PART I

OAKMONT

I

George Morton never could be certain when he first conceived the

preposterous idea that Sylvia Planter ought to belong to him. The full

realization, at any rate, came all at once, unexpectedly, destroying his

dreary outlook, urging him to fantastic heights, and, for that matter,

to rather curious depths.

It was, altogether, a year of violent change. After a precarious

survival of a rural education he had done his best to save his father's

livery business which cheap automobiles had persistently undermined. He

liked that, for he had spent his vacations, all his spare hours, indeed,

at the stable or on the road, so that by the time the crash came he knew

more of horses and rode better than any hunting, polo-playing gentleman

he had ever seen about that rich countryside. Nor was there any one near

his own age who could stand up to him in a rough-and-tumble argument.

Yet he wondered why he was restless, not appreciating that he craved

broader worlds to conquer. Then the failure came, and his close relation

with the vast Planter estate of Oakmont, and the arrival of Sylvia, who

disclosed such worlds and heralded the revolution.

That spring of his twentieth year the stable and all its stock went to

the creditors, and old Planter bought the small frame house just outside

the village, on the edge of his estate, and drew his boundary around it.

He was willing that the Mortons should remain for the present in their

old home at a nominal rent, and after a fashion they might struggle

along, for George's mother was exceptionally clever at cleansing fine

laces and linens; the estate would have work for his father from time to

time; as for himself, Planter's superintendent suggested, there were new

and difficult horses at Oakmont and a scarcity of trustworthy grooms.

George shook his head.

"Sure, I want a job," he admitted, "but not as old Planter's servant, or

anybody else's. I want to be my own boss."

George hadn't guessed that his reputation as a horseman had travelled as

far as the big house. The superintendent explained that it had, and

that, living at home, merely helping out for the summer, he would be

quite apart from the ordinary men around the stables. His parents sensed

a threat. They begged him to accept.

"We've got to do as Old Planter wants at the start or he'll put us out,

and we're too old to make another home."

So George went with his head up, telling himself he was doing Planter a

favour; but he didn't like it, and almost at once commenced to plan to

get away, if he could, without hurting his parents. Then Sylvia, just

home from her last year at school, came into the stable toward the end

of his day's work. Her overpowering father was with her, and her

brother, Lambert, who was about George's age. She examined interestedly

the horse reserved for her, and one or two others of which she was

envious.

George wanted to stare at her. He had only glimpsed her casually and at

a distance in summers gone by. Now she was close, and he knew he had

never seen anything to match her slender, adolescent figure, or her

finely balanced face with its intolerant eyes and its frame of black

hair.

"But," he heard her say to her father in a flexible contralto voice, "I

don't care to bother you or Lambert every time I want to ride."

An argument, unintelligible to George, flowed for a moment. Then Old

Planter's tones, bass and authoritative, filled the stable.

"Come here, young Morton!"

George advanced, not touching his cap, to remind the big man that there

was a difference between him and the other stable men, and that he

didn't like that tone.

"You are a very dependable horseman," the great millionaire said. "I can

trust you. When Miss Sylvia wants to ride alone you will go with her and

see that she has no accidents. During your hours here you will be

entirely at her disposal."

Instead of arousing George's anger that command slightly thrilled him.

"So you're Morton," Sylvia said, indifferently. "I shall expect you

always to be convenient."

He ventured to look at last, pulling off his cap.

"You can depend on it," he said, a trifle dazed by her beauty.

She went out. Her father and her brother followed, like servitors of a

sort themselves. George had no sense of having allowed his position

there to be compromised. He only realized that he was going to see that

lovely creature every day, would be responsible for her safety, would

have a chance to know her.

"A peach!" a groom whispered. "You're lucky, Georgie boy."

George shrugged his shoulders.

"Maybe so."

Yet he agreed. She was a peach, and he took no pains to conceal his

appraisal from his parents that evening.

"Seen Old Planter's daughter yet?"

His father, a drooping, tired figure in the dusk of the little porch,

nodded.

"I haven't," his mother called from the kitchen. "Is she as pretty as

she was last summer?"

"Pretty!" he scoffed. "Who was the prettiest woman in the world?"

"I don't know," came the interested voice from the house. "Maybe the

Queen of Sheba."

"Then," George said, "she'd have cried her eyes out if she had seen Old

Planter's girl."

The elder Morton took his pipe from his mouth.

"Young men like you," he said, slowly, "haven't any business looking at

girls like Old Planter's daughter."

George laughed carelessly.

"Even a cat can look at a queen."

And during the weeks that followed he did look, too persistently, never

dreaming where his enthusiasm was leading him. Occasionally he would

bring her brother's horse around with hers or her father's. At such

times he would watch them ride away with a keen disappointment, as if he

had been excluded from a pleasure that had become his right. Lambert,

however, was away a good deal, and Old Planter that summer fought

rheumatic attacks, which he called gout, so that Sylvia, for the most

part, rode alone through remote bridle-paths with George at her heels

like a well-trained animal.

He knew he could not alter that all at once; she would have it no other

way. She only spoke to him, really, about the condition of the horses,

or the weather--never a word conceivably personal; and every day he

looked at her more personally, let his imagination, without knowing it,

stray too far. At first he merely enjoyed being with her; then he

appreciated that a sense of intimacy had grown upon him, and he was

troubled that she did not reciprocate, that their extended companionship

had not diminished at all the appalling distance dividing them. There

was something, moreover, beyond her beauty to stimulate his interest.

