The Guarded Heights Part 92

As he drew the rug up one of his hands touched hers, and his fingers, beyond his control, groped for her fingers. He detected a quick, nervous movement away; then it was stopped, and their hands met, clasped, and clung together.

For a moment they looked at each other, and knew they mustn't, since there were so many people; but the content of their clasped hands continued because it couldn't be observed.

The supreme football player sat there staring at a blur of autumn colour between the lake and the generous mouth of the stadium; and, when the second half commenced, saw, as if from an immeasurable distance, pygmy figures booting a football, or carrying it here and there, or throwing each other about; and he didn't know which were Harvard's men or which were Princeton's, and he didn't seem to care----

Vaguely he heard people suffering. A voice cut through a throaty and grieving murmur.

"Somebody's lost his head!"

"What's the matter?" he asked Sylvia.

"George! You're destroying my hand."

Momentarily he remembered, and relaxed his grasp, while she added quickly:

"But I don't mind at all, dear."

XXVI

Lambert stood in front of them, glancing down doubtfully. Evidently the game was over, for people were leaving, talking universally and discontentedly.

"Betty and I," Lambert said, dryly, "fancied we'd invented and patented that rug trick."

Sylvia stood up.

"Don't scold, Lambert."

She turned to George, trying to smile.

"I shall be happy as long as my hand hurts. Good-bye, George."

"You'd better go," Betty whispered as he lingered helplessly.

So he drifted aimlessly through the crowd, hearing only a confused murmur, seeing nothing beyond the backs directly in front of him, until he found the Baillys waiting at the ramp opening.

"If you'd only been there, George! Although this morning we'd have been glad enough to think of a tie score."

He submitted then to Bailly's wonder at each miracle; to his grief for each mistake; and little by little, as the complaining voice hurried on, the world a.s.sumed its familiar proportions and movements. He caught a glimpse of Allen walking slowly ahead. The angular man was alone, and projected even to George an air of profound dissatisfaction. Bailly caught his arm and shook hands with him.

"Whither away?" George asked.

"To the specials."

He fell in beside George, and for a time kept pace with him.

"What's bothering you, Allen?"

With a haggard air Allen turned his head from side to side, gazing at the hastening people.

"Lords of the land!" he muttered. "Lords of the land!"

"Why?" George asked. "Because they have an education? Well, so have you."

Allen nodded toward the emptying stadium.

"Lords of the land!" he repeated. "I've been sitting up there with them, but all alone. I wish I hadn't liked being with them. I wish I hadn't been sorry for myself because I was alone."

Allen's words, his manner of expressing them, defined a good deal for George, urged him to form a quick resolution.

"Catch your special," he said, "but come to my office Tuesday morning. I may have work for you that you can do with a clear conscience. If you must get, get something worth while."

Allen glanced at him quickly.

"Morton, you've changed," he said. "I'll come."

XXVII

Very slowly the excitement of the game cleared from Squibs' brain. That night he could talk of nothing else, begging George for an opinion of each player and his probable value against Yale the following Sat.u.r.day.

George, to cover his confusion, generalized.

"We'll beat Yale," he said, "as we ought to have beaten Harvard, because this team isn't afraid of colours and symbols. Most of these youngsters have been in the bigger game, so final football matches no longer appeal to them as matters of life and death and even of one's chances in the hereafter."

Bailly looked slightly sheepish.

"I'm afraid, George, I'm going to New Haven to look at a struggle of life and death, but then I was only in the Y. M. C. A. I'd feel many times better if you were sound and available."

"You might speak to the dean about me," George laughed.

By the next evening, however, the crowd had departed, and with Princeton's return to normal Squibs for the time overcame his anxieties.

That night George and he sat in a corner of the lounge of the Na.s.sau Club, waiting for Lambert and Wandel to drive in from the Alstons.

George grew a trifle uncomfortable, because he suspected Squibs was staring at him with yesterday's curious scrutiny. Abruptly the tutor asked:

"What did you say to Allen after the game?"

"Offered him another job," George answered, shortly.

Bailly frowned.

"See here, George. What are you up to? Is that fair and decent? Allen is struggling--for the right."

"Allen," George answered, "has put some of his views to the test, and the results have made him discouraged and uneasy. He's been tainted by the very men he's tried to help. I've no idea of debauching him. Quite the reverse. Please listen."

And he entered upon a sort of penitence, speaking, while the tutor's wrinkled face flushed with pleasure, of his recent efforts to understand the industrial situation and its probable effects on society.

"I have to acknowledge," he said, softly, "that pure material success has completely altered its meaning for me. I'd like to use my share of it, and what small brains I have, to help set things straight; but I'm not so sure this generation won't have too sticky feet to drag itself out of the swamp of its own making."