"I'm sorry to be back. Don't you feel the desire to get as far away as possible from things, to escape?"
"To escape what, Betty?"
"That's just it. One doesn't know. Something one doesn't want to know."
It was queer that Betty never asked why he hadn't been to Plattsburgh, never urged a definite decision as to what he would do if——
The "if" lost a little of its power with him. At times he was even inclined to share Mrs. Alston's optimism. It was easy to drift with Washington. Besides, he was too busy to worry about much except his growing accumulation of profits from bloodshed. He was brought back momentarily when Lambert and Goodhue received commissions as captains in the reserve corps. The Plattsburgh noise still echoed. He couldn't help a feeling of relief when people flocked back and the town became normal again, encouraging him to believe that nothing could happen to tear him away from this fascinating pursuit of getting rich for Sylvia while he waited for her next move.
That came with a stark brutality a few weeks after the holidays. He had seen her only the evening before, sitting next to Blodgett at dinner with a remote expression in her eyes that had made him hopeful. The article in the morning newspaper, consequently, took him more by surprise than the original announcement of the engagement had done. Sylvia and Blodgett would be married on the fifteenth of the following August.
On top of that shock events combined to rebuke his recent confidence. His desires had taken too much for granted. The folly of the Mrs. Alstons and the wisdom of the Baillys and Sinclairs were forced upon him. Wilson wasn't going to keep them out of it. George stood face to face with the decision he had shirked when the Lusitania had taken her fatal dive.
It couldn't be shirked again, for the declaration of war appeared to be a matter of days, weeks at the most. The drum was beginning to sound with a rising resonance. Lambert and Goodhue would be among the first to leave. Already they made their plans. They didn't seem to care what became of the business.
"What are you up to, George?" they asked.
He put them off. He wanted to think it out. He didn't care to have his decision blurred by the rattling of a drum. Yet it was patent to him if he should go at all it would be with his partners, among the first. The thought of such a triple desertion appalled him. Mundy was incomparable for system and routine, but if he had possessed the rare selective foresight demanded for the steering of a big business he would long since have been at the helm of his own house. It would be far better, if George had to go, to sell the stock and the mass of soaring securities the firm had acquired; in short, to close out before competitors could squeeze the abandoned ship from the channel.