Outside, some odd and confusing incidents had already
occurred. For Hortense, who had been lifted out before
Clyde, and had suddenly begun to feel her face, had as
suddenly realized that her left cheek and forehead were not
only scraped but bleeding. And being seized by the notion
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that her beauty might have been permanently marred by
this accident, she was at once thrown into a state of selfish
panic which caused her to become completely oblivious,
not only to the misery and injury of the others, but to the
danger of discovery by the police, the inury to the child, the
wreck of this expensive car—in fact everything but herself
and the probability or possibility that her beauty had been
destroyed. She began to whimper on the instant and wave
her hands up and down. “Oh, goodness, goodness,
goodness!” she exclaimed desperately. “Oh, how dreadful!
Oh, how terrible! Oh, my face is all cut.” And feeling an
urgent compulsion to do something about it, she suddenly
set off (and without a word to any one and while Clyde was
still inside helping Ratterer) south along 35th Street, toward
the city where were lights and more populated streets. Her
one thought was to reach her own home as speedily as
possible in order that she might do something for herself.
Of Clyde, Sparser, Ratterer and the other girls—she really
thought nothing. What were they now? It was only
intermittently and between thoughts of her marred beauty
that she could even bring herself to think of the injured child
—the horror of which as well as the pursuit by the police,
maybe, the fact that the car did not belong to Sparser or
that it was wrecked, and that they were all liable to arrest in
consequence, affecting her but slightly. Her one thought in
regard to Clyde was that he was the one who had invited
her to this ill-fated journey—hence that he was to blame,
really. Those beastly boys—to think they should have
gotten her into this and then didn’t have-brains enough to
manage better.
The other girls, apart from Laura Sipe, were not seriously
injured—any of them. They were more frightened than
anything else, but now that this had happened they were in
a panic, lest they be overtaken by the police, arrested,
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exposed and punished. And accordingly they stood about,
exclaiming “Oh, gee, hurry, can’t you? Oh, dear, we ought
all of us to get away from here. Oh, it’s all so terrible.” Until
at last Hegglund exclaimed: “For Christ’s sake, keep quiet,
cantcha? We’re doing de best we can, cantcha see? You’ll
have de cops down on us in a minute as it is.”
And then, as if in answer to his comment, a lone
suburbanite who lived some four blocks from the scene
across the fields and who, hearing the crash and the cries
in the night, had ambled across to see what the trouble
was, now drew near and stood curiously looking at the
stricken group and the car.
“Had an accident, eh?” he exclaimed, genially enough. “Any
one badly hurt? Gee, that’s too bad. And that’s a swell car,
too. Can I help any?”
Clyde, hearing him talk and looking out and not seeing
Hortense anywhere, and not being able to do more for
Sparser than stretch him in the bottom of the car, glanced
agonizingly about. For the thought of the police and their
certain pursuit was strong upon him. He must get out of
this. He must not be caught here. Think of what would
happen to him if he were caught—how he would be
disgraced and punished probably—all his fine world
stripped from him before he could say a word really. His
mother would hear—Mr. Squires—everybody. Most
certainly he would go to jail. Oh, how terrible that thought
was—grinding really like a macerating wheel to his flesh.
They could do nothing more for Sparser, and they only laid
themselves open to being caught by lingering. So asking,
“Where’d Miss Briggs go?” he now began to climb out, then
started looking about the dark and snowy fields for her. His
thought was that he would first assist her to wherever she
might desire to go.
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But just then in the distance was heard the horns and the
hum of at least two motorcycles speeding swiftly in the
direction of this very spot. For already the wife of the
suburbanite, on hearing the crash and the cries in the
distance, had telephoned the police that an accident had
occurred here. And now the suburbanite was explaining:
““That’s them. I told the wife to telephone for an
ambulance.” And hearing this, all these others now began
to run, for they all realized what that meant. And in addition,
looking across the fields one could see the lights of these
approaching machines. They reached Thirty-first and
Cleveland together. Then one turned south toward this very
spot, along Cleveland Avenue. And the other continued
east on Thirty-first, reconnoitering for the accident.
“Beat it, for God’s sake, all of youse,” whispered Hegglund,
excitedly. “Scatter!” And forthwith, seizing Maida Axelrod by
the hand, he started to run east along Thirty-fifth Street, in
which the car then lay—along the outlying eastern suburbs.
But after a moment, deciding that that would not do either,
that it would be too easy to pursue him along a street, he
cut northeast, directly across the open fields and away from
the city.
And now, Clyde, as suddenly sensing what capture would
mean—how all his fine thoughts of pleasure would most
certainly end in disgrace and probably prison, began
running also. Only in his case, instead of following
Hegglund or any of the others, he turned south along
Cleveland Avenue toward the southern limits of the city. But
like Hegglund, realizing that that meant an easy avenue of
pursuit for any one who chose to follow, he too took to the
open fields. Only instead of running away from the city as
before, he now turned southwest and ran toward those
streets which lay to the south of Fortieth. Only much open
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space being before him before he should reach them, and a
clump of bushes showing in the near distance, and the light
of the motorcycle already sweeping the road behind him, he
ran to that and for the moment dropped behind it.
Only Sparser and Laura Sipe were left within the car, she at
that moment beginning to recover consciousness. And the
visiting stranger, much astounded, was left standing outside.
“Why, the very idea!” he suddenly said to himself. “They
must have stolen that car. It couldn’t have belonged to
them at all.”
And just then the first motorcycle reaching the scene, Clyde
from his not too distant hiding place was able to overhear.
“Well, you didn’t get away with it after all, did you? You
thought you were pretty slick, but you didn’t make it. You’re
the one we want, and what’s become of the rest of the
gang, eh? Where are they, eh?”
And hearing the suburbanite declare quite definitely that he
had nothing to do with it, that the real occupants of the car
had but then run away and might yet be caught if the police
wished, Clyde, who was still within earshot of what was
being said, began crawling upon his hands and knees at
first in the snow south, south and west, always toward
some of those distant streets which, lamplit and faintly
glowing, he saw to the southwest of him, and among which
presently, if he were not captured, he hoped to hide—to
lose himself and so escape—if the fates were only kind—
the misery and the punishment and the unending
dissatisfaction and disappointment which now, most
definitely, it all represented to him.
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Book Two
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Chapter 1
THE home of Samuel Griffiths in Lycurgus, New York, a city
of some twenty-five thousand inhabitants midway between
Utica and Albany. Near the dinner hour and by degrees the
family assembling for its customary meal. On this occasion
the preparations were of a more elaborate nature than
usual, owing to the fact that for the past four days Mr.
Samuel Griffiths, the husband and father, had been absent
attending a conference of shirt and collar manufacturers in
Chicago, price-cutting by upstart rivals in the west having
necessitated compromise and adjustment by those who
manufactured in the east. He was but now returned and
had telephoned earlier in the afternoon that he had arrived,
and was going to his office in the factory where he would
remain until dinner time.
Being long accustomed to the ways of a practical and
convinced man who believed in himself and considered his
judgment and his decision sound—almost final—for the
most part, anyhow, Mrs. Griffiths thought nothing of this. He
would appear and greet her in due order.
Knowing that he preferred leg of lamb above many other