But the nearer he drew to home the more he suffered from a depression that he could only define as homesickness--homesickness for the old ways, the old habits, the old thoughts; and the memory of his temerity with Sylvia at the moment of their parting was like a great cloud threatening the future with destructive storm. Lambert, wearing a contrivance the doctors had given him in place of what the country had taken away, accompanied by Betty and the Baillys, met the transport. Betty and Mrs. Bailly cried, and George shook his heavy stick at them. "See here! I'm not going to limp like this always." Bailly encircled him with his thin arms. "You're too old to play football, anyway, George." George found himself wanting Betty's arms, their forgetfulness, their understanding, their tenderness. "When are you two going to be married?" he forced himself to ask. Betty looked away, her white cheeks flushing, but Lambert hurried an answer. "As soon as you're able to get to Princeton. You're to be best man." "Honoured." So Lambert's crippling hadn't made any difference to Betty, but how did Sylvia take it? He wanted to ask Lambert where she was, if anything had happened to her, any other mad affair, now that the war was over, like the one with Blodgett; but he couldn't ask, and no one volunteered to tell him, and it wasn't until his visit to Oakmont, on his first leave from the hospital, that he learned anything whatever about her, and that was only what his eyes in a moment told him. Lambert drove over and got George, explaining that his mother wanted to see him. "She'd have come to the dock," he said, "but Father these days is rather hard to leave." George went reluctantly, belligerently, for since his landing his feeling of homesickness had increased with the realization that his victorious country was more radically altered than he had fancied. The ride, however, had the advantage of an uninterrupted talk with Lambert which developed gossip that Blodgett, stuffed with business, hadn't yet given him. Goodhue and Wandel, for instance, were still abroad, holding down showy jobs at the peace conference. Dalrymple, on the other hand, had been home for months. "Most successful war," Lambert told George. "Scarcely smelled fire, but got a couple foreign decorations, and a promotion--my poor old leg wasn't worth it, or yours, George, but what odds now? And as soon as the show stopped at Sedan he was trotting back. Can't help admiring him, for that sort of thing spells success, and he's steady as a church. Try to realize that, and take a new start with him, for he's really likeable when he keeps to the straight and narrow. Prohibition's going to fit in very well, although I believe he's got himself in hand." George stared at the ugly, familiar landscape, trying not to listen, particularly to the rest. Why should the Planters have taken Dalrymple into the marble temple?