The Guarded Heights Part 35

There had been no contact or shared pain. Only what she might have observed from a remote stand that Sat.u.r.day could have affected her. How would she respond now?

She advanced slowly, at first bewildered, then angry. But Blodgett had nothing but his money to recommend him to her. She wouldn't, George was certain, bare any intimacies of emotion before him.

"I rather think I did."

In her eyes George recognized the challenge he had last seen there.

"Thanks for remembering me," he said rather in Wandel's manner.

"A week ago Sat.u.r.day----" she began, uncertainly, as though her remembering needed an apology.

"Who could forget the great Morton?" Lambert laughed. "With a broken head he beat Yale. That was a hard game to lose."

"I'd heard," she said, indifferently, "that you had been hurt."

George would have preferred words as ugly and unforgettable as those she had attacked him with the day of her accident. She turned to Blodgett.

George had an instinct to shake her as she chatted easily and casually, glancing at him from time to time. He could have borne it better if she hadn't included him at all.

He was glad her brother occupied him. Lambert was for dissecting each play of the game, and he made no attempt to hide the admiration for George it had aroused. He gave the impression that he knew very well men didn't do such things--particularly that little trick with Goodhue--unless they were the right sort.

Blodgett said something about tea. They strolled into the house. A fire burned in the great hall. That was the only light. George came last, directly after Sylvia.

"So you're a friend of Mr. Blodgett's!" she said with an intonation intended to hurt.

"I wouldn't have expected," he answered, easily, "to find you a caller here."

She paused and faced him. Lights from the distant fire got as far as her face, disclosing her contempt. He wouldn't let her speak.

"I won't have you think I had anything to do with bringing you. I never guessed until I saw your brother drive up."

She didn't believe him, or she tried to impress him with that affront.

Blodgett and Lambert had gone on into the library. They remained quite alone in the huge, dusky hall, whose shadow ma.s.ses s.h.i.+fted as the fire blazed and fell. For the first time since their ancient rides he could talk to her undisturbed. He wouldn't let that fact tie his tongue. She couldn't call him "stable boy" now, although she did try to say "beast"

in another way. This solitude in the dusk, shared with her, stripped every distracting thought from his mind. He was as hard as steel and happy in his inflexibility.

"You believe me," he said.

She shook her head and turned for the door.

"Let me say one thing," he urged. "It's rather important."

She came back through the shadows, her att.i.tude reminiscent of the one she had a.s.sumed long ago when she had sought to hurt him. He caught his breath, waiting.

"There is nothing," she said, s.h.i.+vering a little in spite of the hall's warmth and the furs she still wore, "that you would think of saying to me if you had changed at all from the impertinent groom I had to have discharged."

He laughed.

"Oh! Call me anything you please, only I've always wanted to thank you for not making a scene at Miss Alston's dance a year ago."

He would be disappointed if that failed to hurt back. The thought of Sylvia Planter making a scene! At least it fanned her temper.

"What is there," she threatened, defensively, "to prevent my telling Mr.

Blodgett, any one I please, now?"

"Nothing, except that I'm a trifle more on my feet," he answered. "I'm not sure your scandal would blow me over. We're going to meet again frequently. It can't he helped."

"I never want," she said, as if speaking of something unclean and revolting, "to see you again."

His chance had come.

"You're unfair, because it was you yourself, Miss Planter, who warned me I shouldn't forget. I haven't. I won't. Will you? Can't we shake hands on that understanding?"

With a hurried movement she hid her hands.

"I couldn't touch you----"

"You will when we dance."

He thought her lips trembled a little, but the light was uncertain.

"I will never dance with you again."

"I'm afraid you'll have to," he said with a confident smile, "unless you care to make a scene."

She drew away, unfastening her cloak, her eyes full of that old challenge.

"You're impossible," she whispered. "Can't you understand that I dislike you?"

His heart leapt, for didn't he hate her?

XXIX

Lambert appeared in the doorway.

"Blodgett's rung for tea----"

He glanced curiously from one to the other. The broken shadows disclosed little, but the fact that she had lingered at all was arresting.

"What's up, Sylvia?"

She went close to her brother.

"This--this old servant has been impertinent again."

Lambert smiled.

"He's rather more than that now, sis. That's over--forgotten. Still if the Princeton fellow Morton's been impertinent----"

He spread his arms, smiling.