She stared at him. "What are you saying?" "I'm saying, why don't you come to me?" He watched the angry challenge in her eyes, the deliberate stiffening of her entire body as if to a defensive attitude. He held out his hand to her. "Sylvia! We are growing old." Yet in her radiant presence it was preposterous to speak of age. She drew away with a sort of shudder. "You wouldn't dare touch me again----" He captured her glance. He felt that from his own eyes he failed to keep the unsatisfied desire of years. "I haven't forgotten Upton, either. When will you give me what I want, Sylvia?" Her glance eluded him. Swiftly she receded. Through the open door drifted a growing medley of voices. She hurried to the door, but he followed her, and purposefully climbed into the automobile she had entered, but they were no longer alone. Only once, when he made her dance with him in a huge, over-decorated tent, did he manage a whisper. "No more nonsense with Dalrymple or anybody. Please stop making unhappiness." XIV George returned to New York with an uneasy spirit, filled with doubt as to Dalrymple's statement of renunciation, and of his own course in saying what he had of Dalrymple to Sylvia. Mightn't that very expression of disapproval, indeed, tend to swing her back to the man? When Lambert walked in a day or two later George looked at the happy, bronzed face, recalling his assurance that Betty wasn't one to give by halves. Through eyes clouded by such happiness Lambert couldn't be expected to see very far into the dangerous and avaricious discontent of the majority. How much less time, then, would he have for George's personal worries? George, nevertheless, guided the conversation to Dalrymple. "He's running down to Oakmont with me to-night," Lambert said, carelessly. "You know Betty's there with the family for a few days." George hid his temper. There was no possible chance about this. Would Dalrymple go to Oakmont after the breaking off of even a secret engagement; or, defeated in his main purpose, was he hanging about for what crumbs might yet fall from the Planters' table. Nearly without reflection he burst out with: "It's inconceivable you should permit that man about your sister." Probably Lambert's great content forbade an answer equally angry. "Still at it! See here. Sylvia doesn't care for you." "I'm not talking of myself," George said. "I'm talking of Dalrymple." With an air of kindness, undoubtedly borrowed from Betty, Lambert said easily: "Stop worrying about him, then. Giving a friend encouragement doesn't mean asking him into the family. That idea seems to obsess you. What difference does it make to you, anyway, what man Sylvia marries? I'll say this, if you wish: Since I've had Betty I see things a bit clearer. I really shouldn't care to have Dolly the man. I don't think there's a chance of it." "You mean," George asked, eagerly, "if there were you'd stop it?"