The Guarded Heights & The Straight Path. Charles Wadsworth Camp
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.
PART II
PRINCETON
I
"Young man, you've two years' work to enter."
"Just when," George asked, "does college open?"
"If the world continues undisturbed, in about two months."
"Very well. Then I'll do two years' work in two months."
"You've only one pair of eyes, my boy; only one brain."
George couldn't afford to surrender. He had arrived in Princeton the evening before, a few hours after leaving Oakmont. It had been like a crossing between two planets. Breathlessly he had sought and found a cheap room in a students' lodging house, and afterward, guided by the moonlight, he had wandered, spellbound, about the campus.
Certainly this could not be George Morton, yesterday definitely divided from what Old Planter had described as human beings. His exaltation grew. For a long time he walked in an amicable companionship of broader spaces and more arresting architecture than even Oakmont could boast; and it occurred to him, if he should enter college, he would have as much share in all this as the richest student; at Princeton he would live in the Great House.
His mood altered as he returned to his small, scantily furnished room whose very unloveliness outlined the difficulties that lay ahead.
He unpacked his suitcase and came upon Sylvia's photograph and her broken riding crop. In the centre of the table, where he would work, he placed the photograph with a piece of the crop on either side. Whenever he was alone in the room those objects would be there, perpetual lashes to ambition; whenever he went out he would lock them away.
How lovely and desirable she was! How hateful! How remote! Had ever a man such a goal to strain for? He wanted only to start.
Immediately after breakfast the next morning he set forth. He had never seen a town so curiously empty. There were no students, since it was the long vacation, except a few backward men and doubtful candidates for admission. He stared by daylight at the numerous buildings which were more imposing now, more suggestive of learning, wealth, and breeding. They seemed to say they had something for him if only he would fight hard enough to receive it.
First of all, he had to find someone who knew the ropes. There must be professors here, many men connected with this gigantic plant. On Nassau Street he encountered a youth, a little younger than himself, who, with a bored air, carried three books under his arm. George stopped him.
"I beg your pardon. Are you going here?"
The other looked him over as if suspecting a