The Guarded Heights

George let himself drift with events, but Wandel's departure increased his uneasiness. Suppose he should be forced by circumstances to abandon everything; against his better judgment to go? Automatically his thoughts turned to Squibs. He recalled his advice.

"Don't let your ideas smoulder in your head. Come home and talk them over."

He sent a telegram and followed it the next day. The Baillys met him at the station, affectionately, without any reproaches for his long absence. The menace was in the air here, too, for Mrs. Bailly's first question, sharply expressed, was:

"You're not going, if – "

"I don't want to go," he answered.

Bailly studied him, but he didn't say anything.

That afternoon there was a boat race on Lake Carnegie. The Alstons drove the Baillys and George down some hospitable resident's lane to an advantageous bank near the finish line. They spread rugs and made themselves comfortable there, but the party was subdued. Squibs and Mr. Alston didn't seem to care to talk. Betty asked Mrs. Bailly's question, received an identical answer, and fell silent, too. Only Mrs. Alston appeared to detect no change in the world, remaining cheerfully imperial as if alarms couldn't possibly approach her abruptly.

Even to George such a scene, sharing one planet with the violences of Europe, appeared contradictory. The fancifully garbed undergraduates, who ran along the bank; the string of automobiles on the towpath opposite; the white and gleaming pleasure boats in the canal; the shells themselves, with coloured oar-blades that flashed in the sunlight; most of all the green frame for this pleasantly exciting contest had an air of telling him that everything unseen was rumour, dream stuff; either that, or else that the seen was visionary, while in those remote places existed the only material world, the revolting and essential realities.

Bailly at last interrupted his revery, with his long, thin arm making a gesture that included the athletes; the running, youthful partisans.

"How many are we going to lose or get back with twisted minds?"

"Keep quiet," his wife said in a panic.

Mrs. Alston laughed pleasantly.

"Don't worry. Woodrow will keep us out of it."

XV

Back in the little study Bailly expressed his doubt.

"He may do it now, but later – "

"Remember you're not going, George," Mrs. Bailly cried.

"I think not."

She patted his hand, while Bailly looked on with his old expression of doubt and disapproval. When Mrs. Bailly had left them, George told the tutor of Wandel's surprising venture, asking his opinion.

"It's hard to form one," Bailly admitted. "He's always puzzled me. Would it surprise you if I said I think he at least has grafted on his brain some of Allen's generous views?"

"Oh, come, sir. You can't make war an ideal expression of the brotherhood of man. Far better that all men should be suspicious strangers."

Bailly drew noisily at his pipe.

"It often pleases you to misunderstand," he said. "Wandel, I fancy, would take Allen's theories and make something more practical of them. Understand I am a pacifist – thorough-paced. War is folly. War is dreadful. It cannot be conceived in a healthy brain. But when a fact rises up before you you'd better face it. Wandel probably does. The Allens probably don't – don't realize that we must win this war as the only alternative to the world pacing of an autocratic foot that would crush social progress like a serpent, that would boot back the brotherhood of man, since you seem to enjoy the phrase, unthinkable years."

"After admitting that," George asked, quickly, "you can still tell me that I ought to accept the point of view of your rotten, illogical Socialists?"

"Even in this war," Bailly confessed, "most socialists are pacifists. No, they're not an elastic crowd. It amuses me that a lot of the lords of the land, leading an unthinking portion of the proletariat, will permit them to carry on their work in spite of themselves."

"I despise such theorists," George burst out. "They are unsound. They are dangerous."

Bailly smiled.

"Just the same, the very ones they want to reform are going to give them the opportunity to do it."

"They're all like Allen," George sneered, "purchasable."

Bailly shook his head, waved his pipe vehemently.

"Virtue's flaws don't alter its really fundamental quality."

"Then you agree all Socialists are knaves or fools," George stormed.

"Perhaps, George," Bailly said, patiently, "you'll define a conservative for me. There. Never mind. Somewhere in between we may find an honest generosity, a wise sympathy. It may come from this war – a huge and wise balance of power of the right, an honest recognition of men as individuals rather than as members of classes. Perhaps your friend Wandel is on the track of something of the sort. I like to think it is really what the war is being fought for."