She appeared not to know fear, and once or twice he ventured to reprove

her, enjoying her angry reactions. She even came to the stables, urging

him to let her ride horses that he knew were not safe.

"But you ride them," she would persist.

"When I find a horse I can't ride, Miss Sylvia, I guess I'll have to

take up a new line. If your father would come and say it's all

right----"

Even then he failed to grasp the fact that he guarded her for his own

sake rather more than for her father's.

He nearly interfered when he heard her cry to her brother as they

started off one morning:

"I'm going to ride harder from now on, Lambert. I've got to get fit for

next winter. Coming out will take a lot of doing."

"If she rides any harder," he muttered, "she'll break her silly neck."

It angered him that she never spoke to him in that voice, with that easy

manner. Perhaps his eagerness to be near her had led her to undervalue

him. Somehow he would change all that, and he wanted her to stop calling

him "Morton," as if he had been an ordinary groom, or an animal, but he

would have to go slowly. Although he didn't realize the great fact then,

he did know that he shrank from attempting anything that would take her

away from him.

It was her harder riding, indeed, that opened his eyes, that ushered in

the revolution.

It happened toward the close of a mid-July afternoon. Mud whirled from

her horse's hoofs, plentifully sprinkling her humble guardian.

"Now what the devil's she up to?" he thought with a sharp fear.

She turned and rode at a gallop for a hedge, an uneven, thorny barrier

that separated two low meadows. He put spurs to his horse, shouting:

"Hold up, Miss Sylvia! That's a rotten take-off."

Flushed and laughing, she glanced over her shoulder.

"Got to try it to prove it, Morton."

He realized afterward that it was as near intimacy as she had ever come.

He saw her horse refuse, straightening his knees and sliding in the

marshy ground. He watched Sylvia, with an ease and grace nearly

unbelievable, somersault across the hedge and out of sight in the meadow

beyond.

"Miss Sylvia! Are you hurt?"

No answer. He sprang from his horse, leaving it free to graze with hers.

He stormed through the hedge, his heart choking him. She lay on her

side, quite motionless, the high colour fled from her cheeks, her hair

half down. Although the soft ground should have reassured him he was

obsessed by the thought that she might never get up again.

In the warmth of his fear barriers were consumed. Within his horizon

survived just two people, himself and this silent object of an extended,

if unconscious, adoration.

He shrank from learning the truth, yet it was impossible to hesitate. He

had to do what he could.

He approached on tip-toe, knelt, and lifted her until she rested against

him. The contact was galvanic. He became aware of his trembling hands.

Some man, it occurred to him, would touch those curved, slightly parted

lips. Not if he knew it, unless it were himself! He wanted to hear those

lips speak to him as if he were a human being, and not just--Morton. How

could he dream of such things now? He fumbled for her pulse, failed at

first to find it, and became panic-stricken. He shook her, more than

ever alone, facing an irretrievable loss.

"Open your eyes," he begged wildly. "What's the matter with you? Oh, my

God, Miss Sylvia, I can't ever get along without you now."

He glanced haggardly around for water, any means to snatch her back;

then she stirred in his arms, and with his relief came a sickening

return to a peopled and ordered world. He understood he had sprung

headlong with his eyes shut; that his anxiety had dictated phrases he

had had no business to form, that he would not have uttered if she had

been able to hear. Or, good Lord! Had she heard? For she drew herself

convulsively away, the colour rushing back, her eyes opening, and they

held a sort of horror.

"Are you hurt?" he said, trying to read her eyes.

She got to her knees, swaying a trifle.

"I remember. A bit of a fall. Stunned me. That's all. But you said

something, Morton! Will you please repeat that?"

Her eyes, and her voice, which had a new, frightening quality, stung his

quick temper. What he had suffered a moment ago was a little sacred. He

couldn't afford to let her cheapen it one cent's worth.

"I guess I don't need to repeat it," he said. "It was scared out of me,

Miss Sylvia, because I thought--I know it was silly--but I thought you

were dead. I never dreamed you could hear. I'll try to forget it."

He saw her grope in the wet grass at her knees. Scarcely understanding,

he watched her rise, lifting her riding crop, her face disclosing a

temper to match his own.

"You're an impertinent servant," she said. "Well, you'll not forget."

She struck at his face with the crop. He got his hand up just in time,

and caught her wrist.

"Don't you touch me," she whispered.

His jaw went out.

"You'll learn not to be afraid of my touch, and I'm not a servant. You

get that straight."

She struggled, but he held her wrist firmly. The sight of the crop, the

memory of her epithet, thickened his voice, lashed his anger.

"Have it your own way. You say I shan't forget, and I won't. I'm going

after you, and I usually get what I go after. You'll find I'm a human

being, and I'd like to see anybody hit me in the face and get away with

it."

"Let me go! Let me go!"

He released her wrist, dragging the crop from her grasp. He snapped it

in two and flung the pieces aside. The slight noise steadied him. It

seemed symbolic of the snapping of his intended fate. She drew slowly

back, chafing the wrist he had held. Her face let escape the desire to

hurt, to hurt hard.

"Someone else will have the strength," she whispered. "You'll be

punished, you--you--stable boy."

