there was anything wrong with the sex relation in itself.
Rather, as he saw it now, the difficulty lay, not in the deed
itself, but in the consequences which followed upon not thinking or
not knowing. For had Esta known more of the man in whom she was
interested, more of what such a relationship with him meant, she
would not be in her present pathetic plight. Certainly such girls
as Hortense Briggs, Greta and Louise, would never have allowed
themselves to be put in any such position as Esta. Or would they?
They were too shrewd. And by contrast with them in his mind, at
least at this time, she suffered. She ought, as he saw it, to have
been able to manage better. And so, by degrees, his attitude
toward her hardened in some measure, though his feeling was not one
of indifference either.
But the one influence that was affecting and troubling and changing
him now was his infatuation for Hortense Briggs--than which no more
agitating influence could have come to a youth of his years and
temperament. She seemed, after his few contacts with her, to be
really the perfect realization of all that he had previously wished
for in a girl. She was so bright, vain, engaging, and so truly
pretty. Her eyes, as they seemed to him, had a kind of dancing
fire in them. She had a most entrancing way of pursing and parting
her lips and at the same time looking straightly and indifferently
before her, as though she were not thinking of him, which to him
was both flame and fever. It caused him, actually, to feel weak
and dizzy, at times, cruelly seared in his veins with minute and
wriggling threads of fire, and this could only be described as
conscious lust, a torturesome and yet unescapable thing which yet
in her case he was unable to prosecute beyond embracing and
kissing, a form of reserve and respect in regard to her which she
really resented in the very youths in whom she sought to inspire
it. The type of boy for whom she really cared and was always
seeking was one who could sweep away all such psuedo-ingenuousness
and superiorities in her and force her, even against herself, to
yield to him.
In fact she was constantly wavering between actual like and dislike
of him. And in consequence, he was in constant doubt as to where
he stood, a state which was very much relished by her and yet which
was never permitted to become so fixed in his mind as to cause him
to give her up entirely. After some party or dinner or theater to
which she had permitted him to take her, and throughout which he
had been particularly tactful--not too assertive--she could be as
yielding and enticing in her mood as the most ambitious lover would
have liked. And this might last until the evening was nearly over,
when suddenly, and at her own door or the room or house of some
girl with whom she was spending the night, she would turn, and
without rhyme or reason, endeavor to dismiss him with a mere
handclasp or a thinly flavored embrace or kiss. At such times, if
Clyde was foolish enough to endeavor to force her to yield the
favors he craved, she would turn on him with the fury of a spiteful
cat, would tear herself away, developing for the moment, seemingly,
an intense mood of opposition which she could scarcely have
explained to herself. Its chief mental content appeared to be one
of opposition to being compelled by him to do anything. And,
because of his infatuation and his weak overtures due to his
inordinate fear of losing her, he would be forced to depart,
usually in a dark and despondent mood.
But so keen was her attraction for him that he could not long
remain away, but must be going about to where most likely he would
encounter her. Indeed, for the most part these days, and in spite
of the peculiar climax which had eventuated in connection with
Esta, he lived in a keen, sweet and sensual dream in regard to her.
If only she would really come to care for him. At night, in his
bed at home, he would lie and think of her--her face--the
expressions of her mouth and eyes, the lines of her figure, the
motions of her body in walking or dancing--and she would flicker
before him as upon a screen. In his dreams, he found her
deliciously near him, pressing against him--her delightful body all
his--and then in the moment of crisis, when seemingly she was about
to yield herself to him completely, he would awake to find her
vanished--an illusion only.
Yet there were several things in connection with her which seemed
to bode success for him. In the first place, like himself, she was
part of a poor family--the daughter of a machinist and his wife,
who up to this very time had achieved little more than a bare
living. From her childhood she had had nothing, only such gew-gaws
and fripperies as she could secure for herself by her wits. And so
low had been her social state until very recently that she had not
been able to come in contact with anything better than butcher and
baker boys--the rather commonplace urchins and small job aspirants
of her vicinity. Yet even here she had early realized that she
could and should capitalize her looks and charm--and had. Not a
few of these had even gone so far as to steal in order to get money
to entertain her.
After reaching the age where she was old enough to go to work, and
thus coming in contact with the type of boy and man in whom she was
now interested, she was beginning to see that without yielding
herself too much, but in acting discreetly, she could win a more
interesting equipment than she had before. Only, so truly sensual
and pleasure-loving was she that she was by no means always willing
to divorce her self-advantages from her pleasures. On the
contrary, she was often troubled by a desire to like those whom she
sought to use, and per contra, not to obligate herself to those
whom she could not like.
In Clyde's case, liking him but a little, she still could not
resist the desire to use him. She liked his willingness to buy her
any little thing in which she appeared interested--a bag, a scarf,
a purse, a pair of gloves--anything that she could reasonably ask
or take without obligating herself too much. And yet from the
first, in her smart, tricky way, she realized that unless she could
bring herself to yield to him--at some time or other offer him the
definite reward which she knew he craved--she could not hold him
indefinitely.
One thought that stirred her more than anything else was that the
way Clyde appeared to be willing to spend his money on her she
might easily get some quite expensive things from him--a pretty and
rather expensive dress, perhaps, or a hat, or even a fur coat such
as was then being shown and worn in the city, to say nothing of
gold earrings, or a wrist watch, all of which she was constantly
and enviously eyeing in the different shop windows.
