XIII
George escaped and hurried upstairs. Lambert was there, but he didn't mention the announcement, and George couldn't very well lead him. No one who did talk of it in his presence, however, shared his bitter disapproval. Most men dwelt as Wandel did on the material values of such a match, which, far from diminishing Sylvia's brilliancy, would make it burn brighter than ever.
Occasionally he saw Sylvia and Blodgett together. For him she had that air of seeking an unreal pleasure, but she was always considerate of Blodgett, who seemed perpetually on the point of clasping her publicly in his arms. A recurrent contact was impossible for George. He went to Blodgett finally, and over his spirited resistance broke the last tie.
"My remaining on your pay-roll," he complained, "is pure charity. I don't want it. I won't have it. God knows I'm grateful for all you've done for me. It's been a lot."
"Never forget you've done something for Blodgett," the stout man said, warmly. "There's no question but you've earned every penny you've had from me. We've played and worked together a long time, George. I don't see just because you've grown up too fast why you've got to make Papa Blodgett unhappy."
George had no answer, but he didn't have to see much of the beaming beau after that, nor for a long time did he encounter Sylvia at all intimately. Lambert, himself, unwittingly brought them together in the spring.
"Why not run down to Oakmont with me?" he said, casually, one Friday morning. "Father's always asking why you're never around."
"Your father might be pleased to know why," George said.
"Dark ages!" Lambert said. "We're in the present now. Come ahead."
The invitation to enter the gates! But it brought to George none of the glowing triumph he had anticipated. He knew why Lambert had offered it, because he considered Sylvia removed from any possible unpleasant aftermath of the dark ages. The man Morton didn't need any further chastisement; but he went, because he knew what Lambert didn't, that the man Morton wasn't through with Sylvia yet; that he was going to find out why she had chosen Blodgett when, except on the score of money, she might have beckoned better from nearly any direction; that he was curious why she had told the man Morton first of all.
They rolled in at the gate. There he had stood, and there she, when she had set her dog on him. Then around the curve to the great house and in at the front door with an aging Simpson and a younger servant to compete for his bag and his coat and hat. How Simpson scraped—Simpson who had ordered him to go where he belonged, to the back door. What was the matter with him that he couldn't experience the elation with which the moment was crowded?
Mrs. Planter met him with her serene manner of one beyond human frailties. You couldn't expect her to go back and remember. Such a return to her would be beyond belief.
"You've not been kind to us, Mr. Morton. You've never been here before."
And that night she had walked through the doorway treating him exactly as if he had been a piece of furniture which had annoyingly got itself out of place.
Lambert's eyes were quizzical.
Old Planter wasn't at all the bear, cracking cumbersome jokes about the young ferret that had stolen a march on the sly old foxes of Wall Street. So that was what his threats amounted to! Or was it because there was nothing whatever of the former George Morton left?
He examined curiously the bowed white head and the dim eyes in which some fire lingered. He could still approximate the emotions aroused by that interview in the library. He felt the old instinct to give this man every concession to a vast superiority. In a sense, he was still afraid of him. He had to get over that, for hadn't he come here to accomplish just that against which Old Planter had warned him?
"Where," Lambert asked, "is the blushing Josiah?"
George caught the irony of his voice, but his mother explained in her unemotional way that Sylvia and Blodgett were riding.
Certainly all along those early days had been in Lambert's mind, for he led George to the scene of their fight. He faced him there, and he laughed.
"You remember?"
"Why not?" George said. "I was born that day."
"Morton! Morton!" Lambert mused.
George swung and caught Lambert's shoulders quickly. There was more than sentiment in his quick, reminiscent outburst. It seemed even to himself to carry another threat.
"You call me Mr. Morton, or just George, as if I were about as good as you."
Lambert laughed.
"We've had some fair battles since then, haven't we, George? You've done a lot you said you would that day."
"I've scarcely started," George answered. "I'm a dismal failure. Perhaps I'll brace up."
"You're hard to satisfy," Lambert said.
George dug at the ground with his heel.
"All the greater necessity to find ultimate satisfaction," he grumbled.
Lambert glanced at him inquiringly.
"I suppose," George continued, "I ought to thank you and your sister for not reminding your parents what I was some years ago, for not blurting it out to a lot of other people."
"You've shown me," Lambert said, "it would have been vicious to have put any stumbling blocks in your way. Driggs is right. He usually is. You're a very great man."
But George shook his head, and accompanied Lambert back to the house with the despondency of failure.
Sylvia and Blodgett were back, lounging with Mr. and Mrs. Planter about a tea table which servants had carried to a sunny spot on the lawn. At sight of George Sylvia's colour heightened. Momentarily she hesitated to take his offered hand, then bowed to the presence of the others.
"You didn't tell me, Lambert, you were bringing any one."
Blodgett's welcome was cordial enough to strike a balance.
"Never see anything of you these days, George. He makes money, Mrs. Planter, too fast to bother with an old plodder like me. Thank the Lord I've still got cash in his firm."
That he should ever call that quiet, assured figure mother-in-law! Mrs. Planter, however, showed no displeasure. She commenced to chat with Lambert. Sylvia, George reflected, might with profit have borrowed some of her mother's serenity. Still she managed to entertain him over the tea cups as if he had been any casual, uninteresting guest.
That hour, nevertheless, furnished George an ugly ordeal, for Blodgett's attentions were perpetual, and Sylvia appeared to appreciate them, treating him with a consideration that let through at least that affection the man had surprisingly drawn from so many of his acquaintances.
