An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

did. What of it? I didn’t mean anything by it. Gee, criminy,

can’t a person look in anybody’s eyes if they want to?”

“In the way you looked in his? Not if you claim to like

anybody else, I say.” And the skin of Clyde’s forehead lifted

and sank, and his eyelids narrowed. Hortense merely

clicked impatiently and indignantly with her tongue.

“Tst! Tst! Tst! If you ain’t the limit!”

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“And a while ago back there on the ice,” went on Clyde

determinedly and yet pathetically. “When you came back

from up there, instead of coming up to where I was you

went to the foot of the line with him. I saw you. And you

held his hand, too, all the way back. And then when you fell

down, you had to sit there with him holding your hand. I’d

like to know what you call that if it ain’t flirting. What else is

it? I’ll bet he thinks it is, all right.”

“Well, I wasn’t flirting with him just the same and I don’t

care what you say. But if you want to have it that way, have

it that way. I can’t stop you. You’re so darn jealous you

don’t want to let anybody else do anything, that’s all the

matter with you. How else can you play on the ice if you

don’t hold hands, I’d like to know? Gee, criminy! What

about you and that Lucille Nickolas? I saw her laying across

your lap and you laughing. And I didn’t think anything of

that. What do you want me to do—come out here and sit

around like a bump on a log?—follow you around like a tail?

Or you follow me? What-a-yuh think I am anyhow? A nut?”

She was being ragged by Clyde, as she thought, and she

didn’t like it. She was thinking of Sparser who was really

more appealing to her at the time than Clyde. He was more

materialistic, less romantic, more direct.

He turned and, taking off his cap, rubbed his head gloomily

while Hortense, looking at him, thought first of him and then

of Sparser. Sparser was more manly, not so much of a

crybaby. He wouldn’t stand around and complain this way,

you bet. He’d probably leave her for good, have nothing

more to do with her. Yet Clyde, after his fashion, was

interesting and useful. Who else would do for her what he

had? And at any rate, he was not trying to force her to go

off with him now as these others had gone and as she had

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feared he might try to do—ahead of her plan and wish. This

quarrel was obviating that.

“Now, see here,” she said after a time, having decided that

it was best to assuage him and that it was not so hard to

manage him after all. “Are we goin’ t’fight all the time,

Clyde? What’s the use, anyhow? Whatja want me to come

out here for if you just want to fight with me all the time? I

wouldn’t have come if I’d ‘a’ thought you were going to do

that all day.”

She turned and kicked at the ice with the minute toe of her

shoes, and Clyde, always taken by her charm again, put his

arms about her, and crushed her to him, at the same time

fumbling at her breasts and putting his lips to hers and

endeavoring to hold and fondle her. But now, because of

her suddenly developed liking for Sparser, and partially

because of her present mood towards Clyde, she broke

away, a dissatisfaction with herself and him troubling her.

Why should she let him force her to do anything she did not

feel like doing, just now, anyhow, she now asked herself.

She hadn’t agreed to be as nice to him to-day as he might

wish. Not yet. At any rate just now she did not want to be

handled in this way by him, and she would not, regardless

of what he might do. And Clyde, sensing by now what the

true state of her mind in regard to him must be, stepped

back and yet continued to gaze gloomily and hungrily at

her. And she in turn merely stared at him.

“I thought you said you liked me,” he demanded almost

savagely now, realizing that his dreams of a happy outing

this day were fading into nothing.

“Well, I do when you’re nice,” she replied, slyly and

evasively, seeking some way to avoid complications in

connection with her original promises to him.

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“Yes, you do,” he grumbled. “I see how you do. Why, here

we are out here now and you won’t even let me touch you.

I’d like to know what you meant by all that you said,

anyhow.”

“Well, what did I say?” she countered, merely to gain time.

“As though you didn’t know.”

“Oh, well. But that wasn’t to be right away, either, was it? I

thought we said”—she paused dubiously.

“I know what you said,” he went on. “But I notice now that

you don’t like me an’ that’s all there is to it. What difference

would it make if you really cared for me whether you were

nice to me now or next week or the week after? Gee whiz,

you’d think it was something that depended on what I did

for you, not whether you cared for me.” In his pain he was

quite intense and courageous.

“That’s not so!” she snapped, angrily and bitterly, irritated by

the truth of what he said. “And I wish you wouldn’t say that

to me, either. I don’t care anything about the old coat now,

if you want to know it. And you can just have your old

money back, too, I don’t want it. And you can just let me

alone from now on, too,” she added. “I’ll get all the coats I

want without any help from you.” At this, she turned and

walked away.

But Clyde, now anxious to mollify her as usual, ran after

her. “Don’t go, Hortense,” he pleaded. “Wait a minute. I

didn’t mean that either, honest I didn’t. I’m crazy about you.

Honest I am. Can’t you see that? Oh, gee, don’t go now.

I’m not giving you the money to get something for it. You

can have it for nothing if you want it that way. There ain’t

anybody else in the world like you to me, and there never

has been. You can have the money for all I care, all of it. I

don’t want it back. But, gee, I did think you liked me a little.

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Don’t you care for me at all, Hortense?” He looked cowed

and frightened, and she, sensing her mastery over him,

relented a little.

“Of course I do,” she announced. “But just the same, that

don’t mean that you can treat me any old way, either. You

don’t seem to understand that a girl can’t do everything you

want her to do just when you want her to do it.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” asked Clyde, not quite

sensing just what she did mean. “I don’t get you.”

“Oh, yes, you do, too.” She could not believe that he did not

know.

“Oh, I guess I know what you’re talkin’ about. I know what

you’re going to say now,” he went on disappointedly.

“That’s that old stuff they all pull. I know.”

He was reciting almost verbatim the words and intonations

even of the other boys at the hotel—Higby, Ratterer, Eddie

Doyle—who, having narrated the nature of such situations

to him, and how girls occasionally lied out of pressing

dilemmas in this way, had made perfectly clear to him what

was meant. And Hortense knew now that he did know.

“Gee, but you’re mean,” she said in an assumed hurt way.

“A person can never tell you anything or expect you to

believe it. Just the same, it’s true, whether you believe it or

not.”

“Oh, I know how you are,” he replied, sadly yet a little loftily,

as though this were an old situation to him. “You don’t like

me, that’s all. I see that now, all right.”

“Gee, but you’re mean,” she persisted, affecting an injured

air. “It’s the God’s truth. Believe me or not, I swear it.

Honest it is.”

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Clyde stood there. In the face of this small trick there was

really nothing much to say as he saw it. He could not force

her to do anything. If she wanted to lie and pretend, he

would have to pretend to believe her. And yet a great

sadness settled down upon him. He was not to win her after

all—that was plain. He turned, and she, being convinced

that he felt that she-was lying now, felt it incumbent upon

herself to do something about it—to win him around to her