now stood there unable for the moment to think of anything
more to say.
And although there was some other discussion to the same
effect, the conclusion of this very difficult hour was that
Clyde had another week or two at best in which to see if he
could find a physician or any one who would assist him.
After that—well after that the implied, if not openly
expressed, threat which lay at the bottom of this was,
unless so extricated and speedily, that he would have to
marry her, if not permanently, then at least temporarily, but
legally just the same, until once again she was able to look
after herself—a threat which was as crushing and
humiliating to Roberta as it was torturing to him.
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Chapter 39
OPPOSING views such as these, especially where no real
skill to meet such a situation existed, could only spell
greater difficulty and even eventual disaster unless chance
in some form should aid. And chance did not aid. And the
presence of Roberta in the factory was something that
would not permit him to dismiss it from his mind. If only he
could persuade her to leave and go somewhere else to live
and work so that he should not always see her, he might
then think more calmly. For with her asking continuously, by
her presence if no more, what he intended to do, it was
impossible for him to think. And the fact that he no longer
cared for her as he had, tended to reduce his normal
consideration of what was her due. He was too infatuated
with, and hence disarranged by his thoughts of Sondra.
For in the very teeth of this grave dilemma he continued to
pursue the enticing dream in connection with Sondra—the
dark situation in connection with Roberta seeming no more
at moments than a dark cloud which shadowed this other.
And hence nightly, or as often as the exigencies of his still
unbroken connection with Roberta would permit, he was
availing himself of such opportunities as his flourishing
connections now afforded. Now, and to his great pride and
satisfaction, it was a dinner at the Harriets’ or Taylors’ to
which he was invited; or a party at the Finchleys’ or the
Cranstons’, to which he would either escort Sondra or be
animated by the hope of encountering her. And now, also
without so many of the former phases or attempts at
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subterfuge, which had previously characterized her curiosity
in regard to him, she was at times openly seeking him out
and making opportunities for social contact. And, of course,
these contacts being identical with this typical kind of group
gathering, they seemed to have no special significance with
the more conservative elders.
For although Mrs. Finchley, who was of an especially
shrewd and discerning turn socially, had at first been
dubious over the attentions being showered upon Clyde by
her daughter and others, still observing that Clyde was
more and more being entertained, not only in her own
home by the group of which her daughter was a part, but
elsewhere, everywhere, was at last inclined to imagine that
he must be more solidly placed in this world than she had
heard, and later to ask her son and even Sondra
concerning him. But receiving from Sondra only the
equivocal information that, since he was Gil and Bella
Griffiths’ cousin, and was being taken up by everybody
because he was so charming—even if he didn’t have any
money—she couldn’t see why she and Stuart should not be
allowed to entertain him also, her mother rested on that for
the time being—only cautioning her daughter under no
circumstances to become too friendly. And Sondra,
realizing that in part her mother was right, yet being so
drawn to Clyde was now determined to deceive her, at least
to the extent of being as clandestinely free with Clyde as
she could contrive. And was, so much so that every one
who was privy to the intimate contacts between Clyde and
Sondra might have reported that the actual understanding
between them was assuming an intensity which most
certainly would have shocked the elder Finchleys, could
they have known. For apart from what Clyde had been, and
still was dreaming in regard to her, Sondra was truly being
taken with thoughts and moods in regard to him which were
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fast verging upon the most destroying aspects of the very
profound chemistry of love. Indeed, in addition to
handclasps, kisses and looks of intense admiration always
bestowed when presumably no one was looking, there
were those nebulous and yet strengthening and
lengthening fantasies concerning a future which in some
way or other, not clear to either as yet, was still always to
include each other.
Summer days perhaps, and that soon, in which he and she
would be in a canoe at Twelfth Lake, the long shadows of
the trees on the bank lengthening over the silvery water,
the wind rippling the surface while he paddled and she idled
and tortured him with hints of the future; a certain forest
path, grass-sodden and sun-mottled to the south and west
of the Cranston and Phant estates, near theirs, through
which they might canter in June and July to a wonderful
view known as Inspiration Point some seven miles west;
the country fair at Sharon, at which, in a gypsy costume, the
essence of romance itself, she would superintend a booth,
or, in her smartest riding habit, give an exhibition of her
horsemanship—teas, dances in the afternoon and in the
moonlight at which, languishing in his arms, their eyes
would speak.
None of the compulsion of the practical. None of the
inhibitions which the dominance and possible future
opposition of her parents might imply. Just love and
summer, and idyllic and happy progress toward an eventual
secure and unopposed union which should give him to her
forever.
And in the meantime, in so far as Roberta was concerned,
two more long, dreary, terrifying months going by without
that meditated action on her part which must result once it
was taken in Clyde’s undoing. For, as convinced as she
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was that apart from meditating and thinking of some way to
escape his responsibility, Clyde had no real intention of
marrying her, still, like Clyde, she drifted, fearing to act
really. For in several conferences following that in which
she had indicated that she expected him to marry her, he
had reiterated, if vaguely, a veiled threat that in case she
appealed to his uncle he would not be compelled to marry
her, after all, for he could go elsewhere.
The way he put it was that unless left undisturbed in his
present situation he would be in no position to marry her
and furthermore could not possibly do anything to aid her at
the coming time when most of all she would stand in need
of aid—a hint which caused Roberta to reflect on a hitherto
not fully developed vein of hardness in Clyde, although had
she but sufficiently reflected, it had shown itself at the time
that he compelled her to admit him to her room.
In addition and because she was doing nothing and yet he
feared that at any moment she might, he shifted in part at
least from the attitude of complete indifference, which had
availed him up to the time that she had threatened him, to
one of at least simulated interest and good-will and
friendship. For the very precarious condition in which he
found himself was sufficiently terrifying to evoke more
diplomacy than ever before had characterized him. Besides
he was foolish enough to hope, if not exactly believe, that
by once more conducting himself as though he still
entertained a lively sense of the problem that afflicted her
and that he was willing, in case no other way was found, to
eventually marry her (though he could never definitely be
persuaded to commit himself as to this), he could reduce
her determination to compel him to act soon at least to a
minimum, and so leave him more time in which to exhaust
every possibility of escape without marriage, and without
being compelled to run away.
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And although Roberta sensed the basis of this sudden shift,
still she was so utterly alone and distrait that she was willing
to give ear to Clyde’s mock genial, if not exactly affectionate
observations and suggestions. It caused her, at his behest,
to wait a while longer, the while, as he now explained, he
would not only have saved up some money, but devised
some plan in connection with his work which would permit
him to leave for a time anyhow, marry her somewhere and
then establish her and the baby as a lawful married woman
somewhere else, while, although he did not explain this just
now, he returned to Lycurgus and sent her such aid as he