She didn't answer, but if she tried to give him the impression she wasn't listening she failed utterly.
Around a curve in the path came a bent, white old man, bundled in a heavy muffler and coat. In one hand he carried a thick cane. The other rested on the arm of a young fellow of the private secretary stamp. There, George acknowledged, advanced the single person with whom a scene might make a serious difference, yet a more compelling thought crept in and overcame his sense of danger. That was the type of man who made wars. That man, indeed, was helping to finance this war. George was obsessed by the dun day: by the leaves, fallen and rotten; by the memory of the oblong box. Everything reminded him that not far away Death marched with a bland, black triumph, greeting science as an ally instead of an enemy.
"Suppose," he mused, "America should get in this thing."
"What did you say? Do you see my father?"
"Wouldn't it be wiser," she asked, "to leave me alone?"
"Your father," he said, "looks a good deal older."
Old Planter had, in fact, gone down hill since George's last glimpse of him in New York, or else he didn't attempt here to assume a strength he no longer possessed. He was quite close before he gave any sign of seeing the pair, and then he muttered to his secretary who answered with a whisper. He limped up and took Sylvia's hand.
"To a rendezvous in the forest. You shouldn't let me go out alone."
Planter glanced from clouded eyes at George. His lips between the white hair smiled amiably.
"It's one of Lambert's business friends," Sylvia said, hastily. "Mr. Morton."
The old man shifted his cane and held out his hand.
"Lambert," he joked, "says he's going to make more money through you than I can hope to leave him. You seem to have got the jump on a lot of shrewd men. I'll see you at dinner? Lambert isn't coming to-night?"
George briefly clasped the hand of the big man.
Planter shifted his cane and leant again on his secretary.
"Let's get on, Straker. Doctor's orders."
"Why," George asked when Sylvia and he were alone, "didn't you spring at the chance?"
"I prefer to fight my own battles," she said, shortly.
"Don't you mean," he asked, quizzically, "that you're a little ashamed of what you did that day?"