Читать книгу The Guarded Heights - Camp Wadsworth - Страница 23

Wandel, quite undisturbed, joined them.

"You and Dicky," the little man said, "look as if you had come out of a bad wreck. What's up? It's only a game."

"Of course you're right," George answered, "but you have to play some games desperately hard if you want to win."

"Now what are you driving at, great man?" Wandel wanted to know.

"Come on, Spike," Goodhue said, irritably. "You're always looking for double meanings."

George walked on with them, desolately aware of many factors of his life gone awry. The game; Lambert's noticeable mockery, all the more unbearable because of its unaffectedness; Dalrymple's adjacence to Sylvia – these remembrances stung, the last most of all.

"Come on up, you two," Goodhue suggested as they approached the building in which he lived, "I believe Dolly's giving tea to Sylvia Planter and her mother."

George wanted to see if the photograph was still there, but he couldn't risk it. He shook his head.

"Not into the camp of the enemy?" Wandel laughed.

Of course, George told himself as he walked off, Wandel's words couldn't possibly have held any double meaning.

He fought it out that night, sleeping scarcely at all. In the rush of his progress here he had failed to realize how little he had really advanced toward his ultimate goal. Lambert had offhand, perhaps unintentionally, shown him that afternoon how wide the intervening space still stretched. Was it because of moral cowardice that he shrank from challenging a crossing? The answer to such a challenge might easily mean the destruction of all he had built up, the heavy conditioning of his future which now promised so abundantly.

He faced her picture with his eyes resolute, his jaw thrust out.

"I'll do it," he told the lifeless print. "I'll make you know me. I'll teach your brother not to treat me as a servant who has forgotten his place."

The last, in any case, couldn't be safely put off. Lambert's manner had already aroused Betty's interest. Had she known its cause she might not have resented it so sweetly for George. There was no point in fretting any more. His mind was made up to challenge at the earliest possible moment.

In furtherance of his resolution he visited his tailor the next day, and during the evening called at the Baillys'. He came straight to the point.

"I want some dancing lessons," he said. "Do you know anybody?"

Bailly limped up, put his hands on George's shoulder, and studied him.

"Is this traceable to Wandel?"

"No. To what I told you last summer."

"He's going to Betty Alston's dance," Mrs. Bailly cried.

"If I'm asked," George admitted, "but as a general principle – "

Mrs. Bailly interrupted, assuming control.

"Move that table and the chairs," she directed the two men. "You'll keep my husband's secret – tinkling music hidden away between grand opera records. It will come in handy now."

George protested, but she had her own way. Bailly sat by, puffing at his pipe, at first scornful.

"I hate to see a football player pirouetting like a clown."

But in a little while he was up, awkwardly illustrating steps, his cheeks flushed, his cold pipe dangling from his lips.

"You dance very well as it is," Mrs. Bailly told George. "You do need a little quieting. You must learn to remember that the ballroom isn't a gridiron and your partner the ball."

And at the end of a fortnight she told him he was tamed and ready for the soft and perfumed exercise of the dance floor.

He was afraid Betty wouldn't remember. Her invitation had been informal, his response almost a refusal.

On free afternoons Goodhue and he often ran together, trying to keep in condition, already feeling that the outcome of next year's big games would depend on them. They trotted openly through the Alston place, hoping for a glimpse of Betty as a break in their grind. When she saw them from the house she would come out and chat for a time, her yellow hair straying in the wind, her cheeks flushed from the cold. During these brief conferences it was made clear that she had not forgotten, and that George would go up with Goodhue and be a guest at his home the night of the dance.

George was grateful for that quality of remoteness in Goodhue which at first had irritated him. Now he was well within Goodhue's vision, and acceptably so; but the young man had not shown the slightest interest in his past or his lack of the right friends before coming to Princeton. At any moment he might.

The Goodhue house was uptown between Fifth and Madison avenues. It was as unexpected to George as Wandel's green study had been. The size of its halls and rooms, the tasteful extravagance of its decorations, the quiet, liveried servants took his breath. It was difficult not to say something, to withhold from his glance his admiration and his lack of habit.

