XXVIII
George returned to New York happy in his memory of his intimate hour on a crowded stand with Sylvia. Dalrymple had given him that, too. It amazed him that so much beauty could spring from so ugly a source.
He heard that Dalrymple was back from Canada, then that he had wandered away, pockets full, on another journey, pandering to his twisted conception of pleasure. One day George took his notes from the safe-deposit box and gave them to Lambert.
"Get them back to him," he said.
And Lambert must have understood that George would never let the Planters' money redeem them.
"It's pretty decent, George."
"It's nothing of the kind. They make my hands feel dirty, and I've lots of money, and I'm making more every day; yet I wonder if it's going to be enough, even with Driggs' and Blodgett's and yours, old Argonne democrat."
For he had spoken of his plans to Blodgett, and had been a little surprised to learn how much thought Blodgett had given the puzzle himself, although most of his searching had been for makeshifts, for anything to tide over immediate emergencies.
"I don't know," Blodgett roared, "whether this cleaning out the sore and getting to the bottom of it will work or not; but I'm inclined to look to the future with you for a permanent cure. Anyway, I'd help you finance a scheme to make the ocean dry, because you usually get what you're after. So we'll send Wandel and Allen and some more as a little leaven to Albany and to that quilting party in Washington. I don't envy them, though."
George realized that his content could be traced to this new interest, as that went back to Sylvia. He had at last consciously set out to explore the road of service. For the first time in his life, with his eyes open, he was working for others, yet he never got rid of the sense of a great personal need unfulfilled; always in his heart vibrated the cry for Sylvia, but he knew he mustn't try to see her, for Betty would have let him know, and Betty hadn't sent for him again.
After the holidays, at the urging of Wandel and Lambert, he showed himself here and there, received at first curious glances, fancied some people slightly self-conscious, then all at once found himself welcomed on the old frank and pleasant basis. Yes, the talk had pretty well died, and men and women were inclined to like Sylvia Planter and George Morton better than they did Dalrymple.
He saw Dalrymple in the club one stormy January evening. He hadn't heard he was in town, and examined him curiously as he sat alone in a corner, making a pretence of reading a newspaper, but really looking across the room at the fire with restless eyes. George, prepared as he had been, was surprised by the haggard, flushed countenance, and the neurotic symptoms, nearly uncontrollable.
Beyond question Dalrymple saw him, and pretended that he didn't. Heartily glad of that, George joined a group about the fireplace, and after a few minutes saw Dalrymple rise and wander unevenly from the room.
George met him several times afterward under similar circumstances, and always Dalrymple shortly disappeared, because, George thought, of his arrival; but other people tactfully put him straight. Dalrymple, it seemed, remained in no public place for long, as if there was something evilly secretive to call him perpetually away.
Wandel told him toward the end of the month that Dalrymple was about to make a trip to Havana for the remainder of the winter.
"Where there's horse-racing, gambling, and unlimited alcohol—where one may sin in public. Why talk about it? Although he doesn't mean to, George, he's in a fair way of doing you a favour."
But George didn't dream how close Dalrymple's offering was. His first thought, indeed, was for Sylvia when the influenza epidemic of January and February promised for a time to equal its previous ugly record. Lambert tried to laugh his worry away.
"She's going south with father and mother very soon. Anyway, she hasn't the habit of catching things."
And it was Lambert a day or two later who brought him the first indication of the only way out, and he tried to tell himself he mustn't want it. Even though he had always despised Dalrymple and his weakness, even though Dalrymple stood between him and his only possible happiness, he experienced a disagreeable and reluctant sense of danger in such a solution.
"All his life," Lambert was saying, "Dolly's done everything he could to make himself a victim."
"Where is he?" George asked.
"At his home. It's fortunate he hadn't started south."
"Or," George said, "he should have started sooner."
"I've an uncomfortable feeling," Lambert mused, "that he was planning to run away from this very chance. Put it off a little too long. Seems he went to bed four days ago. I didn't know until to-day because you see he's been a little outcast since that scene in the club. He sent for me this afternoon, and, curiously enough, asked for you. Will you go up? I really think you'd better."
But George shrank from the thought.
"I don't want to be scolded by a man who is possibly dying."
"Let's hope not," Lambert said. "You'll go. Around five o'clock."
George hesitated.
"Did he ask for Sylvia?"
"He didn't ask me, but I telephoned her."
"Why?" George asked, sharply.
