The Guarded Heights Part 78

"We'll go down together, George. I won't jump from a sinking s.h.i.+p as long as you cling to the bridge."

"The s.h.i.+p isn't sinking," George cried. "It's too buoyant."

XI

Wandel and Goodhue came home, suffering from this universal restlessness.

"Ah, _mon_ brave!" Wandel greeted George. "_Mon vieux Georges, grand et incomparable!_ So the country's dry! Jewels are cheaper than beefsteaks!

Congress is building spite fences! None the less, I'm glad to be home."

"Glad enough to have you," George said. "I'm not sure we won't go back to our bargain pretty soon. I'm about ready for a pet politician."

"Let me get clean," Wandel laughed. "You must have a lot of money."

"I can control enough," George said, confidently.

"_Bon!_ But don't send me to Was.h.i.+ngton at first. I don't want to put on skirts, use snuff, or practise gossiping."

For a time he refused to apply himself to anything that didn't lead to pleasure. Goodhue went at once to Rhode Island for a visit with his father and mother, while Wandel flitted from place to place, from house to house, as if driven by his restlessness to the play he had abandoned during five years. Once or twice George caught him with Rogers in town, and bluntly asked him why.

"An eye to the future, my dear George. Are you the most forgetful of cla.s.s presidents? Perfect henchman type. When one goes into politics one must have henchmen."

But George had an unwelcome feeling that Rogers, eyes always open, was taking advantage, in his small way, of the world's unsettled condition.

People were inclined to laugh at him, but they treated him well for Wandel's sake.

"Still in the bond business," he explained to George. "It isn't what it was befo' de war. I'm thinking of taking up oil stocks and corners in heaven, although I doubt if there are as many suckers as fell for P. T.

B. Trouble nowadays is that the simplest of them are too busy trying to find somebody just a little simpler to sting. Darned if they don't usually hook one. Still b.u.m securities are a great weakness with most people. Promise a man a hundred per cent. and he'll complain it isn't a hundred and fifty."

George reflected that Rogers was bound for disillusionment, then he wasn't so sure, for America seemed more than ever friendly to that brisk, insincere, back-bending type. Out of the sea of money formed by the war examples sprang up on nearly every side, scarcely troubled by racial, religious, or educational handicaps; loudly convinced that they could buy with money all at once every object of matter or spirit the centuries had painstakingly evolved. One night in the crowds of the theatre district, when with Wandel he had watched the hysterical compet.i.tion for tickets, cabs, and tables in restaurants where the prices of indigestion had soared nearly beyond belief, he burst out angrily:

"The world is mad, Driggs. I wouldn't be surprised to hear these people cry for golden gondolas to float them home on rivers of money. Stark, raving mad, Driggs! The world's out of its head!"

Wandel smiled, twirling his cane.

"Just found it out, great man? Always has been; always will be--chronic!

This happens to be a violent stage."

XII

It was Wandel, indeed, who drew George from his preoccupation, and reminded him that another world existed as yet scarcely more than threatened by the driving universal invaders. George had looked in at his apartment one night when Wandel was just back from a northern week-end.

"Saw Sylvia. You know, George, she's turning back the years and prancing like a debutante."

George sat down, uneasy, wondering what the other's unprepared announcement was designed to convey.

"I'll lay you what you want," Wandel went on, lighting a cigar, "that she forgets the Blodgett fiasco, and marries before snow falls."

Had it been designed as a warning? George studied Wandel, trying to read his expression, but the light was restricted by heavy, valuable, and smothering shades; and Wandel sat at some distance from the nearest, close to a window to catch what breezes stole through. Confound the man!

What was he after? He hadn't mentioned Sylvia that self-revealing day in France; but George had guessed then that he must have known of his persistent ambition, and had wondered why his unexpected communicativeness hadn't included it. At least a lack of curiosity now was valueless, so George said:

"Who's the man?"

"I don't suggest a name," Wandel drawled. "I merely call attention to a possibility. Perhaps discussing the charming lady at all we're a trifle out of bounds; but we've known the Planters many years; years enough to wonder why Sylvia hasn't been caught before, why Blodgett failed at the last minute."

George stirred impatiently.

"It was inevitable he should. I once disliked Josiah, but that was because I was too young to see quite straight. Just the same, he wasn't up to her. Most of all, he was too old."

"I daresay. I daresay," Wandel said. "So much for jolly Josiah. But the others? It isn't exaggeration to suggest that she might have had about any man in this country or England. She hasn't had. She's still the loveliest thing about, and how many years since she was introduced--many, many, isn't it, George?"

"What odds?" George muttered. "She's still young."

He felt self-conscious and warm. Was Wandel trying to make him say too much?

"Why do you ask me?"

Wandel yawned.

"Gossiping, George. Poking about in the dark. Thought you might have some light."

"How should I have?" George demanded.

"Because," Wandel drawled, "you're the greatest and most penetrating of men."

George's discomfort grew. He tried to turn Wandel's attack.

"How does it happen you've never entered the ring?"

Wandel laughed quietly.

"I did, during my school days. She was quite splendid about it. I mean, she said very splendidly that she couldn't abide little men; but any time since I'd have fallen cheerfully at her feet if I'd ever become a big man, a great man, like you."

Before he had weighed those words, unquestionably pointed and significant, George had let slip an impulsive question.

"Can you picture her fancying a figure like Dalrymple?"

He was sorry as soon as it was out. Anxiously he watched Wandel through the dusk of the room. The little man spoke with a troubled hesitation, as if for once he wasn't quite sure what he ought to reply.

"You acknowledged a moment ago that you had failed to see Josiah straight. Hasn't your view of Dolly always been from a prejudiced angle?"

"I've always disliked him," George said, frankly. "He's given me reasons enough. You know some of them."

"I know," Wandel drawled, "that he isn't what even Sylvia would call a little man, and he has the faculty of making himself exceptionally pleasant to the ladies."

"Yet he couldn't marry any one of mine," George said under his breath.

"If I had a sister, I mean, I'd somehow stop him."