approaching night with an eagerness which was as a fever
embodying a fear. For with what qualms—what protests on
the part of Roberta; what determination, yet not without a
sense of evil—seduction—betrayal, on the part of Clyde.
Yet the thing once done, a wild convulsive pleasure
motivating both. Yet, not without, before all this, an exaction
on the part of Roberta to the effect that never—come what
might (the natural consequences of so wild an intimacy
strong in her thoughts) would he desert her, since without
his aid she would be helpless. Yet, with no direct statement
as to marriage. And he, so completely overcome and
swayed by his desire, thoughtlessly protesting that he never
would—never. She might depend on that, at least, although
even then there was no thought in his mind of marriage. He
would not do that. Yet nights and nights—all scruples for
the time being abandoned, and however much by day
Roberta might brood and condemn herself—when each
yielded to the other completely. And dreamed thereafter,
recklessly and wildly, of the joy of it—wishing from day to
day for the time being that the long day might end—that the
concealing, rewarding feverish night were at hand.
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And Clyde feeling, and not unlike Roberta, who was firmly
and even painfully convinced of it, that this was sin—
deadly, mortal—since both his mother and father had so
often emphasized that—the seducer—adulterer—who
preys outside the sacred precincts of marriage. And
Roberta, peering nervously into the blank future, wondering
what—how, in any case, by any chance, Clyde should
change, or fail her. Yet the night returning, her mood once
more veering, and she as well as he hurrying to meet
somewhere—only later, in the silence of the middle night, to
slip into this unlighted room which was proving so much
more of a Paradise than either might ever know again—so
wild and unrecapturable is the fever of youth.
And—at times—and despite all his other doubts and fears,
Clyde, because of this sudden abandonment by Roberta of
herself to his desires, feeling for the first time, really, in all
his feverish years, that at last he was a man of the world—
one who was truly beginning to know women. And so
taking to himself an air or manner that said as plainly as
might have any words—. “Behold I am no longer the
inexperienced, neglected simpleton of but a few weeks ago,
but an individual of import now—some one who knows
something about life. What have any of these strutting
young men, and gay, coaxing, flirting girls all about me, that
I have not? And if I chose—were less loyal than I am—what
might I not do?” And this was proving to him that the notion
which Hortense Briggs, to say nothing of the more recent
fiasco in connection with Rita had tended to build up in his
mind, i.e.,—that he was either unsuccessful or ill-fated
where girls were concerned was false. He was after all and
despite various failures and inhibitions a youth of the Don
Juan or Lothario stripe.
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And if now Roberta was obviously willing to sacrifice herself
for him in this fashion, must there not be others?
And this, in spite of the present indifference of the Griffiths,
caused him to walk with even more of an air than had
hitherto characterized him. Even though neither they nor
any of those connected with them recognized him, still he
looked at himself in his mirror from time to time with an
assurance and admiration which before this he had never
possessed. For now Roberta, feeling that her future was
really dependent on his will and whim, had set herself to
flatter him almost constantly, to be as obliging and
convenient to him as possible. Indeed, according to her
notion of the proper order of life, she was now his and his
only, as much as any wife is ever to a husband, to do with
as he wished.
And for a time therefore, Clyde forgot his rather neglected
state here and was content to devote himself to her without
thinking much of the future. The one thing that did trouble
him at times was the thought that possibly, in connection
with the original fear she had expressed to him, something
might go wrong, which, considering her exclusive devotion
to him, might prove embarrassing. At the same time he did
not trouble to speculate too deeply as to that. He had
Roberta now. These relations, in so far as either of them
could see, or guess, were a dark secret. The pleasures of
this left-handed honeymoon were at full tide. And the
remaining brisk and often sunshiny and warm November
and first December days passed—as in a dream, really—an
ecstatic paradise of sorts in the very center of a humdrum
conventional and petty and underpaid work-a-day world.
In the meantime the Griffiths had been away from the city
since the middle of June and ever since their departure
Clyde had been meditating upon them and all they
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446
represented in his life and that of the city. Their great house
closed and silent, except for gardeners and an occasional
chauffeur or servant visible as he walked from time to time
past the place, was the same as a shrine to him, nearly—
the symbol of that height to which by some turn of fate he
might still hope to attain. For he had never quite been able
to expel from his mind the thought that his future must in
some way be identified with the grandeur that was here laid
out before him.
Yet so far as the movements of the Griffiths family and their
social peers outside Lycurgus were concerned, he knew
little other than that which from time to time he had read in
the society columns of the two local papers which almost
obsequiously pictured the comings and goings of all those
who were connected with the more important families of the
city. At times, after reading these accounts he had pictured
to himself, even when he was off somewhere with Roberta
at some unheralded resort, Gilbert Griffiths racing in his big
car, Bella, Bertine and Sondra dancing, canoeing in the
moonlight, playing tennis, riding at some of the smart
resorts where they were reported to be. The thing had had
a bite and ache for him that was almost unendurable and
had lit up for him at times and with overwhelming clarity this
connection of his with Roberta. For after all, who was she?
A factory girl! The daughter of parents who lived and
worked on a farm and one who was compelled to work for
her own living. Whereas he—he—if fortune would but favor
him a little—! Was this to be the end of all his dreams in
connection with his perspective superior life here?
So it was that at moments and in his darker moods, and
especially after she had abandoned herself to him, his
thoughts ran. She was not of his station, really—at least not
of that of the Griffiths to which still he most eagerly aspired.
Yet at the same time, whatever the mood generated by
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447
such items as he read in The Star, he would still return to
Roberta, picturing her, since the other mood which had
drawn him to her had by no means palled as yet, as
delightful, precious, exceedingly worth-while from the point
of view of beauty, pleasure, sweetness—the attributes and
charms which best identify any object of delight.
But the Griffiths and their friends having returned to the city,
and Lycurgus once more taken on that brisk, industrial and
social mood which invariably characterized it for at least
seven months in the year, he was again, and even more
vigorously than before, intrigued by it. The beauty of the
various houses along Wykeagy Avenue and its immediate
tributaries! The unusual and intriguing sense of movement
and life there so much in evidence. Oh, if he were but of it!
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Chapter 23
AND then, one November evening as Clyde was walking
along Wykeagy Avenue, just west of Central, a portion of
the locally celebrated avenue which, ever since he had
moved to Mrs. Peyton’s he was accustomed to traverse to
and from his work, one thing did occur which in so far as he
and the Griffiths were concerned was destined to bring
about a chain of events which none of them could possibly
have foreseen. At the time there was in his heart and mind
that singing which is the inheritance of youth and ambition
and which the dying of the old year, instead of depressing,
seemed but to emphasize. He had a good position. He was
respected here. Over and above his room and board he
had not less than fifteen dollars a week to spend on himself
and Roberta, an income which, while it did not parallel that