"Every card on the table now, George!" Lambert warned. "We have to think of the future, in case——"
"Of course, you're right," George answered. "I'm sorry, and I'll go."
When he entered the Dalrymple house at five o'clock he came face to face with Sylvia in the hall. He had never seen her so controlled, and her quiet tensity frightened him.
"Lambert told me," she whispered, "you were coming now. Dolly hasn't asked for me, but I'd feel so much better—if things should turn out badly, for I'm thinking with all my heart of the boy I used to be so fond of, and it's, perhaps, my fault——"
"It is not your fault," George cried. "He's always asked for it. Lambert will tell you that."
George relaxed. Dalrymple's mother came down the stairs with the doctor, and George experienced a quick sympathy for the retiring, elderly woman he had scarcely seen before. She gave Sylvia her hand, while George stepped out with the physician. In reply to George's questions the quiet man shook his head and frowned.
"If it were any one else of the same age—I've attended in this house many years, Mr. Morton, and I've watched him since he was a child. I've marvelled how he's got so far."
He added brutally:
"Scarcely a chance with the turn its taking."
"If there's anything," George muttered, "any great specialist anywhere——Understand money doesn't figure——"
"Everything possible is being done, Mr. Morton. I'm truly sorry, but I can tell you it's quite his own fault."
So even this cold-blooded practitioner had heard the talk, and sympathized, and not with Dalrymple. A trifle dazed George reëntered the house.
"It's good of you to come, Mr. Morton," Mrs. Dalrymple said. "Shall we go upstairs now?"
There was no bitterness in her voice, and she had taken Sylvia's hand, yet undoubtedly she knew everything. Abruptly George felt sorrier for Dalrymple than he had ever done.
"Please wait, Sylvia," she said.
He followed Mrs. Dalrymple upstairs and into the sick-room.
"It's Mr. Morton, dear."
She beckoned to the nurse, and George remained in the room alone with the feverish man in the bed. He walked over and took the hot hand.
"Morton!" came Dalrymple's hoarse voice, "I believe you're sorry for me!"
"I am sorry," George said, quietly, "and you must get well."
Dalrymple shook his head.
"I know all the dope, and I guess I'm off in a few days. Not so bad now I can't talk a little and sorta clean one or two things up. No silly deathbed repentance. I'm jealous of you, Morton; always have been, because you were getting things I couldn't, and I figured from the first you were an outsider."
The dry lips smiled a little.
"When you get like this it makes a lot of difference, doesn't it, how you came into the world? I'll be the real outsider in a few days——"
"Don't talk that way."
A quick temper distorted Dalrymple's face.
"They oughtn't to bring a man into the world as I was brought, without money."
George couldn't think of anything to say, but Dalrymple hurried on:
"I wanted to thank you for the notes. Don't have to leave those to my family, anyway. And I'm not sure hadn't better apologize all 'round. I don't forget I've had raw deal—lots of ways; but no point not saying Sylvia had pretty raw one from Dolly. Lucky escape for her—mean Dolly's not domestic animal, and all that."
George was aware of a slight shiver as Dalrymple's hoarse voice slipped into its old, not quite controlled mannerisms.
"Mean," Dalrymple rambled on, "Dolly won't haunt anybody. Blessings 'n' sort of thing. Best thing, too. Sorry all 'round. That's all. Thanks coming, George."
And all George could say was:
"You have to get well, Dolly."
But Dalrymple turned his head away. After a moment George proposed tentatively:
"Sylvia's downstairs. She wants very much to see you."
Dalrymple shook his head.
"Catching."
"For her sake," George urged.
Dalrymple thought.
"All right," he said at last. "Long enough for me to tell her all right. But not near. Nurse in the room. Catching, and all that."
George clasped the hot hand.
"Thanks, Dolly. You've done a decent thing, and you're going to get well."
But as he left the room George felt that the physician had been right.
He spoke to the nurse, who sat in the upper hall, then he told Sylvia. She went up, and he waited for her. He felt he had to wait. He hoped Mrs. Dalrymple wouldn't appear again.
Sylvia wasn't long. She came down dry-eyed. She didn't speak even when George followed her to her automobile, even when he climbed in beside her; nor did he try to break a silence that he felt was curative. In the light and surrounded by a crowd they could clasp hands; in this obscure solitude there was nothing they could do or say. Only on the steps of her home she spoke.
"Good-night, George, and thank you."
"Good-night, dear Sylvia," he said, and returned to the automobile, and told the man to drive him to his apartment.