The Guarded Heights Part 73

Momentarily Betty, the portion of his past shared with her, its undeveloped possibilities, were swept from his brain. Last of all, fitting and brilliant close for the procession, came Sylvia between two bridesmaids. George scarcely saw the others. Sylvia filled his eyes, his heart, slowly crowded the dissatisfaction from his mind, centred again his thoughts and his ambitions. Nearly automatically he took Betty's hands, spoke to her a few formalities, yielded her to her father, and went on to Sylvia. For nearly two years he hadn't seen her in an evening gown. What secret did she possess that kept her constant? Already she was past the age at which most girls of her station marry, yet to him her beauty had only increased without quite maturing. And why had she calmly avoided during all these years the nets thrown perpetually by men? Only Blodgett had threatened to entangle her, and one day had found her fled. And she wasn't such a fool she didn't know the years were slipping by. More poignantly than ever he responded to a feeling of danger, imminent, unavoidable, fatal.

"My companion in the ceremonies," he said.

"I understood that was the arrangement," she answered, without looking at him.

"I'm glad," he said, "to draw even a reflection from the happiness of others."

"I often wonder," she remarked, "why people are so selfish."

"Do you mean me," he laughed, "or the leading man and lady?"

She spoke softly to avoid the possibility of anyone else hearing.

"I'm not sure, but I fancy you are the most selfish person I have ever met."

"That's a stupendous indictment these days," he said with a smile, but he didn't take her seriously at all, didn't apply her charge to his soul.

"I'm so glad you're here," he went on, "that we're to be together. I've wanted it for a long time. You must know that."

She gave him an uncomfortable sense of being captive, of seeking blindly any course to freedom.

"I no longer know anything about you. I don't care to know."

Lambert and Dalrymple strolled in. Dalrymple opened the cage. George moved away, aching to prevent such interference by any means he could.

His emotion made him uneasy. To what resolution were his relations with Dalrymple drifting? How far was he capable of going to keep the other in his place?

He stood by the mantel, speaking only when it was necessary and then without consciousness, his whole interest caught by the picture Dalrymple and Sylvia made, close together by the centre table in the soft light of a reading lamp.

A servant entered with c.o.c.ktails. George's interest sharpened. Betty took hers with the others. Only Sylvia and Dalrymple shook their heads.

Clearly it was an understanding between them--a little denial of hers to make his infinitely greater one less difficult. She smiled up at him, indeed, comprehendingly; but George's glance didn't waver from Dalrymple, and it caught an increase in the other's restlessness, a following nearly hypnotic, by thoughtful eyes, of the tray with the little gla.s.ses as it pa.s.sed around the room. George relaxed. He was conscious enough of Blodgett's bellow:

"Here's to the blus.h.i.+ng bride!"

What lack of taste! But how much greater the lack of taste that restless inheritor exposed! Couldn't even join a formal toast, didn't dare probably, or was it that he only dared not risk it in public, in front of Sylvia? And she pandered to his weakness, smiled upon it as if it were an epic strength. He was sufficiently glad now that Dalrymple had got into him for so much money.

IV

For George dinner was chiefly a sea of meaningless chatter continually ruffled by the storm of Blodgett's voice.

"Your brother tells me," he said to Sylvia, "that you're irritating yourself with socialism."

She looked at him with a little interest then.

"I've been reading. It's quite extraordinary. Odd I should have lived so long without really knowing anything about such things."

"Not odd at all," George contradicted her. "I should call it odd that you find any interest in them now. Why do you?"

"One has to occupy one's mind," she answered.

He glanced at her. Why did she have to occupy herself with matter she couldn't possibly understand, that she would interpret always in a wrong or unsafe manner? She, too, was restless.

That was the only possible explanation. From Blodgett she had sprung to war-time fads. From those she had leaped at this convenient one which tempted people to make sparkling and meaningless phrases.

"It doesn't strike you as at all amusing," he asked, "that you should be red, that I should be conservative?"

She didn't answer. Blodgett swept them out to sea again.

Later in the evening, however, George repeated his question, and demanded an answer. They had accomplished the farce of a rehearsal, source of c.u.mbersome jokes for Blodgett and the clergyman; of doubts and dreary prospects for Mr. Alston, who had done his share as if submitting to an undreamed-of punishment.

There was the key-ring joke. It must be a part of the curriculum of all the theological seminaries. George acted up to it, promising to tie a string around his finger, or to pin the circlet to his waistcoat.

"Or," Blodgett roared, "at a pinch you might use the ring of the wedding bells."

George stared at him. How could the man, Sylvia within handgrasp, grin and feed such a mood? It suddenly occurred to him that once more he was reading Blodgett wrong, that the man was admirable, far more so than he could be under an equal trial. Would he, a little later, be asked to face such an ordeal?

With the departure of the clergyman a cloud of reaction descended upon the party. Some yawns were scarcely stifled. Sporadic attempts to dance to a victrola faded into dialogues carried on indifferently, lazily, where the dancers had chanced to stop with the music. Mr. Alston had relinquished Sylvia to George at the moment the record had stuttered out. They were left at a distance from any other couple. George pointed out a convenient chair, and she sat down and glanced about the room indifferently.

"At dinner," George said, "I asked you if it didn't impress you as strange that our social views should be what they are, and opposite."

She didn't answer.

"I mean," he went on, "that I should benefit by your alteration."

"How?" she asked, idly fingering a flower, not looking at him.

"I fancy," he said, "that you'll admit your chief objection to me has always been my origin, my ridiculous position trotting watchfully behind the most unsocial Miss Planter. Am I not right?"

"You are entirely wrong," she said, wearily. "That has never had anything to do with my--my dislike. I think I shall go----"

"Wait," he said. "You are not telling me the truth. If you are consistent you will turn your enmity to friends.h.i.+p at least. You will decide there was nothing unusual in my asking you to marry me. You will even find in that a reason for my anxiety at Upton. You will understand that it is quite inevitable I should ask you to marry me again."

She sprang up and hurried away from him.

"Put on another record, Dolly----"

And almost before he had realized it Betty had taken her away, and the evening's opportunities had closed.

V

For him the house became like a room at night out of which the only lamp has been carried.

The others drifted away. George tried to read in the library. His uneasiness, his anger, held him from bed. When at last he went upstairs he fancied everyone was asleep, but moving in the hall outside his room he saw a figure in a dressing gown. It paused as if it didn't care to be detected going in the direction of the stairs. George caught the figure's embarra.s.sed hesitation, fancied a movement of retreat.

"Dalrymple!" he called, softly.

The other waited sullenly.