She forced her way blindly through the hedge. Responding to his custom

he started automatically after her to hold her stirrup. She faced him,

raising her hands.

"Keep away from me, you beast!"

Unaided, she sprang into her saddle and started home at a hard gallop.

George glanced around thoughtfully. He was quite calm now. The familiar

landscape appeared strangely distorted. Was that his temper, or a

reflection from his altered destiny? He didn't know how the deuce he

could do it, but he was going to justify himself. Maybe the real

situation had never been explained to her, and, as the price of her

companionship, he had, perhaps, let her hold him too cheaply; but now he

was going to show her that he was, indeed, instead of a servant, a human

being, capable of making his boasts good.

He picked up the two pieces of her riding crop and thrust them into his

pocket. They impressed him as a necessary souvenir of his humiliation, a

reminder of what he had to do. She had hurt. Oh, Lord! How she had hurt!

He experienced a hot desire to hurt back. The scar could only be healed,

he told himself, if some day he could strike at her beautiful,

contemptuous body as hard as she had just now struck at him.

II

He mounted and pressed his horse, but he had only one or two glimpses of

Sylvia, far ahead, using her spurs, from time to time raising her hand

as if she had forgotten that her crop had been torn from her, broken,

and thrown aside.

Such frantic haste was urged by more than the necessity of escape. What

then, if not to hasten his punishment, to tell her father, her mother,

and Lambert? She had threatened that someone else would have the

strength to give him a thrashing. Probably Lambert. Aside from that how

could they punish a man who had only committed the crime of letting a

girl know that he loved her? All at once he guessed, and he laughed

aloud. They could kick him out. He wanted, above everything else, to be

kicked out of a job where he was treated like a lackey, although he was

told he was nothing of the kind. Expert with horses, doing Old Planter a

favour for the summer! Hadn't she just called him a servant, a stable

boy? He wanted to put himself forever beyond the possibility of being

humiliated in just that way again.

In the stable he found a groom leading Sylvia's horse to a stall.

"Take mine, too, and rub him down, will you?"

The groom turned, staring.

"The nerve! What's up, George?"

"Only," George said, deliberately, "that I've touched my last horse for

money."

"Say! What goes on here? The young missus rides in like a cyclone, and

looking as if she'd been crying. I always said you'd get in trouble with

the boss's daughter. You're too good looking for the ladies,

Georgie----"

"That's enough of that," George snapped. "Scrape him down, and I'll be

much obliged."

He went out, knowing that the other would obey, for as a rule people did

what George wanted. He took a path through the park toward home, walking

slowly, commencing to appreciate the difficulties he had brought upon

himself. His predicament might easily involve his parents. The afternoon

was about done, they would both be there, unsuspecting. It was his duty

to prepare them. He experienced a bitter regret as he crossed the line

that a few months ago had divided their property, their castle, from

Oakmont. Now Old Planter could cross that line and drive them out.

Before George came in sight of the house he heard a rubbing, slapping

noise, and with a new distaste pictured his mother bending over a

washtub, suggesting a different barrier to be leaped. As he entered the

open space back of the house he wanted to kick the tub over, wanted to

see sprawling in the dirt the delicate, intimate linen sent down weekly

from the great house because his mother was exceptionally clever with

such things. To the uncouth music of her labour her broad back rose and

bent rhythmically. His father, wearing soiled clothing, sat on the porch

steps, an old briar pipe in his mouth.

Abruptly his mother's drudgery ceased. She stared. His father rose

stiffly.

"You've got yourself in trouble," he said.

George had not fancied the revolution had unfurled banners so easily

discernible. He became self-conscious. His parents' apprehension made

matters more difficult for him. They, at least, were too old to revolt.

"I suppose I have," he acknowledged shortly.

His father used the tone of one announcing an unspeakable catastrophe.

"You mean you've had trouble with Miss Sylvia."

"George!" his mother cried, aghast. "You've never been impertinent with

Miss Sylvia!"

"She thinks I have," George said, "so it amounts to the same thing."

His father's face twitched.

"And you know Old Planter can put us out of here without a minute's

notice, and where do you think we'd go? How do you think we'd get bread

and butter? You talk up, young man. You tell us what happened."

"I can't," George said, sullenly. "I can't talk about it. You'll hear

soon enough."

"I always said," his mother lamented, "that Georgie wasn't one to know

his place up there."

"Depends," George muttered, "on what my place is. I've got to find that

out. Look! You'll hear now."

A bald-headed figure in livery, one of the house servants, glided toward

them through the shrubbery, over that vanished boundary line, with

nervous haste. George squared his shoulders. The messenger, however,

went straight to the older man.

"Mr. Planter's on his ear, and wants to see you right off in the

library. What you been up to, young Morton?"

George resented the curiosity in the pallid, unintelligent eyes, the

fellow's obvious pleasure in the presence of disaster. It would have

appeased him to grasp those sloping shoulders, to force the grinning

face from his sight. A queer question disturbed him. Had Sylvia felt

something of the sort about him?

"Come on," the elder Morton said. "It's pretty hard at my age. You'll

pay for this, George."

"Old Planter would never be that unfair," George encouraged him.

"Georgie! Georgie!" his mother said when the others were out of sight,

"what have you been up to?"

He walked closer and placed his arm around her shoulders.