There he was at last, handing his hat and coat to one who bent obsequiously. He felt a great contempt. He told himself he was unjust, as unjust as Sylvia, but the contempt persisted.

There were details here more compelling than anything he had seen or fancied at Oakmont. The entire household seemed to move according to a feudal pattern. Goodhue's father and mother welcomed George, because their son had brought him, with a quiet assurance. Mrs. Goodhue, George felt, might even appreciate what he was doing. That was the outstanding, the feudal, quality of both. They had an air of unprejudiced judgment, of removal from any selfish struggle, of being placed beyond question.

Goodhue and George dined at a club that night. They saw Wandel and Dalrymple, the latter flushed and talking louder than he should have done in an affected voice. They went to the theatre, and afterward drove up Fifth Avenue to Betty's party. George was dazzled, and every moment conscious of the effort to prevent Goodhue's noticing it. His excitement increased as he came to the famous establishment in the large ballroom of which Betty was waiting, and, perhaps, already, Sylvia. To an extent the approaching culmination of his own campaign put him at ease; lifted him, as it were, above details; left him free to face the moment of his challenge.

The lower halls were brilliant with pretty, eager faces, noisy with chatter and laughter, a trifle heady from an infiltration of perfumes.

Wandel joined them upstairs and took George's card, returning it after a time nearly filled.

"When you see anybody you particularly want to dance with," he advised secretly, "just cut in without formality. The mere fact of your presence ought to be introduction enough. You see everybody here knows, or thinks he knows, everybody else."

George wondered why Wandel went out of his way, and in that particular direction. Did the little man suspect? The succeeding moments brushed the question aside.

Betty was radiant, lovelier in her white-and-yellow fashion than George had ever seen her. He shrank a little from their first contact, all the more startling to him because he was so little accustomed to the ritual familiarity of dancing. With his arm around her, with her hand in his, with her golden hair brushing his cheek, with her lips and eyes smiling up at him, he felt like one who steals. Why not? Didn't people win their most prized possessions through theft of one kind or another? It was because those pliant fingers were always at his mind that he wanted to release them, wanted to run away from Betty since she always made him desire to tell her the truth.

"I'm glad you could come. It isn't as bad as football, is it? Have we any more? If I show signs of distress do cut in if you're not too busy."

He overcame his fear of collisions, avoiding other couples smoothly and rhythmically. Dalrymple, he observed, was less successful, apologizing in a high, excited voice. As in a haze George watched a procession of elderly women, young girls, and men of every age, with his own tall figure and slightly anxious face greeting him now and then from a mirror. This repeated and often-unexpected recognition encouraged him. He was bigger and better looking than most; in the glasses, at least, he appeared as well-dressed. More than once he heard girls say:

"Who is that big chap with Betty Alston?"

With all his heart he wanted to ask Betty why she had been so kind to him from the beginning, why she was so kind now. He longed to tell her how it had affected him. She glanced up curiously. Without realizing it his grasp had tightened. He relaxed it, wondering what had been in his mind. It was this odd proximity to a beautiful girl who had been kind to him that had for a moment swung him from his real purpose in coming here, the only purpose he had. He resumed his inspection of the crowding faces. He didn't see Lambert or Sylvia. Had he been wrong? It was incredible they shouldn't appear.

The music stopped.

"Thanks," he said. "Three after this."

His voice was wistful.

"I did like that."

He desired to tell her that he didn't care to dance with any one else, except Sylvia, of course.

"I enjoyed it, too. Will you take me back?"

But her partner met them on the way, and he commenced to trail his.

It was halfway through the next number that he knew he had not planned futilely. It was like Sylvia to arrive in that fashion – a distracting element in a settled picture, or as one beyond the general run for whom a special welcome was a matter of course. To George's ears the orchestra played louder, as if to call attention to her. To his eyes the dancers slackened their pace. The chatter certainly diminished, and nearly everyone glanced toward the door where she stood a little in advance of her mother and two men.