"The war," George said, "is being fought for men with fat paunches and pocket-books."

"Then you're quite sure you don't want to go?"

"Why should I as long as my stomach and my pocket-book are comfortable? But I'm not sure whether I'll go or not. That's what worries me."

"You've made," Bailly said, testily, "enough out of the war to warrant your giving it something."

George grinned. It was quite like old times.

"Even myself, on top of all the rest I might make out of it by staying back?"

"You're not as selfish as you'd have me believe," Bailly cried.

George quoted a phrase of Wandel's since Bailly seemed just now to approve of the adventurer.

"The man that keeps himself makes the world better."

Bailly drove him out of the room to dress for dinner.

"I won't talk to you any more," he said. "I won't curse the loiterer at the base until I am sure he isn't going to climb."

XVI

At least George wouldn't have to decide at once. When it became clear that for the present Mrs. Alston's optimism was justified he breathed easier. With Goodhue, Lambert, and Mundy he applied himself unreservedly to his work. Consequently he didn't visit much, didn't see Sylvia again until the fall when he met her at a dinner at the Goodhues'. She shrank from him perceptibly, but there was no escape. He studied her with an easier mind. No date for her wedding had been set. Until that moment should come there was nothing he could do. What he would be able to accomplish then was problematical. Something. She shouldn't throw herself away on Blodgett.

"It must be comforting," he heard her say to Goodhue, "to know if trouble comes your wonderful firm will be taken care of."

George guessed she had meant him to hear that.

"I'm sure I hope so," Goodhue answered her, "but what do you mean?"

"I heard Mr. Morton say once he didn't think he'd care to go to war. Didn't I, Mr. Morton?"

Goodhue, clearly puzzled by her manner, laughed.

"Give us something more useful, Sylvia. He's a born fighter."

"I believe I said it," George answered her. "There might be problems here I couldn't very well desert."

Her eyes wavered. He recalled her hysterical manner that evening at Oakmont. She still sought chances to hurt him. In spite of Blodgett, then, she recognized a state of contest between them. He smiled contentedly, for as long as that persisted his cause was alive.

XVII

It languished, however, during the winter as did Blodgett's hopes of a speedy wedding. The Planters' Fifth Avenue home remained closed, because of Mr. Planter's health. Sylvia and her mother went south with him. Blodgett made a number of flying trips, deserting his affairs to that extent to be with Sylvia. George was satisfied for the present to let things drift.

Dalrymple certainly had drifted with events. He had taken no pains to hide the shock of Sylvia's engagement. George of all people could understand his disappointment, his helpless rage; but Dalrymple hadn't bothered him, and he had about decided he never would.

One spring day, quite without warning, he appeared in George's office. It was not long after the Planters' return to Oakmont. What did he want here? Was there any point spending money on him as matters stood?

He looked at Dalrymple, a good deal surprised, reading the dissipation recorded in his face, the nervousness exposed by the mobile hands. All at once he understood why he had come at last. Dalrymple had wandered too far. The patience of his friends had been exhausted. Perhaps Wandel had taken George's hint. At any rate, he had let himself in for it.

"An opportunity to make a little money," Dalrymple was mumbling uneasily. "Need capital. Not much. You said at Blodgett's – just happened to remember it, and was near – "

"How much?" George demanded, stopping his feeble lies.

Dalrymple, George suspected, because of his manner, asked for less than half what he had come to get.

"What say to a couple thousand? Make it five hundred more if you can. Not much in the way of security."

"Never mind the security."

George pressed a button, and directed the clerk who responded to draw up a note.

"Got to sign something?" Dalrymple asked, suspiciously.

George smiled.

"Do you mind my keeping a little record of where my money goes – in place of security?"

Dalrymple was quite red.

"All right, if you insist."

"I insist. Care to change your mind?"

"No. Only thought it was just a little loan between – friends."

The word left his tongue with difficulty. George guessed that the other retained enough decency to loathe himself for having to use it. The nervousness of the long fingers increased while the clerk prepared the note and George wrote the check. George put a pen in the unsteady hand.

"Sign here, please."

Dalrymple obeyed with a signature, shaky, barely legible.

