dollars each, but even so, think of him buying drinks for
such a woman at such a price! And his mother and sisters
and brother at home with scarcely the means to make ends
meet. And yet he bought and paid for several, feeling all the
while that he had let himself in for a terrifying bit of
extravagance, if not an orgy, but now that he was here, he
must go through with it.
And besides, as he now saw, this girl was really pretty. She
had on a Delft blue evening gown of velvet, with slippers
and stockings to match. In her ears were blue earrings and
her neck and shoulders and arms were plump and smooth.
The most disturbing thing about her was that her bodice
was cut very low—he dared scarcely look at her there—and
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her cheeks and lips were painted—most assuredly the
marks of the scarlet woman. Yet she did not seem very
aggressive, in fact quite human, and she kept looking rather
interestedly at his deep and dark and nervous eyes.
“You work over at the Green-Davidson, too, don’t you?” she
asked.
“Yes,” replied Clyde trying to appear as if all this were not
new to him—as if he had often been in just such a place as
this, amid such scenes. “How did you know?”
“Oh, I know Oscar Hegglund,” she replied. “He comes
around here once in a while. Is he a friend of yours?”
“Yes. That is, he works over at the hotel with me.”
“But you haven’t been here before.”
“No,” said Clyde, swiftly, and yet with a trace of inquiry in his
own mood. Why should she say he hadn’t been here
before?
“I thought you hadn’t. I’ve seen most of these other boys
before, but I never saw you. You haven’t been working over
at the hotel very long, have you?”
“No,” said Clyde, a little irritated by this, his eyebrows and
the skin of his forehead rising and falling as he talked—a
form of contraction and expansion that went on involuntarily
whenever he was nervous or thought deeply. “What of it?”
“Oh, nothing. I just knew you hadn’t. You don’t look very
much like these other boys—you look different.” She smiled
oddly and rather ingratiatingly, a smile and a mood which
Clyde failed to interpret.
“How different?” he inquired, solemnly and contentiously,
taking up a glass and drinking from it.
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“I’ll bet you one thing,” she went on, ignoring his inquiry
entirely. “You don’t care for girls like me very much, do
you?”
“Oh, yes, I do, too,” he said, evasively.
“Oh, no, you don’t either. I can tell. But I like you just the
same. I like your eyes. You’re not like those other fellows.
You’re more refined, kinda. I can tell. You don’t look like
them.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Clyde, very much pleased and
flattered, his forehead wrinkling and clearing as before. This
girl was certainly not as bad as he thought, maybe. She
was more intelligent—a little more refined than the others.
Her costume was not so gross. And she hadn’t thrown
herself upon him as had these others upon Hegglund,
Higby, Kinsella and Ratterer. Nearly all of the group by now
were seated upon chairs or divans about the room and
upon their knees were girls. And in front of every couple
was a little table with a bottle of whisky upon it.
“Look who’s drinking whisky!” called Kinsella to such of the
others as would pay any attention to him, glancing in
Clyde’s direction.
“Well, you needn’t be afraid of me,” went on the girl, while
Clyde glanced at her arms and neck, at her too much
revealed bosom, which quite chilled and yet enticed him. “I
haven’t been so very long in this business. And I wouldn’t
be here now if it hadn’t been for all the bad luck I’ve had. I’d
rather live at home with my family if I could, only they
wouldn’t have me, now.” She looked rather solemnly at the
floor, thinking mainly of the little inexperienced dunce Clyde
was—so raw and green. Also of the money she had seen
him take out of his pocket—plainly quite a sum. Also how
really good-looking he was, not handsome or vigorous, but
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pleasing. And he was thinking at the instant of Esta, as to
where she had gone or was now. What might have befallen
her—who could say? What might have been done to her?
Had this girl, by any chance, ever had any such unfortunate
experience as she had had? He felt a growing, if somewhat
grandiose, sympathy, and looked at her as much as to say:
“You poor thing.” Yet for the moment he would not trust
himself to say anything or make any further inquiries.
“You fellows who come into a place like this always think so
hard of everybody. I know how you are. But we’re not as
bad as you think.”
Clyde’s brows knit and smoothed again. Perhaps she was
not as bad as he thought. She was a low woman, no doubt
—evil but pretty. In fact, as he looked about the room from
time to time, none of the girls appealed to him more. And
she thought him better than these other boys—more refined
—she had detected that. The compliment stuck. Presently
she was filling his glass for him and urging him to drink with
her. Another group of young men arrived about then—and
other girls coming out of the mysterious portals at the rear
to greet them—Hegglund and Ratterer and Kinsella and
Higby, as he saw, mysteriously disappeared up that back
stairs that was heavily curtained from the general room.
And as these others came in, this girl invited him to come
and sit upon a divan in the back room where the lights were
dimmer.
And now, seated here, she had drawn very close to him
and touched his hands and finally linking an arm in his and
pressing close to him, inquired if he didn’t want to see how
pretty some of the rooms on the second floor were
furnished. And seeing that he was quite alone now—not
one of all the group with whom he had come around to
observe him—and that this girl seemed to lean to him
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warmly and sympathetically, he allowed himself to be led up
that curtained back stair and into a small pink and blue
furnished room, while he kept saying to himself that this
was an outrageous and dangerous proceeding on his part,
and that it might well end in misery for him. He might
contract some dreadful disease. She might charge him
more than he could afford. He was afraid of her—himself—
everything, really—quite nervous and almost dumb with his
several fears and qualms. And yet he went, and, the door
locked behind him, this interestingly well-rounded and
graceful Venus turned the moment they were within and
held him to her, then calmly, and before a tall mirror which
revealed her fully to herself and him, began to disrobe….
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Chapter 11
THE effect of this adventure on Clyde was such as might
have been expected in connection with one so new and
strange to such a world as this. In spite of all that deep and
urgent curiosity and desire that had eventually led him to
that place and caused him to yield, still, because of the
moral precepts with which he had so long been familiar,
and also because of the nervous esthetic inhibitions which
were characteristic of him, he could not but look back upon
all this as decidedly degrading and sinful. His parents were
probably right when they preached that this was all low and
shameful. And yet this whole adventure and the world in
which it was laid, once it was all over, was lit with a kind of
gross, pagan beauty or vulgar charm for him. And until
other and more interesting things had partially effaced it, he
could not help thinking back upon it with considerable
interest and pleasure, even.
In addition he kept telling himself that now, having as much
money as he was making, he could go and do about as he
pleased. He need not go there any more if he did not want
to, but he could go to other places that might not be as low,
maybe—more refined. He wouldn’t want to go with a crowd
like that again. He would rather have just one girl
somewhere if he could find her—a girl such as those with
whom he had seen Sieberling and Doyle associate. And so,
despite all of his troublesome thoughts of the night before,
he was thus won quickly over to this new source of
pleasure if not its primary setting. He must find a free pagan
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girl of his own somewhere if he could, like Doyle, and spend