A secretary interrupted them, hurrying from the house with an abrupt concern stamped on his face, standing by awkwardly as if not knowing how to commence.
"What is it, Straker?" Mr. Planter asked.
"Mr. Brown's on the 'phone, sir. I think you'd better come. He said he didn't want to bother you until he was quite sure. There seems no doubt now."
"Of what, Straker?" Mr. Planter asked. "Wouldn't it have kept through tea time?"
The secretary seemed reluctant to speak. The women glanced at him uneasily. Lambert started to rise. In spite of his preoccupation George had a suspicion of the truth. All at once Blodgett half expressed it, bringing his fist noisily down on the table.
"The Huns have torpedoed an American boat!"
Straker blurted out the truth.
"Oh, no, Mr. Blodgett. It's the Lusitania, but apparently the losses are serious."
For a moment the silence was complete. Even the servants forgot their errands and remained immobile, with gaping faces. An evil premonition swept George. There were many Americans on the Lusitania. He knew a number quite well. Undoubtedly some had gone down. Which of his friends? One properly asked such questions only when one's country was at war. The United States wasn't at war with Germany. Would they be now? How was the sinking of the Lusitania going to effect him?
Old Planter, Blodgett, and Lambert were already on their feet, starting for the door. Mrs. Planter rose, but unhurriedly, and went close to her husband's side. In that movement George fancied he had caught at last something warm and human. Probably she had weighed the gravity of this announcement, and was determined to wheedle the old man from too much excitement, from too great a temper, from too thorough a preoccupation with the changes bound to reach Wall Street from this tragedy.
"I want to talk to Brown, too, if you please," Blodgett roared.
They crowded into the hall, all except Sylvia and George who had risen last. He had measured his movements by hers. They entered the library together while the others hurried through to Mr. Planter's study where the telephone stood, anxious to speak with Brown's voice. She wanted to follow, but he stopped her by the table where his cap had rested that night, from which he had taken her photograph.
"You might give me a minute," he said.
She faced him.
"What do you want? Why did you come here, Mr. Morton?"
"For this minute."
"You've heard what's happened," she said, scornfully, "and you can persist in such nonsense."
"Call it anything you please," he said. "To me such nonsense happens to be vital. It's your fault that I have to take every chance, even make one out of a tragedy like that."
He nodded toward the study door through which strained voices vibrated.
"Children, too!—Vanderbilt!—More than a thousand!—Good God, Brown!"
And Blodgett's roar, throaty with a new ferocity:
"We'll fight the swine now."
George experienced a fresh ill-feeling toward the man, who impressed him as possessing something of the attributes of such animals. He glanced at Sylvia's hands.
"You're not going to marry him."
She smiled at him pityingly, but her colour was fuller. He wondered why she should remain at all when it would be so easy to slip through the doorway to the protection of Blodgett and the others. Of course to hurt him again.
"I don't believe you love him. I'm sure you don't. You shan't throw yourself away."
Her foot tapped the rug. He watched her try to make her smile amused. Her failure, he told himself, offered proof that he was right.
"One can no longer even be angry with you," she said. "Who gave you a voice in my destiny?"
"You," he answered, quickly, "and I don't surrender my rights. If I can help it you're not going to throw away your youth. Why did you tell me first of all you were going to be married?"
She braced herself against the table, staring at him. In her eyes he caught a fleeting expression of fright. He believed she was held at last by a curiosity more absorbing than her temper.
"What do you mean?"
Old Planter's bass tones throbbed to them.
"Nothing can keep us out of the war now."
The words came to George as from a great distance, carrying no tremendous message. In the whole world there existed for him at that moment nothing half so important as the lively beauty of this woman whose intolerance he had just vanquished.
"Your youth belongs to youth," he hurried on, knowing she wouldn't answer his question. "I've told you this before. I won't see you turn your back on life. Fair warning! I'll fight any way I can to prevent it."
She straightened, showing him her hands.
"You're very brave. You fight by attacking a woman, by trying behind his back to injure a very dear man. And you've no excuse whatever for fighting, as you call it."
"Yes, I have," he said, quickly, "and you know perfectly well that I'm justified in attacking any man you threaten to marry."
"You're mad, or laughable," she said. "Why have you? Why?"
"Because long ago I told you I loved you. Whether it was really so then, or whether it is now, makes no difference. You said I shouldn't forget."
He stepped closer to her.
"You said other things that gave me, through pride if nothing else, a pretty big share in your life. You may as well understand that."
Her anger quite controlled her now. She raised her right hand in the old impulsive gesture to punish his presumption with the maximum of humiliation; and this time, also, he caught her wrist, but he didn't hold it away. He brought it closer, bent his head, and pressed his lips against her fingers.
He was startled by the retreat of colour from her face. He had never seen it so white. He let her wrist go. She grasped the table's edge. She commenced to laugh, but there was no laughter in her blank, colourless expression. A feminine voice without accent came to them:
"Sylvia! How can you laugh?"
He glanced up. Mrs. Planter stood in the study doorway. Sylvia straightened; apparently controlled herself. Her colour returned.
"It was Mr. Morton," she explained, unevenly. "He said something so absurdly funny. Perhaps he hasn't grasped this tragedy."
The others came in, a voluble, horrified group.
"What's the matter with you, George?" Blodgett bellowed. "Don't you understand what's happened?"
"Not quite," George said, looking at Sylvia, "but I intend to find out."