"Three months at Plattsburgh, then n.o.body knows how much longer to whip our division into shape. The war will probably be over before we get across."
But she didn"t believe it, nor did her husband.
"You"ll be in it, George, before the war"s over. Do you know, you"re nearer paying me back than you"ve ever been."
George was uncomfortable before such adulation.
"Please don"t think," he protested, "that I"m going over for any tricky ideals or to save a lot of advanced thinkers from their utter folly."
"Then what are you going for?" Bailly asked.
George was surprised that he lacked an answer.
"Oh, because one has to go," he evaded.
Bailly"s smile was contented.
"What better reason could any man want?"
They had an air of showing him about Princeton as if he must absorb its beauties for the last time. Their visit to the Alstons was shrouded with all the sullen accompaniments of a permanent farewell. George was inclined to smile. He hadn"t got as far as weighing his chances of being hit; the present was too crowded, stretched too far; included Betty, for instance, and Lambert whom he was surprised to find in the Tudor house, prepared to remain evidently until he should leave for Plattsburgh. The Alstons misgivings centred rather obviously on Lambert. George, when he took Betty"s hand to say good-bye that evening, felt with a desolate regret that for the first time in all their acquaintance her fingers failed to reach his mind.
PART IV
THE FOREST
I
"Profession?"
"Member of the firm of Morton, Planter, and Goodhue."
Slightly startled, a fairly youthful product of West Point twisted on the uncomfortable orderly room chair, and glanced from the name on George"s card to the tall, well-built figure in a private"s uniform facing him. George knew he looked like a soldier, because some confiding idiot had blankly told him so coming up on the train; but he hadn"t the first knowledge to support appearances, didn"t even know how to stand at attention, was making an effort at it now since it was clearly expected of him, because he had sense enough to guess that the pompous, slightly ungrammatical young man would insist during the next three months on many such tributes.
"I see. You"re _the_ Morton."
George was pleased the young man was impressed. He experienced again the feelings with which he had gone to Princeton. He was being weighed, not as skilfully as Bailly had done it, but in much the same fashion. He had a quick thought that it was going to be nice to be at school again.
"Any special qualifications of leadership?"
The question took George by surprise. He hesitated. A reserve officer, sitting by to help, asked:
"Weren"t you captain of the Princeton football team a few years ago?"
"Yes, but we were beaten."
"You must learn to say, "sir," Mr. Morton, when you address an officer."
George flushed. That was etching his past rather too sharply. Then he smiled, and amused at the silly business, mimicked Simpson"s servility.
"Very well, sir. I"ll remember, sir."
The West Point man was pleased, he was even more impressed, because he knew football. He made marks on the card. When George essayed a salute and stepped aside for the next candidate he knew he wasn"t submerged in this ma.s.s of splendid individualities which were veiled by the similarity of their uniforms.
Lambert, Goodhue, and he were scattered among different companies. That was as well, he reflected, since his partners already wore officers" hat cords. The spare moments they had, nevertheless, they spent together, mulling over Blodgett"s frequent reports which they never found time thoroughly to digest. Even George didn"t worry about that, for his confidence in Blodgett was complete at last.
He hadn"t time to worry about much, for that matter, beyond the demands of each day, for Plattsburgh was like Princeton only in that it aroused all his will power to find the right path and to stick to it. At times he wished for the nearly smooth brain with which he had entered college.
He had acquired too many wrinkles of logic, of organization, of efficiency, of common-sense, to survive these months without frequent mad desires to talk out in meeting, without too much humorous appreciation of some of the arbiters of his destiny. Regular army officers gave him the impression of having been forced through a long, perpetually contracting corridor until they had come out at the end as narrow as one of the sheets of paper work they loved so well. But he got along with them. That was his business. He was pointed out enviously as one of the football captains. It was a football captains" camp. All such giants were slated for company or battery commander"s commissions at least.
If he got it, George wondered if he would hate a captain"s uniform as much as the private"s one he wore.
With the warm weather the week-ends offered sometimes a relief. Men"s wives or mothers had taken little houses in the town or among the hills, and the big hotel on the bluff opened its doors and welcomed other wives and mothers, and many, many girls who would become both a little sooner than they had fancied because of this.
Betty arrived among the first, chaperoned for the time by the Sinclairs.
George dined with them, asked Betty about Sylvia, and received evasive responses. Sylvia was surely coming up later. Betty was absorbed, anyway, in her own affairs, he reflected unhappily. He felt lost in this huge place where nearly everyone seemed to be paired.
After dinner Lambert remained with Betty and Mrs. Sinclair, but George and Mr. Sinclair wandered, smoking, through the grove above the lake.
George had had no idea that the news, for so long half expected, would affect him as it did.
"I suppose," Sinclair muttered, "you"ve heard about poor Blodgett."
"What?" George asked, breathlessly. "We"ve little time for newspapers here."
"I"m not sure," Sinclair answered, "that it"s in the papers, but in town everybody"s talking about it. Sylvia"s thrown him over."
II
George paused and considered the glowing end of his cigar. Instead of vast relief he first of all experienced a quick sympathy for Blodgett.
He wanted to say something; it was expected of him, but he was occupied with the effort to get rid of this absurd sympathy, to replace it by a profound and unqualified satisfaction.
"Why? Do you know why?" was all he managed.
That was what he wanted, her private reason for this step which all at once left the field quite open, and shifted their struggle back to its old, honest basis. It was what he had told her would happen, must happen. Since she had agreed at last why had she involved poor old Blodgett at all? Had that merely been one of her defences which had become finally untenable? Had George conceivably influenced her to its a.s.sumption, at last to its abandonment?
He stared at the opaque white light which rose like a mist from the waters of the lake. He seemed to see, as on a screen, an adolescent figure with squared shoulders and flushed cheeks tearing recklessly along on a horse that wasn"t sufficiently untamed to please its rider.
He replaced his cigar between his lips. Naturally she would be the most exigent of enthusiasts. Probably that was why Blodgett had been so pitifully anxious to crowd his bulk into the army. She had to be untrammelled to cheer on the younger, stronger bodies. That was why she had done it, because war had made her see that George was right by bringing her to a stark realization of the value of the younger, stronger bodies.
Sinclair had evidently reached much the same conclusion, for he was saying something about a whim, no lasting reason----
"I"ve always cared for Sylvia, but it"s hard to forgive her this."
"After all," George said, "Blodgett wasn"t her kind. She"d have been unhappy."
In the opaque light Sinclair stared at him.