The Guarded Heights Part 66

Without looking back she went out.

"Good luck, Major," Sylvia said, and prepared to follow.

Quickly George reached out, caught her arm, and drew her away from the door.

"You're not going to say good-bye like this."

In her effort to escape, in her flushed face, in her angry eyes, he read her understanding that no other man she knew could have done just this, that it was George Morton's way. Why not? He had no time for veneer now.

It was his moment, probably his last with her.

With her free hand she reached behind her to steady herself against the table. Her fingers touched the gas mask that lay there, then stiffened and moved away. Some of the colour left her face. Her arm became pa.s.sive in his grasp.

"Let me go. How do you want me to say good-bye?"

He caught her other arm.

"Give me something to take. Oh, G.o.d, Sylvia! Let me have my kiss."

VIII

Never since he had walked out of the great gate with Sylvia's dog at his heels to a wilful tutoring of his body and brain had George yielded to such untrammelled emotion, to so unbounded a desire. This moment of parting, in which he had felt himself helpless, had swept it all away--the carefully applied manner, the solicitous schooling of an impulsive brain, the minute effort to resemble the cla.s.s of which he had imagined himself a part. Temporarily he was back at the starting point, the George Morton who had lifted Sylvia in his arms, blurting out impossible words, staring at her lips with an abrupt and narrow realization that sooner or later he would have to touch them.

Sylvia's quick action brought some of it back, but he had no remorse, no feeling of reversion, for the moment itself was naked, inimical to masquerade.

"Lambert!" she called.

Her voice didn't suggest fright or too sharp a hurry. Looking at her face he could understand how much her control had cost, for her expression was that of the girl Sylvia, filled with antipathy, abhorrence, an inability to believe. It appeared to tell him that if he had ever advanced toward her at all, he had just now forced himself back to his own side of the vast s.p.a.ce dividing them.

"Don't be a fool," he whispered. "I could take it, but you have to give."

Her lips were pressed tight as if in a defence against the possible approach of his. They both heard a quick step outside. He let her arms go, and turned to the door where Dalrymple stood, unquestionably good to look upon in his uniform. He frowned at this picture which might have suggested to him a real intimacy between George Morton and Sylvia Planter.

"Lambert's gone on with Betty and the others. What's up?"

Sylvia's voice wasn't quite steady.

"The Major can't leave the area. I want somebody to take me to Officers'

House."

George nodded. He had quite recovered his control, and he knew he had failed, that there was nothing more to be done. The thought of the doubtful days ahead was like a great burden on his soul.

"I've one more word for the Major," she said at the door, motioning Dalrymple on.

George went close to her.

"It's only this," she said. "I'm sorry it had to come at the last minute."

He laughed shortly.

"It was the last minute that made it. I'm not sorry."

Her face twisted pa.s.sionately, as if she were on the point of angry tears.

"I hope I shall never see you again. Do you understand that?"

"Quite," he said, dryly. "To George on going to the wars!"

"I didn't mean just that," she cried, angrily.

"It's your only chance," he said, "and I can understand how you can wish I shouldn't come back."

"I didn't mean it," she repeated.

"Don't count too heavily on it," he went on. "I can't imagine dying before having had what I have always wanted, have always sooner or later intended to get. If I come back I shall have it."

Without another word she turned and left him. He watched her walk side by side with Dalrymple out of the area.

IX

There were moments on the voyage, in the training area in Flanders, even at the front, when he was sorry he had tried to take something of Sylvia with him to battle; for, as it was, he had of her nothing whatever except a wish that she should never see him again. There was a deep irony, consequently, in his official relations with her brother, for it was Lambert who saluted him, who addressed him perpetually as "sir," who wanted to know if the major would approve of this, that, or the other.

It was grotesque. He wanted to cry aloud against this necessary servility of a man whose sister couldn't abide the inferiority of its object.

And he hated war, its waste, its bad management, its discomforts, its dangers. Was it really true he had involved himself in this filth because of Sylvia? Then that was funny. By gad, he would see her again!

But he watched his chances dwindle.

While the battalion was in reserve in Lorraine Lambert and he ran into Dalrymple at the officers' club beneath division headquarters in Baccarat. George saw him first.

"The intrepid warrior takes his ease," he muttered.

Dalrymple left three staff men he was with and hurried across the room.

"New York must be a lonesome place," he said. "Everybody here. Had a letter from Sylvia, Lambert."

Why should she write to him? Far from women's eyes he was back at it.

One of the staff men, in fact, wandered over and whispered to George.

"Either you chaps from the trains? Somebody ought to take him to his billet. General or chief-of-staff might drift through. Believe he'd slap 'em on the shoulder."

"Not a bad idea," George said, contemptuously.

Dalrymple didn't even try to be cordial to him, knowing George wasn't likely to make trouble as long as they were in France. Lambert took care of him, steered him home, and a few days later told George with surprised laughter that the man had been transferred to a showy and perfectly safe job at G.H.Q.

"Papa, and mama, and Washington!" Lambert laughed.

"Splendid thing for the war," George sneered.

But he raved with Lambert when Goodhue was s.n.a.t.c.hed away by a general who chose his aides for their names and social attainments.