The Essential Works of Theodore Dreiser. Theodore Dreiser
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“You see, it’s this way,” she explained to Clyde when, a few evenings later, she had managed to steal out for an hour and they walked from the region at the end of Taylor Street down to the Mohawk, where were some open fields and a low bank rising above the pleasant river. “The Newtons never go any place much without inviting me. And even if they didn’t, Grace’d never go unless I went along. It’s just because we were together so much in Trippetts Mills that she feels that way, as though I were a part of the family. But now it’s different, and yet I don’t see how I am going to get out of it so soon. I don’t know where to say I’m going or whom I am going with.”
“I know that, honey,” he replied softly and sweetly. “That’s all true enough. But how is that going to help us now? You can’t expect me to get along with just looking at you in the factory, either, can you?”
He gazed at her so solemnly and yearningly that she was moved by her sympathy for him, and in order to assuage his depression added: “No, I don’t want you to do that, dear. You know I don’t. But what am I to do?” She laid a soft and pleading hand on the back of one of Clyde’s thin, long and nervous ones.
“I’ll tell you what, though,” she went on after a period of reflection, “I have a sister living in Homer, New York. That’s about thirty-five miles north of here. I might say I was going up there some Saturday afternoon or Sunday. She’s been writing me to come up, but I hadn’t thought of it before. But I might go — that is — I might —”
“Oh, why not do that?” exclaimed Clyde eagerly. “That’s fine! A good idea!”
“Let me see,” she added, ignoring his exclamation. “If I remember right you have to go to Fonda first, then change cars there. But I could leave here any time on the trolley and there are only two trains a day from Fonda, one at two, and one at seven on Saturday. So I might leave here any time before two, you see, and then if I didn’t make the two o’clock train, it would be all right, wouldn’t it? I could go on the seven. And you could be over there, or meet me on the way, just so no one here saw us. Then I could go on and you could come back. I could arrange that with Agnes, I’m sure. I would have to write her.”
“How about all the time between then and now, though?” he queried peevishly. “It’s a long time till then, you know.”
“Well, I’ll have to see what I can think of, but I’m not sure, dear. I’ll have to see. And you think too. But I ought to be going back now,” she added nervously. She at once arose, causing Clyde to rise, too, and consult his watch, thereby discovering that it was already near ten.
“But what about us!” he continued persistently. “Why couldn’t you pretend next Sunday that you’re going to some other church than yours and meet me somewhere instead? Would they have to know?”
At once Clyde noted Roberta’s face darken slightly, for here he was encroaching upon something that was still too closely identified with her early youth and convictions to permit infringement.
“Hump, uh,” she replied quite solemnly. “I wouldn’t want to do that. I wouldn’t feel right about it. And it wouldn’t be right, either.”
Immediately Clyde sensed that he was treading on dangerous ground and withdrew the suggestion because he did not care to offend or frighten her in any way. “Oh, well. Just as you say. I only thought since you don’t seem to be able to think of any other way.”
“No, no, dear,” she pleaded softly, because she noted that he felt that she might be offended. “It’s all right, only I wouldn’t want to do that. I couldn’t.”
Clyde shook his head. A recollection of his own youthful inhibitions caused him to feel that perhaps it was not right for him to have suggested it.
They returned in the direction of Taylor Street without, apart from the proposed trip to Fonda, either having hit upon any definite solution. Instead, after kissing her again and again and just before letting her go, the best he could suggest was that both were to try and think of some way by which they could meet before, if possible. And she, after throwing her arms about his neck for a moment, ran east along Taylor Street, her little figure swaying in the moonlight.
However, apart from another evening meeting which was made possible by Roberta’s announcing a second engagement with Mrs. Braley, there was no other encounter until the following Saturday when Roberta departed for Fonda. And Clyde, having ascertained the exact hour, left by the car ahead, and joined Roberta at the first station west. From that point on until evening, when she was compelled to take the seven o’clock train, they were unspeakably happy together, loitering near the little city comparatively strange to both.
For outside of Fonda a few miles they came to a pleasure park called Starlight where, in addition to a few clap-trap pleasure concessions such as a ring of captive aeroplanes, a Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, an old mill and a dance floor, was a small lake with boats. It was after its fashion an idyllic spot with a little band-stand out on an island near the center of the lake and on the shore a grave and captive bear in a cage. Since coming to Lycurgus Roberta had not ventured to visit any of the rougher resorts near there, which were very much like this, only much more strident. On sight of this both exclaimed: “Oh, look!” And Clyde added at once: “Let’s get off here, will you — shall we? What do you say? We’re almost to Fonda anyhow. And we can have more fun here.”
At once they climbed down. And having disposed of her bag for the time being, he led the way first to the stand of a man who sold frankfurters. Then, since the merry-go-round was in full blast, nothing would do but that Roberta should ride with him. And in the gayest of moods, they climbed on, and he placed her on a zebra, and then stood close in order that he might keep his arm about her, and both try to catch the brass ring. And as commonplace and noisy and gaudy as it all was, the fact that at last he had her all to himself unseen, and she him, was sufficient to evoke in both a kind of ecstasy which was all out of proportion to the fragile, gimcrack scene. Round and round they spun on the noisy, grinding machine, surveying now a few idle pleasure seekers who were in boats upon the lake, now some who were flying round in the gaudy green and white captive aeroplanes or turning upward and then down in the suspended cages of the Ferris wheel.
Both looked at the woods and sky beyond the lake; the idlers and dancers in the dancing pavilion dreaming and thrilling, and then suddenly Clyde asked: “You dance, don’t you, Roberta?”
“Why, no, I don’t,” she replied, a little sadly, for at the very moment she had been looking at the happy dancers rather ruefully and thinking how unfortunate it was that she had never been allowed to dance. It might not be right or nice, perhaps — her own church said it was not — but still, now that they were here and in love like this — these others looked so gay and happy — a pretty medley of colors moving round and round in the green and brown frame — it did not seem so bad to her. Why shouldn’t people dance, anyway? Girls like herself and boys like Clyde? Her younger brother and sister, in spite of the views of her parents, were already declaring that when the opportunity offered, they were going to learn.
“Oh, isn’t that too bad!” he exclaimed, thinking how delightful it would be to hold Roberta in his arms. “We could have such fun now if you could. I could teach you in a few minutes if you wanted me to.”
“I don’t know about that,” she replied quizzically, her