reaching those who were of their same church but better
placed.
And so it was that Roberta, after encountering Clyde and
sensing the superior world in which she imagined he
moved, and being so taken with the charm of his
personality, was seized with the very virus of ambition and
unrest that afflicted him. And every day that she went to the
factory now she could not help but feel that his eyes were
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upon her in a quiet, seeking and yet doubtful way. Yet she
also felt that he was too uncertain as to what she would
think of any overture that he might make in her direction to
risk a repulse or any offensive interpretation on her part.
And yet at times, after the first two weeks of her stay here,
she wishing that he would speak to her—that he would
make some beginning—at other times that he must not dare
—that it would be dreadful and impossible. The other girls
there would see at once. And since they all plainly felt that
he was too good or too remote for them, they would at once
note that he was making an exception in her case and
would put their own interpretation on it. And she knew the
type of a girl who worked in the Griffiths stamping room
would put but one interpretation on it,—that of looseness.
At the same time in so far as Clyde and his leaning toward
her was concerned there was that rule laid down by Gilbert.
And although, because of it, he had hitherto appeared not
to notice or to give any more attention to one girl than
another, still, once Roberta arrived, he was almost
unconsciously inclined to drift by her table and pause in her
vicinity to see how she was progressing. And, as he saw
from the first, she was a quick and intelligent worker, soon
mastering without much advice of any kind all the tricks of
the work, and thereafter earning about as much as any of
the others—fifteen dollars a week. And her manner was
always that of one who enjoyed it and was happy to have
the privilege of working here. And pleased to have him pay
any little attention to her.
At the same time he noted to his surprise and especially
since to him she seemed so refined and different, a certain
exuberance and gayety that was not only emotional, but in
a delicate poetic way, sensual. Also that despite her
difference and reserve she was able to make friends with
and seemed to be able to understand the viewpoint of most
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of the foreign girls who were essentially so different from
her. For, listening to her discuss the work here, first with
Lena Schlict, Hoda Petkanas, Angelina Pitti and some
others who soon chose to speak to her, he reached the
conclusion that she was not nearly so conventional or
standoffish as most of the other American girls. And yet she
did not appear to lose their respect either.
Thus, one noontime, coming back from the office lunch
downstairs a little earlier than usual, he found her and
several of the foreign-family girls, as well as four of the
American girls, surrounding Polish Mary, one of the gayest
and roughest of the foreign-family girls, who was explaining
in rather a high key how a certain “feller” whom she had
met the night before had given her a beaded bag, and for
what purpose.
“I should go with heem to be his sweetheart,” she
announced with a flourish, the while she waved the bag
before the interested group. “And I say, I tack heem an’
think on heem. Pretty nice bag, eh?” she added, holding it
aloft and turning it about. “Tell me,” she added with
provoking and yet probably only mock serious eyes and
waving the bag toward Roberta, “what shall I do with
heem? Keep heem an’ go with heem to be his sweetheart
or give heem back? I like heem pretty much, that bag, you
bet.”
And although, according to the laws of her upbringing, as
Clyde suspected, Roberta should have been shocked by all
this, she was not, as he noticed—far from it. If one might
have judged from her face, she was very much amused.
Instantly she replied with a gay smile: “Well, it all depends
on how handsome he is, Mary. If he’s very attractive, I think
I’d string him along for a while, anyhow, and keep the bag
as long as I could.”
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“Oh, but he no wait,” declared Mary archly, and with plainly
a keen sense of the riskiness of the situation, the while she
winked at Clyde who had drawn near. “I got to give heem
bag or be sweetheart to-night, and so swell bag I never can
buy myself.” She eyed the bag archly and roguishly, her
own nose crinkling with the humor of the situation. “What I
do then?”
“Gee, this is pretty strong stuff for a little country girl like
Miss Alden. She won’t like this, maybe,” thought Clyde to
himself.
However, Roberta, as he now saw, appeared to be equal to
the situation, for she pretended to be troubled. “Gee, you
are in a fix,” she commented. “I don’t know what you’ll do
now.” She opened her eyes wide and pretended to be
greatly concerned. However, as Clyde could see, she was
merely acting, but carrying it off very well.
And frizzled-haired Dutch Lena now leaned over to say: “I
take it and him too, you bet, if you don’t want him. Where is
he? I got no feller now.” She reached over as if to take the
bag from Mary, who as quickly withdrew it. And there were
squeals of delight from nearly all the girls in the room, who
were amused by this eccentric horseplay. Even Roberta
laughed loudly, a fact which Clyde noted with pleasure, for
he liked all this rough humor, considering it mere innocent
play.
“Well, maybe you’re right, Lena,” he heard her add just as
the whistle blew and the hundreds of sewing machines in
the next room began to hum. “A good man isn’t to be found
every day.” Her blue eyes were twinkling and her lips, which
were most temptingly modeled, were parted in a broad
smile. There was much banter and more bluff in what she
said than anything else, as Clyde could see, but he felt that
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she was not nearly as narrow as he had feared. She was
human and gay and tolerant and good-natured. There was
decidedly a very liberal measure of play in her. And in spite
of the fact that her clothes were poor, the same little round
brown hat and blue cloth dress that she had worn on first
coming to work here, she was prettier than anyone else.
And she never needed to paint her lips and cheeks like the
foreign girls, whose faces at times looked like pink-frosted
cakes. And how pretty were her arms and neck—plump
and gracefully designed! And there was a certain grace and
abandon about her as she threw herself into her work as
though she really enjoyed it. As she worked fast during the
hottest portions of the day, there would gather on her upper
lip and chin and forehead little beads of perspiration which
she was always pausing in her work to touch with her
handkerchief, while to him, like jewels, they seemed only to
enhance her charm.
Wonderful days, these, now for Clyde. For once more and
here, where he could be near her the long day through, he
had a girl whom he could study and admire and by degrees
proceed to crave with all of the desire of which he seemed
to be capable—and with which he had craved Hortense
Briggs—only with more satisfaction, since as he saw it she
was simpler, more kindly and respectable. And though for
quite a while at first Roberta appeared or pretended to be
quite indifferent to or unconscious of him, still from the very
first this was not true. She was only troubled as to the
appropriate attitude for her. The beauty of his face and
hands—the blackness and softness of his hair, the
darkness and melancholy and lure of his eyes. He was
attractive—oh, very. Beautiful, really, to her.
And then one day shortly thereafter, Gilbert Griffiths walking
through here and stopping to talk to Clyde, she was led to
imagine by this that Clyde was really much more of a figure
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socially and financially than she had previously thought. For
just as Gilbert was approaching, Lena Schlict, who was
working beside her, leaned over to say: “Here comes Mr.
Gilbert Griffiths. His father owns this whole factory and
when he dies, he’ll get it, they say. And he’s his cousin,”
she added, nodding toward Clyde. “They look a lot alike,