One day not so long after Clyde's discovery of his sister Esta,
Hortense, walking along Baltimore Street near its junction with
Fifteenth--the smartest portion of the shopping section of the
city--at the noon hour--with Doris Trine, another shop girl in her
department store, saw in the window of one of the smaller and less
exclusive fur stores of the city, a fur jacket of beaver that to
her, viewed from the eye-point of her own particular build,
coloring and temperament, was exactly what she needed to strengthen
mightily her very limited personal wardrobe. It was not such an
expensive coat, worth possibly a hundred dollars--but fashioned in
such an individual way as to cause her to imagine that, once
invested with it, her own physical charm would register more than
it ever had.
Moved by this thought, she paused and exclaimed: "Oh, isn't that
just the classiest, darlingest little coat you ever saw! Oh, do
look at those sleeves, Doris." She clutched her companion
violently by the arm. "Lookit the collar. And the lining! And
those pockets! Oh, dear!" She fairly vibrated with the intensity
of her approval and delight. "Oh, isn't that just too sweet for
words? And the very kind of coat I've been thinking of since I
don't know when. Oh, you pity sing!" she exclaimed, affectedly,
thinking all at once as much of her own pose before the window and
its effect on the passer-by as of the coat before her. "Oh, if I
could only have 'oo."
She clapped her hands admiringly, while Isadore Rubenstein, the
elderly son of the proprietor, who was standing somewhat out of the
range of her gaze at the moment, noted the gesture and her
enthusiasm and decided forthwith that the coat must be worth at
least twenty-five or fifty dollars more to her, anyhow, in case she
inquired for it. The firm had been offering it at one hundred.
"Oh, ha!" he grunted. But being of a sensual and somewhat romantic
turn, he also speculated to himself rather definitely as to the
probable trading value, affectionally speaking, of such a coat.
What, say, would the poverty and vanity of such a pretty girl as
this cause her to yield for such a coat?
In the meantime, however, Hortense, having gloated as long as her
noontime hour would permit, had gone away, still dreaming and
satiating her flaming vanity by thinking of how devastating she
would look in such a coat. But she had not stopped to ask the
price. Hence, the next day, feeling that she must look at it once
more, she returned, only this time alone, and yet with no idea of
being able to purchase it herself. On the contrary, she was only
vaguely revolving the problem of how, assuming that the coat was
sufficiently low in price, she could get it. At the moment she
could think of no one. But seeing the coat once more, and also
seeing Mr. Rubenstein, Jr., inside eyeing her in a most
propitiatory and genial manner, she finally ventured in.
"You like the coat, eh?" was Rubenstein's ingratiating comment as
she opened the door. "Well, that shows you have good taste, I'll
say. That's one of the nobbiest little coats we've ever had to
show in this store yet. A real beauty, that. And how it would
look on such a beautiful girl as you!" He took it out of the
window and held it up. "I seen you when you was looking at it
yesterday." A gleam of greedy admiration was in his eye.
And noting this, and feeling that a remote and yet not wholly
unfriendly air would win her more consideration and courtesy than a
more intimate one, Hortense merely said, "Yes?"
"Yes, indeed. And I said right away, there's a girl that knows a
really swell coat when she sees it."
The flattering unction soothed, in spite of herself.
"Look at that! Look at that!" went on Mr. Rubinstein, turning the
coat about and holding it before her. "Where in Kansas City will
you find anything to equal that today? Look at this silk lining
here--genuine Mallinson silk--and these slant pockets. And the
buttons. You think those things don't make a different-looking
coat? There ain't another one like it in Kansas City today--not
one. And there won't be. We designed it ourselves and we never
repeat our models. We protect our customers. But come back here."
(He led the way to a triple mirror at the back.) "It takes the
right person to wear a coat like this--to get the best effect out
of it. Let me try it on you."
And by the artificial light Hortense was now privileged to see how
really fetching she did look in it. She cocked her head and
twisted and turned and buried one small ear in the fur, while Mr.
Rubenstein stood by, eyeing her with not a little admiration and
almost rubbing his hands.
"There now," he continued. "Look at that. What do you say to
that, eh? Didn't I tell you it was the very thing for you? A find
for you. A pick-up. You'll never get another coat like that in
this city. If you do, I'll make you a present of this one." He
came very near, extending his plump hands, palms up.
"Well, I must say it does look smart on me," commented Hortense,
her vainglorious soul yearning for it. "I can wear anything like
this, though." She twisted and turned the more, forgetting him
entirely and the effect her interest would have on his cost price.
Then she added: "How much is it?"
"Well, it's really a two-hundred-dollar coat," began Mr. Rubenstein
artfully. Then noting a shadow of relinquishment pass swiftly over
Hortense's face, he added quickly: "That sounds like a lot of
money, but of course we don't ask so much for it down here. One
hundred and fifty is our price. But if that coat was at Jarek's,
that's what you'd pay for it and more. We haven't got the location
here and we don't have to pay the high rents. But it's worth every
cent of two hundred."
"Why, I think that's a terrible price to ask for it, just awful,"
exclaimed Hortense sadly, beginning to remove the coat. She was
feeling as though life were depriving her of nearly all that was
worth while. "Why, at Biggs and Beck's they have lots of three-
quarter mink and beaver coats for that much, and classy styles,
too."
"Maybe, maybe. But not that coat," insisted Mr. Rubenstein
stubbornly. "Just look at it again. Look at the collar. You mean
to say you can find a coat like that up there? If you can, I'll
buy the coat for you and sell it to you again for a hundred
dollars. Actually, this is a special coat. It's copied from one
of the smartest coats that was in New York last summer before the
season opened. It has class. You won't find no coat like this
coat."
"Oh, well, just the same, a hundred and fifty dollars is more than
I can pay," commented Hortense dolefully, at the same time slipping
on her old broadcloth jacket with the fur collar and cuffs, and
edging toward the door.
"Wait! You like the coat?" wisely observed Mr. Rubenstein, after
