An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

of the table, George Newton, thin and meticulous and

curious, his sharp eyes and nose and pointed chin now

turned in her direction.

But on the instant, realizing that she must say something,

Roberta replied: “Oh, yes, that’s so. I did go over there for a

little while. Some friends of my sister’s were coming over

and I went with them.” She was about to add, “We didn’t

stay very long,” but stopped herself. For at that moment a

certain fighting quality which she had inherited from her

mother, and which had asserted itself in the case of Grace

before this, now came to her rescue. After all, why shouldn’t

she be at Starlight Park if she chose? And what right had

the Newtons or Grace or anyone else to question her for

that matter? She was paying her way. Nevertheless, as she

realized, she had been caught in a deliberate lie and all

because she lived here and was constantly being

questioned and looked after in regard to her very least

move. Miss Pope added curiously, “I don’t suppose he’s a

Lycurgus boy. I don’t remember ever seeing him around

here.”

“No, he isn’t from here,” returned Roberta shortly and

coldly, for by now she was fairly quivering with the

realization that she had been caught in a falsehood before

Grace. Also that Grace would resent intensely this social

secrecy and desertion of her. At once she felt as though

she would like to get up from the table and leave and never

return. But instead she did her best to compose herself,

and now gave the two girls with whom she had never been

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420

familiar, a steady look. At the same time she looked at

Grace and Mr. Newton with defiance. If anything more were

said she proposed to give a fictitious name or two—friends

of her brother-in-law in Homer, or better yet to refuse to

give any information whatsoever. Why should she?

Nevertheless, as she learned later that evening, she was

not to be spared the refusing of it. Grace, coming to their

room immediately afterward, reproached her with: “I

thought you said you stayed out at your sister’s all the time

you were gone?”

“Well, what if I did say it?” replied Roberta defiantly and

even bitterly, but without a word in extenuation, for her

thought was now that unquestionably Grace was

pretending to catechize her on moral grounds, whereas in

reality the real source of her anger and pique was that

Roberta was slipping away from and hence neglecting her.

“Well, you don’t have to lie to me in order to go anywhere or

see anybody without me in the future. I don’t want to go

with you. And what’s more I don’t want to know where you

go or who you go with. But I do wish you wouldn’t tell me

one thing and then have George and Mary find out that it

ain’t so, and that you’re just trying to slip away from me or

that I’m lying to them in order to protect myself. I don’t want

you to put me in that position.”

She was very hurt and sad and contentious and Roberta

could see for herself that there was no way out of this trying

situation other than to move. Grace was a leech—a hanger-

on. She had no life of her own and could contrive none. As

long as she was anywhere near her she would want to

devote herself to her—to share her every thought and

mood with her. And yet if she told her about Clyde she

would be shocked and critical and would unquestionably

eventually turn on her or even expose her. So she merely

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421

replied: “Oh, well, have it that way if you want to. I don’t

care. I don’t propose to tell anything unless I choose to.”

And at once Grace conceived the notion that Roberta did

not like her any more and would have nothing to do with

her. She arose immediately and walked out of the room—

her head very high and her spine very stiff. And Roberta,

realizing that she had made an enemy of her, now wished

that she was out of here. They were all too narrow here

anyway. They would never understand or tolerate this

clandestine relationship with Clyde—so necessary to him

apparently, as he had explained—so troublesome and even

disgraceful to her from one point of view, and yet so

precious. She did love him, so very, very much. And she

must now find some way to protect herself and him—move

to another room.

But that in this instance required almost more courage and

decision than she could muster. The anomalous and

unprotected nature of a room where one was not known.

The look of it. Subsequent explanation to her mother and

sister maybe. Yet to remain here after this was all but

impossible, too, for the attitude of Grace as well as the

Newtons—particularly Mrs. Newton, Grace’s sister—was

that of the early Puritans or Friends who had caught a

“brother” or “sister” in a great sin. She was dancing—and

secretly! There was the presence of that young man not

quite adequately explained by her trip home, to say nothing

of her presence at Starlight Park. Besides, in Roberta’s

mind was the thought that under such definite espionage as

must now follow, to say nothing of the unhappy and

dictatorial attitude of Grace, she would have small chance

to be with Clyde as much as she now most intensely

desired. And accordingly, after two days of unhappy

thought and then a conference with Clyde who was all for

her immediate independence in a new room where she

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422

would not be known or spied upon, she proceeded to take

an hour or two off; and having fixed upon the southeast

section of the city as one most likely to be free from contact

with either the Newtons or those whom thus far she had

encountered at the Newtons’, she inquired there, and after

little more than an hour’s search found one place which

pleased her. This was in an old brick house in Elm Street

occupied by an upholsterer and his wife and two daughters,

one a local milliner and another still in school. The room

offered was on the ground floor to the right of a small front

porch and overlooking the street. A door off this same

porch gave into a living room which separated this room

from the other parts of the house and permitted ingress and

egress without contact with any other portion of the house.

And since she was still moved to meet Clyde clandestinely

this as she now saw was important.

Besides, as she gathered from her one conversation with

Mrs. Gilpin, the mother of this family, the character of this

home was neither so strict nor inquisitive as that of the

Newtons. Mrs. Gilpin was large, passive, cleanly, not so

very alert and about fifty. She informed Roberta that as a

rule she didn’t care to take boarders or roomers at all, since

the family had sufficient means to go on. However, since

the family scarcely ever used the front room, which was

rather set off from the remainder of the house, and since

her husband did not object, she had made up her mind to

rent it. And again she preferred some one who worked like

Roberta—a girl, not a man—and one who would be glad to

have her breakfast and dinner along with her family. Since

she asked no questions as to her family or connections,

merely looking at her interestedly and seeming to be

favorably impressed by her appearance, Roberta gathered

that here were no such standards as prevailed at the

Newtons.

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423

And yet what qualms in connection with the thought of

moving thus. For about this entire clandestine procedure

there hung, as she saw it, a sense of something untoward

and even sinful, and then on top of it all, quarreling and

then breaking with Grace Marr, her one girl friend here thus

far, and the Newtons on account of it, when, as she well

knew, it was entirely due to Grace that she was here at all.

Supposing her parents or her sister in Homer should hear

about this through some one whom Grace knew and think

strangely of her going off by herself in Lycurgus in this way?

Was it right? Was it possible that she could do things like

this—and so soon after her coming here? She was

beginning to feel as though her hitherto impeccable

standards were crumbling.

And yet there was Clyde now. Could she give him up?

After many emotional aches she decided that she could

not. And accordingly after paying a deposit and arranging to

occupy the room within the next few days, she returned to

her work and after dinner the same evening announced to