The Guarded Heights Part 59

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?"

"To escape what, Betty?"

"That's just it. One doesn't know. Something one doesn't want to know."

It was queer that Betty never asked why he hadn't been to Plattsburgh, never urged a definite decision as to what he would do if----

The "if" lost a little of its power with him. At times he was even inclined to share Mrs. Alston's optimism. It was easy to drift with Was.h.i.+ngton. Besides, he was too busy to worry about much except his growing acc.u.mulation of profits from bloodshed. He was brought back momentarily when Lambert and Goodhue received commissions as captains in the reserve corps. The Plattsburgh noise still echoed. He couldn't help a feeling of relief when people flocked back and the town became normal again, encouraging him to believe that nothing could happen to tear him away from this fascinating pursuit of getting rich for Sylvia while he waited for her next move.

That came with a stark brutality a few weeks after the holidays. He had seen her only the evening before, sitting next to Blodgett at dinner with a remote expression in her eyes that had made him hopeful. The article in the morning newspaper, consequently, took him more by surprise than the original announcement of the engagement had done.

Sylvia and Blodgett would be married on the fifteenth of the following August.

On top of that shock events combined to rebuke his recent confidence.

His desires had taken too much for granted. The folly of the Mrs.

Alstons and the wisdom of the Baillys and Sinclairs were forced upon him. Wilson wasn't going to keep them out of it. George stood face to face with the decision he had s.h.i.+rked when the _Lusitania_ had taken her fatal dive.

It couldn't be s.h.i.+rked again, for the declaration of war appeared to be a matter of days, weeks at the most. The drum was beginning to sound with a rising resonance. Lambert and Goodhue would be among the first to leave. Already they made their plans. They didn't seem to care what became of the business.

"What are you up to, George?" they asked.

He put them off. He wanted to think it out. He didn't care to have his decision blurred by the rattling of a drum. Yet it was patent to him if he should go at all it would be with his partners, among the first. The thought of such a triple desertion appalled him. Mundy was incomparable for system and routine, but if he had possessed the rare selective foresight demanded for the steering of a big business he would long since have been at the helm of his own house. It would be far better, if George had to go, to sell the stock and the ma.s.s of soaring securities the firm had acquired; in short, to close out before compet.i.tors could squeeze the abandoned s.h.i.+p from the channel.

Why dwell on so wasteful an alternative? Why not turn sanely from so sentimental a choice? It was clear enough to him that it would not long survive the war, all this singing and shouting, this driving forth by older people on the winds of a safe enthusiasm of countless young men to grotesque places of death.

He paced his room. That was just it. It was the present he had to consider, and the present thoughts of people who hadn't yet returned to their inevitable practicality, forgetfulness, and ingrat.i.tude; most of all to the present thoughts of Sylvia. To him she had made those thoughts sufficiently plain. Among non-combatant enthusiasts she would be the most exigent. Why swing from choice to choice any longer? To be as he had fancied she would wish, he had struggled, denied, kept himself clean, sought minutely for the proper veneer; and so far he had kept his record straight. With her it was his one weapon. He couldn't throw that away.

He stopped his pacing. He sat before his desk, his head in his hands, listening to the cacophanous beating of drums by the majority for the anxious marching of a few.

It was settled. He had always known it would be, in just that way.

XXI

George took his physical examination at Governor's Island with the earliest of the candidates for the First Officers' Training Camp. As soon as he had returned to his office he wrote to Bailly:

"I'm going to your cheerful war, after all. I'll drop in the end of the week."

He summoned Lambert and Goodhue. Until then he had told them nothing definite.

"Of course," he said, "we'll have a few months, but before we leave America everything will have to be settled. We'll have to know just where we stand."

Into the midst of their sombre discussion slipped the tinkling of the telephone. George answered. He glanced at the others.

"It's Blodgett. Wants me right away. Something important."

He hurried down, wondering what was up. Blodgett's voice had vibrated with an unaccustomed pa.s.sion that had left with George an impression of whole-hearted revolt; and when he got in the ma.s.sive, over-decorated office his curiosity grew, for Blodgett looked as if he had dressed against time and without valet or mirror. The straggly pale hair about the ears was rumpled. His necktie was awry. The pudgy hands shook a trifle. George's heart quickened. Blodgett had had bad news. What was the worst news Blodgett could have?

"I know," Blodgett began, "that you and your partners have pa.s.sed and are going to Plattsburgh to become officers."

All at once George caught the meaning of Blodgett's disarray, and his hope was replaced by a mirth he had difficulty hiding.

"You don't mean you've been over to Governor's Island----"

Blodgett stood up.

"Yes," he confessed, solemnly. "Just got back from my physical examination. Would you believe it, George, the darned fools wouldn't have me, because I'm too fat? Called it obese, as if it was some kind of a disease, instead of just my natural inclination to fles.h.i.+ness."

One of his pudgy hands struck his chest.

"Never stopped to see that my heart's all right, and that's what we want, people whose hearts are all right."

Momentarily the enmity aroused by circ.u.mstances fled from George. The man was genuine, suffering from a devastating disappointment; but surely he hadn't called him downstairs only to witness this outbreak.

Blodgett lowered himself to his chair. He wiped his face with one of his gay handkerchiefs. He spoke reasonably.

"My place is at home. All right. I'll make it easier then for the thin people that can go. I'm going to look after you boys. Mundy's not big enough. I've got a man in view I can keep tabs on, and Blodgett'll always be sitting down here seeing you don't get stung."

He sighed profoundly.

"Guess that'll have to be my share."

George would rather have had the man curse him. It struck directly at his pride to submit to this unmasking of his jealous opinion. He strangled his quick impulse to reach forward, to grasp Blodgett's hand, to beg his pardon. Instead he tried to find ways of avoiding the generous gift.

"We can't settle anything yet. A dozen circ.u.mstances may arise. The war may end----"

"When you go, George," Blodgett said, wistfully.

And George knew that in the end he couldn't refuse without disclosing everything; that his partners wouldn't let him. It added strangely enough to his discomfort that he should leave the disappointed man with a confident feeling that he need make no move to see Sylvia before going to Plattsburgh. In any case, the camp ought to be over before the fifteenth of August.

His partners were pleased enough by his recital, and determined to accept Blodgett's offer.

"He's the most generous soul that ever lived," Goodhue said, warmly.

Lambert agreed, but George thought he detected a troubled light in his eyes.

Blodgett's generosity continued to worry George, to accuse him. After all, Blodgett had accomplished a great deal more than he. With only one of the necessities he had made friends, had become engaged to Sylvia Planter. No. There was something besides that. He had had an unaffected personality to offer, and--he had said it himself--a heart that was all right.

George asked himself now if Blodgett had helped him in the first place, not because he had been Mr. Alston and d.i.c.ky Goodhue's friend, but simply because he had liked him. He was inclined to believe it. He had reached the point where he admitted that many people had been friendly and useful to him because he had what Blodgett lacked, an exceptional appearance, a rugged power behind acquired graces. Squibs, he realized, had put his finger on that long ago. He was glad he was going down. The tutor would give him his usual disciplinary tonic.

But it was a changed Squibs that met George; a nearly silent Squibs, who spoke only to praise; a slightly apprehensive Squibs. George tried to rea.s.sure Mrs. Bailly.