The Guarded Heights

"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 beyond saying, "Betty'll probably let you hear from her in the morning. That's the reason I wanted you to know how things stand. I'm hurrying back now to our confused house."

George followed him to the door.

"Dalrymple – where is he?" he asked.

"Gone to his parents. He'll try to play the game for the present."

"At a price," George said.

Lambert nodded.

"Rather well-earned, too, on the whole," he answered, ironically.

XIX

George slept little that night. The fact that Lambert believed him responsible for the transformation in Sylvia was sufficiently exciting. In Sylvia's manner her brother must have read something he had not quite expressed to George. And why wouldn't she mention him? Why couldn't she bear to have the others mention him? With his head bowed on his hands he sat before the desk, staring at the diminishing fire, and in this posture he fell at last asleep to be startled by Wandel who had not troubled to have himself announced. The fire was quite dead. In the bright daylight streaming into the room George saw that the little man held a newspaper in his hand.

"Is it a habit of great men not to go to bed?"

George stood up and stretched. He indicated the newspaper.

"You've come with the evil tidings?"

"About Sylvia and Dolly," Wandel began.

George yawned.

"I must bathe and become presentable, for this is another day."

"You've already seen it?" Wandel asked, a trifle puzzled.

"No, but what else should there be in the paper?"

Wandel stared for a moment, then carefully folded the paper and tossed it in the fireplace.

"Nothing much," he answered, lighting a cigarette, "except hold-ups, murders, new strikes, fresh battles among our brethren of the Near East – nothing of the slightest consequence. By by. Make yourself, great man, fresh and beautiful for the new day."

XX

George wondered why Wandel should have come at all, or, having come, why he should have left in that manner; and he was sorry he had answered as he had, for Wandel invariably knew a great deal, more than most people. In this case he had probably come only to help, but in George's brain nothing could survive for long beyond hazards as to what the morning might develop. Betty was going to communicate with him, and she would naturally expect to find him at his office, so he hurried down town and waited, forcing himself to the necessary details of his work. For the first time the mechanics of making money seemed dreary and unprofitable.

Goodhue came in with a clearly designed lack of curiosity. Had his partner all along suspected the truth, or had Wandel been talking? For that matter, did Goodhue himself experience a sense of loss?

"Not so surprising, George. Dolly's always been after her – even back in the Princeton days, and she's played around with him since they were children; yet I was a little shocked. I never thought it would quite come off."

It was torture for George to listen, and he couldn't possibly talk about it, so he led Goodhue quite easily to the day's demands; but Blodgett appeared not long after with a drooping countenance. Why did they all have to come to him to discuss the unannounced wedding of Sylvia Planter?

"She ought to have done better," Blodgett disapproved funereally.

He fingered a gaudy handkerchief. He thrust it in his pocket, drew it forth again, folded it carefully with his pudgy hands.

"Don't think I've ever ceased to regret – " he started rather pitifully.

After a moment's absorbed scrutiny of George he went on.

"If she had picked somebody like you I wouldn't have minded. Papa Blodgett would have given you both his blessing."

So they had all guessed something! George questioned uneasily if Blodgett's suspicions had lived during the course of his own unfortunate romance, and he was sorrier than ever he had had to help destroy that. He got rid of Blodgett and refused to see any one else, but he had to answer the telephone, for that would almost certainly be Betty's means of communication. Each time the pleasant bell tinkled he seized the receiver, and each time cut short whatever masculine worries reached him. The uneven pounding of the ticker punctuated his suspense. It was a feverish morning in the market, but not once did he rise to glance at the tape which streamed neglected into the basket.

It was after one o'clock when he snatched the receiver from the hook again with a hopeless premonition of another disappointment. Then he heard Betty's voice, scarcely more than an anxious whisper "George!"

"Yes, yes, Betty."

"My car will be somewhere between Altman's and Tiffany's at two o'clock, as near the corner of Thirty-fifth Street as they'll let me get. Lambert knows. It's all right."

"But, Betty – "

"Just be there," she said, and must have hung up.

He glanced at his watch. He could start now. He hurried from the building, but there was no point in haste. He had plenty of time, too much time; and Betty hadn't said he would see Sylvia; hadn't given him time to ask; but she must have arranged an interview, else why should she care to see him at all, why her manner of a conspirator?

He reached the rendezvous well ahead of time, but he recognized Betty's car just beyond the corner, and saw her wave to him anxiously. He stepped in and sat at her side. She laughed nervously.

"I guessed you would be a little ahead," she said as the car commenced to crawl north.

"Am I to see Sylvia?"

Betty nodded.

"Just once. This noon, before I telephoned, she acknowledged that she wanted to see you – to talk to you for the last time. That's the way she put it."

Betty smiled sceptically.

"You know I don't believe anything of the sort."

