obbled into his study, Sylvia
at his side. Betty followed George to the hall.

"Tell Sylvia I am very happy," he said.

She pressed his hand, whispering:

"The great George Morton!"

XXIII

Again George walked to his apartment and sat brooding over the fire,
trying to find a way; but Sylvia must have searched, too, and failed.
There was no way, or none that she would take. He crushed his heady
revolt at the realization, for he believed she had been right. Without
her great mistake she couldn't have given him that obliterative moment
last evening, or his glimpse this afternoon of happiness through heavy,
transparent glass. So he could smile a little, nearly cheerfully. There
was really a quality of happiness in his knowledge that she had never
forgotten his tight clasping at Oakmont, his blurted love, his threat
that he would teach her not to be afraid of his touch. How she must have
despised herself in the great house, among her own kind, when she found
she couldn't forget Morton, when she tried, perhaps, to escape the shame
of wanting Morton! No wonder she had attempted through Blodgett and
Dalrymple, men for whom she could have had no such urgent feeling, to
divide herself from him, to prevent the fulfilment of his boasts of
which he had perpetually reminded her. She must have looked at him a
good deal more than he had guessed in those far days. And now his touch
had taught her to be more afraid than ever, but not of him. With a
growing wonder he recalled her surrender. Of course, Sylvia, like her
placid mother, like everyone, was, beneath the veneer even of endless
generations, necessarily primitive. For that discovery he could thank
Dalrymple. He continued to dream.

What, indeed, lay ahead for him? In a sense he had already reached the
summit which he had set out to find, and every thrilling mood of hers
that afternoon flamed in his mind. He had a desolate feeling that there
was no longer anything for him down town, or anywhere else beyond a
wait, possibly endless, for Sylvia; and as he brooded there he longed
for a mother to whom he could have gone with his happiness that was more
than half pain. His mother had said that there were lots of girls too
good for him. His father had added, "Sylvia Planter most of all." His
father was dead. His mother might as well have been. All at once her
swollen hands seemed to rest passively between him and the fire.

He was glad when Wandel came in, even though he found