of pretty good family too, and the fellow who took her to him
was pretty well-known about there. So I don’t know whether
this doctor would do anything for a stranger, although he
might at that. But I know that sort of thing is going on all the
time, so you might try. If you wanta send this fellow to him,
tell him not to mention me or let on who sent him, ‘cause
I’m pretty well-known around there and I wouldn’t want to
be mixed up in it in case anything went wrong, you see.
You know how it is.”
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And Clyde, in turn, replied gratefully: “Oh, sure, he’ll
understand all right. I’ll tell him not to mention any names.”
And getting the doctor’s name, he extracted a pencil and
notebook from his pocket in order to be sure that the
important information should not escape him.
Short, sensing his relief, was inclined to wonder whether
there was a working-man, or whether it was not Clyde
himself who was in this scrape. Why should he be speaking
for a young working-man at the factory? Just the same, he
was glad to be of service, though at the same time he was
thinking what a bit of local news this would be, assuming
that any time in the future he should choose to retail it. Also
that Clyde, unless he was truly playing about with some girl
here who was in trouble, was foolish to be helping anybody
else in this way—particularly a working-man. You bet he
wouldn’t.
Nevertheless he repeated the name, with the initials, and
the exact neighborhood, as near as he could remember,
giving the car stop and a description of the house. Clyde,
having obtained what he desired, now thanked him, and
then went out while the haberdasher looked after him
genially and a little suspiciously. These rich young bloods,
he thought. That’s a funny request for a fellow like that to
make of me. You’d think with all the people he knows and
runs with here he’d know some one. who would tip him off
quicker than I could. Still, maybe, it’s just because of them
that he is afraid to ask around here. You don’t know who he
might have got in trouble—that young Finchley girl herself,
even. You never can tell. I see him around with her
occasionally, and she’s gay enough. But, gee, wouldn’t that
be the …
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584
Chapter 37
THE information thus gained was a relief, but only partially
so. For both Clyde and Roberta there was no real relief now
until this problem should be definitely solved. And although
within a few moments after he had obtained it, he appeared
and explained that at last he had secured the name of
some one who might help her, still there was yet the
serious business of heartening her for the task of seeing the
doctor alone, also for the story that was to exculpate him
and at the same time win for her sufficient sympathy to
cause the doctor to make the charge for his service merely
nominal.
But now, instead of protesting as at first he feared that she
might, Roberta was moved to acquiesce. So many things in
Clyde’s attitude since Christmas had so shocked her that
she was bewildered and without a plan other than to
extricate herself as best she might without any scandal
attaching to her or him and then going her own way—
pathetic and abrasive though it might be. For since he did
not appear to care for her any more and plainly desired to
be rid of her, she was in no mood to compel him to do other
than he wished. Let him go. She could make her” own way.
She had, and she could too, without him, if only she could
get out of this. Yet, as she said this to herself, however, and
a sense of the full significance of it all came to her, the
happy days that would never be again, she put her hands
to her eyes and brushed away uncontrollable tears. To think
that all that was should come to this.
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585
Yet when he called the same evening after visiting Short,
his manner redolent of a fairly worth-while achievement,
she merely said, after listening to his explanation in as
receptive a manner as she could: “Do you know just where
this is, Clyde? Can we get there on the car without much
trouble, or will we have to walk a long way?” And after he
had explained that it was but a little way out of Gloversville,
in the suburbs really, an interurban stop being but a quarter
of a mile from the house, she had added: “Is he home at
night, or will we have to go in the daytime? It would be so
much better if we could go at night. There’d be so much
less danger of any one seeing us.” And being assured that
he was, as Clyde had learned from Short, she went on: “But
do you know is he old or young? I’d feel so much easier
and safer if he were old. I don’t like young doctors. We’ve
always had an old doctor up home and I feel so much
easier talking to some one like him.”
Clyde did not know. He had not thought to inquire, but to
reassure her he ventured that he was middle-aged—which
chanced to be the fact.
The following evening the two of them departed, but
separately as usual, for Fonda, where it was necessary to
change cars. And once within the approximate precincts of
the physician’s residence, they stepped down and made
their way along a road, which in this mid-state winter
weather was still covered with old and dry-packed snow. It
offered a comparatively smooth floor for their quick steps.
For in these days, there was no longer that lingering
intimacy which formerly would have characterized both. In
those other and so recent days, as Roberta was constantly
thinking, he would have been only too glad in such a place
as this, if not on such an occasion, to drag his steps, put an
arm about her waist, and talk about nothing at all—the
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586
night, the work at the factory, Mr. Liggett, his uncle, the
current movies, some place they were planning to go,
something they would love to do together if they could. But
now … And on this particular occasion, when most of all,
and if ever, she needed the full strength of his devotion and
support! Yet now, as she could see, he was most nervously
concerned as to whether, going alone in this way, she was
going to get scared and “back out”; whether she was going
to think to say the right thing at the right time and convince
the doctor that he must do something for her, and for a
nominal fee.
Well, Bert, how about you? All right? You’re not going to get
cold feet now, are you? Gee, I hope not because this is
going to be a good chance to get this thing done and over
with. And it isn’t like you were going to some one who
hadn’t done anything like this before, you know, because
this fellow has. I got that straight. All you have to do now, is
to say, well, you know, that you’re in trouble, see, and that
you don’t know how you’re going to get out of it unless he’ll
help you in some way, because you haven’t any friends
here you can go to. And besides, as things are, you couldn’t
go to ’em if you wanted to. They’d tell on you, see. Then if
he asks where I am or who I am, you just say that I was a
fellow here—but that I’ve gone—give any name you want
to, but that I’ve gone, and you don’t know where I’ve gone to
—run away, see. Then you’d better say, too, that you
wouldn’t have come to him only that you heard of another
case in which he helped some one else—that a girl told
you, see. Only you don’t want to let on that you’re paid
much, I mean,—because if you do he may want to make
the bill more than I can pay, see, unless he’ll give us a few
months in which to do it, or something like that, you see.”
Clyde was so nervous and so full of the necessity of
charging Roberta with sufficient energy and courage to go
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587
through with this and succeed, now that he had brought her
this far along with it, that he scarcely realized how
inadequate and trivial, even, in so far as her predicament
and the doctor’s mood and temperament were concerned,
his various instructions and bits of inexperienced advice
were. And she on her part was not only thinking how easy it