but when he comes around hang on to the ink pots."

XIX

His apparent good humour didn't survive the closing of the door. His
dislike of Dalrymple fattened on his memory of the incident. It had left
a sting. He hadn't stopped the man in time. Selling herself! Was she?
She appeared to his mind, no longer intolerant, rather with an air of
shame-faced apology for all the world. That was what hurt. He hadn't
stopped Dalrymple in time.

But there was no sale yet, nothing whatever, except an engagement which,
after a year, showed no symptoms of fruition. Blodgett was aware of it,
and couldn't hide his anxiety. Evidently he wanted to talk about it, did
talk about it to George when he met him in the hall not long after
Dalrymple's visit.

"Why don't you ever run down to Oakmont with Lambert?" he asked.

Only Blodgett would have put such a question, and perhaps even he
designed it merely as an entrance to his favourite topic. George evaded
with a fairly truthful account of office pressure.

"Old Planter asks after you," Blodgett went on, uncomfortably. "Admires
you, because you've done about what he had at your age, and it was
easier then. Old man's not well. That's tough on Josiah."

"Tough?"

Blodgett mopped his face with a brilliant handkerchief. His rotund
stomach rose and fell with a sigh.

"His gout's worse--all sorts of complications. She's the apple of his
eye. Guess you know that. Won't desert him now. Wants to wait till he's
better, or--or----"

He added naively:

"Hope to heaven he bucks up soon."

George watched Blodgett's hopes dwindle, for Old Planter didn't buck up,
nor did he grow perceptibly worse. From time to time he visited his
marble temple, but for the most part men went to him at Oakmont;
Blodgett, of course, with his double errand of business and romance,
most frequently of all. And Sylvia did cling to her father, but George's
satisfaction increased, for he agreed with Wandel: she was capable of a
feeling far more powerful than filial devotion. Blodgett, clearly, had
failed to arouse it.

Her sense of duty, however, kept her nearly entirely away from George;
for Lambert, either because Sylvia had spoken to him, or because he
himself had sensed a false step, failed to repeat his invitation to
Oakmont. The row with Dalrymple, although that had not been mentioned
again, made it unlikely that he ever would.

Dalrymple had dropped out of sight. George heard vaguely that he was
taking a res