"I've been getting my eyes opened," he answered. "I never ought to have

listened to them. I never ought to have gone up there. I did say

something to Miss Sylvia I had no business to. If I'd been one of her

own kind, instead of the son of a livery stable keeper, I'd have got

polite regrets or something. It's made me realize how low I am."

"No," she said with quick maternal passion. "You're not low. Maybe some

day those people'll be no better than we are."

He shook his head.

"I'd rather I was no worse than they are. And I will be. I won't put up

with it. If some people have to be treated like dirt, I'm going to help

do the treating."

"That's no right way of thinking," she warned. "It's money makes the

mare go."

But in Sylvia's case, George admitted, there was other propulsion than

that; something more fragile, and harder to understand or capture for

one's self.

"Don't you worry, I'll make money," he said.

She glanced up quickly.

"Who's that?"

A brisk masculine voice volleyed through the shrubbery:

"Young Morton! I say, young Morton!"

"It's Mr. Lambert," she breathed. "Go quick."

George remembered what Sylvia had said about someone else having the

strength.

"Can't you guess, Ma, what the young lady's brother wants of me?"

The bitterness left his face. His smile was engaging.

"To give me the devil."

"Young Morton! Young Morton!"

"Coming!" he called.

"George," she begged, "don't have any trouble with Mr. Lambert."

III

She watched him with anxious eyes, failing to observe, because she was

his mother, details that informed his boasts with power. His ancestry

of labour had given him, at least, his straight, slender, and unusually

muscular body, and from somewhere had crept in the pride, just now

stimulated, with which he carried it. His wilful, regular features,

moreover, guarded by youth, were still uncoarsened.

He found Lambert Planter waiting beyond the old boundary behind a screen

of bushes, his hands held behind his back. In his face, which had some

of Sylvia's beauty, hardened and enlarged, dwelt the devil George had

foreseen.

George nodded, feeling all at once at ease. He could take care of

himself in an argument with Lambert Planter. No such distances separated

them as had widened beyond measure a little while back between him and

Sylvia. He wondered if that conception sprang from Lambert, or if it

came simply from the fact that they were two men, facing each other

alone; for it was from the first patent that Sylvia had asked her

brother to complete a punishment she had devised as fitting, but which

she had been incapable of carrying out herself. Lambert, indeed, brought

his hands forward, disclosing a whip. It was a trifle in his way as he

took off his coat.

"That's right," George said. "Make yourself comfortable."

"You won't help matters by being impertinent, Morton."

Lambert's voice contrasted broadly with George's round, loud tones.

While, perhaps, not consciously affected, its accents fell according to

the custom of the head master of a small and particular preparatory

school. George crushed his instinct to mock. What the deuce had he

craved ever since his encounter with Sylvia unless it was to be one with

men like Lambert Planter? So all he said was:

"What's the whip for?"

"You know perfectly well," Lambert answered. "There's no possible excuse

for what you said and did this afternoon. I am going to impress that on

you."

"You mean you want a fight?"

"By no means. I wouldn't feel comfortable fighting a man like you. I'd

never dreamed we had such a rotten person on the place. Oh, no, Morton.

I'm going to give you a good horse-whipping."

George's chin went out. His momentary good-humour fled.

"If you touch me with that whip I'm likely to kill you."

Without hesitating Lambert raised the whip. George sprang and got his

hands on it, intent only on avoiding a blow that would have carried the

same unbearable sting as Sylvia's riding crop. Such tactics took Lambert

by surprise. George's two hands against his one on the stock were

victorious. The whip flew to one side. Lambert, flushing angrily,

started after it. George barred his path, raising his fists.

"You don't touch that thing again."

Lambert's indecision, his hands hanging at his sides, hurt George nearly

as much as the lashing would have done. He had to destroy that attitude

of sheer superiority.

"I'm not sure you're a man," he said, thickly, "but you tried to hit me,

so you can put your pretty hands up or take it in the face."

He aimed a vicious blow. Lambert side-stepped and countered. George's

ear rang. He laughed, his self-respect rushing back with the keen joy of

battle. In Lambert's face, stripped of its habitual repression, he

recognized an equal excitement. It was a man's fight, with blood drawn

at the first moment, staining both of them. Lambert boxed skillfully,

and his muscles were hard, but after the first moment George saw

victory, and set out to force it. He looked for fear in the other's eyes

then, and longed to see it, but those eyes remained as unafraid as

Sylvia's until there wasn't left in them much of anything conscious. As

a last chance Lambert clinched, and they went down, fighting like a pair

of furious terriers. George grinned as he felt those eclectic hands

endeavouring in the most brotherly fashion to torture him. He managed to

pin them to the ground. He laughed happily.

"Thought you hated to touch me."

"You fight like a tiger, anyway," Lambert gasped.

"Had enough?"

Lambert nodded.

"I know when I'm through."

George didn't release him at once. His soul expanded with a sense of

power and authority earned by his own effort. It seemed an omen. It

urged him too far.

"Then," he mused, "I guess I'd better let you run home and tell your

father what I've done to you."

"That," Lambert said, "proves I was right, and I'm sorry I fought you."

George tried to think. He felt hot and angry. Was the other, after all,

the better man?

"I take it back," he muttered. "Ought to have had enough sense to know

that a fellow that fights like you's no tattle-tale."

