"Why don't you ever run down to Oakmont with Lambert?" he asked.
Only Blodgett would have put such a question, and perhaps even he designed it merely as an entrance to his favourite topic. George evaded with a fairly truthful account of office pressure.
"Old Planter asks after you," Blodgett went on, uncomfortably. "Admires you, because you've done about what he had at your age, and it was easier then. Old man's not well. That's tough on Josiah."
"Tough?"
Blodgett mopped his face with a brilliant handkerchief. His rotund stomach rose and fell with a sigh.
"His gout's worse—all sorts of complications. She's the apple of his eye. Guess you know that. Won't desert him now. Wants to wait till he's better, or—or——"
He added naïvely:
"Hope to heaven he bucks up soon."
George watched Blodgett's hopes dwindle, for Old Planter didn't buck up, nor did he grow perceptibly worse. From time to time he visited his marble temple, but for the most part men went to him at Oakmont; Blodgett, of course, with his double errand of business and romance, most frequently of all. And Sylvia did cling to her father, but George's satisfaction increased, for he agreed with Wandel: she was capable of a feeling far more powerful than filial devotion. Blodgett, clearly, had failed to arouse it.
Her sense of duty, however, kept her nearly entirely away from George; for Lambert, either because Sylvia had spoken to him, or because he himself had sensed a false step, failed to repeat his invitation to Oakmont. The row with Dalrymple, although that had not been mentioned again, made it unlikely that he ever would.