitchen or a field. Why not a
negro's kitchen; a Chinaman's field?"
He looked at her, asking gravely:
"Do you quite understand the principles of communism as they affect
women?"
He fancied a heightening of her colour.
"You of all men," she said, "ought to understand the strivings of the
people."
He shook his head vehemently.
"I'm for the palace," he laughed, "and I fancy it means more to me than
it could to a man who's never used his brain. Let those stay in the
hovel who haven't the courage to climb out."
"And you're one of the people!" she murmured. "One of the people!"
"You don't say that," he answered, quickly, "to tell me it makes me
admirable in your eyes. You say it to hurt, as you used to call me,
'groom'. It doesn't inflict the least pain."
There was no question about her flush now.
"Tell me," he urged, "why you permit your brain such inconsistencies,
why you accept such a patent fad, why you need fads at all?"
"Why won't you leave me alone?" she asked, harshly.
"You're always asking that," he smiled, "and you see I never do. Why are
you unlike these other women? Why did you turn to Blodgett? Why have you
made a fool of Dalrymple?"
She stared at him.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying, why don't you come to me?"
He watched the angry challenge in her eyes, the deliberate stiffening of
her entire body as if to a defensive attitude. He held out his hand to
her.
"Sylvia! We are growing old."
Yet in her radiant presence it was preposterous to speak of age. She
drew away with a sort of shudder.
"You wouldn't dare touch me again----"
He captured her glance. He felt that from his own eyes he failed to keep
the unsatisfied desire of years.
"I haven't forgotten Upton, either. When will you give me what I want,
Sylvia?"
Her glance eluded him. Swiftly she receded. Through the open door
drifted a growing medley of voices. She hurried to the door, but he
followed her, and purposefully climbed into the automobile she had
entered, but they were no longer alone. Only once, when he made her
dance with him in a huge, over-decorated tent, did he manage a whisper.
"No more nonsense with Dalrymple or anybody. Please stop making
unhappiness."
XIV
George returned to New York with an uneasy spirit, filled with doubt as
to Dalrymple's statement of renunciation, and of his own course in
saying what he had of Dalrymple to Sylvia. Mightn't that very expression
of disapproval, indeed, tend to swing her back to the man? When Lambert
walked in a day or two later George looked at the happy, bronzed face,
recalling his assurance that Betty wasn't one to give by halves. Through
eyes clouded by such happiness Lambert couldn't be expected to see very
far into the dangerous and avaricious discontent of the majority. How
much less time, then, would he have for George's personal worries?
George, nevertheless, guided the conversation to Dalrymple.
"He's running down to Oakmont with me to-night," Lambert said,
carelessly. "You know Betty's there with the family for a few days."
George hid his temper. There was no possible chance about this. Would
Dalrymple go to Oakmont after the breaking off of even a secret
engagement; or, defeated in his main purpose, was he hanging about for
what crumbs might yet fall from the Planters' table. Nearly without
reflection he burst out with:
"It's inconceivable you should permit that man about your sister."
Probably Lambert's great content forbade an answer equally angry.
"Still at it! See here. Sylvia doesn't care for you."
"I'm not talking of myself," George said. "I'm talking of Dalrymple."
With an air of kindness, undoubtedly borrowed from Betty, Lambert said
easily:
"Stop worrying about him, then. Giving a friend encouragement doesn't
mean asking him into the family. That idea seems to obsess you. What
difference does it make to you, anyway, what man Sylvia marries? I'll
say this, if you wish: Since I've had Betty I see things a bit clearer.
I really shouldn't care to have Dolly the man. I don't think there's a
chance of it."
"You mean," George asked, eagerly, "if there were you'd stop it?"
"I shouldn't like it," Lambert answered. "Naturally, I'd express
myself."
