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For some time after Betty had left him George remained staring at the fire. The chatter and the intermittent banging of the piano made him long for quiet; but it was good discipline to stay downstairs, and Mrs. Sinclair had said Sylvia might show herself later. So he waited, struggling with his old doubt, asking himself if he had actually acquired anything genuine except his money.
Later he wandered again from room to room, seeking Sylvia, but she didn't appear, and he couldn't understand her failure. Had it any meaning for him? Why, for that matter, should she strike him before any other knew of the weapon in her hand? From time to time Dalrymple expressed a maudlin concern for her, and George's uncertainty increased. If it should turn out to be Dalrymple, he told himself hotly, he would be capable of killing.
The young man quite fulfilled his promise of the early evening. Long after the last of the women had retired he remained in the smoking-room. Rogers abetted him, glad, doubtless, to be sportive in such distinguished company. Wandel loitered, too, and was unusually flushed, refilling his glass rather often. Lambert, Blodgett, and he were at a final game of billiards.
"You've been with Dalrymple all evening," George said, significantly, to Wandel.
"My dear George," Wandel answered, easily, "I observe the habits of my fellow creatures. Be they good or bad I venture not to interfere."
"An easy creed," George said. "You're not your brother's keeper."
"Rather not. The man that keeps himself makes the world better."
George had a disturbing fancy that Wandel accused him.
"You don't mean that at all," he said. "When will you learn to say what you mean?"
"Perhaps," Wandel replied, sipping, "when I decide not to enter politics."
"Your shot," Blodgett called, and Wandel strolled to the table.
Dalrymple didn't play, his accuracy having diminished to the point of laughter. He edged across to George.
"Old George Morton!" he drawled. "Young George Croesus! And all that."
The slurred last phrase was as abhorrent as "why don't you stick to your laundry?" It carried much the same implication. But Dalrymple was up to something, wanted something. He came to it after a time with the air of one conferring a regal favour.
"Haven't got a hundred in your pocket, Croesus? Driggs and bridge have squeezed me dry. Blodgett's got bones. Never saw such a man. Has everything. Driggs is running out. Recoup at bones. Everybody shoot. Got the change, save me running upstairs? Bad for my heart, and all that."
He grinned. George grinned back. It was a small favour, but it was a start, for the other acquired bad habits readily. Ammunition against Dalrymple! He had always needed it, might want it more than ever now. At last Dalrymple himself put it in his hand.
He passed over the money, observing that the other moved so as to screen the transaction from those about the table.
"Little night-cap with me?" Dalrymple suggested as if by way of payment.
George laughed.
"Haven't you already protected the heads of the party?"
Dalrymple made a wry face.
"Do their heads a lot more good than mine."
The game ended.
Dalrymple turned away shouting.
"Bones! Bones!"
Blodgett produced a pair of dice with his air of giving each of his patrons his heart's desire. Wandel yawned. Dalrymple rattled the dice and slithered them across the billiard table.
"Coming in, George?" Blodgett roared.
"Thanks. I'm off to bed."
But he waited, curious as to the destination of the small loan he had just made.
Blodgett with tact threw for reasonable stakes. Roger's play was necessarily small, and he seemed ashamed of the fact. Lambert put plenty on the table, but urged no takers. Wandel varied his wagers. Dalrymple covered everything he could, and had luck.
George studied the intent figures, the eager eyes, as the dice flopped across the table; listened to the polished voices raised to these toys in childish supplications that sang with the petulant accents of negroes. Simultaneously he was irritated and entertained, experiencing a vague, uneasy fear that a requisite side of life, of which this folly might be taken as a symbol, had altogether escaped him. He laughed aloud when Wandel sang something about seven and eleven. His voice resembled a negro's as the peep of a sparrow approaches an eagle's scream.
"What you laughing at, great man? One must talk to them. Otherwise they don't behave, and you see I rolled an eleven. Positive proof."
He gathered in the money he had won.
"Shooting fifty this time."
"Why not shoot?" Dalrymple asked George. "'Fraid you couldn't talk to 'em?"
"Thing doesn't interest me."
"No sport, George Morton."
It was the way it was said that arrested George. Trust Dalrymple when he had had enough to drink to air his dislikes. The others glanced up.
"How much have you got there?" George asked quietly.
With a slightly startled air Dalrymple ran over his money.
"Pretty nearly three. Why?"
"Call it three," George said.
He gathered the dice from the table. The others drew back, leaving, as it were, the ring clear.
"I'll throw you just once," George said, "for three hundred. High man to throw. On?"
"Sure," Dalrymple said, thickly.
George counted out his money and placed it on the table. He threw a five. Dalrymple couldn't do better than a four. George rattled the dice, and, rather craving some of the other's Senegambian chatter, rolled them. They rested six and four. Dalrymple didn't try to hide his delight.
"Stung, old George Morton! Never come a ten again."
"There'll come another ten," George promised.
He continued to roll, a trifle self-conscious in his silence, while Dalrymple bent over the table, desirous of a seven, while the others watched, absorbed.
Sixes and eights fell, and other numbers, but for half-a-dozen throws no seven or ten.
"Come you seven!" Dalrymple sang.
"You've luck, George," Lambert commented. "I wouldn't lay against you now. I'll go you fifty, Driggs, on his ten."
"Done!"
The next throw the dice turned up six and four.
"The very greatest of men," Wandel said, ruefully.
While George put the money in his pocket Dalrymple straightened, frowning.
"Double or quits! Revenge!"
"I said once," George reminded him. "I'm off to bed."
The others resumed their play. Dalrymple stared at George, an ugly light in his eyes. George nodded, and the other followed him to the door. George handed him a hundred dollars.
"Save you running upstairs. How much do you owe me now?"
"Couple hundred."
"I shouldn't worry about that," George laughed. "When you want a good deal more and it's inconvenient to run upstairs I might save you some trouble."
"Now that's white of you," Dalrymple condescended, and went, a trifle unsteadily, back to the table.
George carried to his room an impression that he had thoroughly soiled his hands at last, but unavoidably. Of course he had scorned Blodgett for involving Sinclair. His own case was very different. Besides, he hadn't actually involved Dalrymple yet, but he had made a start. Dalrymple had always gunned for him. More than ever since Sylvia's announcement, George felt the necessity of getting Dalrymple where he could handle him. If she had chosen Dalrymple, of course, money would serve only until the greedy youth could get his fingers in the Planter bags. He shook with a quick repugnance. No matter who won her it mustn't be Dalrymple. He would stop that at any cost.
He sat for some time on the edge of the bed, studying the pattern of the rug. Was Dalrymple the man to arouse a grand passion in her? She had said:
"I can't always be running away from you."
She had told him and no one else. Was the thing calculation, quite bereft of love? Oh, no. George couldn't imagine he was of such importance she would flee that far to be rid of him; but he went to bed at last, confessing the situation had elements he couldn't grasp. Perhaps, when he knew surely who the man was, they would become sufficiently ponderable.