"What do you think can be done?" George asked.

She didn't suggest anything, merely repeating her faith, going on while she looked at George curiously.

"So all the time, George – and I didn't really guess, but I might have known you would. I can remember now that day at Princeton when I asked you about her dog, and your anxiety one night at Josiah's when you wanted to know if she was going to be married – oh, plenty of hints now. George! Why did you let it go so far?"

"Couldn't help myself, Betty."

She looked at him helplessly.

"And what have you done to her?"

"If you can't guess – " George said.

Betty smiled reminiscently.

"Perhaps I can guess. You would do just that, George, when there was nothing else."

"You don't blame me?" he asked. "You don't ask, as Lambert did, why I waited so long?"

She shook her head.

"I'm sure," she said, "when you came last night you saw a Sylvia none of us had ever met before. Don't you think it had come upon her all at once that she was no longer Sylvia Planter, that in defeating you she had destroyed herself? If that is so, she has every bit of sympathy I'm capable of, and we must think first of all of her. The pride's still there, but quite a different thing. She's never known fear before, George, and now she's afraid, terribly afraid, most of all, I think, of herself."

George counted the corners, was relieved when beyond Fiftieth Street the traffic thinned and they went faster. He took Betty's hand, and found that the touch steadied and encouraged, because at last her fingers seemed to reach his mind again.

"Betty! Do you think she cares at all?"

"I'm prejudiced," Betty laughed, "but I think the harder she'd been the more she's cared; but she wouldn't talk about you except to say she would see you for a minute this once. Lambert's lunching with Dolly."

"We are conspirators," George said, "and I don't like it, but I must see her once."

They drew up at the curb, got out, and entered the hall. The house was peculiarly without sound. George glanced at the entrance to the room where he had found Sylvia last night.

"I think she's in Mr. Planter's study," Betty said. "He hasn't come downstairs yet."

She led him through the library to a small, square room – a quiet and comfortable book-lined retreat where Old Planter had been accustomed to supplement his work down town. George looked eagerly around, but the light wasn't very good, and he didn't at first see Sylvia.

"Sylvia!" Betty called softly. "I've brought George."

XXI

Almost before George realized it Betty was gone and the door was closed.

"Sylvia!"

Her low voice reached him from a large chair opposite the single, leaded, opaque window.

"I'm over here – "

Yes, there was fear in her enunciation, as if she groped through shadowy and hazardous places. It cautioned him. With a choked feeling, a racking effort after repression, he walked quietly around and stared down at her.

She looked up once quickly, then glanced away. He was grateful for her colour, but the fear was in her face, too, and the pride, as Betty had said, but a transformed pride that he couldn't quite understand. She lay back in the large chair, her head to one side resting against the protruding arm. Her eyes were bright with tears she had shed or wanted to shed.

"Please sit down."

The ring of exasperated contempt and challenge had gone from her voice. He hadn't known it could stir him so. He drew up a chair and sat close to her.

"You are not angry about what I did last night?" he whispered.

She shook her head.

"I am grateful. I wanted to see you to tell you that, and how sorry I am – so beastly sorry, George."

Her voice drifted away. It made him want his arms about her, made him want her lips again. The room became a black and restless background for this shadowy, desired, and forbidden figure.

Impulsively he slipped to his knees and placed his head against the side of her chair. Across his hair he fancied a fugitive brushing of fingers. She burst out with something of her former impetuous manner.

"I used to want that! Now you shan't!"

He arose, and she stooped swiftly forward, as if propelled objectively, and, before he realized what she was doing, touched the back of his hand with her lips.

She sprang upright and faced him from the mantel, more afraid than ever, staring at him, her cheeks wet with tears.

"That's all," she whispered. "It's what I wanted to tell you. Please go. We mustn't see each other again."

In the room he was aware only of her, but he knew, in spite of his own blind instinct, that between them was a wall as of transparent and heavy glass against which he would only break his strength.

"Sylvia," he whispered in spite of that knowledge, "I want to touch your lips."

"They've never been anybody else's," she cried in a sudden outburst. "Never could have been. I see that now. That's why I've hated you – "

"Yet you love me now. You do love me, Sylvia?"

"I love you, George," she said, wearily. "I think I always have."

"Then why – why – "

She turned on him, nearly angry.

"How can you ask that? You haven't forgotten that first day, either, have you? You took something of me then, and I couldn't forget it. That was what hurt and humiliated; I couldn't forget, couldn't get out of my mind what you – one of the – the stablemen – had taken of me, Sylvia Planter. And I thought you could never give it back, but last night you did, and I – Everything went to pieces – And it had to be last night, after I'd lost my temper. I see that. That's the tragedy of it."

"I don't quite understand, Sylvia."

She smiled a little through her tears.

"Betty would. Any woman would. You must go now – please."

