The Guarded Heights
Lambert took her hand and led her to the door.
"Go to Betty," he said.
"But make him understand," she pled.
"Why did you marry him if you didn't love him?" Lambert asked.
She turned and glanced at Dalrymple.
"I was fond of him. I didn't quite realize. There's a difference--he
must see that I've done an impossible thing, and I won't go on with it."
They were at the door. Lambert led her through, returning immediately.
George watched her go, blaming himself for her suffering. He had,
indeed, dragged her from her high horse, but he had not realized he
would bring her at once and starkly face to face with facts she had all
along refused to recognize; yet, he was convinced from his long
knowledge of her, she would not alter her decision, and he was happy,
knowing that he had accomplished, after a fashion, what he had come here
to do.
"You're married," Lambert was saying dryly to Dalrymple. "The problem
seems to be how to get you unmarried."
"You shan't do that," Dalrymple cried, hotly. "You'll talk her around
instead."
"Scarcely a chance," Lambert answered, "and really I don't see why I
should try. You've played a slippery trick. You may have had an
understanding with Sylvia, but I am perfectly convinced that she
wouldn't have let anything come of it if you hadn't caught her at a
moment when she couldn't judge reasonably. So it's entirely up to her."
"We'll see about it," Dalrymple said. "I have my side. You turn nasty. I
turn nasty. You Planters want an annulment proceeding, or a public
divorce with this rotter as co-respondent?"
"Dolly! You don't know what you're saying."
"I'll fight for my rights," Dalrymple persisted, sullenly.
"See here," George put in, "I stayed to say one thing. Sylvia had
nothing to do with what you saw. She couldn't help herself. Your
crookedness, Dalrymple, made me forget everything except that----Never
mind. Lambert understands. Maybe I was out of my head. Anyway, I didn't
give her a chance. She had to suffer it. Is that quite clear?"
Lambert smiled incredulously.
"That'll sound well in court, too," Dalrymple threatened.
"Drop that!" Lambert cried. "Think who you are; who Sylvia is."
"My wife," Dalrymple came back. "I'll have her or I'll go to court."
George started for the door.
"Don't fret, Lambert," he advised. "Money will go a long way with him.
If I might, I'd like to know what the two of you settle. I mean, if you
want to keep it away from your father and mother, my money's available.
I haven't much use for it any more----"
He broke off. What had he just meant to say: that since he had held
Sylvia in his arms all that had marked the progress of his ambition had
become without value? He would have to find that out. Now he waited at
the door, interested only in Dalrymple's response to his bald proposal.
Dalrymple thrust his hands in his pockets, commenced to pace the room,
but all he said was:
"Teach you all not to make a fool of Dolly."
"Remember," George said. "What she wants. And undesired scandals can be
paid for in various ways."
He glanced at Lambert. Evidently Sylvia's brother on that ground would
meet him as an ally. So he left the house and walked slowly through the
eastern fringe of the park, wishing to avoid even the few people
scattered along the pavements of the avenue, for the touch of Sylvia's
lips was still warm on his mouth. He felt himself apart. He wanted to
remain apart as long as possible with that absorbing memory.
Her angry responses in the past to his few daring gestures were
submerged in the great, scarcely comprehensible fact that she had not
rebuked him when he had tumbled over every barrier to take her in his
arms; nor had she, when cornered by Dalrymple and Lambert, assumed her
logical defence. Had that meant an awakening of a sort?
He smiled a little, thinking of her lips.
Their touch had sent to his brain flashes of pure illumination in which
his once great fondness for Betty had stood stripped of the capacity for
any such avid, confused emotions as Sylvia had compelled; flashes that
had exposed also his apparent hatred of the girl Sylvia as an obstinate
love, which, unable to express itself according to a common-place
pattern, had shifted its violent desires to conceptions of wrongs and
penalties. Blinded by that great light, he asked himself if his
ambition, his strength, and his will had merely been expressions of his
necessity for her.
Of her words and actions immediately afterward he didn't pretend to
understand anything beyond their assurance that Dalrymple's romance was
at an end. Not a doubt crept into his strange and passionate exaltation.
He was surprised to find himself at his destination. When he reached his
apartment he got out the old photograph and the broken riding crop, and
with them in his hands sat before the fire, dreaming of the long road
over which they had consistently aided him. He compared Sylvia as he had
just seen her with the girlish and intolerant Sylvia of the photograph,
and he found he could still imagine the curved lips moving to form the
words:
"You'll not forget."
He lowered his hands, and took a deep breath like one who has completed
a journey. To-night, in a sense, he had reached the heights most
carefully guarded of all.
XVIII
He heard the ringing of the door bell. His servant slipped in.
"Mr. Lambert Planter, sir."
George started, placed the crop and the photograph in a drawer, and
looked at the man with an air of surprise.
"Of course, I should like to see him. And bring me something on a tray,
here in front of the fire."
Lambert walked in.
"Don't mind my coming this way, George?"
"I'm glad I'm no longer 'Morton'," George said, dryly. "Sit down. I'm
going to have a bite to eat."
He glanced at his watch.
"Good Lord! It's after ten o'clock."
"Yes," Lambert said, choosing a chair, "there was a lot to talk about."
