attractive the coat was, how wonderful it would look on her.
“Believe me,” she said at one point, defiantly, feeling that Clyde was perhaps uncertain at the moment about his ability to buy it for her, “I’m going to find some way to get that coat. I think, maybe, that Rubenstein store would let me have it on time if I were to go in there and see him about it, make a big enough payment down. Another girl out of our store got a coat that way once,” she lied promptly, hoping thus to induce Clyde to assist her with it. But Clyde, disturbed by the fear of some extraordinary cost in connection with it, hesitated to say just what he would do. He could not even guess the price of such a thing — it might cost two or three hundred even — and he feared to obligate himself to do something which later he might not be able to do.
“You don’t know what they might want for that, do you?” he asked, nervously, at the same time thinking if he made any cash gift to her at this time without some guarantee on her part, what right would he have to expect anything more in return than he had ever received? He knew how she cajoled him into getting things for her and then would not even let him kiss her. He flushed and churned a little internally with resentment at the thought of how she seemed to feel that she could play fast and loose with him. And yet, as he now recalled, she had just said she would do anything for any one who would get that coat for her — or nearly that.
“No-o,” she hesitated at first, for the moment troubled as to whether to give the exact price or something higher. For if she asked for time, Mr. Rubenstein might want more. And yet if she said much more, Clyde might not want to help her. “But I know it wouldn’t be more than a hundred and twenty-five. I wouldn’t pay more than that for it.”
Clyde heaved a sigh of relief. After all, it wasn’t two or three hundred. He began to think now that if she could arrange to make any reasonable down payment — say, fifty or sixty dollars — he might manage to bring it together within the next two or three weeks anyhow. But if the whole hundred and twenty-five were demanded at once, Hortense would have to wait, and besides he would have to know whether he was to be rewarded or not — definitely.
“That’s a good idea, Hortense,” he exclaimed without, however, indicating in any way why it appealed to him so much. “Why don’t you do that? Why don’t you find out first what they want for it, and how much they want down? Maybe I could help you with it.”
“Oh, won’t that be just too wonderful!” Hortense clapped her hands. “Oh, will you? Oh, won’t that be just dandy? Now I just know I can get that coat. I just know they’ll let me have it, if I talk to them right.”
She was, as Clyde saw and feared, quite forgetting the fact that he was the one who was making the coat possible, and now it would be just as he thought. The fact that he was paying for it would be taken for granted.
But a moment later, observing his glum face, she added: “Oh, aren’t you the sweetest, dearest thing, to help me in this way. You just bet I won’t forget this either. You just wait and see. You won’t be sorry. Now you just wait.” Her eyes fairly snapped with gayety and even generosity toward him.
He might be easy and young, but he wasn’t mean, and she would reward him, too, she now decided. Just as soon as she got the coat, which must be in a week or two at the latest, she was going to be very nice to him — do something for him. And to emphasize her own thoughts and convey to him what she really meant, she allowed her eyes to grow soft and swimming and to dwell on him promisingly — a bit of romantic acting which caused him to become weak and nervous. The gusto of her favor frightened him even a little, for it suggested, as he fancied, a disturbing vitality which he might not be able to match. He felt a little weak before her now — a little cowardly — in the face of what he assumed her real affection might mean.
Nevertheless, he now announced that if the coat did not cost more than one hundred and twenty-five dollars, that sum to be broken into one payment of twenty-five dollars down and two additional sums of fifty dollars each, he could manage it. And she on her part replied that she was going the very next day to see about it. Mr. Rubenstein might be induced to let her have it at once on the payment of twenty-five dollars down; if not that, then at the end of the second week, when nearly all would be paid.
And then in real gratitude to Clyde she whispered to him, coming out of the restaurant and purring like a cat, that she would never forget this and that he would see — and that she would wear it for him the very first time. If he were not working they might go somewhere to dinner. Or, if not that, then she would have it surely in time for the day of the proposed automobile ride which he, or rather Hegglund, had suggested for the following Sunday, but which might be postponed.
She suggested that they go to a certain dance hall, and there she clung to him in the dances in a suggestive way and afterwards hinted of a mood which made Clyde a little quivery and erratic.
He finally went home, dreaming of the day, satisfied that he would have no trouble in bringing together the first payment, if it were so much as fifty, even. For now, under the spur of this promise, he proposed to borrow as much as twenty-five from either Ratterer or Hegglund, and to repay it after the coat was paid for.
But, ah, the beautiful Hortense. The charm of her, the enormous, compelling, weakening delight. And to think that at last, and soon, she was to be his. It was, plainly, of such stuff as dreams are made of — the unbelievable become real.
Chapter 16
True to her promise, the following day Hortense returned to Mr. Rubenstein, and with all the cunning of her nature placed before him, with many reservations, the nature of the dilemma which confronted her. Could she, by any chance, have the coat for one hundred and fifteen dollars on an easy payment plan? Mr. Rubenstein’s head forthwith began to wag a solemn negative. This was not an easy payment store. If he wanted to do business that way he could charge two hundred for the coat and easily get it.
“But I could pay as much as fifty dollars when I took the coat,” argued Hortense.
“Very good. But who is to guarantee that I get the other sixty- five, and when?”
“Next week twenty-five, and the week after that twenty five and the next week after that fifteen.”
“Of course. But supposin’ the next day after you take the coat an automobile runs you down and kills you. Then what? How do I get my money?”
Now that was a poser. And there was really no way that she could prove that any one would pay for the coat. And before that there would have to be all the bother of making out a contract, and getting some really responsible person — a banker, say — to endorse it. No, no, this was not an easy payment house. This was a cash house. That was why the coat was offered to her at one hundred and fifteen, but not a dollar less. Not a dollar.
Mr. Rubenstein sighed and talked on. And finally Hortense asked him if she could give him seventy-five dollars cash in hand, the other forty to be paid in one week’s time. Would he let her have the coat then — to take home with her?
“But a week — a week — what is a week then?” argued Mr. Rubenstein. “If you can bring me seventy-five next week or to-morrow, and forty more in another week or ten days, why not wait a week and bring the whole hundred and fifteen? Then the coat is yours and no bother. Leave the coat. Come back to-morrow and pay me twenty-five or thirty dollars on account and I take the coat out of the window and lock it up for you. No one can even see it then. In another week bring me the balance or in two weeks. Then it is yours.”
