The Guarded Heights Part 29

"You've just returned from the world," Bailly said, "and all you've brought is three thousand dollars and a bad complexion. I wish you'd directed your steps to a coal mine. You'd have come back richer."

XXIII

Goodhue got in a few hours after George. There was a deep satisfaction in their greetings. They were glad to be together, facing varsity football, looking ahead to the pleasures and excitements of another year, but George would have been happier if he could have shared his room-mate's unconcern about the clubs. Of course, Goodhue was settled.

Did he know about George? George was glad the other couldn't guess how carefully he had calculated the situation--to take the best, or a dignified stand against all clubs with Allen getting behind him with all the poor and unknown men. But wasn't that exactly Wandel's game?

Stringham and Green were glad enough to see him, but Green thought he had been thoughtless not to have kept a football in the office for kicking goals through transoms.

It was good to feel the vapours of the market-place leaving his lungs and brain. Goodhue and he, during the easy preliminary work, resumed their runs. He felt he hadn't really gone back. If he didn't get hurt he would do things that fall that would drive the perplexed frown from Bailly's forehead, that would win Betty's applause and Sylvia's admiration. Whatever happened he was going to take care of her brother in the Yale game.

Betty was rather too insistent about that. She had fallen into the habit again of stopping George and Goodhue on their runs for a moment's gossip.

"See here, Betty," Goodhue laughed once, "you're rather too interested in this Eli Planter."

George had reached the same conclusion--but why should it bother him? It was logical that Betty and Lambert should be drawn together. He blamed himself for a habit of impatience that had grown upon him. Had it come out of the strain of the Street, or was it an expression of his knowledge that now, at the commencement of his second year, he approached the culmination of his entire college course? With the club matter settled there would remain little for him save a deepening of useful friendships and a squeezing of the opportunity to acquire knowledge and a proper manner. For the same cause, the approaching election of officers for Soph.o.m.ore year was of vital importance. It was generally conceded that the ticket put through now, barring accident, would be elected senior year to go out into the world at the head of the cla.s.s. The presidency would graduate a man with a patent of n.o.bility, as one might say. George guessed that all of Wandel's intrigues led to the re-election of Goodhue. He wanted that influential office in his own crowd. Even now George couldn't wholly sound Wandel's desires with him.

He yielded to the general interest and uneasiness. Squibs had been right. Princeton did hold a fair sample of it all. He understood that very much as this affair was arranged he would see the political destinies of the country juggled later.

Allen got him alone, begging for his decision.

"Have you been asked for a club yet?"

"None of your business," George said, promptly.

"You've got to make up your mind in a hurry," Allen urged. "Promise me now that you'll leave the clubs alone, then I can handle Mr. Wandel."

"You're d.i.c.kering with him?" George asked, quickly.

"No. Mr. Wandel is trying to d.i.c.ker with me."

But George couldn't make up his mind. There were other problems as critical as the clubs. Could he afford to fight d.i.c.k Goodhue for that high office? If only he could find out what the Goodhue crowd thought of him!

He had an opportunity to learn one evening, and conquered a pa.s.sionate desire to eavesdrop. As he ran lightly up the stairs to his room he heard through the open study door Wandel and Goodhue talking with an unaccustomed heat.

"You can't take such an att.i.tude," Wandel was saying.

"I've taken it."

"Change your mind," Wandel urged. "I've nursed him along as the only possible tie between two otherwise irreconcilable elements of the cla.s.s.

I tell you I can't put you over unless you come to your senses."

George hurried in and nodded. From their faces he gathered there had been a fair row. Wandel grasped his arm. George stiffened. Something was coming now. It wasn't quite what he had expected.

"How would you like," Wandel said, "to be the very distinguished secretary of your cla.s.s?"

George gazed from the window at the tree-bordered lawns where lesser men contentedly kicked footb.a.l.l.s to each other.

"It ought to be what the cla.s.s likes," he muttered. "I'm really only interested in seeing d.i.c.ky re-elected."

"If," Wandel said, "I told you it couldn't be done without your distinguished and untrammelled name on the ticket?"

George flushed.

"What do you mean by untrammelled?"

"You stop that, Spike," Goodhue said, more disturbed than George had ever seen him. "It's indecent. I won't have it."

George relaxed. Untrammelled had certainly meant free from the taint of the clubs. He was grateful Goodhue had interfered.

"Why don't you run for something yourself, Mr. Wandel?" he asked, dryly.

Goodhue laughed.

"Carry your filthy politics somewhere else."

He and George, with an affectation of good nature, pushed Wandel out of the room. They looked at each other. Neither said anything.

George had to call upon his will to keep his attention on his books that night. In return for Allen's support for Goodhue Wandel wanted to give Allen for a minor place on the ticket a poor man untrammelled by the clubs. The realization angered George. Aside from any other consideration he couldn't permit himself to be bartered about to save any one--even Goodhue. But was Goodhue trying to spare him at a sacrifice? George, with a vast relief, decided that that was so when Goodhue mentioned casually one day that he was a certainty for the club.

"Don't say anything about it," he advised. "The upper cla.s.smen have been getting a few of us together. I'm glad you're among us. We'll elect the full section later."

"Of course I came here a stranger," George began, trying to hide his pleasure.

"Quite a lot of us have learned to know you pretty well," Goodhue smiled.

George wouldn't accept this coveted gift without putting himself on record.

"I needn't ask you," he said, "if Dalrymple's already in."

Goodhue shook his head.

"Maybe later."

"I think," George said, distinctly, "that the men who are responsible for my election should know I'll hold out against Dalrymple."

"You're a conscientious beggar," Goodhue laughed. "It's your own business now, but there'll be a nice little rumpus just the same."

George was conscientious with Allen, too.

"I feel I ought to tell you," he said, "that I've made up my mind, if I'm asked, to join a club. Anything that has so much to offer can't be as bad as you think."

Without answering Allen flushed and walked off angrily.

It was the next day that the parties gathered on the top floor of d.i.c.kinson Hall for the election. George went as an amused spectator. He had played the game on the level and had destroyed his own chances, but he was afraid he had destroyed Goodhue's, too, or Goodhue had destroyed his own by insisting on taking George into the club. That was a sacrifice George wanted to repay.

Wandel, as usual, was undisturbed. Allen's angular figure wandered restlessly among the groups. George had no idea what the line-up was.

George sensed weakness in the fact that, when the nominations were opened, Wandel was the first on his feet. He recited Goodhue's virtues as an athlete and a scholar. Like a real political orator at a convention he examined his record as president the previous year. He placed him in nomination amid a satisfactory applause. Now what was coming? Who did Allen have?