George was able to judge reasonably. In dress and appearance she was the most striking woman in the room. Her dark colouring sprang at one, demanding attention. George saw Dalrymple unevenly force a path in her direction. He caught his breath. The dance resumed its former rhythm. In its intricacies Sylvia was for a time lost.

Sometime later Lambert drifted in. George saw him dancing with Betty. He also found Sylvia. He managed to direct his partner close to her a number of times. She must have seen him, but her eyes did not waver or her colour heighten. He wouldn't ask for an introduction. There was no point. His imagination pictured a number of probable disasters. If he should ask her to dance would she recognize him, and laugh, and demand, so that people could hear, how he had forced a way into this place?

George relinquished his partner to a man who cut in. From a harbour close to the wall he watched Sylvia, willing himself to the point of action.

"I will make her know me before I leave this dance," he said to himself.

Dalrymple had her now. His weak face was too flushed. He was more than ever in people's way. George caught the distress in Sylvia's manner. He remembered Wandel's advice, what Betty had asked him to do for her. He dodged, without further reflection, across the floor, and held out his hand.

"If I may – "

Without looking at him she accepted his hand, and they glided off, while Dalrymple stared angrily. George scarcely noticed. There was room in his mind for no more than this amazing and intoxicating experience. She was so close that he could have bent his head and placed his lips on her dark hair – closer than she had been that unforgettable day. The experience was worthless unless she knew who he was.

"She must know," he thought.

If she did, why did she hide her knowledge behind an unfathomable masquerade?

"That was kind of you," he heard her say. "Poor Dolly!"

She glanced up. Interrogation entered her eyes.

"I can't seem to remember – "

"I came from Princeton with Dick Goodhue," he explained. "It seemed such a simple thing. Shouldn't I have cut in?"

He looked straight at her now. His heart seemed to stop. She had to be made to remember.

"My name is George Morton."

She smiled.

"I've heard Betty talk of you. You're a great football player. It was very kind. Of course it's all right."

But it wasn't. The touch of her hand became unbearable to George because she didn't remember. He had to make her remember.

They were near the entrance. He paused and drew her apart from the circling dancers.

"Would you mind losing a little of this?" he asked, trying to keep his voice steady. "It may seem queer, but I have something to tell you that you ought to know."

She studied him, surprised and curious.

"I can't imagine – " she began. "What is it?"

It was only a step through the door and to an alcove with a red plush bench. The light was soft there. No one was close enough to hear. She sat down, laughing.

"Don't keep me in suspense."

He, too, sat down. He spoke deliberately.

"The last two times I've seen you you wouldn't remember me. Even now, when I've told you my name, you won't."

Her surprise increased.

"It's about you! But I said Betty had – Who are you?"

He bent closer.

"If I didn't tell you you might remember later. Anyway, I wouldn't want to fight a person whose eyes were closed."

Her lips half parted. She appeared a trifle frightened. She made a movement as if to rise.

"Just a minute," he said, harshly.

He called on the hatred that had increased during the hours of his mental and physical slavery, a hatred to be appeased only through his complete mastery of her.

"It won't take much to remind you," he hurried on. "Although you talk to me as if I were a man now, last summer I was a beast because I had the nerve to touch you when you were thrown from your horse."

She stood up quickly, reaching out for the alcove curtain. Her contralto voice was uneven.

"Stop! You shouldn't have said that. You shouldn't have told me."

All at once she straightened, her cheeks flaming. She started for the ballroom. He sprang after her, whispering over her shoulder:

"Now we can start fair."

She turned and faced him.

"I don't know how you got here, but you ask for a fight, Mr. Morton – "

He smiled.

"I am Mr. Morton now. I'm getting on."

Then he knew again that sickening sensation of treacherous ground eager to swallow him.

"Are you going to run and tell them," he asked, softly, "as you did your father last summer?"

She crossed the threshold of the ballroom. He watched her while she hesitated for a moment, seeking feverishly someone in the brilliant, complacent crowd.