the hard and contemptuous opposition he felt. “We’ll be
having him up here next!”
“Who?” inquired Mrs. Griffiths, as she took the paper and
examined the item calmly and judicially, yet not without a
little of outwardly suppressed surprise when she saw the
name. For although the fact of Clyde’s having been picked
up by Sondra in her car sometime before and later been
invited to dinner at the Trumbulls’, had been conveyed to
the family sometime before, still a society notice in The Star
An American Tragedy
520
was different. “Now I wonder how it was that he came to be
invited to that?” meditated Mrs. Griffiths who was always
conscious of her son’s mood in regard to all this.
“Now, who would do it but that little Finchley snip, the little
smart aleck?” snapped Gilbert. “She’s got the idea from
somewhere—from Bella for all I know—that we don’t care
to have anything to do with him, and she thinks this is a
clever way to hit back at me for some of the things I’ve
done to her, or that she thinks I’ve done. At any rate, she
thinks I don’t like her, and that’s right, I don’t. And Bella
knows it, too. And that goes for that little Cranston show-off,
too. They’re both always running around with her. They’re a
set of show-offs and wasters, the whole bunch, and that
goes for their brothers, too—Grant Cranston and Stew
Finchley—and if something don’t go wrong with one or
another of that bunch one of these days, I miss my guess.
You mark my word! They don’t do a thing, the whole lot of
them, from one year’s end to the other but play around and
dance and run here and there, as though there wasn’t
anything else in the world for them to do. And why you and
Dad let Bella run with ’em as much as she does is more
than I can see.”
To this his mother protested. It was not possible for her to
entirely estrange Bella from one portion of this local social
group and direct her definitely toward the homes of certain
others. They all mingled too freely. And she was getting
along in years and had a mind of her own.
Just the same his mother’s apology and especially in the
face of the publication of this item by no means lessened
Gilbert’s opposition to Clyde’s social ambitions and
opportunities. What! That poor little moneyless cousin of his
who had committed first the unpardonable offense of
looking like him and, second, of coming here to Lycurgus
An American Tragedy
521
and fixing himself on this very superior family. And after he
had shown him all too plainly, and from the first, that he
personally did not like him, did not want him, and if left to
himself would never for so much as a moment endure him.
“He hasn’t any money,” he declared finally and very bitterly
to his mother, “and he’s hanging on here by the skin of his
teeth as it is. And what for? If he is taken up by these
people, what can he do? He certainly hasn’t the money to
do as they do, and he can’t get it. And if he could, his job
here wouldn’t let him go anywhere much, unless some one
troubled to pay his way. And how he is going to do his work
and run with that crowd is more than I know. That bunch is
on the go all the time.”
Actually he was wondering whether Clyde would be
included from now on, and if so, what was to be done about
it. If he were to be taken up in this way, how was he, or the
family, either, to escape from being civil to him? For
obviously, as earlier and subsequent developments proved,
his father did not choose to send him away.
Indeed, subsequent to this conversation, Mrs. Griffiths had
laid the paper, together with a version of Gilbert’s views
before her husband at this same breakfast table. But he,
true to his previous mood in regard to Clyde, was not
inclined to share his son’s opinion. On the contrary, he
seemed, as Mrs. Griffiths saw it, to look upon the
development recorded by the item as a justification in part
of his own original estimate of Clyde.
“I must say,” he began, after listening to his wife to the end,
“I can’t see what’s wrong with his going to a party now and
then, or being invited here and there even if he hasn’t any
money. It looks more like a compliment to him and to us
than anything else. I know how Gil feels about him. But it
rather looks to me as though Clyde’s just a little better than
An American Tragedy
522
Gil thinks he is. At any rate, I can’t and I wouldn’t want to do
anything about it. I’ve asked him to come down here, and
the least I can do is to give him an opportunity to better
himself. He seems to be doing his work all right. Besides,
how would it look if I didn’t?”
And later, because of some additional remarks on the part
of Gilbert to his mother, he added: “I’d certainly rather have
him going with some of the better people than some of the
worse ones—that’s one thing sure. He’s neat and polite and
from all I hear at the factory does his work well enough. As
a matter of fact, I think it would have been better if we had
invited him up to the lake last summer for a few days
anyhow, as I suggested. As it is now, if we don’t do
something pretty soon, it will look as though we think he
isn’t good enough for us when the other people here seem
to think he is. If you’ll take my advice, you’ll have him up
here for Christmas or New Year’s, anyhow, just to show
that we don’t think any less of him than our friends do.”
This suggestion, once transferred to Gilbert by his mother,
caused him to exclaim: “Well, I’ll be hanged! All right, only
don’t think I’m going to lay myself out to be civil to him. It’s
a wonder, if Father thinks he’s so able, that he don’t make a
real position for him somewhere.”
Just the same, nothing might have come of this had it not
been that Bella, returning from Albany this same day,
learned via contacts and telephone talks with Sondra and
Bertine of the developments in connection with Clyde. Also
that he had been invited to accompany them to the New
Year’s Eve dance at the Ellerslies’ in Schenectady, Bella
having been previously scheduled to make a part of this
group before Clyde was thought of.
This sudden development, reported by Bella to her mother,
was of sufficient import to cause Mrs. Griffiths as well as
An American Tragedy
523
Samuel, if not Gilbert, later to decide to make the best of a
situation which obviously was being forced upon them and
themselves invite Clyde for dinner—Christmas Day—a
sedate affair to which many others were bid. For this as
they now decided would serve to make plain to all and at
once that Clyde was not being as wholly ignored as some
might imagine. It was the only reasonable thing to do at this
late date. And Gilbert, on hearing this, and realizing that in
this instance he was checkmated, exclaimed sourly: “Oh, all
right. Invite him if you want to—if that’s the way you and
Dad feel about it. I don’t see any real necessity for it even
now. But you fix it to suit yourself. Constance and I are
going over to Utica for the afternoon, anyhow, so I couldn’t
be there even if I wanted to.”
He was thinking of what an outrageous thing it was that a
girl whom he disliked as much as he did Sondra could thus
via her determination and plottings thrust his own cousin on
him and he be unable to prevent it. And what a beggar
Clyde must be to attempt to attach himself in this way when
he knew that he was not wanted! What sort of a youth was
he, anyhow?
And so it was that on Monday morning Clyde had received
another letter from the Griffiths, this time signed by Myra,
asking him to have dinner with them at two o’clock
Christmas Day. But, since this at that time did not seem to
interfere with his meeting Roberta Christmas night at eight,
he merely gave himself over to extreme rejoicing in regard
to it all now, and at last he was nearly as well placed here,
socially, as any one. For although he had no money, see
how he was being received—and by the Griffiths, too—
among all the others. And Sondra taking so great an
interest in him, actually talking and acting as though she