"See here. Dalrymple isn't to be trusted. You've been too occupied. You
haven't watched your sister. How can you tell what's in her mind? You
didn't forecast the affair with Josiah, eh? There's only one way I can
play my game--the thorough way. If it came to a real engagement I should
have to say things, Lambert--things I'd hate myself for; things that
would hurt me, perhaps, more than any one else. If necessary I shall say
them. Will you tell me, if--if----"
Lambert smiled uneasily.
"You're shying at phantoms, but you've always played every game to that
point, and perhaps you're justified. I'll come to you if circumstances
ever promise to prove you right."
"Thanks," George said, infinitely relieved; yet he had an unpleasant
feeling that Lambert had held his temper and had agreed because he was
aware of the existence of a great debt, one that he could never quite
pay.
XV
This creation of a check on Dalrymple and the assurance that Lambert
would warn him of danger came at a useful time for George, since the
market-place more and more demanded an undisturbed mind. He conceded
that Blodgett's earlier pessimism bade fair to be justified. He watched
a succession of industrial upheavals, seeking a safe course among
innumerable and perilous shoals that seemed to defy charting; conquering
whatever instinct he might have had to sympathize with the men, since he
judged their methods as hysterical, grabbing, and wasteful.
"But I don't believe," he told Blodgett, "these strikes have been
ordered from the Kremlin; still, other colours may quite easily combine
to form red."
"God help the employers. God help the employees," Blodgett grumbled.
"And most of all, may God help the great public," George suggested.
But Blodgett was preoccupied these days with an Oakmont stripped of
passion. George knew that Old Planter had sent for him, and he found
something quite pitiful in that final surrender of the great man who was
now worse off than the youngest, grimiest groveller in the furnaces; so
he was not surprised when it was announced that Blodgett would shortly
move over to the marble temple, a partner at last with individuality and
initiative, one, in fact, who would control everything for Old Planter
and his heirs until Lambert should be older. Lambert was sufficiently
unhappy over the change, because it painted so clearly the inevitable
end. The Fifth Avenue house was opened early that fall as if the old
man desired to get as close as possible to the centre of turbulent
events, hoping that so his waning sight might serve.
Consequently George had more opportunities of meeting Sylvia; did meet
her from time to time in the evenings, and watched her gaiety which
frequently impressed him as a too noticeably moulded posture. It served,
nevertheless, admirably with the men of all ages who flocked about her
as if, indeed, she were a debutante once more.
In these groups George was glad not to see Dalrymple often, but he
noticed that Goodhue was near rather more than he had been formerly, and
he experienced a sharp uneasiness, an instinct to go to Goodhue and say:
"Don't. Keep away. She's caused enough unhappiness."
Still you couldn't tell about Goodhue. The very fact that he fluttered
near Sylvia might indicate that his real interest lay carefully
concealed, some distance away. He had, moreover, always stood singularly
aside from the pursuit of the feminine.
George's first meeting with Betty since her return was coloured by a
frank acceptance on her part of new conditions that revived his sense of
a sombre and helpless nostalgia. All was well with Betty. If there had
ever been any doubt in her Lambert had swept it away. Whatever emotion
she experienced for George was, in fact, that of a fond sister for a
brother; and George, studying her and Lambert, longed as he had never
done to find some such eager and confident content. The propulsion of
pure ambition slipped from his desire for Sylvia. With a growing wonder
he found himself craving through her just the satisfied simplicity so
clearly experienced by Lambert and Betty. Could anything make her
brilliancy less hard, less headstrong, less cruel?
George cast about for the means. Lambert was on watch. There was still
time--plenty of time.
He hadn't spoken again to Lambert about Dalrymple. There hadn't seemed
any point, for Lambert was entirely trustworthy, and, since Betty and he
lived for the present in the Fifth Avenue house, he saw Sylvia
constantly. Their conversation instead when they met for luncheon, as
they did frequently, revolved about threats which a few years back they
hadn't dreamed would ever face them. Blodgett, George noticed, didn't
point the finger of scorn at him for holding on to the mill stocks.
George wouldn't have minded if he had. They had originally cost him