of Grace Marr not to go to the church social without her,
An American Tragedy
404
and how she had to fib, oh, so terribly, about going over to
Mrs. Braley’s to learn to stitch—a Liggett-Roberta
development of which Clyde had heard nothing so far and
concerning which he was intensely curious, because at
once it raised the thought that already Liggett might be
intending to remove her from under his care. He proceeded
to question her about that before he would let her go on
with her story, an interest which Roberta noticed and
because of which she was very pleased.
“But I can’t stay very long, you know,” she explained briskly
and warmly at the first opportunity, the while Clyde laid hold
of her arm and turned toward the river, which was to the
north and untenanted this far out. “The Baptist Church
socials never last much beyond ten-thirty or eleven, and
they’ll be back soon. So I’ll have to manage to be back
before they are.”
Then she gave many reasons why it would be unwise for
her to be out after ten, reasons which annoyed yet
convinced Clyde by their wisdom. He had been hoping to
keep her out longer. But seeing that the time was to be
brief, he was all the keener for a closer contact with her
now, and fell to complimenting her on her pretty hat and
cape and how becoming they were. At once he tried putting
his arm about her waist, but feeling this to be a too swift
advance she removed his arm, or tried to, saying in the
softest and most coaxing voice “Now, now—that’s not nice,
is it? Can’t you just hold my arm or let me hold yours?” But
he noted, once she persuaded him to disengage her waist,
she took his arm in a clinging, snuggling embrace and
measured her stride to his. On the instant he was thinking
how natural and unaffected her manner was now that the
ice between them had been broken.
An American Tragedy
405
And how she went on babbling! She liked Lycurgus, only
she thought it was the most religious town she had ever
been in—worse than Biltz or Trippetts Mills that way. And
then she had to explain to Clyde what Biltz and Trippetts
Mills were like—and her home—a very little, for she did not
care to talk about that. And then back to the Newtons and
Grace Marr and how they watched her every move. Clyde
was thinking as she talked how different she was from
Hortense Briggs or Rita, or any other girl he had ever known
—so much more simple and confiding—not in any way
mushy as was Rita, or brash or vain or pretentious, as was
Hortense, and yet really as pretty and so much sweeter. He
could not help thinking if she were smartly dressed how
sweet she would be. And again he was wondering what she
would think of him and his attitude toward Hortense in
contrast to his attitude toward her now, if she knew.
“You know,” he said at the very first opportunity, “I’ve been
trying to talk to you ever since you came to work at the
factory but you see how very watchful every one is. They’re
the limit. They told me when I came up there that I mustn’t
interest myself in any girl working there and so I tried not to.
But I just couldn’t help this, could I?” He squeezed her arm
affectionately, then stopped suddenly and, disengaging his
arm from hers, put both his about her. “You know, Roberta,
I’m crazy about you. I really am. I think you’re the dearest,
sweetest thing. Oh, say! Do you mind my telling you? Ever
since you showed up there, I haven’t been able to sleep,
nearly. You’ve got such nice eyes and hair. To-night you
look just too cute—lovely, I think. Oh, Roberta,” suddenly
he caught her face between his two hands and kissed her,
before really she could evade him. Then having done this
he held her while she resisted him, although it was almost
impossible for her to do so. Instead she felt as though she
wanted to put her arms around him or have him hold her
An American Tragedy
406
tight, and this mood in regard to him and herself puzzled
and troubled her. It was awful. What would people think—
say—if they knew? She was a bad girl, really, and yet she
wanted to be this way—near him—now as never before.
“Oh, you mustn’t, Mr. Griffiths,” she pleaded. “You really
mustn’t, you know. Please. Some one might see us. I think
I hear some one coming. Please, now.” She looked about
quite frightened, apparently, while Clyde laughed
ecstatically. Life had presented him a delicious sweet at
last. “You know I never did anything like this before,” she
went on. “Honest, I didn’t. Please. It’s only because you said
——”
Clyde was pressing her close, not saying anything in reply—
his pale face and dark hungry eyes held very close to hers.
He kissed her again and again despite her protests, her
little mouth and chin and cheeks seeming too beautiful—too
irresistible—then murmured pleadingly, for he was too
overcome to speak vigorously.
“Oh, Roberta, dearest, please, please, say that you love
me. Please do! I know that you do, Roberta. I can tell.
Please, tell me now. I’m crazy about you. We have so little
time.”
He kissed her again upon the cheek and mouth, and
suddenly he felt her relax. She stood quite still and
unresisting in his arms. He felt a wonder of something—he
could not tell what. All of a sudden he felt tears upon her
face, her head sunk to his shoulder, and then he heard her
say: “Yes, yes, yes. I do love you. Yes, yes. I do. I do.”
There was a sob—half of misery, half of delight—in her
voice and Clyde caught that. He was so touched by her
honesty and simplicity that tears sprang to his own eyes.
An American Tragedy
407
“It’s all right, Roberta. It’s all right. Please don’t cry. Oh, I
think you’re so sweet. I do. I do, Roberta.”
He looked up and before him in the east over the low roofs
of the city was the thinnest, yellowest topmost arc of the
rising July moon. It seemed at the moment as though life
had given him all—all—that he could possibly ask of it.
An American Tragedy
408
Chapter 18
THE culmination of this meeting was but the prelude, as
both Clyde and Roberta realized, to a series of contacts and
rejoicings which were to extend over an indefinite period.
They had found love. They were deliciously happy,
whatever the problems attending its present realization
might be. But the ways and means of continuing with it
were a different matter. For not only was her connection
with the Newtons a bar to any normal procedure in so far as
Clyde was concerned, but Grace Marr herself offered a
distinct and separate problem. Far more than Roberta she
was chained, not only by the defect of poor looks, but by
the narrow teachings and domestic training of her early
social and religious life. Yet she wanted to be gay and free,
too. And in Roberta, who, while gay and boastful at times,
was still well within the conventions that chained Grace, she
imagined that she saw one who was not so bound. And so
it was that she clung to her closely and as Roberta saw it a
little wearisomely. She imagined that they could exchange
ideas and jests and confidences in regard to the love life
and their respective dreams without injury to each other.
And to date this was her one solace in an otherwise gray
world.
But Roberta, even before the arrival of Clyde in her life, did
not want to be so clung to. It was a bore. And afterwards
she developed an inhibition in regard to him where Grace
was concerned. For she not only knew that Grace would
resent this sudden desertion, but also that she had no
An American Tragedy
409
desire to face out within herself the sudden and
revolutionary moods which now possessed her. Having at
once met and loved him, she was afraid to think what, if
anything, she proposed to permit herself to do in regard to
him. Were not such contacts between the classes banned
here? She knew they were. Hence she did not care to talk
about him at all.
In consequence on Monday evening following the Sunday
on the lake when Grace had inquired most gayly and
familiarly after Clyde, Roberta had as instantly decided not
to appear nearly as interested in him as Grace might
already be imagining. Accordingly, she said little other than
that he was very pleasant to her and had inquired after
Grace, a remark which caused the latter to eye her slyly
and to wonder if she were really telling what had happened