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." Mr.
Rubenstein explained the process as though it were a difficult
matter to grasp.
But the argument once made was sound enough. It really left
Hortense little to argue about. At the same time it reduced her
spirit not a little. To think of not being able to take it now.
And yet, once out of the place, her vigor revived. For, after all,
the time fixed would soon pass and if Clyde performed his part of
the agreement promptly, the coat would be hers. The important
thing now was to make him give her twenty-five or thirty dollars
wherewith to bind this wonderful agreement. Only now, because of
the fact that she felt that she needed a new hat to go with the
coat, she decided to say that it cost one hundred and twenty-five
instead of one hundred and fifteen.
And once this conclusion was put before Clyde, he saw it as a very
reasonable arrangement--all things considered--quite a respite from
the feeling of strain that had settled upon him after his last
conversation with Hortense. For, after all, he had not seen how he
was to raise more than thirty-five dollars this first week anyhow.
The following week would be somewhat easier, for then, as he told
himself, he proposed to borrow twenty or twenty-five from Ratterer
if he could, which, joined with the twenty or twenty-five which his
tips would bring him, would be quite sufficient to meet the second
payment. The week following he proposed to borrow at least ten or
fifteen from Hegglund--maybe more--and if that did not make up the
required amount to pawn his watch for fifteen dollars, the watch he
had bought for himself a few months before. It ought to bring that
at least; it cost fifty.
But, he now thought, there was Esta in her wretched room awaiting
the most unhappy result of her one romance. How was she to make
out, he asked himself, even in the face of the fact that he feared
to be included in the financial problem which Esta as well as the
family presented. His father was not now, and never had been, of
any real financial service to his mother. And yet, if the problem
were on this account to be shifted to him, how would he make out?
Why need his father always peddle clocks and rugs and preach on the
streets? Why couldn't his mother and father give up the mission
idea, anyhow?
But, as he knew, the situation was not to be solved without his
aid. And the proof of it came toward the end of the second week of
his arrangement with Hortense, when, with fifty dollars in his
pocket, which he was planning to turn over to her on the following
Sunday, his mother, looking into his bedroom where he was dressing,
said: "I'd like to see you for a minute, Clyde, before you go
out." He noted she was very grave as she said this. As a matter
of fact, for several days past, he had been sensing that she was
undergoing a strain of some kind. At the same time he had been
thinking all this while that with his own resources hypothecated as
they were, he could do nothing. Or, if he did it meant the loss of
Hortense. He dared not.
And yet what reasonable excuse could he give his mother for not
helping her a little, considering especially the clothes he wore,
and the manner in which he had been running here and there, always
giving the excuse of working, but probably not deceiving her as
much as he thought. To be sure, only two months before, he had
obligated himself to pay her ten dollars a week more for five
weeks, and had. But that only proved to her very likely that he
had so much extra to give, even though he had tried to make it
clear at the time that he was pinching himself to do it. And yet,
however much he chose to waver in her favor, he could not, with his
desire for Hortense directly confronting him.
He went out into the living-room after a time, and as usual his
mother at once led the way to one of the benches in the mission--
a cheerless, cold room these days.
"I didn't think I'd have to speak to you about this, Clyde, but I
don't see any other way out of it. I haven't anyone but you to
depend upon now that you're getting to be a man. But you must
promise not to tell any of the others--Frank or Julia or your
father. I don't want them to know. But Esta's back here in Kansas
City and in trouble, and I don't know quite what to do about her.
I have so very little money to do with, and your father's not very
much of a help to me any more."
She passed a weary, reflective hand across her forehead and Clyde
knew what was coming. His first thought was to pretend that he did
not know that Esta was in the city, since he had been pretending
this way for so long. But now, suddenly, in the face of his
mother's confession, and the need of pretended surprise on his
part, if he were to keep up the fiction, he said, "Yes, I know."
"You know?" queried his mother, surprised.
"Yes, I know," Clyde repeated. "I saw you going in that house in
Beaudry Street one morning as I was going along there," he
announced calmly enough now. "And I saw Esta looking out of the
window afterwards, too. So I went in after you left."
"How long ago was that?" she asked, more to gain time than anything
else.
"Oh, about five or six weeks ago, I think. I been around to see
her a coupla times since then, only Esta didn't want me to say
anything about that either."
"Tst! Tst! Tst!" clicked Mrs. Griffiths, with her tongue. "Then
you know what the trouble is."
"Yes," replied Clyde.
"Well, what is to be will be," she said resignedly. "You haven't
mentioned it to Frank or Julia, have you?"
"No," replied Clyde, thoughtfully, thinking of what a failure his
mother had made of her attempt to be secretive. She was no one to
deceive any one, or his father, either. He thought himself far,
far shrewder.
"Well, you mustn't," cautioned his mother solemnly. "It isn't best
for them to know, I think. It's bad enough as it is this way," she
added with a kind of wry twist to her mouth, the while Clyde
thought of himself and Hortense.
"And to think," she added, after a moment, her eyes filling with a
sad, all-enveloping gray mist, "she should have brought all this on
herself and on us. And when we have so little to do with, as it
is. And after all the instruction she has had--the training. 'The
way of the transgressor--'"
She shook her head and put her two large hands together and gripped
them firmly, while Clyde stared, thinking of the situation and all
that it might mean to him.
She sat there, quite reduced and bewildered by her own peculiar
part in all this. She had been as deceiving as any one, really.