"Nice of you to do me a favour. Appreciate it. Thanks."

To George it would have been worth that money to find out just how Sylvia's extended engagement had affected Dalrymple. Was it responsible for his speeding up on the dangerous path of pleasure? Of that he could learn only what the other chose to disclose, probably nothing. But what was he waiting for now that he had the money? Why were his fingers twitching faster than ever?

"Didn't see Lambert when I came in," he managed.

"I daresay he's about," George said. "Want him?"

Dalrymple raised his hand.

"That's just it," he whispered. "Rather not see Lambert. Rather this little transaction were kept sub rosa. You understand. No point Lambert's knowing."

"Why not?" George asked, coolly, feeling himself on the edge of the truth.

"I'm a little off the Planters," Dalrymple said.

"Since when?"

Dalrymple's face became redder than ever. For a moment his nervousness abandoned him. He seemed to stiffen with violent thoughts.

"Don't like buying and selling of women in any family. Not as decent as slavery."

George rose quietly. He hadn't expected just this.

"Be careful," he warned. "What are you talking about?"

"What the whole town talks about," Dalrymple burst out. "You know her. I ask you. Hasn't she enough without selling herself, body and soul? No better than an unmentionable – "

George sprang. He didn't stop to tell himself that Dalrymple was unaccountable, in a sense, out of his head. He didn't dare stop, because he knew if Dalrymple finished that sentence he would try to kill him. Dalrymple's mouth fell open, in fact, before the unexpected attack. He couldn't complete the sentence, didn't try to; drew back against the desk instead; grasped a convenient ink container; threw it; called shrilly for help.

George shook the streaming black liquid from his face. With his stained hands he grasped Dalrymple. His fingers tightened with a feeling of profound satisfaction. No masks now! Finally the enmity of years was unleashed. He had Dalrymple where he had always wanted him.

"One more word – You been saying that kind of thing – "

The hurrying of many feet in the outer office recalled him. The impulsive George Morton crept back beneath the veneer. He let Dalrymple go, drew out his handkerchief, looked distastefully at the black stains on his clothing.

Lambert and Goodhue closed the door on the curious clerks.

"What in heaven's name – "

It was Lambert who had spoken. Goodhue merely shrugged his shoulders, as if he had all along expected such a culmination.

Dalrymple, fingering his throat spasmodically, sank in a chair. His face infused. His breath came audibly.

"Caught him harder than I realized," George reflected. He spoke aloud with his whimsical smile.

"Looks as if I'd lost my temper. I don't often do it."

He had no regret. He was happy. He believed himself nearer Sylvia than he had ever been. He felt in grasping Dalrymple's throat as if he had touched her hands.

He failed to give its true value, consequently, to Lambert's angry turning on him after Dalrymple's shaking accusation.

"Sorry, Lambert. Had to – to do what I could. He – he was rotten impertinent about – about – Sylvia."

XVIII

Goodhue caught Lambert's arm. In a flash George read the meaning of Dalrymple's charge. Naturally he was the one to do something of the sort, had to try it. He had been afraid of Lambert's knowing of the loan. How much less could he let Lambert learn why George had justifiably shut his mouth.

"Keep quiet," George warned Lambert. "Dicky! Can you get him out of here. He needs attention. I'm not a doctor. He hasn't been himself since he came."

But Lambert wouldn't have it.

"Repeat that, Dolly," he commanded.

George walked to Dalrymple.

"You'll not say another word."

Dalrymple stood up, weaving his fingers in and out; as it were, clasping his hands to George.

"I'm sorry, Morton. Damn sorry. Forget – forget – "

His voice wandered into a difficult silence, as if he had seen this way, too, a chance of implicating himself with Sylvia's brother; but his eyes continued to beg George. They were like the eyes of an animal, caught in a net, beseeching release.

Goodhue gave him his hat. He took it but drew away from the other's touch on his arm.

"Don't think I'm not all right," he said in a frightened voice. "Took me by surprise, but I'm all right – quite all right. Going home."

He glanced at Lambert and again at George, then left the room, pulling at his necktie, Goodhue anxiously at his heels.

"What about it?" Lambert asked George sharply.

