want you to dress neat and clean so that you will be an
example to the other men who have charge of
departments.”
He arose coldly and distantly, but Clyde, very much
encouraged and enthused by the sudden jump in salary, as
well as the admonition in regard to dressing well, felt so
grateful toward his cousin that he longed to be friendly with
him. To be sure, he was hard and cold and vain, but still he
must think something of him, and his uncle too, or they
would not choose to do all this for him and so speedily. And
if ever he were able to make friends with him, win his way
into his good graces, think how prosperously he would be
placed here, what commercial and social honors might not
come to him?
So elated was he at the moment that he bustled out of the
great plant with a jaunty stride, resolved among other things
that from now on, come what might, and as a test of himself
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in regard to life and work, he was going to be all that his
uncle and cousin obviously expected of him—cool, cold
even, and if necessary severe, where these women or girls
of this department were concerned. No more relations with
Dillard or Rita or anybody like that for the present anyhow.
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Chapter 12
THE import of twenty-five dollars a week! Of being the head
of a department employing twenty-five girls! Of wearing a
good suit of clothes again! Sitting at an official desk in a
corner commanding a charming river view and feeling that
at last, after almost two months in that menial department
below stairs, he was a figure of some consequence in this
enormous institution! And because of his relationship and
new dignity, Whiggam, as well as Liggett, hovering about
with advice and genial and helpful comments from time to
time. And some of the managers of the other departments
including several from the front office—an auditor and an
advertising man occasionally pausing in passing to say
hello. And the details of the work sufficiently mastered to
permit him to look about him from time to time, taking an
interest in the factory as a whole, its processes and
supplies, such as where the great volume of linen and
cotton came from, how it was cut in an enormous cutting
room above this one, holding hundreds of experienced
cutters receiving very high wages; how there was an
employment bureau for recruiting help, a company doctor, a
company hospital, a special dining room in the main
building, where the officials of the company were allowed to
dine—but no others—and that he, being an accredited
department head could now lunch with those others in that
special restaurant if he chose and could afford to. Also he
soon learned that several miles out from Lycurgus, on the
Mohawk, near a hamlet called Van Troup, was an inter-
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factory country club, to which most of the department heads
of the various factories about belonged, but, alas, as he
also learned, Griffiths and Company did not really favor
their officials mixing with those of any other company, and
for that reason few of them did. Yet he, being a member of
the family, as Liggett once said to him, could probably do as
he chose as to that. But he decided, because of the strong
warnings of Gilbert, as well as his high blood relations with
his family, that he had better remain as aloof as possible.
And so smiling and being as genial as possible to all,
nevertheless for the most part, and in order to avoid Dillard
and others of his ilk, and although he was much more
lonely than otherwise he would have been, returning to his
room or the public squares of this and near-by cities on
Saturday and Sunday afternoons, and even, since he
thought this might please his uncle and cousin and so raise
him in their esteem, beginning to attend one of the principal
Presbyterian churches—the Second or High Street Church,
to which on occasion, as he had already learned, the
Griffiths themselves were accustomed to resort. Yet without
ever coming in contact with them in person, since from
June to September they spent their week-ends at
Greenwood Lake, to which most of the society life of this
region as yet resorted.
In fact the summer life of Lycurgus, in so far as its society
was concerned, was very dull. Nothing in particular ever
eventuated then in the city, although previous to this, in
May, there had been various affairs in connection with the
Griffiths and their friends which Clyde had either read about
or saw at a distance—a graduation reception and dance at
the Snedeker School, a lawn fete upon the Griffiths’
grounds, with a striped marquee tent on one part of the
lawn and Chinese lanterns hung in among the trees. Clyde
had observed this quite by accident one evening as he was
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walking alone about the city. It raised many a curious and
eager thought in regard to this family, its high station and
his relation to it. But having placed him comfortably in a
small official position which was not arduous, the Griffiths
now proceeded to dismiss him from their minds. He was
doing well enough, and they would see something more of
him later, perhaps.
And then a little later he read in the Lycurgus Star that there
was to be staged on June twentieth the annual intercity
automobile floral parade and contest (Fonda, Gloversville,
Amsterdam and Schenectady), which this year was to be
held in Lycurgus and which was the last local social affair of
any consequence, as The Star phrased it, before the
annual hegira to the lakes and mountains of those who
were able to depart for such places. And the names of
Bella, Bertine and Sondra, to say nothing of Gilbert, were
mentioned as contestants or defendants of the fair name of
Lycurgus. And since this occurred on a Saturday afternoon,
Clyde, dressed in his best, yet decidedly wishing to obscure
himself as an ordinary spectator, was able to see once
more the girl who had so infatuated him on sight, obviously
breasting a white rose-surfaced stream and guiding her
craft with a paddle covered with yellow daffodils—a floral
representation of some Indian legend in connection with the
Mohawk River. With her dark hair filleted Indian fashion
with a yellow feather and brown-eyed susans, she was
arresting enough not only to capture a prize, but to
recapture Clyde’s fancy. How marvelous to be of that world.
In the same parade he had seen Gilbert Griffiths
accompanied by a very attractive girl chauffeuring one of
four floats representing the four seasons. And while the one
he drove was winter, with this local society girl posed in
ermine with white roses for snow all about, directly behind
came another float, which presented Bella Griffiths as
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spring, swathed in filmy draperies and crouching beside a
waterfall of dark violets. The effect was quite striking and
threw Clyde into a mood in regard to love, youth and
romance which was delicious and yet very painful to him.
Perhaps he should have retained Rita, after all
In the meantime he was living on as before, only more
spaciously in so far as his own thoughts were concerned.
For his first thought after receiving this larger allowance
was that he had better leave Mrs. Cuppy’s and secure a
better room in some private home which, if less
advantageously situated for him, would be in a better street.
It took him out of all contact with Dillard. And now, since his
uncle had promoted him, some representative of his or
Gilbert’s might wish to stop by to see him about something.
And what would one such think if he found him living in a
small room such as he now occupied?
Ten days after his salary was raised, therefore, and
because of the import of his name, he found it possible to
obtain a room in one of the better houses and streets—
Jefferson Avenue, which paralleled Wykeagy Avenue, only
a few blocks farther out. It was the home of a widow whose
husband had been a mill manager and who let out two
rooms without board in order to be able to maintain this
home, which was above the average for one of such
position in Lycurgus. And Mrs. Peyton, having long been a
resident of the city and knowing much about the Griffiths,
recognized not only the name but the resemblance of Clyde
to Gilbert. And being intensely interested by this, as well as
his general appearance, she at once offered him an
exceptional room for so little as five dollars a week, which
he took at once.
In connection with his work at the factory, however, and in