The Guarded Heights Part 77

"It isn't my fault," George said. "The situation exists. I'm glad you recognize it. You'll understand it's a subject I can't let you joke about."

"All right," Lambert said, "but I wonder why you're always asking for trouble."

VIII

Betty had plenty of colour to-night. As she pa.s.sed George, her head bent against the confetti, he managed to touch her hand, felt a quick responsive pressure, heard her say:

"Good-bye, George."

The whispered farewell was like a curtain, too heavy ever to be lifted again, abruptly let down between two fond people.

IX

Unexpectedly the companions.h.i.+ps of the little house in d.i.c.kinson Street failed to lighten George's discontented humour. Mrs. Bailly's question lingered in his mind, coupling itself there with her disappointment that he, instead of Lambert, hadn't married Betty; and, when she retired, the tutor went back to his unwelcome demands of the day before. Hadn't George made anything of his great experience? Was it possible it had left him quite unchanged? What were his immediate plans, anyway?

"You may as well understand, sir," George broke in, impatiently, "that I am going to stay right in Wall Street and make as much money and get as much power as I can."

"Why? In the name of heaven, why?" Bailly asked, irritably. "You are already a very rich man. You've dug for treasure and found it, but can you tell me you've kept your hands clean? Money is merely a conception--a false one. Capitalism will pa.s.s from the world."

George grunted.

"With the last two surviving human beings."

"Mockery won't keep you blind always," Bailly said, "to the strivings of men in the mines and the factories----"

"And in the Senate and the House," George jeered, "and in Russia and Germany, and in little, ambitious corners. If you're against the League of Nations it's because, like all those people, you're willing Rome should burn as long as personal causes can be fostered and selfish schemes forwarded. No agitator, naturally, wants the suffering world given a sedative----"

Bailly smiled.

"Even if you're wrong-headed, I'm glad to hear you talk that way. At last you're thinking of humanity."

"I'm thinking of myself," George snapped.

Bailly shook his head.

"I believe you're talking from your heart."

"I'm talking from a smashed leg," George cried, "and I'm sleepy and tired and cross, and I guess I'd better go to bed."

"It all runs back to the beginning," Bailly said in a discouraged voice.

"I'm afraid you'll never learn the meaning of service."

George sprang up, wincing. Bailly's wrinkled face softened; his young eyes filled with sympathy.

"Does that wound still bother you, George?"

"Yes, sir," George answered, softly. "I guess it bothers as much as it ever did."

X

One virtue of the restlessness of which Bailly had reminded him was its power to swing George's mind for a time from his unpleasant understanding with Dalrymple. It had got even into Blodgett's blood.

"About the honestest man I can think of these days," he complained to George one morning, "is the operator of a crooked racing stable. All the cards are marked. All the dice are loaded. If they didn't have to let us in on some of the tricks, we'd go bust, George, my boy."

"You mean we're crooked, too?" George asked.

"Only by infection," Blodgett defended himself, "but honest, George, I'd sell out if I could. I'm disgusted."

George couldn't hide a smile.

"In the old days when you were coming up, you never did anything the least bit out of line yourself?"

Blodgett mopped his face with one of his brilliant handkerchiefs. His eyes twinkled.

"I've been shrewd at times, George, but isn't that legitimate? I may have made some crowds pretty sick by cutting under them, but that's business. I won't say I haven't played some cute little tricks with stocks, but that's finesse, and the other fellow had the same chance.

I'm not aware that I ever busted a bank, or held a loaded gun to a man's head and asked him to hand over his clothes as well as his cash. That's the spirit we're up against now. That's why Papa Blodgett advises selling out those mill stocks we kept big blocks of at the time of the armistice."

"They're making money," George said.

Blodgett tapped a file of reports.

"Have you read the opinions of the directors?"

"Yes," George answered, "and at a pinch they might have to go into cooperation, but they'd still pay some dividends."

Blodgett puffed out his cheeks.

"You're sure the unions would want a share in the business?"

"Why not?" George asked. "Isn't that practical communism?"

"Hay! Here's a fellow believes there's something practical in the world nowadays! Sell out, son."

"Then who would run our mills?"

"Maybe some philanthropist with more money than brains."

"You mean," George asked, "that our products, unless conditions improve, will disappear from the world, because no one will be able to afford to manufacture them?"

Blodgett pursed his lips. George stared from the window at the forest of buildings which impressed him, indeed, as giant tree trunks from which all the foliage had been stripped. Had there been awakened in the world an illiberal individuality with the power to fell them every one, and to turn up the system out of which they had sprung as from a rich soil? Was that what he had helped fight the war for?

"You're talking about the dark ages," he said, feeling the necessity of faith and stability. "Sell your stocks if you want, I choose to keep mine."

Blodgett yawned.