XV
This creation of a check on Dalrymple and the assurance that Lambert would warn him of danger came at a useful time for George, since the market-place more and more demanded an undisturbed mind. He conceded that Blodgett's earlier pessimism bade fair to be justified. He watched a succession of industrial upheavals, seeking a safe course among innumerable and perilous shoals that seemed to defy charting; conquering whatever instinct he might have had to sympathize with the men, since he judged their methods as hysterical, grabbing, and wasteful.
"But I don't believe," he told Blodgett, "these strikes have been ordered from the Kremlin; still, other colours may quite easily combine to form red."
"God help the employers. God help the employees," Blodgett grumbled.
"And most of all, may God help the great public," George suggested.
But Blodgett was preoccupied these days with an Oakmont stripped of passion. George knew that Old Planter had sent for him, and he found something quite pitiful in that final surrender of the great man who was now worse off than the youngest, grimiest groveller in the furnaces; so he was not surprised when it was announced that Blodgett would shortly move over to the marble temple, a partner at last with individuality and initiative, one, in fact, who would control everything for Old Planter and his heirs until Lambert should be older. Lambert was sufficiently unhappy over the change, because it painted so clearly the inevitable end. The Fifth Avenue house was opened early that fall as if the old man desired to get as close as possible to the centre of turbulent events, hoping that so his waning sight might serve.
Consequently George had more opportunities of meeting Sylvia; did meet her from time to time in the evenings, and watched her gaiety which frequently impressed him as a too noticeably moulded posture. It served, nevertheless, admirably with the men of all ages who flocked about her as if, indeed, she were a débutante once more.
In these groups George was glad not to see Dalrymple often, but he noticed that Goodhue was near rather more than he had been formerly, and he experienced a sharp uneasiness, an instinct to go to Goodhue and say:
"Don't. Keep away. She's caused enough unhappiness."
Still you couldn't tell about Goodhue. The very fact that he fluttered near Sylvia might indicate that his real interest lay carefully concealed, some distance away. He had, moreover, always stood singularly aside from the pursuit of the feminine.
George's first meeting with Betty since her return was coloured by a frank acceptance on her part of new conditions that revived his sense of a sombre and helpless nostalgia. All was well with Betty. If there had ever been any doubt in her Lambert had swept it away. Whatever emotion she experienced for George was, in fact, that of a fond sister for a brother; and George, studying her and Lambert, longed as he had never done to find some such eager and confident content. The propulsion of pure ambition slipped from his desire for Sylvia. With a growing wonder he found himself craving through her just the satisfied simplicity so clearly experienced by Lambert and Betty. Could anything make her brilliancy less hard, less headstrong, less cruel?
George cast about for the means. Lambert was on watch. There was still time—plenty of time.
He hadn't spoken again to Lambert about Dalrymple. There hadn't seemed any point, for Lambert was entirely trustworthy, and, since Betty and he lived for the present in the Fifth Avenue house, he saw Sylvia constantly. Their conversation instead when they met for luncheon, as they did frequently, revolved about threats which a few years back they hadn't dreamed would ever face them. Blodgett, George noticed, didn't point the finger of scorn at him for holding on to the mill stocks. George wouldn't have minded if he had. They had originally cost him little, their total loss would not materially affect his fortune, and he was glad through them to have a personal share in the irritating and absorbing evolution in the mills. He heard of Allen frequently as a fiery and fairly successful organizer of trouble, and he sent for him when he thought the situation warranted it. Allen came readily enough, walking into the office, shorn of his London frills, but evidently retentive of the habit of keeping neat and clean. The eyes, too, had altered, but not obviously, letting through, perhaps, a certain disillusionment.
"What are you doing to my mills?" George wanted to know.
Allen, surprisingly, didn't once lose his temper, listening to George's complaints without change of expression while he wandered about, his eyes taking in each detail of the richly furnished office.
"The directors report that the men have refused to enter into a fair and above-board coöperative arrangement, and we've figured all along it was turning the business over to them; taking money out of our own pockets. It's a form of communism, and they throw it down. Why, Allen? I want this straight."
Allen paused in his walk, and looked closely at George. There was no change in his face even when he commenced to speak.
"A share in a business," he said, softly, "carries uncomfortable responsibilities. You can't go to yourself, for instance, and say: 'Give me more wages—more than the traffic will bear; then you sweat about it in your office, but don't bother me in my cottage.'"
"You acknowledge it!" George cried.
Allen's face at last became a trifle animated.
"Why not—to you? Everybody's out to get it—the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. The capitalist most of all. Why not the man that turns the wheels?"
George whistled.
"You'd crush essential industries off the face of the earth! You'd go back to the stone age!"
"Not," Allen answered, slowly, "as long as the profits of the past can be got out of somebody's pockets."
"You'd grab capital!"
"Like a flash; and what are you going to do about it?"
"I'll tell you what I am going to do," George answered, "and I fancy a lot of others will follow my example. I am going to get rid of those stocks if I have to throw them out of the window, then you'll have no gun to hold at my head."
"Throw too much away," Allen warned, "and you'll throw it all."
"The beautiful, pure social revolution!" George sneered. "You're less honest than you were when you dropped everything to go to London for me. What's the matter with you, Allen?"
Allen appraised again the comfortable room. Even now his expression didn't alter materially.
"Nothing. I don't know. Unless the universal spirit of grab has got in my own veins."
"Then, my friend," George said, pleasantly, "there's the door."