THE GUARDED HEIGHTS

CONTENTS


PART I OAKMONT

PART II PRINCETON

PART III THE MARKET-PLACE

PART IV THE FOREST

PART V THE NEW WORLD




THE GUARDED HEIGHTS




PART I

OAKMONT


I

George Morton never could be certain when he first conceived the
preposterous idea that Sylvia Planter ought to belong to him. The full
realization, at any rate, came all at once, unexpectedly, destroying his
dreary outlook, urging him to fantastic heights, and, for that matter,
to rather curious depths.

It was, altogether, a year of violent change. After a precarious
survival of a rural education he had done his best to save his father's
livery business which cheap automobiles had persistently undermined. He
liked that, for he had spent his vacations, all his spare hours, indeed,
at the stable or on the road, so that by the time the crash came he knew
more of horses and rode better than any hunting, polo-playing gentleman
he had ever seen about that rich countryside. Nor was there any one near
his own age who could stand up to him in a rough-and-tumble argument.
Yet he wondered why he was restless, not appreciating that he craved
broader worlds to conquer. Then the failure came, and his close relation
with the vast Planter estate of Oakmont, and the arrival of Sylvia, who
disclosed such worlds and heralded the revolution.