George sat down, still trying to rid himself of the black souvenirs of the encounter.

"Don't be a fool. I said nothing about your sister – nothing whatever."

He couldn't get rid of Dalrymple's begging eyes, yet why should he spare him at all?

"The rest of it," he went on, easily, "is between Dalrymple and me."

"I'm not sure," Lambert challenged.

He reminded George of the younger Lambert who had advanced with a whip in his hand.

"See here," he said. "You can't make me talk about anything I don't care to. I've told you I didn't mention your sister. I couldn't to that fellow."

Lambert spread his hands.

"What is there about you and Sylvia – ever since that day? I believe you, but I tried to give you a licking for her sake once, and I'd do it again."

George laughed pleasantly.

"You make me feel young."

Clearly Lambert meant to warn him, for he went on, still aggressive:

"I care more for her than anybody in the world."

The laughter left George's face.

"Anybody?"

Lambert was self-conscious now.

"Just about. See here. What are you driving at?"

George yawned.

"I must wash up. I've a lot of work to do."

"I'd like to know what went on here," Lambert said.

"Why don't you ask Dalrymple, then?"

"Dolly isn't all bad," Lambert offered as he left. "He's been my friend a good many years."

"Then by all means keep him," George answered, "and keep him to yourself; but when he comes around hang on to the ink pots."

XIX

His apparent good humour didn't survive the closing of the door. His dislike of Dalrymple fattened on his memory of the incident. It had left a sting. He hadn't stopped the man in time. Selling herself! Was she? She appeared to his mind, no longer intolerant, rather with an air of shame-faced apology for all the world. That was what hurt. He hadn't stopped Dalrymple in time.

But there was no sale yet, nothing whatever, except an engagement which, after a year, showed no symptoms of fruition. Blodgett was aware of it, and couldn't hide his anxiety. Evidently he wanted to talk about it, did talk about it to George when he met him in the hall not long after Dalrymple's visit.

"Why don't you ever run down to Oakmont with Lambert?" he asked.

Only Blodgett would have put such a question, and perhaps even he designed it merely as an entrance to his favourite topic. George evaded with a fairly truthful account of office pressure.

"Old Planter asks after you," Blodgett went on, uncomfortably. "Admires you, because you've done about what he had at your age, and it was easier then. Old man's not well. That's tough on Josiah."

"Tough?"

Blodgett mopped his face with a brilliant handkerchief. His rotund stomach rose and fell with a sigh.

"His gout's worse – all sorts of complications. She's the apple of his eye. Guess you know that. Won't desert him now. Wants to wait till he's better, or – or – "

He added naïvely:

"Hope to heaven he bucks up soon."

George watched Blodgett's hopes dwindle, for Old Planter didn't buck up, nor did he grow perceptibly worse. From time to time he visited his marble temple, but for the most part men went to him at Oakmont; Blodgett, of course, with his double errand of business and romance, most frequently of all. And Sylvia did cling to her father, but George's satisfaction increased, for he agreed with Wandel: she was capable of a feeling far more powerful than filial devotion. Blodgett, clearly, had failed to arouse it.

Her sense of duty, however, kept her nearly entirely away from George; for Lambert, either because Sylvia had spoken to him, or because he himself had sensed a false step, failed to repeat his invitation to Oakmont. The row with Dalrymple, although that had not been mentioned again, made it unlikely that he ever would.

Dalrymple had dropped out of sight. George heard vaguely that he was taking a rest cure in the northern part of the state. He couldn't fancy meeting him again without desiring to add to the punishment he had already given. The man was impossible. He had sneaked from that room, leaving the note in George's hands, the check in his own pocket. And the check had been cashed. No madness of excitement could account for that.

It wasn't until summer that he ran into him, and with a black temper saw Sylvia at his side. If she only knew! She ought to know. It increased his bad humour that he couldn't tell her.

He regretted the necessity that had made such a meeting possible. It had, however, for a long time impressed him. Even flabby old Blodgett had noticed, and had advised less work and more play. To combat his feeling of staleness, the relaxing of his long, carefully conditioned muscles, George had forced himself to play polo at a Long Island club into which he had hurried because of his skill at the game, or to take an occasional late round of golf, which he didn't care for particularly but which he managed very well in view of his inexperience. It was while he was ordering dinner with Goodhue one night at the Long Island club that Sylvia and Dalrymple drove up with the Sinclairs. The older pair came straight to the two, while Sylvia and Dalrymple followed with an obvious reluctance.

