— well — anyhow — I know — but still —”
Her face wore a puzzled, troubled, nervous look, in which was mingled fear, sorrow, depression, distrust, a trace of resentment and a trace of despair, all of which, coloring and animating her eyes, which were now fixed on him in round orblike solemnity, caused him to suffer from a sense of having misused and demeaned her not a little. And because her eyes seemed to advertise this, he flushed a dark red flush that colored deeply his naturally very pale cheeks. But without appearing to notice this or lay any stress on it in any way at the time, Roberta added after a moment: “I notice that The Star mentioned that Gloversville party Sunday, but it didn’t say anything about your cousins being over there. Were they?”
For the first time in all her questioning of him, she asked this as though she might possibly doubt him — a development which Clyde had scarcely anticipated in connection with her up to this time, and more than anything else, it troubled and irritated him.
“Of course they were,” he replied falsely. “Why do you want to ask a thing like that when I told you they were?”
“Well, dear, I don’t mean anything by it. I only wanted to know. But I did notice that it mentioned all those other people from Lycurgus that you are always talking about, Sondra Finchley, Bertine Cranston. You know you never mentioned anybody but the Trumbulls.”
Her tone tended to make him bristle and grow cross, as she saw.
“Yes, I saw that, too, but it ain’t so. If they were there, I didn’t see them. The papers don’t always get everything right.” In spite of a certain crossness and irritation at being trapped in this fashion, his manner did not carry conviction, and he knew it. And he began to resent the fact that she should question him so. Why should she? Wasn’t he of sufficient importance to move in this new world without her holding him back in this way?
Instead of denying or reproaching him further, she merely looked at him, her expression one of injured wistfulness. She did not believe him now entirely and she did not utterly disbelieve him. A part of what he said was probably true. More important was it that he should care for her enough not to want to lie to her or to treat her badly. But how was that to be effected if he did not want to be kind or truthful? She moved back from him a few steps and with a gesture of helplessness said: “Oh, Clyde, you don’t have to story to me. Don’t you know that? I wouldn’t care where you went if you would just tell me beforehand and not leave me like this all alone on Christmas night. It’s just that that hurts so.”
“But I’m not storying to you, Bert,” he reiterated crossly. “I can’t help how things look even if the paper did say so. The Griffiths were over there, and I can prove it. I got around here as soon as I could to-day. What do you want to get so mad about all at once? I’ve told you how things are. I can’t do just as I want to here. They call me up at the last minute and want me to go. And I just can’t get out of it. What’s the use of being so mad about it?”
He stared defiantly while Roberta, checkmated in this general way, was at a loss as to how to proceed. The item about New Year’s Eve was in her mind, but she felt that it might not be wise to say anything more now. More poignantly than ever now she was identifying him with that gay life of which he, but not she, was a part. And yet she hesitated even now to let him know how sharp were the twinges of jealousy that were beginning to assail her. They had such a good time in that fine world — he and those he knew — and she had so little. And besides, now he was always talking about that Sondra Finchley and that Bertine Cranston, or the papers were. Was it in either of those that he was most interested?
“Do you like that Miss Finchley very much?” she suddenly asked, looking up at him in the shadow, her desire to obtain some slight satisfaction — some little light on all this trouble — still torturing her.
At once Clyde sensed the importance of the question — a suggestion of partially suppressed interest and jealousy and helplessness, more in her voice even than in the way she looked. There was something so soft, coaxing and sad about her voice at times, especially when she was most depressed. At the same time he was slightly taken back by the shrewd or telepathic way in which she appeared to fix on Sondra. Immediately he felt that she should not know — that it would irritate her. At the same time, vanity in regard to his general position here, which hourly was becoming more secure apparently, caused him to say:
“Oh, I like her some, sure. She’s very pretty, and a dandy dancer. And she has lots of money and dresses well.” He was about to add that outside of that Sondra appealed to him in no other way, when Roberta, sensing something of the true interest he felt in this girl perhaps and the wide gulf that lay between herself and all his world, suddenly exclaimed: “Yes, and who wouldn’t, with all the money she has? If I had as much money as that, I could too.”
And to his astonishment and dismay even, at this point her voice grew suddenly vibrant and then broke, as on a sob. And as he could both see and feel, she was deeply hurt — terribly and painfully hurt — heartsore and jealous; and at once, although his first impulse was to grow angry and defiant again, his mood as suddenly softened. For it now pained him not a little to think that some one of whom he had once been so continuously fond up to this time should be made to suffer through jealousy of him, for he himself well knew the pangs of jealousy in connection with Hortense. He could for some reason almost see himself in Roberta’s place. And for this reason, if no other, he now said, and quite softly: “Oh, now, Bert, as though I couldn’t tell you about her or any one else without your getting mad about it! I didn’t mean that I was especially interested in her. I was just telling you what I thought you wanted to know because you asked me if I liked her, that’s all.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” replied Roberta, standing tensely and nervously before him, her face white, her hands suddenly clenched, and looking up at him dubiously and yet pleadingly. “But they’ve got everything. You know they have. And I haven’t got anything, really. And it’s so hard for me to keep up my end and against all of them, too, and with all they have.” Her voice shook, and she ceased talking, her eyes filling and her lips beginning to quiver. And as swiftly she concealed her face with her hands and turned away, her shoulders shaking as she did so. Indeed her body was now torn for the moment by the most desperate and convulsive sobs, so much so that Clyde, perplexed and astonished and deeply moved by this sudden display of a pent-up and powerful emotion, as suddenly was himself moved deeply. For obviously this was no trick or histrionic bit intended to influence him, but rather a sudden and overwhelming vision of herself, as he himself could sense, as a rather lorn and isolated girl without friends or prospects as opposed to those others in whom he was now so interested and who had so much more — everything in fact. For behind her in her vision lay all the lorn and detached years that had marred her youth, now so vivid because of her recent visit. She was really intensely moved — overwhelmingly and helplessly.
And now from the very bottom of her heart she exclaimed: “If I’d ever had a chance like some girls — if I’d ever been anywhere or seen anything! But just to be brought up in the country and without any money or clothes or anything — and nobody to show you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!”
The moment she said these things she was actually ashamed of having made so weak and self-condemnatory a confession, since that was what really was troubling him in connection with her, no doubt.
“Oh, Roberta, darling,” he said instantly and tenderly, putting his arms around her, genuinely moved by his own dereliction. “You mustn’t cry like that, dearest. You mustn’t. I didn’t mean to hurt you, honest I didn’t. Truly, I didn’t, dear. I know you’ve had a hard time, honey. I know how you feel, and how you’ve been up against things in one way and another. Sure I do, Bert, and you mustn’t cry, dearest. I love you just the same. Truly I do, and I always will. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you, honest I am. I couldn’t help it to-night if I didn’t
