bad,” he said stiffly, and with a very awkward and weak attempt at being self-confident and even high-spirited in her presence.
“Oh, it doesn’t amount to anything, really. We just quarrel, that’s all, once in a while.”
She saw that he was nervous and bashful and decidedly unresourceful in her presence and it pleased her to think that she could thus befuddle and embarrass him so much. “Are you still working for your uncle?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Clyde quickly, as though it would make an enormous difference to her if he were not. “I have charge of a department over there now.”
“Oh, really, I didn’t know. I haven’t seen you at all, since that one time, you know. You don’t get time to go about much, I suppose.” She looked at him wisely, as much as to say, “Your relatives aren’t so very much interested in you, but really liking him now, she said instead, “You have been in the city all summer, I suppose?”
“Oh, yes,” replied Clyde quite simply and winningly. “I have to be, you know. It’s the work that keeps me here. But I’ve seen your name in the papers often, and read about your riding and tennis contests and I saw you in that flower parade last June, too. I certainly thought you looked beautiful, like an angel almost.”
There was an admiring, pleading light in his eyes which now quite charmed her. What a pleasing young man — so different to Gilbert. And to think he should be so plainly and hopelessly smitten, and when she could take no more than a passing interest in him. It made her feel sorry, a little, and hence kindly toward him. Besides what would Gilbert think if only he knew that his cousin was so completely reduced by her — how angry he would be — he, who so plainly thought her a snip? It would serve him just right if Clyde were taken up by some one and made more of than he (Gilbert) ever could hope to be. The thought had a most pleasing tang for her.
However, at this point, unfortunately, the car turned in before Mrs. Peyton’s door and stopped. The adventure for Clyde and for her was seemingly over.
“That’s awfully nice of you to say that. I won’t forget that.” She smiled archly as, the chauffeur opening the door, Clyde stepped down, his own nerves taut because of the grandeur and import of this encounter. “So this is where you live. Do you expect to be in Lycurgus all winter?”
“Oh, yes. I’m quite sure of it. I hope to be anyhow,” he added, quite yearningly, his eyes expressing his meaning completely.
“Well, perhaps, then I’ll see you again somewhere, some time. I hope so, anyhow.”
She nodded and gave him her fingers and the most fetching and wreathy of smiles, and he, eager to the point of folly, added: “Oh, so do I.”
“Good night! Good night!” she called as the car sprang away, and Clyde, looking after it, wondered if he would ever see her again so closely and intimately as here. To think that he should have met her again in this way! And she had proved so very different from that first time when, as he distinctly recalled, she took no interest in him at all.
He turned hopefully and a little wistfully toward his own door.
And Sondra, . . . why was it, she pondered, as the motor car sped on its way, that the Griffiths were apparently not much interested in him?
Chapter 24
The effect of this so casual contact was really disrupting in more senses than one. For now in spite of his comfort in and satisfaction with Roberta, once more and in this positive and to him entrancing way, was posed the whole question of his social possibilities here. And that strangely enough by the one girl of this upper level who had most materialized and magnified for him the meaning of that upper level itself. The beautiful Sondra Finchley! Her lovely face, smart clothes, gay and superior demeanor! If only at the time he had first encountered her he had managed to interest her. Or could now.
The fact that his relations with Roberta were what they were now was not of sufficient import or weight to offset the temperamental or imaginative pull of such a girl as Sondra and all that she represented. Just to think the Wimblinger Finchley Electric Sweeper Company was one of the largest manufacturing concerns here. Its tall walls and stacks made a part of the striking sky line across the Mohawk. And the Finchley residence in Wykeagy Avenue, near that of the Griffiths, was one of the most impressive among that distinguished row of houses which had come with the latest and most discriminating architectural taste here — Italian Renaissance — cream hued marble and Dutchess County sandstone combined. And the Finchleys were among the most discussed of families here.
Ah, to know this perfect girl more intimately! To be looked upon by her with favor — made, by reason of that favor, a part of that fine world to which she belonged. Was he not a Griffiths — as good looking as Gilbert Griffiths any day? And as attractive if he only had as much money — or a part of it even. To be able to dress in the Gilbert Griffiths’ fashion; to ride around in one of the handsome cars he sported! Then, you bet, a girl like this would be delighted to notice him — mayhap, who knows, even fall in love with him. Analschar and the tray of glasses. But now, as he gloomily thought, he could only hope, hope, hope.
The devil! He would not go around to Roberta’s this evening. He would trump up some excuse — tell her in the morning that he had been called upon by his uncle or cousin to do some work. He could not and would not go, feeling as he did just now.
So much for the effect of wealth, beauty, the peculiar social state to which he most aspired, on a temperament that was as fluid and unstable as water.
On the other hand, later, thinking over her contact with Clyde, Sondra was definitely taken with what may only be described as his charm for her, all the more definite in this case since it represented a direct opposite to all that his cousin offered by way of offense. His clothes and his manner, as well as a remark he had dropped, to the effect that he was connected with the company in some official capacity, seemed to indicate that he might be better placed than she had imagined. Yet she also recalled that although she had been about with Bella all summer and had encountered Gilbert, Myra and their parents from time to time, there had never been a word about Clyde. Indeed all the information she had gathered concerning him was that originally furnished by Mrs. Griffiths, who had said that he was a poor nephew whom her husband had brought on from the west in order to help in some way. Yet now, as she viewed Clyde on this occasion, he did not seem so utterly unimportant or poverty-stricken by any means — quite interesting and rather smart and very attractive, and obviously anxious to be taken seriously by a girl like herself, as she could see. And this coming from Gilbert’s cousin — a Griffiths — was flattering.
Arriving at the Trumbull’s, a family which centered about one Douglas Trumbull, a prosperous lawyer and widower and speculator of this region, who, by reason of his children as well as his own good manners and legal subtlety, had managed to ingratiate himself into the best circles of Lycurgus society, she suddenly confided to Jill Trumbull, the elder of the lawyer’s two daughters: “You know I had a funny experience to-day.” And she proceeded to relate all that had occurred in detail. Afterward at dinner, Jill having appeared to find it most fascinating, she again repeated it to Gertrude and Tracy, the younger daughter and only son of the Trumbull family.
“Oh, yes,” observed Tracy Trumbull, a law student in his father’s office, “I’ve seen that fellow, I bet, three or four times on Central Avenue. He looks a lot like Gil, doesn’t he? Only not so swagger. I’ve nodded to him two or three times this summer because I thought