"We spirited her away for the night," Mrs. Sinclair explained.

She turned to Sylvia.

"My dear, I'll see that you don't cloister yourself any more. Your father's going on for years."

Yet it occurred to George, as he looked at her, that her cloistering had accomplished no change. The alteration in Dalrymple, on the other hand, was striking. George, as he met him with a difficult ease of manner, quite as if nothing had happened, couldn't account for it; for the light-headed look had gone from Dalrymple's eyes, and much of the stamp of dissipation from his face. His hands, too, were quiet. Was it credible he had forgotten the struggle in George's office? No. He had cashed the check; yet his manner suggested a blank memory except, perhaps, for its too-pronounced cordiality.

There was nothing for it but a dinner together. The Sinclairs expected it, and couldn't be made to understand why it should embarrass any one. Dalrymple really helped matters. His mind worked clearly, and he could, George had to acknowledge, exert a certain charm when he tried. Moreover, he didn't drink, even refusing the cocktail a waiter offered him just before they went inside.

As always George disliked speaking to Sylvia in casual tones of indifferent topics. She met him at first pleasantly enough on that ground – too pleasantly, so that he found himself waiting for some acknowledgment that she had not forgotten; that she still believed in their quarrel. It came at last rather sharply through the topic that was universal just then of General Wood's civilian training camps at Plattsburgh. Lambert had gone. Goodhue would follow the next month, having agreed to that arrangement for the sake of the office. Even Blodgett was there. Sylvia took a great pride in the fact, pointed it at George.

"Although," she laughed, "I'm told he's not popular with his tent mates. I hear he has a telephone fastened to his tent pole. I don't know whether that's true. He's never mentioned it. But I do know he has three secretaries in a house just off the reservation. Of course it's a sacrifice for him to be at Plattsburgh at all."

George stared at her. There was no question. Her voice, her face, expressed a tolerant liking for the man. The engagement had lasted considerably more than a year, and now she had an air of giving a public reminder of its ultimate outcome. Or was it for him alone, as her original announcement had been?

"I'm off next month," Goodhue said. "Lambert writes it's good fun and not at all uncomfortable."

"I'll be with you, Dicky," Dalrymple put in. "Beneficial affair, besides duty, and all that."

George experienced relief at the very moment he resented her attack most. It was still worth while trying to hurt him.

"Practically everyone has gone or is going. It's splendid. When are you booked for, Mr. Morton?"

Even the Sinclairs had silently asked that question. They looked at him expectantly.

"I'm not going at all," he answered, bluntly.

"I remember," she said. "You didn't believe in war or something, wasn't it? But this isn't exactly war."

George smiled.

"Scarcely," he said. "It's hiking, singing, playing cards, rattling off stories, largely done by some old men who couldn't get a job in the army of Methuselah. Why should I waste my time at that?"

"It's a start," Mr. Sinclair said, seriously. "We have to do something."

George hid his sneer. Everywhere the spirit was growing to make any kind of a drum that would bang.

"If you don't think Wilson will keep us out of it," he asked, earnestly, "why not get after Wilson and make him start something general, efficient, fundamental? I've never heard of a President who wasn't sensitive to the pressure of the country."

There was no use talking that way. These people were satisfied with the noise at Plattsburgh. He was glad when the meal ended, when he could get away.

At the automobile he managed to help Sylvia into her cloak, and he took the opportunity to whisper:

"When is the great event coming off?"

She turned, looked at him, and didn't answer. She mounted to the back seat beside Dalrymple.

XX

George didn't see her again until winter. He heard through the desolate Blodgett that she had gone with her parents to the Canadian Rockies.

Nearly everyone seemed to flee north that summer as if in a final effort to cajole play. The Alstons moved to Maine unusually early, and didn't return until late fall. Betty put it plainly enough to him then.

"I'm sorry to be back. Don't you feel the desire to get as far away as possible from things, to escape?"