get nothing in return—never!
As he thought of it, he actually thrilled and trembled beside
her. And she, standing there and looking at the coat, was
thinking that unless he had sense enough now to get her
this thing and to get what she meant—how she intended to
pay for it—well then, this was the last. He need not think
she was going to fool around with any one who couldn’t or
wouldn’t do that much for her. Never.
They resumed their walk toward Gaspie’s. And throughout
the dinner, she talked of little else—how attractive the coat
was, how wonderful it would look on her.
“Believe me,” she said at one point, defiantly, feeling that
Clyde was perhaps uncertain at the moment about his
ability to buy it for her, “I’m going to find some way to get
that coat. I think, maybe, that Rubenstein store would let
me have it on time if I were to go in there and see him
about it, make a big enough payment down. Another girl
out of our store got a coat that way once,” she lied
promptly, hoping thus to induce Clyde to assist her with it.
But Clyde, disturbed by the fear of some extraordinary cost
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in connection with it, hesitated to say just what he would do.
He could not even guess the price of such a thing—it might
cost two or three hundred, even—and he feared to obligate
himself to do something which later he might not be able to
do.
“You don’t know what they might want for that, do you?” he
asked, nervously, at the same time thinking if he made any
cash gift to her at this time without some guarantee on her
part, what right would he have to expect anything more in
return than he had ever received? He knew how she
cajoled him into getting things for her and then would not
even let him kiss her. He flushed and churned a little
internally with resentment at the thought of how she
seemed to feel that she could play fast and loose with him.
And yet, as he now recalled, she had just said she would
do anything for any one who would get that coat for her—or
nearly that.
“No-o,” she hesitated at first, for the moment troubled as to
whether to give the exact price or something higher. For if
she asked for time, Mr. Rubenstein might want more. And
yet if she said much more, Clyde might not want to help
her. “But I know it wouldn’t be more than a hundred and
twenty-five. I wouldn’t pay more than that for it.”
Clyde heaved a sigh of relief. After all, it wasn’t two or three
hundred. He began to think now that if she could arrange to
make any reasonable down payment—say, fifty or sixty
dollars—he might manage to bring it together within the
next two or three weeks anyhow. But if the whole hundred
and twenty-five were demanded at once, Hortense would
have to wait, and besides he would have to know whether
he was to be rewarded or not—definitely.
“That’s a good idea, Hortense,” he exclaimed without,
however, indicating in any way why it appealed to him so
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much. “Why don’t you do that? Why don’t you find out first
what they want for it, and how much they want down?
Maybe I could help you with it.”
“Oh, won’t that be just too wonderful!” Hortense clapped her
hands. “Oh, will you? Oh, won’t that be just dandy? Now I
just know I can get that coat. I just know they’ll let me have
it, if I talk to them right.”
She was, as Clyde saw and feared, quite forgetting the fact
that he was the one who was making the coat possible, and
now it would be just as he thought. The fact that he was
paying for it would be taken for granted.
But a moment later, observing his glum face, she added:
“Oh, aren’t you the sweetest, dearest thing, to help me in
this way. You just bet I won’t forget this either. You just wait
and see. You won’t be sorry. Now you just wait.” Her eyes
fairly snapped with gayety and even generosity toward him.
He might be easy and young, but he wasn’t mean, and she
would reward him, too, she now decided. Just as soon as
she got the coat, which must be in a week or two at the
latest, she was going to be very nice to him—do something
for him. And to emphasize her own thoughts and convey to
him what she really meant, she allowed her eyes to grow
soft and swimming and to dwell on him promisingly—a bit
of romantic acting which caused him to become weak and
nervous. The gusto of her favor frightened him even a little,
for it suggested, as he fancied, a disturbing vitality which he
might not be able to match. He felt a little weak before her
now—a little cowardly—in the face of what he assumed her
real affection might mean.
Nevertheless, he now announced that if the coat did not
cost more than one hundred and twenty-five dollars, that
sum to be broken into one payment of twenty-five dollars
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down and two additional sums of fifty dollars each, he could
manage it. And she on her part replied that she was going
the very next day to see about it. Mr. Rubenstein might be
induced to let her have it at once on the payment of twenty-
five dollars down; if not that, then at the end of the second
week, when nearly all would be paid.
And then in real gratitude to Clyde she whispered to him,
coming out of the restaurant and purring like a cat, that she
would never forget this and that he would see—and that
she would wear it for him the very first time. If he were not
working they might go somewhere to dinner. Or, if not that,
then she would have it surely in time for the day of the
proposed automobile ride which he, or rather Hegglund,
had suggested for the following Sunday, but which might be
postponed.
She suggested that they go to a certain dance hall, and
there she clung to him in the dances in a suggestive way
and afterwards hinted of a mood which made Clyde a little
quivery and erratic.
He finally went home, dreaming of the day, satisfied that he
would have no trouble in bringing together the first
payment, if it were so much as fifty, even. For now, under
the spur of this promise, he proposed to borrow as much as
twenty-five from either Ratterer or Hegglund, and to repay it
after the coat was paid for.
But, ah, the beautiful Hortense. The charm of her, the
enormous, compelling, weakening delight. And to think that
at last, and soon, she was to be his. It was, plainly, of such
stuff as dreams are made of—the unbelievable become
real.
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Chapter 16
TRUE to her promise, the following day Hortense returned
to Mr. Rubenstein, and with all the cunning of her nature
placed before him, with many reservations, the nature of
the dilemma which confronted her. Could she, by any
chance, have the coat for one hundred and fifteen dollars
on an easy payment plan? Mr. Rubenstein’s head forthwith
began to wag a solemn negative. This was not an easy
payment store. If he wanted to do business that way he
could charge two hundred for the coat and easily get it.
“But I could pay as much as fifty dollars when I took the
coat,” argued Hortense.
“Very good. But who is to guarantee that I get the other
sixty-five, and when?”
“Next week twenty-five, and the week after that twenty-five
and the next week after that fifteen.”
“Of course. But supposin’ the next day after you take the
coat an automobile runs you down and kills you. Then
what? How do I get my money?”
Now that was a poser. And there was really no way that she
could prove that any one would pay for the coat. And before
that there would have to be all the bother of making out a
contract, and getting some really responsible person—a
banker, say—to endorse it. No, no, this was not an easy
payment house. This was a cash house. That was why the
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coat was offered to her at one hundred and fifteen, but not
a dollar less. Not a dollar.
Mr. Rubenstein sighed and talked on. And finally Hortense
asked him if she could give him seventy-five dollars cash in
hand, the other forty to be paid in one week’s time. Would
he let her have the coat then—to take home with her?
“But a week—a week—what is a week then?” argued Mr.