"Thanks, Morton."

George's sense of power grew. He couldn't commence too soon to use it.

"See here, Mr. Planter, I came up here to help with some horses your

people didn't know how to handle, and let myself get shifted to this

other job; but I'm not your father's slave, and anyway I'm getting out."

He increased the pressure on Lambert's arms.

"Just to remind you what we've been fighting about, and that I'm not

your slave, you call me Mr. Morton, or George, just as if I was about as

good as you."

Lambert smiled broadly.

"Will you kindly let me go--George?"

George sprang up, grinning.

"How you feel, Mr. Lam----" He caught himself--"Mr. Planter?"

Lambert struggled to his feet.

"Quite unwell, thanks. I'm sorry you made such a damned fool of yourself

this afternoon. We might have had some pretty useful times boxing

together."

"I'd just as leave tell you," George said, glancing away, "that I never

intended to say it. I didn't realize it myself until it was scared out

of me."

Lambert put on his coat.

"It won't bear talking about."

"It never hit me," George said, huskily, "that even a cat couldn't look

at a queen."

"Perfectly possible," Lambert said as he walked off, feeling his

bruises, "only the queen mustn't see the cat."

IV

George went, obliterating as best he could the souvenirs of battle.

Water, unfortunately, was a requisite, and the nearest was to be found

at his own home. His mother gasped.

"You did! After what I said!"

At the pump he splashed cold water over his face and arms.

"I thrashed him," he spluttered.

"I guess that settles it for your father and me."

"Young Planter won't tell anybody," George assured her. "Although I

don't see how he's going to get away with it unless he says he was run

over by an automobile and kicked by a mule."

"What's come over you?" she demanded. "You've gone out of your head."

He dodged her desire for details. As Lambert had said, the thing

wouldn't bear talking about. For the first time in his life he stood

alone, and whatever he accomplished from now on would have to be done

alone.

He saw his father striding toward them, the anxious light gone from his

eyes. George experienced a vast relief.

"Father looks a little more cheerful," he commented, drying his face.

"Get supper, Ma," the man said as he came up.

She hesitated, held by her curiosity, while he turned on George.

"I don't wonder you couldn't open your mouth to me. You're to be out of

here to-morrow."

"I'd made up my mind to that."

"And Old Planter wants to see you at nine o'clock to-night."

"Since you and Ma," George said, "seem on such good terms with him I

suppose I'll have to go."

"Thank the Lord we are," his father grumbled. "I wouldn't have blamed

him if he had packed us all off. He was more than fair. I've looked

after you so far, but you'll have to shift for yourself now."

"And the only thing I didn't like about it," George mused, "was leaving

you and Ma."

"What did he say to Miss Sylvia?" his mother whispered.

"Said he couldn't get along without her, and was going to have her."

He might have been speaking of one who had ventured to impersonate the

deity.

"And he touched her! Put his arms around her!"

The horror in his mother's face grew.

"Georgie! Georgie! What could you have been thinking of?"

He leaned against the pump.

"I'm thinking now," he said, softly, "it's sort of queer a man's father

and mother believe there's any girl in the world too good for their

son."

"Lots of them," his father snapped. "Sylvia Planter most of all."

"Oh, yes," his mother agreed.

He straightened.

"Then listen," he said, peremptorily. "I don't think so. I told her I

was going to have her, and I will. Just put that down in your books.

I'll show the lot of you that I'm as good as she is, as good as

anybody."

The late sun illuminated the purpose in his striking face.

"Impertinent servant!" he cried. "Stable boy! Beast! It's pretty rough

to make her marry all that. It's my only business from now on."

V

He went to his room, leaving his parents aghast. With a nervous hurry he

rid himself of his riding breeches, his puttees, his stock.

"That," he told himself, "is the last time I shall ever wear anything

like livery."

When he had dressed in one of his two suits of ordinary clothing he took

the broken riding crop and for a long time stared at it as though the

venomous souvenir could fix his resolution more firmly. Once his hand

slipped to the stock where Sylvia's fingers had so frequently tightened.

He snatched his hand away. It was too much like an unfair advantage, a

stolen caress.

"Georgie! Georgie!"

His mother's voice drifted to him tentatively.

"Come and get your supper."

He hid the broken crop and went out. His father glanced disapproval.

"You'd do better to wear Old Planter's clothes while you can. It's

doubtful when you'll buy any more of your own."

George sat down without answering. Since his return from the ride that

afternoon his parents and he had scarcely spoken the same language, and

by this time he understood there was no possible interpreter. It made

him choke a little over his food.

The others were content to share his silence. His father seemed only

anxious to have him away; but his mother, he fancied, looked at him with

something like sorrow.

Afterward he fled from that nearly voiceless scrutiny and paced one of

the park paths, counting the minutes until he could answer Old Planter's

summons. He desired to have the interview over so that he could snap

every chain binding him to Oakmont, every chain save the single one

Sylvia's contempt had unwittingly forged. He could not, moreover, plan

his immediate future with any assurance until he knew what the great man

wanted.

"Only to make me feel a little worse," he decided. "What else could he

do?"

What, indeed, could a man of Planter's wealth and authority not do? It

was a disturbing question.

Through the shrubbery the lights of the house gleamed. The moonlight

outlined the immense, luxurious mass. Never once had he entered the

great house. He was eager to study the surrounding in which women like

Sylvia lived, which she, to an extent, must reflect.

