Читать книгу The Guarded Heights - Camp Wadsworth - Страница 13

He saw Betty Alston once more before college opened, unexpectedly, briefly, and disturbingly; but with all that he carried again to his lodging an impression of a distracting contact.

He was out for a morning run, wearing some ancient flannels Bailly had loaned him, and a sweater, for autumn's first exhilaration sharpened the air. Sylvia's bulldog barked joyously about him as he trotted through a lane not far from the Alston place. He often went that way, perhaps because its gates were already half open. As he turned the corner of a hedge he came face to face with Betty. In a short skirt and knitted jacket she was even more striking than she had been at the Bailly's. The unexpected encounter had brought colour to her rather pale face. The bulldog sprang for her. George halted him with a sharp command.

"I am not afraid of him," she laughed. "Come here, savage beast."

The dog crawled to her and licked her fingers. George saw her examining the animal curiously.

"I hope he didn't frighten you," he said, his cap in his hand.

She glanced up, and at her voice George straightened, and turned quickly away so that she couldn't see the response to her amazing question. Was it, he asked himself, traceable to Old Planter's threats. Were they going to try to smash him at the start and keep him out of Princeton?

"Do you happen," Betty had said, frowning, "to know Sylvia Planter, or, perhaps, her brother, Lambert?"

George didn't care to lie; nor was it, his instinct told him, safe to lie to Betty. She knew the Planters, then. But how could Old Planter drive him out except through his parents? He wasn't going to be driven out. He turned back slowly. In Betty's face he read only a slight bewilderment.

"That's a queer thing to ask," he managed.

"The dog," she said, caressing the ugly snout, "is the image of one Sylvia Planter was very fond of. Sylvia and I were at school together last year. I've just been visiting her the last few days. She said she had given her dog away."

She drew the dog closer and read the name on the collar.

"Roland! What was the name of her dog?"

George relaxed.

"That dog," he said, harshly, "belongs to me."

She glanced at him, surprised, releasing the dog and standing up. It wasn't Old Planter then, and his parents were probably safe enough; but had Sylvia, he asked himself angrily, made a story for her guest out of his unwary declaration and his abrupt vanishing from Oakmont? Did this friendly creature know anything? If she did she would cease to be amiable. His anger diminished as he saw the curiosity leave her face.

"An odd resemblance! Do you know, Mr. Morton, I rather think you're bound to meet Lambert Planter anyway. I believe he's a very important young man at Yale. You'll have to play football a little better than he does. His sister and he are going to visit me for a few days before he goes back to New Haven. Perhaps you'll see him then."

George resented the prospect. He got himself away.

"Squibs," he told her, "sees everything. If I loiter he finds out and scolds."

He had an impression that she looked after him until he was out of sight. Or was it the dog that still puzzled her? Something of her, at least, accompanied him longer than that – her kindness, her tact in the matter of the Planters. He would take very good care that he didn't meet Lambert; the prospect of Sylvia's adjacence, however, filled him with a disturbing excitement. He wanted to see her, but he felt it wouldn't be safe to have her see him yet.

Her picture increased his excitement, filled him with a craving for her physical presence. He desired to look at her, as he had looked at the photograph, to see if he could tell himself under those conditions that he hated her. Whether that was true or not, he was more determined than ever to make his boasts good.