cynically. "As though anybody could drive you two outa here if you
didn't want to go. Sit down and play the victrola or do anything
you like. Dinner'll soon be ready and Louise'll be here any
minute." He returned to the dining-room to look at a paper which
he had been reading, after pausing to introduce Clyde. And the
latter, because of the looks and the airs of these two, felt
suddenly as though he had been cast adrift upon a chartless sea in
an open boat.
"Oh, don't say eat to me!" exclaimed Greta Miller, who was
surveying Clyde calmly as though she were debating with herself
whether he was worth-while game or not, and deciding that he was:
"With all the ice-cream and cake and pie and sandwiches we'll have
to eat yet to-night. We was just going to warn Louise not to fill
up too much. Kittie Keane's givin' a birthday party, you know,
Tom, and she'll have a big cake an' everythin'. You're comin'
down, ain't you, afterwards?" she concluded, with a thought of
Clyde and his possible companionship in mind.
"I wasn't thinkin' of it," calmly observed Ratterer. "Me and Clyde
was thinkin' of goin' to a show after dinner."
"Oh, how foolish," put in Hortense Briggs, more to attract
attention to herself and take it away from Greta than anything
else. She was still in front of the mirror, but turned now to cast
a fetching smile on all, particularly Clyde, for whom she fancied
her friend might be angling, "When you could come along and dance.
I call that silly."
"Sure, dancing is all you three ever think of--you and Louise,"
retorted Ratterer. "It's a wonder you don't give yourselves a rest
once in a while. I'm on my feet all day an' I like to sit down
once in a while." He could be most matter-of-fact at times.
"Oh, don't say sit down to me," commented Greta Miller with a lofty
smile and a gliding, dancing motion of her left foot, "with all the
dates we got ahead of us this week. Oh, gee!" Her eyes and
eyebrows went up and she clasped her hands dramatically before her.
"It's just terrible, all the dancin' we gotta do yet, this winter,
don't we, Hortense? Thursday night and Friday night and Saturday
and Sunday nights." She counted on her fingers most archly. "Oh,
gee! It is terrible, really." She gave Clyde an appealing,
sympathy-seeking smile. "Guess where we were the other night, Tom.
Louise and Ralph Thorpe and Hortense and Bert Gettler, me and
Willie Bassick--out at Pegrain's on Webster Avenue. Oh, an' you
oughta seen the crowd out there. Sam Shaffer and Tillie Burns was
there. And we danced until four in the morning. I thought my
knees would break. I ain't been so tired in I don't know when."
"Oh, gee!" broke in Hortense, seizing her turn and lifting her arms
dramatically. "I thought I never would get to work the next
morning. I could just barely see the customers moving around.
And, wasn't my mother fussy! Gee! She hasn't gotten over it yet.
She don't mind so much about Saturdays and Sundays, but all these
week nights and when I have to get up the next morning at seven--
gee--how she can pick!"
"An' I don't blame her, either," commented Mrs. Ratterer, who was
just then entering with a plate of potatoes and some bread. "You
two'll get sick and Louise, too, if you don't get more rest. I
keep tellin' her she won't be able to keep her place or stand it if
she don't get more sleep. But she don't pay no more attention to
me than Tom does, and that's just none at all."
"Oh, well, you can't expect a fellow in my line to get in early
always, Ma," was all Ratterer said. And Hortense Briggs added:
"Gee, I'd die if I had to stay in one night. You gotta have a
little fun when you work all day."
What an easy household, thought Clyde. How liberal and indifferent.
And the sexy, gay way in which these two girls posed about. And
their parents thought nothing of it, evidently. If only he could
have a girl as pretty as this Hortense Briggs, with her small,
sensuous mouth and her bright hard eyes.
"To bed twice a week early is all I need," announced Greta Miller
archly. "My father thinks I'm crazy, but more'n that would do me
harm." She laughed jestingly, and Clyde, in spite of the "we
was'es" and "I seen's," was most vividly impressed. Here was youth
and geniality and freedom and love of life.
And just then the front door opened and in hurried Louise Ratterer,
a medium-sized, trim, vigorous little girl in a red-lined cape and
a soft blue felt hat pulled over her eyes. Unlike her brother, she
was brisk and vigorous and more lithe and as pretty as either of
these others.
"Oh, look who's here!" she exclaimed. "You two birds beat me home,
didnja? Well, I got stuck to-night on account of some mix-up in my
sales-book. And I had to go up to the cashier's office. You bet
it wasn't my fault, though. They got my writin' wrong," then
noting Clyde for the first time, she announced: "I bet I know who
this is--Mr. Griffiths. Tom's talked about you a lot. I wondered
why he didn't bring you around here before." And Clyde, very much
flattered, mumbled that he wished he had.
But the two visitors, after conferring with Louise in a small front
bedroom to which they all retired, reappeared presently and because
of strenuous invitations, which were really not needed, decided to
remain. And Clyde, because of their presence, was now intensely
wrought up and alert--eager to make a pleasing impression and to be
received upon terms of friendship here. And these three girls,
finding him attractive, were anxious to be agreeable to him, so
much so that for the first time in his life they put him at his
ease with the opposite sex and caused him to find his tongue.
"We was just going to warn you not to eat so much," laughed Greta
Miller, turning to Louise, "and now, see, we are all trying to eat
again." She laughed heartily. "And they'll have pies and cakes
and everythin' at Kittie's."
"Oh, gee, and we're supposed to dance, too, on top of all this.
Well, heaven help me, is all I have to say," put in Hortense.
The peculiar sweetness of her mouth, as he saw it, as well as the
way she crinkled it when she smiled, caused Clyde to be quite
beside himself with admiration and pleasure. She looked quite
delightful--wonderful to him. Indeed her effect on him made him
swallow quickly and half choke on the coffee he had just taken. He
laughed and felt irrepressibly gay.