In that serene moonlight he realized that his departure, agreeable and

essential as it was, would make it impossible for him during an

indefinite period to see that slender, adolescent figure, or the

features, lovely and intolerant, that had brought about this revolution

in his life. He acknowledged now that he had looked forward each day to

those hours of proximity and contemplation; and there had been from the

first, he guessed, adoration in his regard.

It was no time to dwell on the sentimental phase of his situation. He

despised himself for still loving her. His approaching departure he must

accept gladly, since he designed it as a means of coming closer--close

enough to hurt.

He wondered if he would have one more glimpse of her, perhaps in the

house. He glanced at his watch. He could go at last. He started for the

lights. Would he see her?

At the corner of the building he hesitated before a fresh dilemma. His

logical entrance lay through the servants' quarters, but he squared his

shoulders and crossed the terrace. It was impossible now that he should

ever enter the house in which she lived by the back door.

It was a warm night, so the door stood open. The broad spaces of the

hall, the rugs, the hangings, the huge chairs, the portraits in gilt

frames against polished walls, the soft, rosy light whose source he

failed to explore, seemed mutely to reprove his presumption.

He rang. He did not hear the feet of the servant who answered. The vapid

man that had trotted for his father that afternoon suddenly shut off his

view.

"You must wear rubbers," George said.

"What you doing here? Go 'round to the back."

"Mr. Planter," George explained, patiently, "sent for me."

"All right. All right. Then go 'round to the back where you belong."

George reached out, caught the other's shoulder, and shoved him to one

side. While the servant gave a little cry and struggled to regain his

balance, George walked in. A figure emerged painfully from an easy chair

in the shadows by the fireplace.

"What's all this, Simpson?"

The polished voice gave the impression of overcoming an impediment,

probably a swollen lip.

"It's young Morton, Mr. Lambert," Simpson whined. "I told him to go to

the back door where he belongs."

"What an idea!" Lambert drawled. "Enter, Mr. Morton. My dear Mr. Morton,

what is the occasion? What can we do for you? I must beg you to excuse

my appearance. I had a trifling argument with my new hunter this

afternoon."

George grinned.

"Must be some horse."

None the less, he felt a bruise. It would have been balm to destroy

Lambert's mocking manner by a brusque attack even in this impressive

hall.

"Your father sent for me."

"Shall I put him out, sir?" Simpson quavered.

Lambert burst into a laugh.

"I shouldn't try it. We can't afford too many losses in one day. Go

away, Simpson, and don't argue with your betters. You might not be as

clever as I at explaining the visible results. I'll take care of Mr.

Morton."

Simpson was bewildered.

"Quite so, sir," he said, and vanished.

"My father," Lambert said, "is in the library--that first door. Wait.

I'll see if he's alone."

Painfully he limped to the door and opened it, while George waited,

endeavouring not to pull at his cap.

"Father," Lambert said, smoothly, "Mr. Morton is calling."

A deep voice, muffled by distance, vibrated in the hall.

"What are you talking about?"

Lambert bowed profoundly.

"Mr. Morton from the lodge."

George stepped close to him.

"Want me to thrash you again?"

Lambert faced him without panic.

"I don't admit that you could, but, my dear--George, I'm too fatigued

to-night to find out. Some day, if the occasion should arise, I hope I

may. I do sincerely."

He drew the door wide open, and stepped aside with a bow that held no

mockery. A white-haired, stately woman entered the hall, and, as she

passed, cast at George a glance curiously lacking in vitality. In her

George saw the spring of Sylvia's delicacy and beauty. Whatever Old

Planter might be this woman had something from the past, not to be

acquired, with which to endow her children. George resented it. It made

the future for him appear more difficult. Her voice was in keeping,

cultured and unaffected.

"Mr. Planter is alone, Morton. He would like to see you."

She disappeared in a room opposite. George took a deep breath.

"On that threshold," Lambert said, kindly, "I've often felt the same

way, though I've never deserved it as you do."

George plunged through and closed the door.

The room was vaster than the hall, and darker, impressing him confusedly

with endless, filled book-shelves; with sculpture; with a difficult maze

of furniture. The only light issued from a lamp on a huge and littered

table at the opposite end.

At first George glanced vainly about, seeking the famous man.

"Step over here, Morton."

There was no denying that voice. It came from a deep chair whose back

was turned to the light. It sent to George's heart his first touch of

fear. He walked carefully across the rugs and around the table until he

faced the figure in the chair. He wanted to get rid of his cap. He

couldn't resist the temptation to pull at it; and only grooms and stable

boys tortured caps.

The portly figure in evening clothes was not calculated to put a culprit

at ease. Old Planter sat very straight. The carefully trimmed white side

whiskers, the white hair, the bushy brows above inflamed eyes, composed

a portrait suggestive of a power relentless and not to be trifled with.

George had boasted he was as good as any one. He knew he wasn't as good

as Old Planter; their disparity of attainment was too easily palpable.

No matter whether Old Planter's success was worthy, he had gone out

into the world and done things. He had manipulated railroads. He had

piled up millions whose number he couldn't be sure of himself. He had

built this house and all it stood for. What one man had done another

could. George stopped pulling at his cap. He threw it on the table as

into a ring. His momentary fear died.

