arms dramatically. “I thought I never would get to work the
next morning. I could just barely see the customers moving
around. And, wasn’t my mother fussy! Gee! She hasn’t
gotten over it yet. She don’t mind so much about Saturdays
and Sundays, but all these week nights and when I have to
get up the next morning at seven—gee—how she can pick!”
“An’ I don’t blame her, either,” commented Mrs. Ratterer,
who was just then entering with a plate of potatoes and
some bread. “You two’ll get sick and Louise, too, if you
don’t get more rest. I keep tellin’ her she won’t be able to
keep her place or stand it if she don’t get more sleep. But
she don’t pay no more attention to me than Tom does, and
that’s just none at all.”
An American Tragedy
112
“Oh, well, you can’t expect a fellow in my line to get in early
always, Ma,” was all Ratterer said. And Hortense Briggs
added: “Gee, I’d die if I had to stay in one night. You gotta
have a little fun when you work all day.”
What an easy household, thought Clyde. How liberal and
indifferent. And the sexy, gay way in which these two girls
posed about. And their parents thought nothing of it,
evidently. If only he could have a girl as pretty as this
Hortense Briggs, with her small, sensuous mouth and her
bright hard eyes.
“To bed twice a week early is all I need,” announced Greta
Miller archly. “My father thinks I’m crazy, but more’n that
would do me harm.” She laughed jestingly, and Clyde, in
spite of the “we was’es” and “I seen’s,” was most vividly
impressed. Here was youth and geniality and freedom and
love of life.
And just then the front door opened and in hurried Louise
Ratterer, a medium-sized, trim, vigorous little girl in a red-
lined cape and a soft blue felt hat pulled over her eyes.
Unlike her brother, she was brisk and vigorous and more
lithe and as pretty as either of these others.
“Oh, look who’s here!” she exclaimed. “You two birds beat
me home, didnja? Well, I got stuck to-night on account of
some mix-up in my sales-book. And I had to go up to the
cashier’s office. You bet it wasn’t my fault, though. They got
my writin’ wrong,” then noting Clyde for the first time, she
announced: “I bet I know who this is—Mr. Griffiths. Tom’s
talked about you a lot. I wondered why he didn’t bring you
around here before.” And Clyde, very much flattered,
mumbled that he wished he had.
But the two visitors, after conferring with Louise in a small
front bedroom to which they all retired, reappeared
An American Tragedy
113
presently and because of strenuous invitations, which were
really not needed, decided to remain. And Clyde, because
of their presence, was now intensely wrought up and alert—
eager to make a pleasing impression and to be received
upon terms of friendship here. And these three girls, finding
him attractive, were anxious to be agreeable to him, so
much so that for the first time in his life they put him at his
ease with the opposite sex and caused him to find his
tongue.
“We was just going to warn you not to eat so much,”
laughed Greta Miller, turning to Louise, “and now, see, we
are all trying to eat again.” She laughed heartily. “And they’ll
have pies and cakes and everythin’ at Kittie’s.”
“Oh, gee, and we’re supposed to dance, too, on top of all
this. Well, heaven help me, is all I have to say,” put in
Hortense.
The peculiar sweetness of her mouth, as he saw it, as well
as the way she crinkled it when she smiled, caused Clyde
to be quite beside himself with admiration and pleasure.
She looked quite delightful—wonderful to him. Indeed her
effect on him made him swallow quickly and half choke on
the coffee he had just taken. He laughed and felt
irrepressibly gay.
At that moment she turned on him and said: “See, what I’ve
done to him now.”
“Oh, that ain’t all you’ve done to me,” exclaimed Clyde,
suddenly being seized with an inspiration and a flow of
thought and courage. Of a sudden, because of her effect on
him, he felt bold and courageous, albeit a little foolish and
added, “Say, I’m gettin’ kinda woozy with all the pretty faces
I see around here.”
An American Tragedy
114
“Oh, gee, you don’t want to give yourself away that quick
around here, Clyde,” cautioned Ratterer, genially. “These
high-binders’ll be after you to make you take ’em wherever
they want to go. You better not begin that way.” And, sure
enough, Louise Ratterer, not to be abashed by what her
brother had just said, observed: “You dance, don’t you, Mr.
Griffiths?”
“No, I don’t,” replied Clyde, suddenly brought back to reality
by this inquiry and regretting most violently the handicap
this was likely to prove in this group. “But you bet I wish I
did now,” he added gallantly and almost appealingly,
looking first at Hortense and then at Greta Miller and
Louise. But all pretended not to notice his preference,
although Hortense titillated with her triumph. She was not
convinced that she was so greatly taken with him, but it was
something to triumph thus easily and handsomely over
these others. And the others felt it. “Ain’t that too bad?” she
commented, a little indifferently and superiorly now that she
realized that she was his preference. “You might come
along with us, you and Tom, if you did. There’s goin’ to be
mostly dancing at Kittie’s.”
Clyde began to feel and look crushed at once. To think that
this girl, to whom of all those here he was most drawn,
could dismiss him and his dreams and desires thus easily,
and all because he couldn’t dance. And his accursed home
training was responsible for all this. He felt broken and
cheated. What a boob he must seem not to be able to
dance. And Louise Ratterer looked a little puzzled and
indifferent, too. But Greta Miller, whom he liked less than
Hortense, came to his rescue with: “Oh, it ain’t so hard to
learn. I could show you in a few minutes after dinner if you
wanted to. It’s only a few steps you have to know. And then
you could go, anyhow, if you wanted to.”
An American Tragedy
115
Clyde was grateful and said so—determined to learn here
or elsewhere at the first opportunity. Why hadn’t he gone to
a dancing school before this, he asked himself. But the
thing that pained him most was the seeming indifference of
Hortense now that he had made it clear that he liked her.
Perhaps it was that Bert Gettler, previously mentioned, with
whom she had gone to the dance, who was making it
impossible for him to interest her. So he was always to be a
failure this way. Oh, gee!
But the moment the dinner was over and while the others
were still talking, the first to put on a dance record and
come over with hands extended was Hortense, who was
determined not to be outdone by her rival in this way. She
was not particularly interested or fascinated by Clyde, at
least not to the extent of troubling about him as Greta did.
But if her friend was going to attempt a conquest in this
manner, was it not just as well to forestall her? And so,
while Clyde misread her change of attitude to the extent of
thinking that she liked him better than he had thought, she
took him by the hands, thinking at the same time that he
was too bashful. However, placing his right arm about her
waist, his other clasped in hers at her shoulder, she
directed his attention to her feet and his and began to
illustrate the few primary movements of the dance. But so
eager and grateful was he—almost intense and ridiculous—
she did not like him very much, thought him a little
unsophisticated and too young. At the same time, there
was a charm about him which caused her to wish to assist
him. And soon he was moving about with her quite easily—
and afterwards with Greta and then Louise, but wishing
always it was Hortense. And finally he was pronounced
sufficiently skillful to go, if he would.
An American Tragedy
116
And now the thought of being near her, being able to dance
with her again, drew him so greatly that, despite the fact
that three youths, among them that same Bert Gettler,
appeared on the scene to escort them, and although he
and Ratterer had previously agreed to go to a theater
together, he could not help showing how much he would
prefer to follow those others—so much so that Ratterer
finally agreed to abandon the theater idea. And soon they
were off, Clyde grieving that he could not walk with