The Guarded Heights
mused.
"He hasn't," Lambert said, impatiently. "Since I talked with him that
hectic night I've admitted that Dolly's never had the capacity to love
any one except himself. So he's probably happy in his own unpleasant
way."
A thought came to George. He smiled a little.
"I've been wondering if Sylvia is going in harder than ever on the side
of the downtrodden."
Lambert laughed.
"As far as I know, hasn't mentioned a cossack since that night; and I
have to confess, hard-headed reactionary, the ranks are making me see
too many bad qualities among the good."
"Perhaps," George suggested, "the ranks are saying something of the sort
about us. Besides, I don't see why you call me reactionary."
"Would you have minded it a while back?" Lambert asked.
"Just the same," George answered, "I'd like to get their point of view."
What would Squibs say to that from him? Squibs, undoubtedly, would be
pleased. After Lambert had gone he sat for a long time thinking. He was
glad Lambert had come, for the other had suggested that in endeavouring
to capture such a point of view, in pleasing Squibs, he might at last
find a real interest, and one of use to somebody besides himself. If the
men on the heights didn't get at it pretty soon, a different kind of
climber would appear, with black hands, inflamed eyes, and a mind
stripped, by passion, of all logic. Gladly he found it possible to bring
to this new task the energy with which he had attacked the narrower
puzzles of the university and Wall Street.
Sylvia had called him the most selfish person she had ever met, and, as
he tried to strip from the facts of the world's disease the perpetual,
clinging propaganda, he applied her charge to his soul. From the first
he had been infected, yet his selfishness had been neither inefficient
nor dangerous. This increasing pestilence was. Lambert guessed what he
was at, and George jeered at him for his war madness, but Lambert had
found again an absorbing interest. Because of his missing leg it was
rather pitiful to watch his enthusiasm for a reawakened activity.
"You've got to see Harvard swallow your old Tiger, George," he said one
Friday. "After all, why not? You don't need to come out to the Alstons,
although I'm not sure there would be any harm in that. Talk's about
done, I fancy."
George flushed.
"Do you know I'd love to spill you again, Lambert? I'd like to bring you
down so hard the seismographs would make a record."
"Too bad we can't try to kill each other," Lambert said, regretfully.
"Why not watch younger brutes?"
"I've wanted it for days," George acknowledged. "I'll wire Squibs."
George was perfectly sure that Squibs knew nothing, for he wasn't
socially curious, and Betty would have hesitated to talk about what had
happened even to Mrs. Squibs, yet he was conscious, after the first
moment of meeting, of a continued scrutiny from Squibs, of a hesitancy
of manner, of an unusually careful choice of words.
He had small opportunity to test this impression, for it was noon when
he reached the house in Dickinson Street, and there were many of the
tutor's products in the dining-room, snatching a cold bite while they
roared confused pessimism about the game.
"You're going to the side-lines," Squibs said when they had climbed the
ramp to their section of the stadium.
"I'd be in the way," George objected.
Bailly stared at him.
"George Morton on a football field could only be in the way of Harvard
and Yale."
George experienced a quick, ardent wish for thick turf underfoot, for a
seat on the bench among players exhaling a thick atmosphere of eager and
absorbed excitement. So he let the tutor lead him down the steps. Squibs
called to Green, who was distrait.
"What is it, Mr. Bailly?"
"I've got Morton."
Green sprang to life.
"Mr. Stringham! An omen! An omen!"
He met George at the gate and threw his arms around him. Stringham
hurried up. Green crowed.
"I believe we'll lick these fellows or come mighty close to it."
"Of course you'll lick them, Green. Hello, Stringham! May I sit down?"
"The stadium's yours," Stringham said, simply.
As he walked along the line of eager players, smothered in blankets or
sweaters, George caught snatches of the curiosity of youth, because of
nervousness, too audibly expressed.
"Who's the big fellow?"
"That? Longest kicker, fastest man for his weight ever played the game.
George Morton--the great Morton."
"He never played with that leg! What's the matter with his leg?
Football?"
George caught no answer. He sat down among the respectful youths,
thinking whimsically:
"The war's so soon over, but thank God they can't forget football!"
XXV
At the very end of the first half, when the Princeton sections
experienced the unforeseen glow of a possible victory, George caught a
glimpse of Lambert and Wandel close to the barrier, as if they had left
their places to catch someone with the calling of time. Just then the
horn scrunched its anxious message. George called.
"Lambert Planter!"
Stringham paused, grinning.
"Come over here, you biting bulldog."
Lambert made his way through the barrier and grasped Stringham's hand.
"Come along to the dressing-room," Stringham suggested, cordially. "Nice
bulldog, although once I loved to see Morton chew you up."
Lambert glanced down.
"Thanks. I'd better stay here. One of my runners is off, Stringham."
"Then sit with the boys next half," Stringham said. "Coming, Morton?"
George shook his head, and urged the anxious coach away, for Wandel had
caught his eye.
"Tell them to keep their heads," George called after Stringham. "If they
keep their heads they've got Harvard beaten."
He glanced inquiringly at Wandel.
"Why not cease," Wandel said, "imagining yourself a giddy, heroic cub?
Come up and sit with mature people the last half."