And here was Clyde, now, fully informed as to her falsehoods and
strategy, and herself looking foolish and untrue. But had she not
been trying to save him from all this--him and the others? And he
was old enough to understand that now. Yet she now proceeded to
explain why, and to say how dreadful she felt it all to be. At the
same time, as she also explained, now she was compelled to come to
him for aid in connection with it.
"Esta's about to be very sick," she went on suddenly and stiffly,
not being able, or at least willing, apparently, to look at Clyde
as she said it, and yet determined to be as frank as possible.
"She'll need a doctor very shortly and some one to be with her all
the time when I'm not there. I must get money somewhere--at least
fifty dollars. You couldn't get me that much in some way, from
some of your young men friends, could you, just a loan for a few
weeks? You could pay it back, you know, soon, if you would. You
wouldn't need to pay me anything for your room until you had."
She looked at Clyde so tensely, so urgently, that he felt quite
shaken by the force of the cogency of the request. And before he
could add anything to the nervous gloom which shadowed her face,
she added: "That other money was for her, you know, to bring her
back here after her--her"--she hesitated over the appropriate word
but finally added--"husband left her there in Pittsburgh. I
suppose she told you that."
"Yes, she did," replied Clyde, heavily and sadly. For after all,
Esta's condition was plainly critical, which was something that he
had not stopped to meditate on before.
"Gee, Ma," he exclaimed, the thought of the fifty dollars in his
pocket and its intended destination troubling him considerably--the
very sum his mother was seeking. "I don't know whether I can do
that or not. I don't know any of the boys down there well enough
for that. And they don't make any more than I do, either. I might
borrow a little something, but it won't look very good." He choked
and swallowed a little, for lying to his mother in this way was not
easy. In fact, he had never had occasion to lie in connection with
anything so trying--and so despicably. For here was fifty dollars
in his pocket at the moment, with Hortense on the one hand and his
mother and sister on the other, and the money would solve his
mother's problem as fully as it would Hortense's, and more
respectably. How terrible it was not to help her. How could he
refuse her, really? Nervously he licked his lips and passed a hand
over his brow, for a nervous moisture had broken out upon his face.
He felt strained and mean and incompetent under the circumstances.
"And you haven't any money of your own right now that you could let
me have, have you?" his mother half pleaded. For there were a
number of things in connection with Esta's condition which required
immediate cash and she had so little.
"No, I haven't, Ma," he said, looking at his mother shamefacedly,
for a moment, then away, and if it had not been that she herself
was so distrait, she might have seen the falsehood on his face. As
it was, he suffered a pang of commingled self-commiseration and
self-contempt, based on the distress he felt for his mother. He
could not bring himself to think of losing Hortense. He must have
her. And yet his mother looked so lone and so resourceless. It
was shameful. He was low, really mean. Might he not, later, be
punished for a thing like this?
He tried to think of some other way--some way of getting a little
money over and above the fifty that might help. If only he had a
little more time--a few weeks longer. If only Hortense had not
brought up this coat idea just now.
"I'll tell you what I might do," he went on, quite foolishly and
dully the while his mother gave vent to a helpless "Tst! Tst! Tst!"
"Will five dollars do you any good?"
"Well, it will be something, anyhow," she replied. "I can use it."
"Well, I can let you have that much," he said, thinking to replace
it out of his next week's tips and trust to better luck throughout
the week. "And I'll see what I can do next week. I might let you
have ten then. I can't say for sure. I had to borrow some of that
other money I gave you, and I haven't got through paying for that
yet, and if I come around trying to get more, they'll think--well,
you know how it is."
His mother sighed, thinking of the misery of having to fall back on
her one son thus far. And just when he was trying to get a start,
too. What would he think of all this in after years? What would
he think of her--of Esta--the family? For, for all his ambition
and courage and desire to be out and doing, Clyde always struck her
as one who was not any too powerful physically or rock-ribbed
morally or mentally. So far as his nerves and emotions were
concerned, at times he seemed to take after his father more than he
did after her. And for the most part it was so easy to excite him--
to cause him to show tenseness and strain--as though he were not
so very well fitted for either. And it was she, because of Esta
and her husband and their joint and unfortunate lives, that was and
had been heaping the greater part of this strain on him.
"Well, if you can't, you can't," she said. "I must try and think
of some other way." But she saw no clear way at the moment.
Chapter 17
In connection with the automobile ride suggested and arranged for
the following Sunday by Hegglund through his chauffeur friend, a
change of plan was announced. The car--an expensive Packard, no
less--could not be had for that day, but must be used by this
Thursday or Friday, or not at all. For, as had been previously
explained to all, but not with the strictest adherence to the
truth, the car belonged to a certain Mr. Kimbark, an elderly and
very wealthy man who at the time was traveling in Asia. Also, what
was not true was that this particular youth was not Mr. Kimbark's
chauffeur at all, but rather the rakish, ne'er-do-well son of
Sparser, the superintendent of one of Mr. Kimbark's stock farms.
This son being anxious to pose as something more than the son of a
superintendent of a farm, and as an occasional watchman, having
access to the cars, had decided to take the very finest of them and
ride in it.
It was Hegglund who proposed that he and his hotel friends be
included on some interesting trip. But since the general
invitation had been given, word had come that within the next few
weeks Mr. Kimbark was likely to return. And because of this,
Willard Sparser had decided at once that it might be best not to
use the car any more. He might be taken unawares, perhaps, by Mr.
Kimbark's unexpected arrival. Laying this difficulty before
Hegglund, who was eager for the trip, the latter had scouted the
