The Guarded Heights Part 46

"There are some things," George said, "that one oughtn't to be able to buy with money."

Lambert arose, walked over to George, put his hands on his shoulders, and stared at him quizzically.

"You're a curious brute."

"I know what you mean," George said, "but let me remind you that money was just one of three things I started for."

Lambert's grasp tightened.

"And in a way you've got them all."

George shook off Lambert's grasp.

In a way!

"Let's go down."

In a way! It was rather cooling. It reminded him, too, that Squibs Bailly remained unpaid; and there was Sylvia, only a trifle nearer, and that, perhaps, in an eager imagination. Certainly he had forced some success, but would he actually ever complete anything? Would he ever be able to say I have acquired an exterior exactly as genuine as that one inherits, or I am a great millionaire, or I have proved myself worthy of all Squibs has given me, or I am Sylvia Planter's husband? Of course he had succeeded, but only in a way. Where was his will that he couldn't conquer altogether?

As he came down the stairs he saw Sylvia in a dazzling gown standing in front of the great fireplace surrounded by a group which included Dalrymple and Rogers who had managed an invitation and had just arrived with Wandel. Wandel brought excuses from Goodhue. It was like Goodhue, George thought, to avoid such a party.

Dalrymple smirked and chatted. George left Lambert and went straight to them. Sylvia could always be depended upon to be gracious to Dalrymple.

She glanced at George and nodded. Although she continued to talk to Dalrymple she didn't turn away. George thought, indeed, that he detected a slight movement as if to make room for him. It was as if he had been any man of her acquaintance coming up. Then he had been right?

"Josiah said we'd have you," Dalrymple drawled. "Why didn't you skate?

Anything to get on a horse, what? Freezing pleasure this weather."

George smiled at Sylvia.

"Not with the right horse and companionship."

Any one could see that Dalrymple had already swallowed an antidote for whatever benefit the day's fresh air and exercise had given him. Still in the weak face, across which the firelight played, George read other traits, settled, in a sense admirable; more precious than any inheritance a son could expect from a washerwoman mother and a labouring father. Then what was it Dalrymple had always coveted? What had made him rude to the poor men at Princeton? Something he hadn't had. Money.

America, George reflected, could breed people like that. There was more than one way of being a sn.o.b. He wondered if Dalrymple would ever submerge his pride enough to come to him for money. He might go to Blodgett first, but George wasn't at all sure Blodgett would find it worth his while to buy up the young man.

Blodgett just then joined them. The white waistcoat encircling his rotund middle was like an advance agent, crying aloud: "The great Josiah is arriving just behind me."

"Everybody having a good time?" he bellowed.

Mrs. Sinclair, sitting near by, looked up, but her husband smiled indulgently. George watched Sylvia. Blodgett put the question to her.

"That was a fine ride, wasn't it? I'm always a little afraid for the horse I ride, though; might bend him in the middle."

George couldn't understand why she gave that friendly smile he coveted to Blodgett.

"I'd give a lot to ride like this young man," Blodgett went on, patting George's back. He preened himself. "Still we can't all be born in the saddle."

The thing was so obvious George laughed outright. Even Sylvia conceded its ugly, unintentional humour. A smile drew at the corners of her mouth. If she could enjoy that she was, indeed, for the moment nearer.

Two servants glided around with trays.

Blodgett gulped the contents of his gla.s.s and smacked his lips.

"That fellow of mine," he boasted, "has his own blend. Not bad."

Sylvia drank hers with Dalrymple, while Betty over there shook her head.

Probably it was his ungraceful inheritance that made George dislike a gla.s.s in Sylvia's fingers. Dalrymple slipped away.

"Dividends in the smoking-room!" Blodgett roared.

"Dalrymple's drawing dividends," George thought.

The procession for the dining-room formed and disbanded. Blodgett had Mrs. Sinclair and Sylvia at either hand. It was natural enough, but George resented the arrangement, particularly with Dalrymple next to Sylvia on the other side. Betty sat between Dalrymple and Lambert.

George was nearly opposite, flanked by fluffy clothes and hair; and straightway each ear was choked with fluffy chatter--the theatre; the opera, from the side of sartorial criticism; the east coast of Florida--"but why should I go so far to see exciting bathing suits out of season and tea tables wabbling under palm trees?"--a scandal or two--that is such details as were permissible in his presence. He divided his ears sufficiently to catch s.n.a.t.c.hes from neighbouring sections of the table.

"Of course, we'll keep out of it."

It was Wandel, speaking encouragingly to a pretty girl. Out of what?

Confound this chatter! Oh! The war, of course. It was the one remark of serious import that reached him throughout the dinner, and the country faced that possibility, and an increasing unrest of labour, and grave financial questions. The diners might have been people who had fled to a high mountain to escape an invasion, or happy ones who lived on a peak from which the menace was invisible. But it wasn't that. At other social levels, he knew, there was the same closing of the shutters, the same effort to create an enjoyable sunlight in a cloistered room. On the summit, he honestly believed, men did more and thought more. Perhaps where sensible men gathered together the curtains weren't drawn against grave fires in an abnormal night. Then it was the women. Did all men, like Wandel, choose to keep such things from the women? Did the women want them kept? Hang it! Then let them have the vote. Make them talk.

"You're really not going to Palm Beach, Mr. Morton?"

"I've too much to do."

"Men amuse me," the young lady fluffed. "They always talk about things to do. If one has a good time the things get done just the same."

G.o.d! What a point of view! Yet he wasn't one to pa.s.s judgment since he was more interested in the winning of Sylvia than he was in the winning of the war.

He watched her as he could, talking first to Blodgett then to Dalrymple.

The brilliant Sylvia Planter had no business sitting between two such men. The fact that Blodgett had got the right people stared him in the face, but even so the man wasn't good enough to be Sylvia Planter's host. Nor did George like the way she sipped her wine. She seemed forcing herself to a travesty of enjoyment. Betty, on the other hand, drank nothing. He questioned if she was sorry Sylvia had brought her.

She seemed glad enough, at least, to be with Lambert. He appeared to absorb her, and, in order to listen to him, she left Dalrymple nearly wholly to Sylvia. Once or twice she glanced across and smiled at George, but her kindliness had an air of coming from a widening distance. George was trapped--a restless giant tangled in a snarl of fluff.

He sighed his relief when the women had gone. He didn't remain long behind, wandering into the deserted hall where he stood frowning at the fire. He heard a reluctant step on the stairs and swung around. Sylvia walked slowly down, a cloak about her shoulders. In a sort of desperation he raised his hand.

"This party has got on my nerves."

He couldn't read the expression in her eyes.

"It's stifling in here," she said.

She walked the length of the hall, opened the door, and went through to the terrace.

George's heart quickened. She was out there alone. What had her eyes meant? He had never seen them just like that. They had seemed without challenge.

There was a coat closet at the rear of the hall. He ran to it, got a cap and somebody's overcoat, and followed her out.

She sat on the railing, far from the house. The only light upon her was the nebulous reflection from the white earth. He hurried to her, his heart beating to the rhythm of nearer--nearer--nearer----

She stirred.