Little of the trouble had left Lambert's face, but George fancied
Sylvia's brother looked at him with curiosity, with a form of respect.
"I'm glad you've come," George said, "but I don't intend to apologize
for what I did this evening. I think we all, no matter what our
inheritance, fight without thought of affectations for our happiness.
That's what I did. I love your sister, Lambert. Never dreamed how much
until to-night. Not a great deal to say, but it's enormous beyond
definition to think. You have Betty, so perhaps you can understand."
Lambert smiled in a superior fashion.
"I'm a little confused," he said. "She's led me to believe all along
she's disliked you; has kept you away from Oakmont; has made it
difficult from the start. Then I find her, whether willingly or not--at
least not crying out for help--in your arms."
"I had to open her eyes to what she had done," George answered. "I
wasn't exactly accountable, but I honestly believe I took the only
possible means. I don't know whether I succeeded."
"I fancy you succeeded," Lambert muttered.
George stretched out his hand, looked at Lambert appealingly.
"She didn't say so--she----"
Lambert shook his head.
"She wouldn't talk about you at all."
He waited while the servant entered and arranged George's tray.
"Of course you've dined?"
"After a fashion," Lambert answered. "Not hungry. You might give me a
drink."
"I feel apologetic about eating," George said when they were alone
again. "Don't see why I should have an appetite."
Lambert fingered his glass.
"Do you know why she didn't have you drawn and quartered?"
"No. Don't try to create happiness, Lambert, where there mayn't be any."
"I'm creating nothing. I'm asking a question, in an effort to
understand why she won't, as I say, mention your name; why she can't
bear to have it mentioned."
"If you were right, if things could be straightened out," George said,
"you--you could put up with it?"
"Easily," Lambert answered, "and I'll confess I couldn't if it were
Corporal John Smith. I've been fond of you for a long time, George, and
I owe you a great deal, but that doesn't figure. You're worthy even of
Sylvia; but I don't say I'm right. You can't count on Sylvia. And even
if I were, I don't see any way to straighten things out."
George returned to his meal.
"If you had taken the proper attitude," he scolded, "you could have
handled Dalrymple. He's weak, avaricious, cowardly."
"Oh, Dalrymple! I can handle him. It's Sylvia," Lambert said. "In the
long run Dolly agreed to about everything. Of course he wanted money,
and he'll have to have it; but heaven knows there's plenty of money.
Trouble is, the wedding can't be hushed up. That's plain. It will be in
every paper to-morrow. We arranged that Dolly was to live in the house
for a time. They would have been together in public, and Dolly agreed
eventually to let her go and get a quiet divorce--at a price. It sounds
revolting, but to me it seemed the only way."
George became aware of an ugly and distorted intruder upon his
happiness, yet Lambert was clearly right. Sylvia and Dalrymple,
impulsively joined together, were nothing to each other, couldn't even
resume their long friendship.
"Well?" George asked.
"Mother, Betty, and I talked it over with Sylvia," Lambert answered.
"You see, we've kept Father in ignorance so far. He's scarcely up to
such a row. Mother will make him wise very gently only when it becomes
necessary."
"But what did Sylvia say?" George demanded, bending toward Lambert, his
meal forgotten.
"Sylvia," Lambert replied, spreading his hands helplessly, "would agree
to nothing. In the first place, she wouldn't consent to Dolly's staying
in the house even to save appearances. I don't know what's the matter
with her. She worried us all. She wasn't hysterical exactly, but she
cried a good deal, which is quite unusual for her, and she
seemed--frightened. She wouldn't let any one go near her--even Mother. I
couldn't understand that."
George stared at the fire, his hands clasped. When at last he spoke he
scarcely heard his own voice:
"She will get a divorce--as soon as possible?"
Lambert emptied his glass and set it down.
"That's just it," he answered, gloomily. "She won't listen to anything
of the sort."
George glanced up.
"What is there left for her to do?"
Lambert frowned.
"Something seems to have changed her wholly. She declares she'll never
see Dolly again, and in the same breath talks about the church and a
horror of divorce, and the necessity of her suffering for her mistake;
and she wants to pay her debt to Dolly by giving him, instead of
herself, all of her money--a few such pleasant inconsistencies. See
here. Why didn't you run wild yesterday, or the day before?"
"Do you think," George asked, softly, "it would have been quite the same
thing, would have had quite the same effect?"
"I wonder," Lambert mused.
George arose and stood with his back to the fire.
"And of course," he said, thoughtfully, "you or I can't tell just what
the effect has been. See here, Lambert. I have to find that out. I must
see her once, if only for five minutes."
He watched Lambert, who didn't answer at first.
"I'll not run wild again," he promised. "If she'd only agree--just five
minutes' talk."
"I told you," Lambert said at last, "she wouldn't mention your name or
let any one else; but, on the theory that you are really responsible for
what's happened, I'd like you to see her. You might persuade her that a
divorce is absolutely necessary, the only way out. You might get her to
understand that she can't go through life tied to a man she'll never
see, while people will talk many times more than if she took a train
quietly west."
"If she'll see me," George said, "I'll try to make it plain to her."
"Betty has a scheme----" Lambert began, and wouldn't grow more explicit