The Guarded Heights Part 58

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 navely:

"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-p.r.o.nounced cordiality.

There was nothing for it but a dinner together. The Sinclairs expected it, and couldn't be made to understand why it should embarra.s.s 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 c.o.c.ktail 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, d.i.c.ky," 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.