here—that street you live in, if you wish. There are no
houses out there. Or there’s a little park—Mohawk—just
west of Dreamland on the Mohawk Street line. It’s right on
the river. You might come out there. I could meet you
where the car stops. Will you do that?”
“Oh, I’d be afraid to do that I think—go so far, I mean. I
never did anything like that before.” She looked so innocent
and frank as she said this that Clyde was quite carried
away by the sweetness of her. And to think he was making
a clandestine appointment with her. “I’m almost afraid to go
anywhere here alone, you know. People talk so here, they
say, and some one would be sure to see me. But——”
“Yes, but what?”
“I’m afraid I’m staying too long at your desk here, don’t you
think?” She actually gasped as she said it. And Clyde
realizing the openness of it, although there was really
nothing very unusual about it, now spoke quickly and
forcefully.
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“Well, then, how about the end of that street you live in?
Couldn’t you come down there for just a little while to-night
—a half hour or so, maybe?”
“Oh, I couldn’t make it to-night, I think—not so soon. I’ll
have to see first, you know. Arrange, that is. But another
day.” She was so excited and troubled by this great
adventure of hers that her face, like Clyde’s at times,
changed from a half smile to a half frown without her
realizing that it was registering these changes.
“Well, then, how about Wednesday night at eight-thirty or
nine? Couldn’t you do that? Please, now.”
Roberta considered most sweetly, nervously. Clyde was
enormously fascinated by her manner at the moment, for
she looked around, conscious, or so she seemed, that she
was being observed and that her stay here for a first visit
was very long.
“I suppose I’d better be going back to my work now,” she
replied without really answering him.
“Wait a minute,” pled Clyde. “We haven’t fixed on the time
for Wednesday. Aren’t you going to meet me? Make it nine
or eight-thirty, or any time you want to. I’ll be there waiting
for you after eight if you wish. Will you?”
“All right, then, say eight-thirty or between eight-thirty and
nine, if I can. Is that all right? I’ll come if I can, you know,
and if anything does happen I’ll tell you the next morning,
you see.” She flushed and then looked around once more,
a foolish, flustered look, then hurried back to her bench,
fairly tingling from head to toe, and looking as guilty as
though she had been caught red-handed in some dreadful
crime. And Clyde at his desk was almost choking with
excitement. The wonder of her agreeing, of his talking to
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her like that, of her venturing to make a date with him at all
here in Lycurgus, where he was so well-known! Thrilling!
For her part, she was thinking how wonderful it would be
just to walk and talk with him in the moonlight, to feel the
pressure of his arm and hear his soft appealing voice.
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Chapter 17
IT WAS quite dark when Roberta stole out on Wednesday
night to meet Clyde. But before that what qualms and
meditations in the face of her willingness and her
agreement to do so. For not only was it difficult for her to
overcome her own mental scruples within, but in addition
there was all the trouble in connection with the
commonplace and religious and narrow atmosphere in
which she found herself imbedded at the Newtons’. For
since coming here she had scarcely gone anywhere without
Grace Marr. Besides on this occasion—a thing she had
forgotten in talking to Clyde—she had agreed to go with the
Newtons and Grace to the Gideon Baptist Church, where a
Wednesday prayer meeting was to be followed by a social
with games, cake, tea and ice cream.
In consequence she was troubled severely as to how to
manage, until it came back to her that a day or two before
Mr. Liggett, in noting how rapid and efficient she was, had
observed that at any time she wanted to learn one phase of
the stitching operations going on in the next room, he would
have her taken in hand by Mrs. Braley, who would teach
her. And now that Clyde’s invitation and this church affair
fell on the same night, she decided to say that she had an
appointment with Mrs. Braley at her home. Only, as she
also decided, she would wait until just before dinner
Wednesday and then say that Mrs. Braley had invited her to
come to her house. Then she could see Clyde. And by the
time the Newtons and Grace returned she could be back.
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Oh, how it would feel to have him talk to her—say again as
he did in the boat that he never had seen any one look so
pretty as she did standing on the bank and looking for water
lilies. Many, many thoughts—vague, dreadful, colorful,
came to her—how and where they might go—be—do—
from now on, if only she could arrange to be friends with
him without harm to her or him. If need be, she now
decided, she could resign from the factory and get a place
somewhere else—a change which would absolve Clyde
from any responsibility in regard to her.
There was, however, another mental as well as emotional
phase in regard to all this and that related to her clothes.
For since coming to Lycurgus she had learned that the
more intelligent girls here dressed better than did those
about Biltz and Trippetts Mills. At the same time she had
been sending a fair portion of her money to her mother—
sufficient to have equipped her exceptionally well, as she
now realized, had she retained it. But now that Clyde was
swaying her so greatly she was troubled about her looks,
and on the evening after her conversation with him at the
mill, she had gone through her small wardrobe, fixing upon
a soft blue hat which Clyde had not yet seen, together with
a checkered blue and white flannel skirt and a pair of white
canvas shoes purchased the previous summer at Biltz. Her
plan was to wait until the Newtons and Grace had departed
for church and then swiftly dress and leave.
At eight-thirty, when night had finally fallen, she went east
along Taylor to Central Avenue, then by a circuitous route
made her way west again to the trysting place. And Clyde
was already there. Against an old wooden fence that
enclosed a five-acre cornfield, he was leaning and looking
back toward the interesting little city, the lights in so many
of the homes of which were aglow through the trees. The
air was laden with spices—the mingled fragrance of many
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grasses and flowers. There was a light wind stirring in the
long swords of the corn at his back—in the leaves of the
trees overhead. And there were stars—the big dipper and
the little dipper and the milky way—sidereal phenomena
which his mother had pointed out to him long ago.
And he was thinking how different was his position here to
what it had been in Kansas City. There he had been so
nervous in regard to Hortense Briggs or any girl, really—
afraid almost to say a word to any of them. Whereas here,
and especially since he had had charge of this stamping
room, he had seemed to become aware of the fact that he
was more attractive than he had ever thought he was
before. Also that the girls were attracted to him and that he
was not so much afraid of them. The eyes of Roberta
herself showed him this day how much she was drawn to
him. She was his girl. And when she came, he would put
his arms around her and kiss her. And she would not be
able to resist him.
He stood listening, dreaming and watching, the rustling corn
behind him stirring an old recollection in him, when
suddenly he saw her coming. She looked trim and brisk and
yet nervous, and paused at the street end and looked about
like a frightened and cautious animal. At once Clyde hurried
forward toward her and called softly: “Hello. Gee, it’s nice to
have you meet me. Did you have any trouble?” He was
thinking how much more pleasing she was than either
Hortense Briggs or Rita Dickerman, the one so calculating,
the other so sensually free and indiscriminate.
“Did I have any trouble? Oh, didn’t I though?” And at once
she plunged into a full and picturesque account, not only of
the mistake in regard to the Newtons’ church night and her
engagement with them, but of a determination on the part