At that moment she turned on him and said: "See, what I've done to
him now."
"Oh, that ain't all you've done to me," exclaimed Clyde, suddenly
being seized with an inspiration and a flow of thought and courage.
Of a sudden, because of her effect on him, he felt bold and
courageous, albeit a little foolish and added, "Say, I'm gettin'
kinda woozy with all the pretty faces I see around here."
"Oh, gee, you don't want to give yourself away that quick around
here, Clyde," cautioned Ratterer, genially. "These high-binders'll
be after you to make you take 'em wherever they want to go. You
better not begin that way." And, sure enough, Louise Ratterer, not
to be abashed by what her brother had just said, observed: "You
dance, don't you, Mr. Griffiths?"
"No, I don't," replied Clyde, suddenly brought back to reality by
this inquiry and regretting most violently the handicap this was
likely to prove in this group. "But you bet I wish I did now," he
added gallantly and almost appealingly, looking first at Hortense
and then at Greta Miller and Louise. But all pretended not to
notice his preference, although Hortense titillated with her
triumph. She was not convinced that she was so greatly taken with
him, but it was something to triumph thus easily and handsomely
over these others. And the others felt it. "Ain't that too bad?"
she commented, a little indifferently and superiorly now that she
realized that she was his preference. "You might come along with
us, you and Tom, if you did. There's goin' to be mostly dancing at
Kittie's."
Clyde began to feel and look crushed at once. To think that this
girl, to whom of all those here he was most drawn, could dismiss
him and his dreams and desires thus easily, and all because he
couldn't dance. And his accursed home training was responsible for
all this. He felt broken and cheated. What a boob he must seem
not to be able to dance. And Louise Ratterer looked a little
puzzled and indifferent, too. But Greta Miller, whom he liked less
than Hortense, came to his rescue with: "Oh, it ain't so hard to
learn. I could show you in a few minutes after dinner if you
wanted to. It's only a few steps you have to know. And then you
could go, anyhow, if you wanted to."
Clyde was grateful and said so--determined to learn here or
elsewhere at the first opportunity. Why hadn't he gone to a
dancing school before this, he asked himself. But the thing that
pained him most was the seeming indifference of Hortense now that
he had made it clear that he liked her. Perhaps it was that Bert
Gettler, previously mentioned, with whom she had gone to the dance,
who was making it impossible for him to interest her. So he was
always to be a failure this way. Oh, gee!
But the moment the dinner was over and while the others were still
talking, the first to put on a dance record and come over with
hands extended was Hortense, who was determined not to be outdone
by her rival in this way. She was not particularly interested or
fascinated by Clyde, at least not to the extent of troubling about
him as Greta did. But if her friend was going to attempt a
conquest in this manner, was it not just as well to forestall her?
And so, while Clyde misread her change of attitude to the extent of
thinking that she liked him better than he had thought, she took
him by the hands, thinking at the same time that he was too
bashful. However, placing his right arm about her waist, his other
clasped in hers at her shoulder, she directed his attention to her
feet and his and began to illustrate the few primary movements of
the dance. But so eager and grateful was he--almost intense and
ridiculous--she did not like him very much, thought him a little
unsophisticated and too young. At the same time, there was a charm
about him which caused her to wish to assist him. And soon he was
moving about with her quite easily--and afterwards with Greta and
then Louise, but wishing always it was Hortense. And finally he
was pronounced sufficiently skillful to go, if he would.
And now the thought of being near her, being able to dance with her
again, drew him so greatly that, despite the fact that three
youths, among them that same Bert Gettler, appeared on the scene to
escort them, and although he and Ratterer had previously agreed to
go to a theater together, he could not help showing how much he
would prefer to follow those others--so much so that Ratterer
finally agreed to abandon the theater idea. And soon they were
off, Clyde grieving that he could not walk with Hortense, who was
with Gettler, and hating his rival because of this; but still
attempting to be civil to Louise and Greta, who bestowed sufficient
attention on him to make him feel at ease. Ratterer, having
noticed his extreme preference and being alone with him for a
moment, said: "You better not get too stuck on that Hortense
Briggs. I don't think she's on the level with anybody. She's got
that fellow Gettler and others. She'll only work you an' you might
not get anything, either."
But Clyde, in spite of this honest and well-meant caution, was not
to be dissuaded. On sight, and because of the witchery of a smile,
the magic and vigor of motion and youth, he was completely
infatuated and would have given or done anything for an additional
smile or glance or hand pressure. And that despite the fact that
he was dealing with a girl who no more knew her own mind than a
moth, and who was just reaching the stage where she was finding it
convenient and profitable to use boys of her own years or a little
older for whatever pleasures or clothes she desired.
The party proved nothing more than one of those ebullitions of the
youthful mating period. The house of Kittie Keane was little more
than a cottage in a poor street under bare December trees. But to
Clyde, because of the passion for a pretty face that was suddenly
lit in him, it had the color and the form and gayety of romance
itself. And the young girls and boys that he met there--girls and
boys of the Ratterer, Hegglund, Hortense stripe--were still of the
very substance and texture of that energy, ease and forwardness
which he would have given his soul to possess. And curiously
enough, in spite of a certain nervousness on his part, he was by
reason of his new companions made an integral part of the gayeties.
And on this occasion he was destined to view a type of girl and
youth in action such as previously it had not been his fortune or
misfortune, as you will, to see. There was, for instance, a type
of sensual dancing which Louise and Hortense and Greta indulged in
with the greatest nonchalance and assurance. At the same time,
many of these youths carried whisky in a hip flask, from which they
not only drank themselves, but gave others to drink--boys and girls
indiscriminately.
And the general hilarity for this reason being not a little added
