An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser

Griffiths, for instance, had invited him for dinner. That would

be sufficiently overawing and compelling to her. But upon

arriving, and finding her out, he decided to explain the

following morning at the factory—by note, if necessary. To

make up for it he decided he might promise to accompany

her as far as Fonda on Saturday and give her her present

then.

But on Friday morning at the factory, instead of explaining

to her with the seriousness and even emotional

dissatisfaction which would have governed him before, he

now whispered: “I have to break that engagement to-night,

honey. Been invited to my uncle’s, and I have to go. And

I’m not sure that I can get around afterwards. I’ll try if I get

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through in time. But I’ll see you on the Fonda car to-morrow

if I don’t. I’ve got something I want to give you, so don’t feel

too bad. Just got word this morning or I’d have let you

know. You’re not going to feel bad, are you?” He looked at

her as gloomily as possible in order to express his own

sorrow over this.

But Roberta, her presents and her happy last evening with

him put aside in this casual way, and for the first time, too,

in this fashion, shook her head negatively, as if to say “Oh,

no,” but her spirits were heavily depressed and she fell to

wondering what this sudden desertion of her at this time

might portend. For, up to this time, Clyde had been

attentiveness itself, concealing his recent contact with

Sondra behind a veil of pretended, unmodified affection

which had, as yet, been sufficient to deceive her. It might

be true, as he said, that an unescapable invitation had

come up which necessitated all this. But, oh, the happy

evening she had planned! And now they would not be

together again for three whole days. She grieved dubiously

at the factory and in her room afterwards, thinking that

Clyde might at least have suggested coming around to her

room late, after his uncle’s dinner in order that she might

give him the presents. But his eventual excuse made this

day was that the dinner was likely to last too late. He could

not be sure. They had talked of going somewhere else

afterwards.

But meanwhile Clyde, having gone to the Trumbulls’, and

later to the Steeles’, was flattered and reassured by a

series of developments such as a month before he would

not have dreamed of anticipating. For at the Steeles’ he

was promptly introduced to a score of personalities there

who, finding him chaperoned by the Trumbulls and learning

that he was a Griffiths, as promptly invited him to affairs of

their own—or hinted at events that were to come to which

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he might be invited, so that at the close he found himself

with cordial invitations to attend a New Year’s dance at the

Vandams’ in Gloversville, as well as a dinner and dance

that was to be given Christmas Eve by the Harriets in

Lycurgus, an affair to which Gilbert and his sister Bella, as

well as Sondra, Bertine and others were invited.

And lastly, there was Sondra herself appearing on the

scene at about midnight in company with Scott Nicholson,

Freddie Sells and Bertine, at first pretending to be wholly

unaware of his presence, yet deigning at last to greet him

with an, “Oh, hello, I didn’t expect to find you here.” She

was draped most alluringly in a deep red Spanish shawl.

But Clyde could sense from the first that she was quite

aware of his presence, and at the first available opportunity

he drew near to her and asked yearningly, “Aren’t you going

to dance with me at all?”

“Why, of course, if you want me to. I thought maybe you

had forgotten me by now,” she said mockingly.

“As though I’d be likely to forget you. The only reason I’m

here to-night is because I thought I might see you again. I

haven’t thought of any one or anything else since I saw you

last.”

Indeed so infatuated was he with her ways and airs, that

instead of being irritated by her pretended indifference, he

was all the more attracted. And he now achieved an

intensity which to her was quite compelling. His eyelids

narrowed and his eyes lit with a blazing desire which was

quite disturbing to see.

“My, but you can say the nicest things in the nicest way

when you want to.” She was toying with a large Spanish

comb in her hair for the moment and smiling. “And you say

them just as though you meant them.”

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“Do you mean to say that you don’t believe me, Sondra,” he

inquired almost feverishly, this second use of her name

thrilling her now as much as it did him. Although inclined to

frown on so marked a presumption in his case, she let it

pass because it was pleasing to her.

“Oh, yes, I do. Of course,” she said a little dubiously, and for

the first time nervously, where he was concerned. She was

beginning to find it a little hard to decipher her proper line of

conduct in connection with him, whether to repress him

more or less. “But you must say now what dance you want.

I see some one coming for me.” And she held her small

program up to him archly and intriguingly. “You may have

the eleventh. That’s the next after this.”

“Is that all?”

“Well, and the fourteenth, then, greedy,” she laughed into

Clyde’s eyes, a laughing look which quite enslaved him.

Subsequently learning from Frank Harriet in the course of a

dance that Clyde had been invited to his house for

Christmas Eve, as well as that Jessica Phant had invited

him to Utica for New Year’s Eve, she at once conceived of

him as slated for real success and decided that he was

likely to prove less of a social burden than she had feared.

He was charming—there was no doubt of it. And he was so

devoted to her. In consequence, as she now decided, it

might be entirely possible that some of these other girls,

seeing him recognized by some of the best people here

and elsewhere, would become sufficiently interested, or

drawn to him even, to wish to overcome his devotion to her.

Being of a vain and presumptuous disposition herself, she

decided that that should not be. Hence, in the course of her

second dance with Clyde, she said: “You’ve been invited to

the Harriets’ for Christmas Eve, haven’t you?”

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“Yes, and I owe it all to you, too,” he exclaimed warmly.

“Are you going to be there?”

“Oh, I’m awfully sorry. I am invited and I wish now that I

was going. But you know I arranged some time ago to go

over to Albany and then up to Saratoga for the holidays. I’m

going to-morrow, but I’ll be back before New Year’s. Some

friends of Freddie’s are giving a big affair over in

Schenectady New Year’s Eve, though. And your cousin

Bella and my brother Stuart and Grant and Bertine are

going. If you’d like to go, you might go along with us over

there.”

She had been about to say “me,” but had changed it to “us.”

She was thinking that this would certainly demonstrate her

control over him to all those others, seeing that it nullified

Miss Phant’s invitation. And at once Clyde accepted, and

with delight, since it would bring him in contact with her

again.

At the same time he was astonished and almost aghast

over the fact that in this casual and yet very intimate and

definite way she was planning for him to reëncounter Bella,

who would at once carry the news of his going with her and

these others to her family. And what would not that spell,

seeing that even as yet the Griffiths had not invited him

anywhere—not even for Christmas? For although the fact of

Clyde having been picked up by Sondra in her car as well

as later, that he had been invited to the Now and Then, had

come to their ears, still nothing had been done. Gilbert

Griffiths was wroth, his father and mother puzzled as to

their proper course but remaining inactive nonetheless.

But the group, according to Sondra, might remain in

Schenectady until the following morning, a fact which she

did not trouble to explain to Clyde at first. And by now he

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had forgotten that Roberta, having returned from her long

stay at Biltz by then, and having been deserted by him over

Christmas, would most assuredly be expecting him to

spend New Year’s Eve with her. That was a complication

which was to dawn later. Now he only saw bliss in Sondra’s

thought of him and at once eagerly and enthusiastically