The invitation startled George. Then Sylvia wasn't there?
"Is Sylvia all right?" he asked Lambert under his breath.
Lambert was a trifle ill at ease.
"Oh, quite. Betty asked us to get you. Wants to see you. Have my place.
I'm going to accept Stringham's fine invitation, and sit here with the
young--a possible Yale scout on the Princeton side-lines."
"Stringham's no fool," George laughed. "Anyway, he has you fellows
beaten right now."
Lambert thrust his hand in his pocket.
"How much you got?"
Wandel grasped George's arm.
"Come with me before you get in a college brawl."
"Plenty when we're not chaperoned, Lambert," George called, and followed
Wandel through the restless crowd and up the concrete steps.
Was Sylvia really there? Was he going to see her? The idea of finding
him had sprung from Betty, and Lambert had been ill at ease.
He saw Betty and her father and mother, then beyond them, a vacant place
between, Sylvia to whom the open air and its chill had given back all
her dark, flushed brilliancy. Wandel slid through first, and made
himself comfortable at Sylvia's farther side. George followed, stopping
to speak to the Alstons, to accept Betty's approving glance.
"Conspirator!" he whispered, and went on, and sat down close to Sylvia,
and yielded himself to the delight of her proximity. She glanced at him,
her colour deepening.
"Betty said it was all right, and I must. So many people----"
The air was sharp enough to make rugs comfortable. He couldn't see her
hands because they were beneath the rug across her knees, a covering she
shared with Wandel and him.
As he drew the rug up one of his hands touched hers, and his fingers,
beyond his control, groped for her fingers. He detected a quick, nervous
movement away; then it was stopped, and their hands met, clasped, and
clung together.
For a moment they looked at each other, and knew they mustn't, since
there were so many people; but the content of their clasped hands
continued because it couldn't be observed.
The supreme football player sat there staring at a blur of autumn colour
between the lake and the generous mouth of the stadium; and, when the
second half commenced, saw, as if from an immeasurable distance, pygmy
figures booting a football, or carrying it here and there, or throwing
each other about; and he didn't know which were Harvard's men or which
were Princeton's, and he didn't seem to care----
Vaguely he heard people suffering. A voice cut through a throaty and
grieving murmur.
"Somebody's lost his head!"
"What's the matter?" he asked Sylvia.
"George! You're destroying my hand."
Momentarily he remembered, and relaxed his grasp, while she added
quickly:
"But I don't mind at all, dear."
XXVI
Lambert stood in front of them, glancing down doubtfully. Evidently the
game was over, for people were leaving, talking universally and
discontentedly.
"Betty and I," Lambert said, dryly, "fancied we'd invented and patented
that rug trick."
Sylvia stood up.
"Don't scold, Lambert."
She turned to George, trying to smile.
"I shall be happy as long as my hand hurts. Good-bye, George."
"You'd better go," Betty whispered as he lingered helplessly.
So he drifted aimlessly through the crowd, hearing only a confused
murmur, seeing nothing beyond the backs directly in front of him, until
he found the Baillys waiting at the ramp opening.
"If you'd only been there, George! Although this morning we'd have been
glad enough to think of a tie score."
He submitted then to Bailly's wonder at each miracle; to his grief for
each mistake; and little by little, as the complaining voice hurried on,
the world assumed its familiar proportions and movements. He caught a
glimpse of Allen walking slowly ahead. The angular man was alone, and
projected even to George an air of profound dissatisfaction. Bailly
caught his arm and shook hands with him.
"Whither away?" George asked.
"To the specials."
He fell in beside George, and for a time kept pace with him.
"What's bothering you, Allen?"
With a haggard air Allen turned his head from side to side, gazing at
the hastening people.
"Lords of the land!" he muttered. "Lords of the land!"
"Why?" George asked. "Because they have an education? Well, so have
you."
Allen nodded toward the emptying stadium.
"Lords of the land!" he repeated. "I've been sitting up there with them,
but all alone. I wish I hadn't liked being with them. I wish I hadn't
been sorry for myself because I was alone."
Allen's words, his manner of expressing them, defined a good deal for
George, urged him to form a quick resolution.
"Catch your special," he said, "but come to my office Tuesday morning. I
may have work for you that you can do with a clear conscience. If you
must get, get something worth while."
Allen glanced at him quickly.
"Morton, you've changed," he said. "I'll come."
XXVII
Very slowly the excitement of the game cleared from Squibs' brain. That
night he could talk of nothing else, begging George for an opinion of
each player and his probable value against Yale the following Saturday.
George, to cover his confusion, generalized.
"We'll beat Yale," he said, "as we ought to have beaten Harvard, because
this team isn't afraid of colours and symbols. Most of these youngsters
have been in the bigger game, so final football matches no longer appeal
to them as matters of life and death and even of one's chances in the
hereafter."
Bailly looked slightly sheepish.
"I'm afraid, George, I'm going to New Haven to look at a struggle of
life and death, but then I was only in the Y. M. C. A. I'd feel many
times better if you were sound and available."
"You might speak to the dean about me," George laughed.
By the next evening, however, the crowd had departed, and with
Princeton's return to normal Squibs for the time overcame his anxieties.