"You sent for me, sir."

The mark of respect flowed naturally. This old fellow was entitled to

it, from him or any one else.

The bass voice had a dynamic quality.

"I did. This afternoon you grossly and inexcusably insulted my daughter.

It will be necessary to speak of her to you just once more. That's why I

told your father to send you. If I were younger it would give me

pleasure to break every bone in your body."

The red lips opened and shut with the precision of a steel trap. They

softened now in a species of smile.

"I see, Morton, you had a little argument with a horse this afternoon."

George managed to smile back.

"Nothing to speak of, sir."

"I wish it had been. I take a pleasure in punishing you. It isn't

biblical, but it's human. I'm only sorry I can't devise a punishment to

fit the crime."

"It was no crime," George said bravely, "no insult."

"Keep your mouth shut. Unfortunately I can't do much more than run you

away from here, for I don't care to evict your parents from their home

for your folly; and they do not support you. Mr. Evans will pay you off

in the morning with a month's extra wages."

"I won't take a cent I haven't earned," George said.

Old Planter studied him with more curiosity.

"You're a queer livery stable boy."

"I'm banking on that," George said, willing the other should make what

he would of it.

"It's there if you wish it," Old Planter went on. "I sent for you so

that I could tell you myself that you will be away from Oakmont and

from the neighbourhood by noon to-morrow. And remember your home is now

a portion of Oakmont. You will never come near us again. You will forget

what happened this afternoon."

He stood up, his face reddening. George wanted to tell him that Sylvia

herself had said he shouldn't forget.

"If, Morton," the old man went on with a biting earnestness, "once

you're away from Oakmont, you ever bother Miss Sylvia again, or make any

attempt to see her, I'll dispossess your parents, and I'll drive you out

of any job you get. I'll keep after you until you'll understand what

you're defying. This isn't an idle threat. I have the power."

The father completely conquered him. He clenched his knotted fists.

"I'd destroy a regiment of creatures like you to spare my little girl

one of the tears you caused her this afternoon."

"After all," George said, defensively, "I'm a human being."

Old Planter shook his head.

"If your father hadn't failed you'd have spent your life in a livery

stable. It takes education, money, breeding to make a human being."

George nodded. He wouldn't need to plan much for himself, after all.

Sylvia's father was doing it for him.

"I've heard some pretty hard words to-day, sir," he said. "It's waked me

up. Can't a man get those things for himself?"

He fancied reminiscence in Old Planter's eyes.

"The right kind can. Get out of here now, Morton, and don't let me see

you or hear of you again."

George stepped between him and the table to pick up his cap. His nerves

tightened. Close to his cap lay an unmounted photograph, not very large,

of Sylvia. What a companion piece for the broken crop! What an ornament

for an altar dedicated to ambition, to anger, and to love! He would take

it under her father's nose, following her father's threats.

He slipped his cap over the photograph, and picked up both, the precious

likeness hidden by the cheap cloth.

"Good-night, sir."

He thought Old Planter started at the ring in his voice. He walked

swiftly from the room. Let Old Planter look out for himself. What did

all those threats amount to? Perhaps he could steal Sylvia as easily

from under her terrible parent's nose.

VI

Lambert, hands in pockets, stopped him in the hall.

"Packed off, as you deserve, but you'll need money."

"Thanks," George said. "I don't want any I don't earn."

"If father should kick me out," Lambert drawled, "I'd be inclined to

take what I could get."

"I'd rather steal," George said.

Lambert smiled whimsically.

"A word of advice. Stealing's dangerous unless you take enough."

George indicated the library door. He tried to imitate Lambert's manner.

"Then I suppose it's genius."

"What are you getting at?"

"I mean," George said, "you people may drive me to stealing, but it'll

be the kind you get patted on the back for."

"Sounds like Wall Street," Lambert smiled.

George wanted to put himself on record in this house.

"I'm going to make money, and don't you forget it."

Lambert's smile widened.

"Then good luck, and a good job--George."

George crushed his helpless irritation, turned, and walked out the front

door; more disappointed than he would have thought possible, because he

had failed to see Sylvia.

Reluctantly he returned to the nearly silent discomfort of his parents.

He tried to satisfy their curiosity.

"Nothing but threats. I'm to be driven to crime if I'm ever heard of

after I leave Oakmont in the morning."

"He might have made it worse," his father grunted.

The conversation died for lack of an interpreter.

His father made a pretence of reading a newspaper. His mother examined

her swollen hands. Her eyes suggested the nearness of tears. George got

up.

"I suppose I'd better be getting ready."

As he stooped to kiss her his mother slipped an arm around his neck.

"Mother's little boy."

George steadied his voice.

"Good-night, Dad."

His father filled his pipe reflectively.

"Good-night, George."

No word of sympathy; no sympathy at all, beyond a fugitive,

half-frightened hint from his mother, because he had run boldly against

a fashion of thinking; little more, really.

He softly closed the door of his room, the last time he would ever do

that! He sat on the edge of the bed. He took Sylvia's photograph from

his pocket and studied it with a deliberate lack of sentiment. He

fancied her desirable lips framing epithets of angry contempt and those

other words to which he had given his own significance.

"You'll not forget."

He looked so long, repeating it in his mind so often, that at last his

eyes blurred, and the pictured lips seemed, indeed, to curve and

straighten.

