coat, the thought of Clyde kept running through her mind.
And all the while Mr. Rubenstein stood looking at her,
vaguely sensing, after his fashion, the nature of the
problem that was confronting her.
“Well, little girl,” he finally observed, “I see you’d like to have
this coat, all right, and I’d like to have you have it, too. And
now I’ll tell you what I’ll do, and better than that I can’t do,
and wouldn’t for nobody else—not a person in this city.
Bring me a hundred and fifteen dollars any time within the
next few days—Monday or Wednesday or Friday, if the coat
is still here, and you can have it. I’ll do even better. I’ll save
it for you. How’s that? Until next Wednesday or Friday.
More’n that no one would do for you, now, would they?”
He smirked and shrugged his shoulders and acted as
though he were indeed doing her a great favor. And
Hortense, going away, felt that if only—only she could take
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that coat at one hundred and fifteen dollars, she would be
capturing a marvelous bargain. Also that she would be the
smartest-dressed girl in Kansas City beyond the shadow of
a doubt. If only she could in some way get a hundred and
fifteen dollars before next Wednesday, or Friday.
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Chapter 15
AS HORTENSE well knew Clyde was pressing more and
more hungrily toward that ultimate condescension on her
part, which, though she would never have admitted it to
him, was the privilege of two others. They were never
together any more without his insisting upon the real depth
of her regard for him. Why was it, if she cared for him the
least bit, that she refused to do this, that or the other—
would not let him kiss her as much as he wished, would not
let him hold her in his arms as much as he would like. She
was always keeping dates with other fellows and breaking
them or refusing to make them with him. What was her
exact relationship toward these others? Did she really care
more for them than she did for him? In fact, they were
never together anywhere but what this problem of union
was uppermost—and but thinly veiled.
And she liked to think that he was suffering from repressed
desire for her all of the time that she tortured him, and that
the power to allay his suffering lay wholly in her—a sadistic
trait which had for its soil Clyde’s own masochistic yearning
for her.
However, in the face of her desire for the coat, his stature
and interest for her were beginning to increase. In spite of
the fact that only the morning before she had informed
Clyde, with quite a flourish, that she could not possibly see
him until the following Monday—that all her intervening
nights were taken—nevertheless, the problem of the coat
looming up before her, she now most eagerly planned to
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contrive an immediate engagement with him without
appearing too eager. For by then she had definitely decided
to endeavor to persuade him, if possible, to buy the coat for
her. Only of course, she would have to alter her conduct
toward him radically. She would have to be much sweeter—
more enticing. Although she did not actually say to herself
that now she might even be willing to yield herself to him,
still basically that was what was in her mind.
For quite a little while she was unable to think how to
proceed. How was she to see him this day, or the next at
the very latest? How should she go about putting before
him the need of this gift, or loan, as she finally worded it to
herself? She might hint that he could loan her enough to
buy the coat and that later she would pay him back by
degrees (yet once in possession of the coat she well knew
that that necessity would never confront her). Or, if he did
not have so much money on hand at one time, she could
suggest that she might arrange with Mr. Rubenstein for a
series of time payments which could be met by Clyde. In
this connection her mind suddenly turned and began to
consider how she could flatter and cajole Mr. Rubenstein
into letting her have the coat on easy terms. She recalled
that he had said he would be glad to buy the coat for her if
he thought she would be nice to him.
Her first scheme in connection with all this was to suggest
to Louise Ratterer to invite her brother, Clyde and a third
youth by the name of Scull, who was dancing attendance
upon Louise, to come to a certain dance hall that very
evening to which she was already planning to go with the
more favored cigar clerk. Only now she intended to break
that engagement and appear alone with Louise and Greta
and announce that her proposed partner was ill. That would
give her an opportunity to leave early with Clyde and with
him walk past the Rubenstein store.
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But having the temperament of a spider that spins a web
for flies, she foresaw that this might involve the possiblity of
Louise’s explaining to Clyde or Ratterer that it was Hortense
who had instigated the party. It might even bring up some
accidental mention of the coat on the part of Clyde to
Louise later, which, as she felt, would never do. She did not
care to let her friends know how she provided for herself. In
consequence, she decided that it would not do for her to
appeal to Louise nor to Greta in this fashion.
And she was actually beginning to worry as to how to bring
about this encounter, when Clyde, who chanced to be in
the vicinity on his way home from work, walked into the
store where she was working. He was seeking for a date on
the following Sunday. And to his intense delight, Hortense
greeted him most cordially with a most engaging smile and
a wave of the hand. She was busy at the moment with a
customer. She soon finished, however, and drawing near,
and keeping one eye on her floor-walker who resented
callers, exclaimed: “I was just thinking about you. You
wasn’t thinking about me, was you? Trade last.” Then she
added, sotto voce, “Don’t act like you are talking to me. I
see our floorwalker over there.”
Arrested by the unusual sweetness in her voice, to say
nothing of the warm smile with which she greeted him,
Clyde was enlivened and heartened at once. “Was I
thinking of you?” he returned gayly. “Do I ever think of any
one else? Say! Ratterer says I’ve got you on the brain.”
“Oh, him,” replied Hortense, pouting spitefully and
scornfully, for Ratterer, strangely enough, was one whom
she did not interest very much, and this she knew. “He
thinks he’s so smart,” she added. “I know a lotta girls don’t
like him.”
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“Oh, Tom’s all right,” pleaded Clyde, loyally. “That’s just his
way of talking. He likes you.”
“Oh, no, he don’t, either,” replied Hortense. “But I don’t want
to talk about him. Whatcha doin’ around six o’clock to-
night?”
“Oh, gee!” exclaimed Clyde disappointedly. “You don’t
mean to say you got to-night free, have you? Well, ain’t that
tough? I thought you were all dated up. I got to work!” He
actually sighed, so depressed was he by the thought that
she might be willing to spend the evening with him and he
not able to avail himself of the opportunity, while Hortense,
noting his intense disappointment, was pleased.
“Well, I gotta date, but I don’t want to keep it,” she went on
with a contemptuous gathering of the lips. “I don’t have to
break it. I would though if you was free.” Clyde’s heart
began to beat rapidly with delight.
“Gee, I wish I didn’t have to work now,” he went on, looking
at her. “You’re sure you couldn’t make it to-morrow night?
I’m off then. And I was just coming up here to ask you if you
didn’t want to go for an automobile ride next Sunday
afternoon, maybe. A friend of Hegglund’s got a car—a
Packard—and Sunday we’re all off. And he wanted me to
get a bunch to run out to Excelsior Springs. He’s a nice
fellow” (this because Hortense showed signs of not being
so very much interested). “You don’t know him very well,
but he is. But say, I can talk to you about that later. How
about to-morrow night? I’m off then.”
Hortense, who, because of the hovering floor-walker, was
pretending to show Clyde some handkerchiefs, was now
thinking how unfortunate that a whole twenty-four hours
must intervene before she could bring him to view the coat
with her—and so have an opportunity to begin her