"When will I see you again?" he asked.

"This way? Never."

"What nonsense! You'll get a divorce. You must."

She straightened. Her head went back.

"I won't lie that way."

"I'll hit on some means," he boasted. "You belong to me."

"And I've found it out too late," she said, "and I don't believe I could have found it out before. Think of that, George, when it seems too hard. I had to be caught by my own rotten temper before I'd let you wake me up."

She drew a little away, and when he started forward motioned him back. Her face flooded with colour, but she met his eyes bravely.

"That was something. I will never forget that, either, but it doesn't make me feel – unclean, as I did that day at Oakmont and afterward. I don't want to forget it ever. Now you understand."

She ran swiftly to the door and opened it. He followed her and saw Betty at the farther end of the room talking to Mr. Planter.

"Why do you do that?" he asked, desperately.

"I want to tell you why I'll never forget," she answered in a half whisper. "Because I love you. I love you. I want to say it. I think it every minute, so don't you see you have to help me keep it straight and beautiful always, George?"

XXII

"Who has made my little girl cry?"

The quavering tones reminded George. He walked from the little room toward the others, and he saw that Old Planter had caught Sylvia's hand, had drawn her to him, had felt the tears on her cheeks.

There rushed back to George that ancient interview in the library at Oakmont, and here he was back at it, even in Old Planter's presence, making her cry again. He wondered what Old Planter had said when Lambert had told him who George Morton really was.

"You see, sir," he said, moodily, "I haven't changed so much from the stable boy, Morton, you once threatened to send to smash if – "

Sylvia broke in sharply.

"He's never been told – "

"What are you talking about?" the old man quavered. "Was there ever a Morton on my place, Sylvia? An old man, yes. He's dead. A young one – "

Slowly he shook his head from side to side. He peered suspiciously at George out of his dim eyes.

"I don't remember."

Suddenly he cried out with a flash of the old authority:

"I'm growing sensitive, Morton. No jokes! What's he talking about?"

Sylvia took his hand. Her lips trembled.

"Never mind, Father. Come."

And as he let her guide him he drifted on.

"Sylvia! Have you got everything you want? I'll give you anything you want if only you won't cry."

Outside rain had commenced to drizzle. From a tree in the little yard yellow leaves fluttered down. Old Planter hobbled into his study, Sylvia at his side. Betty followed George to the hall.

"Tell Sylvia I am very happy," he said.

She pressed his hand, whispering:

"The great George Morton!"

XXIII

Again George walked to his apartment and sat brooding over the fire, trying to find a way; but Sylvia must have searched, too, and failed. There was no way, or none that she would take. He crushed his heady revolt at the realization, for he believed she had been right. Without her great mistake she couldn't have given him that obliterative moment last evening, or his glimpse this afternoon of happiness through heavy, transparent glass. So he could smile a little, nearly cheerfully. There was really a quality of happiness in his knowledge that she had never forgotten his tight clasping at Oakmont, his blurted love, his threat that he would teach her not to be afraid of his touch. How she must have despised herself in the great house, among her own kind, when she found she couldn't forget Morton, when she tried, perhaps, to escape the shame of wanting Morton! No wonder she had attempted through Blodgett and Dalrymple, men for whom she could have had no such urgent feeling, to divide herself from him, to prevent the fulfilment of his boasts of which he had perpetually reminded her. She must have looked at him a good deal more than he had guessed in those far days. And now his touch had taught her to be more afraid than ever, but not of him. With a growing wonder he recalled her surrender. Of course, Sylvia, like her placid mother, like everyone, was, beneath the veneer even of endless generations, necessarily primitive. For that discovery he could thank Dalrymple. He continued to dream.

What, indeed, lay ahead for him? In a sense he had already reached the summit which he had set out to find, and every thrilling mood of hers that afternoon flamed in his mind. He had a desolate feeling that there was no longer anything for him down town, or anywhere else beyond a wait, possibly endless, for Sylvia; and as he brooded there he longed for a mother to whom he could have gone with his happiness that was more than half pain. His mother had said that there were lots of girls too good for him. His father had added, "Sylvia Planter most of all." His father was dead. His mother might as well have been. All at once her swollen hands seemed to rest passively between him and the fire.

He was glad when Wandel came in, even though he found him without lights, for the second time that day in an unaccustomed and reflective posture.

"Snap the lamps on, will you, Driggs?"

Wandel obeyed, and George blinked, laughing uncomfortably.

"You'll fancy I've caught the poet's mood."

"Not at all, my dear George," Wandel answered. "Why not say, thinking about the war? Nobody will let you talk about it, and I'm told if you write stories or books that mention it the editors turn their thumbs down. So much, says a grateful country, for the poor soldier. What more natural then than this really pitiful picture of the dejected veteran recalling his battles in a dusky solitude?"

