While she stared, flushed and incredulous, at the hand he had pressed, George walked swiftly away, tingling with life, back to the house of death.
VI
At the funeral he submitted to the amazed scrutiny of the country people. They couldn't hurt him, because they impinged not at all on his world; but he was relieved when the oblong box had been consigned to the place reserved for it, and he could, after arranging the last details of his mother's departure, take the train back to New York.
Blodgett didn't even bother to ask where he had been. He was content these days to let George go his own way. He hadn't forgotten that the younger man had seen farther off than he the greatest opportunity for money making the world had ever offered the greedy. He personally was more interested in the syndicating of foreign external loans. The Planters weren't far from the head of that movement, and George rather resented his stout employer's working hand in hand with the Planters. George longed to ask him how often he was trying to appear graceful at Oakmont these days.
The firm of Morton, Planter, and Goodhue had grown so rapidly that it took practically all of George's and Lambert's time. Mundy, to whom George had given a small interest, asked Blodgett if he couldn't leave to devote himself entirely to the offices upstairs.
"Go to it," Blodgett agreed, good naturedly. "Draw your profits and your salary from Morton after this."
George mulled over the sacrifice. Did it mean that Blodgett was so close to the Planters that a merger was possible?
"There's no use," he told Blodgett. "I'm earning practically nothing in your office, because I'm never here. I want to resign."
"Run along, sonny," Blodgett said. "Your salary is a small portion of the profits your infant firm is bringing me. I like you around the office once a day. Old Planter hasn't fired his boy, has he, and he's upstairs all the time, and he's taken over some of the old man's best clerks."
"He's Mr. Planter's son," George reminded him.