"You'll not forget."

He tapped the photograph with his forefinger.

"You're going to help me remember," he muttered. "I'll not forget."

VII

He placed the photograph and the broken crop at the bottom of his

oilcloth suitcase. The rest of his packing was simple; he had so little

that was actually his own. There were a few books on a shelf, relics of

his erratic attendance at the neighbouring high school--he regretted now

that his ambition there had been physical rather that mental. Even in

the development of his muscles, however, his brain had grown a good

deal, for he was bright enough. If he made himself work, drawing on

what money he had, he might get ready for college by fall. He had

always envied the boys, who had drifted annually from the high school to

the remote and exhilarating grandeur of a university.

What had Old Planter's sequence been? Education, money, breeding. Of

course. And he guessed that the three necessities might, to an extent,

walk hand in hand. The acquisition of an education would mean personal

contacts, helpful financially, projecting, perhaps, that culture that he

felt was as essential as the rest. Certainly the starting place for him

was a big university where a man, once in, could work his way through.

Lambert went to Yale. Harvard sprang into his mind, but there was the

question of railroad fare and lost time. He'd better try his luck at

Princeton which wasn't far and which had, he'd heard, a welcome for boys

working their way through college.

He examined his bank book. Fortunately, since he had lived with his

parents, he had had little opportunity or need for spending. The balance

showed nearly five hundred dollars, and he would receive fifty more in

the morning. If he could find someone to bolster up his insufficient

schooling for a part of that amount he'd make a go of it; he'd be fairly

on his course.

He went to bed, but he slept restlessly. He wanted to be away from

Oakmont and at work. Through his clouded mind persisted his desire for a

parting glimpse of Sylvia. If he slept at all it was to the discordant

memory of her anger.

The sun smiled into his room, summoning him to get up and go forth.

His father was not there. As if to emphasize the occasion, his mother

deserted her washtub, served his breakfast herself, stood about in

helpless attitudes.

"George," she whispered, toward the close of the desolate meal, "try to

get a job near here. Of course you could never come home, but we could

go to see you."

"Father," he said, "is kicking me out as much as Old Planter is, and you

back him up."

She clasped her hands.

"I've got to. And you can't blame your father. He has to look after

himself and me."

"It makes no difference. I'm not going to take a job near by," he said.

"Where are you going?" she asked, sharply.

He stared at her for a moment, profoundly sorry for her and for himself.

"I'm going to get away from everything that would remind me I've ever

been treated like something less than human."

She gave a little cry.

"Then say good-bye, my son, before your father comes back."

VIII

His father returned and stood impatiently waiting. There was nothing to

hold George except that unlikely chance of a glimpse of Sylvia. He would

say good-bye here, go up to the offices for his money, and then walk

straight out of Oakmont. He stepped from the house, swinging his

suitcase, his overcoat across his arm.

"I'm off," he said, trying to make his voice cheery.

His father considered his cold pipe. He held out his hand.

"It's a bad start, but maybe you'll turn out all right after all."

George smiled his confidence.

"Well, let us hear from you," his father went on, "although as things

are I don't see how I could help you much."

"Don't worry," George said.

He walked to his mother, who had returned to her work. He kissed her

quickly, saying nothing, for he saw the tears falling from her cheeks to

the dirty water out of which linen emerged soft and immaculate. He

strode toward the main driveway.

"Good-bye," he called quickly.

The renewed racket at the tub pursued him until he had placed a screen

of foliage between himself and the little house. His last recollection

of home, indeed, was of swollen hands and swollen eyes, and of clean,

white tears dropping into offensive water.

He got his money and walked past the great house and down the driveway.

He would not see home again. At a turn near the gate he caught his

breath, his eyes widening. The vague chance had after all materialized.

Sylvia walked briskly along, accompanied by a vicious-looking bulldog on

a leash. Her head was high and her shoulders square, as she always

carried them. Her eyes sparkled. Then she saw George, and she paused,

her expression altering into an active distaste, her cheeks flushing

with tempestuous colour.

"I can't go back now," George thought.

She seemed to visualize all that protected her from him. He put his

cheap suitcase down.

"I'm glad I saw you," he said, deliberately. "I wanted to thank you for

having me fired, for waking me up."

She didn't answer. She stood quite motionless. The dog growled,

straining at his leash toward the man in the road.

"I've been told to get out and stay out," he went on, his temper lashed

by her immobility. "You know I meant what I said yesterday when I

thought you couldn't hear. I did. Every last word. And you might as well

understand now I'll make every word good."

He pointed to the gate.

"I'm going out there just so I can come back and prove to you that I

don't forget."

Her colour fled. She stooped swiftly, gracefully, and unleashed the

anxious bulldog.

"Get him!" she whispered, tensely.

Like a shot the dog sprang for George. He caught the animal in his arms

and submitted to its moist and eager caresses.

"It's a mistake," he pointed out, "to send a dog that loves the stables

after a stable boy."

He dropped the dog, picked up his suitcase, and started down the drive.

The dog followed him. He turned.

"Go back, Roland!"

Sylvia remained crouched. She cried out, her contralto voice crowded

with surprise and repulsion:

"Take him with you. I never want to see him again."

So, followed by the dog, George walked bravely out into the world

through the narrow gateway of her home.