Mrs. Newton that she was going to move. Her premeditated
explanation was that recently she had been thinking of
having her younger brother and sister come and live with
her and since one or both were likely to come soon, she
thought it best to prepare for them.
And the Newtons, as well as Grace, feeling that this was all
due to the new connections which Roberta had recently
been making and which were tending to alienate her from
Grace, were now content to see her go. Plainly she was
beginning to indulge in a type of adventure of which they
could not approve. Also it was plain that she was not going
to prove as useful to Grace as they had at first imagined.
Possibly she knew what she was doing. But more likely she
An American Tragedy
424
was being led astray by notions of a good time not
consistent with the reserved life led by her at Trippetts Mills.
And Roberta herself, once having made this move and
settled herself in this new atmosphere (apart from the fact
that it gave her much greater freedom in connection with
Clyde) was dubious as to her present course. Perhaps—
perhaps—she had moved hastily and in anger and might be
sorry. Still she had done it now, and it could not be helped.
So she proposed to try it for a while.
To salve her own conscience more than anything else, she
at once wrote her mother and her sister a very plausible
version of why she had been compelled to leave the
Newtons. Grace had grown too possessive, domineering
and selfish. It had become unendurable. However, her
mother need not worry. She was satisfactorily placed. She
had a room to herself and could now entertain Tom and
Emily or her mother or Agnes, in case they should ever visit
her here. And she would be able to introduce them to the
Gilpins whom she proceeded to describe.
Nevertheless, her underlying thought in connection with all
this, in so far as Clyde and his great passion for her was
concerned—and hers for him—was that she was indeed
trifling with fire and perhaps social disgrace into the
bargain. For, although consciously at this time she was
scarcely willing to face the fact that this room—its geometric
position in relation to the rest of the house—had been of
the greatest import to her at the time she first saw it, yet
subconsciously she knew it well enough. The course she
was pursuing was dangerous—that she knew. And yet how,
as she now so often asked herself at moments when she
was confronted by some desire which ran counter to her
sense of practicability and social morality, was she to do?
An American Tragedy
425
Chapter 20
HOWEVER, as both Roberta and Clyde soon found, after
several weeks in which they met here and there, such spots
as could be conveniently reached by interurban lines, there
were still drawbacks and the principal of these related to the
attitude of both Roberta and Clyde in regard to this room,
and what, if any, use of it was to be made by them jointly.
For in spite of the fact that thus far Clyde had never openly
agreed with himself that his intentions in relation to Roberta
were in any way different to those normally entertained by
any youth toward any girl for whom he had a conventional
social regard, still, now that she had moved into this room,
there was that ineradicable and possibly censurable, yet
very human and almost unescapable, desire for something
more—the possibility of greater and greater intimacy with
and control of Roberta and her thoughts and actions in
everything so that in the end she would be entirely his. But
how his? By way of marriage and the ordinary conventional
and durable existence which thereafter must ordinarily
ensue? He had never said so to himself thus far. For in
flirting with her or any girl of a lesser social position than
that of the Griffiths here (Sondra Finchley, Bertine
Cranston, for instance) he would not—and that largely due
to the attitude of his newly-found relatives, their very high
position in this city—have deemed marriage advisable. And
what would they think if they should come to know? For
socially, as he saw himself now, if not before coming here,
he was supposed to be above the type of Roberta and
An American Tragedy
426
should of course profit by that notion. Besides there were all
those that knew him here, at least to speak to. On the other
hand, because of the very marked pull that her
temperament had for him, he had not been able to say for
the time being that she was not worthy of him or that he
might not be happy in case it were possible or advisable for
him to marry her.
And there was another thing now that tended to complicate
matters. And that was that fall with its chilling winds and
frosty nights was drawing near. Already it was near October
first and most of those out-of-door resorts which, up to the
middle of September at least, had provided diversion, and
that at a fairly safe distance from Lycurgus, were already
closed for the season. And dancing, except in the halls of
the near-by cities and which, because of a mood of hers in
regard to them, were unacceptable, was also for the time
being done away with. As for the churches, moving
pictures, and restaurants of Lycurgus, how under the
circumstances, owing to Clyde’s position here, could they
be seen in them? They could not, as both reasoned
between them. And so now, while her movements were
unrestrained, there was no place to go unless by some
readjustment of their relations he might be permitted to call
on her at the Gilpins’. But that, as he knew, she would not
think of and, at first, neither had he the courage to suggest
it.
However they were at a street-end one early October night
about six weeks after she had moved to her new room. The
stars were sharp. The air cool. The leaves were beginning
to turn. Roberta had returned to a three-quarter green-and-
cream-striped winter coat that she wore at this season of
the year. Her hat was brown, trimmed with brown leather
and of a design that became her. There had been kisses
over and over—that same fever that had been dominating
An American Tragedy
427
them continuously since first they met—only more
pronounced if anything.
“It’s getting cold, isn’t it?” It was Clyde who spoke. And it
was eleven o’clock and chill.
“Yes, I should say it is. I’ll soon have to get a heavier coat.”
“I don’t see how we are to do from now on, do you? There’s
no place to go any more much, and it won’t be very
pleasant walking the streets this way every night. You don’t
suppose we could fix it so I could call on you at the Gilpins’
once in a while, do you? It isn’t the same there now as it
was at the Newtons’.”
“Oh, I know, but then they use their sitting room every night
nearly until ten-thirty or eleven. And besides their two girls
are in and out all hours up to twelve, anyhow, and they’re in
there often. I don’t see how I can. Besides, I thought you
said you didn’t want to have any one see you with me that
way, and if you came there I couldn’t help introducing you.”
“Oh, but I don’t mean just that way,” replied Clyde
audaciously and yet with the feeling that Roberta was much
too squeamish and that it was high time she was taking a
somewhat more liberal attitude toward him if she cared for
him as much as she appeared to: “Why wouldn’t it be all
right for me to stop in for a little while? They wouldn’t need
to know, would they?” He took out his watch and
discovered with the aid of a match that it was eleven-thirty.
He showed the time to her. “There wouldn’t be anybody
there now, would there?”
She shook her head in opposition. The thought not only
terrified but sickened her. Clyde was getting very bold to
even suggest anything like that. Besides this suggestion
embodied in itself all the secret fears and compelling
moods which hitherto, although actual in herself, she was
An American Tragedy
428
still unwilling to face. There was something sinful, low,
dreadful about it. She would not. That was one thing sure.
At the same time within her was that overmastering urge of
repressed and feared desire now knocking loudly for
recognition.
“No, no, I can’t let you do that. It wouldn’t be right. I don’t
want to. Some one might see us. Somebody might know
you.” For the moment the moral repulsion was so great that
unconsciously she endeavored to relinquish herself from his