"Oh, shut up, Driggs. Maybe you'll tell me why they ever called you 'Spike.'"

Wandel yawned.

"Certainly. Because, being small, I got hit on the head a great deal. I sometimes think it's why I'm too dull to make you understand what I mean to say."

George looked at him.

"I think I do, Driggs; and thanks."

"Then," Wandel said, brightly, "you'll come and dine with me."

"I will. I will. Where shall we go? Not to the club."

"I fancy one club wouldn't be pleasant for you this evening," Wandel said, quietly.

George caught his breath.

"Why not?"

But Wandel wouldn't satisfy him until they were in a small restaurant and seated at a wall table sufficiently far from people to make quiet tones safe.

"It's too bad," he said then, "that great men won't take warnings."

"I caught your warning," George answered, "and I acted on it as far as I could. I couldn't dream, knowing her, of a runaway marriage, and I'll guarantee you didn't, either."

"I once pointed out to you," Wandel objected, "that she was the impulsive sort who would fly to some man – only I fancied then it would ultimately be you."

"Why, Driggs?"

Wandel put his hand on George's knee.

"You don't mind my saying this? A long time ago I guessed she loved you. Even as far back as Betty's début, when I danced with her right after you two had had some kind of a rumpus, I saw she was a bundle of emotion and despised herself for it. Of course I hadn't observed then all that I have since."

"Why did you never warn me of that?" George asked.

Wandel laughed lightly.

"What absurd questions you ask! Because, being well acquainted with Sylvia, I couldn't see how she was to be made to realize she cared for you."

George crumbled a piece of bread.

"I daresay," he muttered, "you know everything that's happened. It's extraordinary the way you find out things – things you're not supposed to know at all."

Wandel laughed again, this time on a note of embarrassed disapproval.

"Not extraordinary in this case."

George glanced up.

"You said something about the club not being pleasant for me to-night – "

"Because," Wandel answered with brutal directness, "Dolly's been there."

George clenched his hands. Wandel looked at them amusedly.

"Very glad you weren't about, Hercules."

"It was that bad?" George asked.

"Why not," Wandel drawled, "say rather worse?"

"Drunk?" George whispered.

"A conservative diagnosis," Wandel answered. "His language sounded quite foreign, but with effort its sense could be had; and the rooms were fairly full. You know, just before dinner – the usual crowd."

"Somebody should have shut him up," George cried.

"We did, with difficulty, and not all at once," Wandel protested. "Dicky's taken him home with the aid of a pair of grinning hyenas. They did make one think of that."

"It's not to be borne," George muttered. "He ought to be killed."

"By all means, my dear George," Wandel agreed, "but we're back in New York. I mean, with the armistice murder ceased to be praiseworthy. They're punishing it in the usual fashion. You quite understand that, George?"

George tried to laugh.

"Quite. Go ahead."

"He really had some excuse," Wandel went on, "because when he first came in no one realized how bad he was – and they jumped him with congratulations and humour, and he went right out of his head – became stark, raving mad; or drunk, as you choose."

"What did he say?" George asked, softly.

Wandel half closed his eyes.

"Don't expect me to repeat any such crazy, disconnected stuff. It's enough that he let everybody guess Sylvia had sold him at the very moment he had fancied he had bought her. I've been thinking it over, and I'm not sure it isn't just as well he did. Everybody will talk his head off for a few days and drop it. Otherwise, curious things would have been noticed and suspected from time to time, and the talk, with fresh impetus, would have gone on forever. Besides, nobody's looking for much trouble with the Planters."

George had difficulty with his next question.

"He – he didn't mention me?"

"Why, yes," Wandel answered, gravely, "but rather incoherently."

"Rotten of him!"

"No direct accusations," Wandel hurried on, "just vile temper; and while it makes it temporarily more unpleasant that's just as well, too. The fact that people know what to expect kills more talk later. I suppose she'll manage a fairly quiet divorce."

"Won't listen to it," George snapped.

"How stupid of me!" Wandel drawled. "Of course she wouldn't."

He sighed.

"I mean to sympathize with you, my George, but all the time I envy you, and have to restrain myself from offering congratulations. Behold the oysters! They're really very good here."

George tried to smile.

"Then shall we talk about shell fish?"

"Bivalves, George. Or we might discuss the great strike. Which one? Take your choice. Or, by the way, have you received your shock yet? They're raising rents in our house more than a hundred per cent."

"The hell after war!" George grinned.

Wandel smiled back.

"Let us hope not a milestone on the road."

XXIV

Through pure will George resumed his routine, but it no longer had the power to capture him, becoming a drudgery without a clear purpose. Always he was conscious of the effort to force himself from recollection and imagination, to drive Sylvia from his mind; and, even so, he never quite succeeded. Were there then no heights beyond?