The Greatest Works of Theodore Dreiser. Theodore Dreiser
when he was so very much alone.
At moments it seemed to Clyde that he would reel from very joy of the certain fulfillment of a great desire, that was all but immediately within his control; at other times (the thought of Roberta sweeping down upon him as an icy wind), as though nothing could be more sad, terrible, numbing to the dreams of beauty, love and happiness than this which now threatened him. That terrible item about the lake and those two people drowned! The probability that in spite of his wild plan within a week, or two or three at most, he would have to leave all this forever. And then of a sudden he would wake to realize that he was fumbling or playing badly — that Bertine or Sondra or Grant was calling: “Oh, Clyde, what are you thinking of, anyhow?” And from the darkest depths of his heart he would have answered, had he spoken, “Roberta.”
At the Brookshaws’, again that evening, a smart company of friends of Sondra’s, Bertine’s and others. On the dance floor a reencounter with Sondra, all smiles, for she was pretending for the benefit of others here — her mother and father in particular — that she had not seen Clyde before — did not even know that he was here.
“You up here? That’s great. Over at the Cranstons’? Oh, isn’t that dandy? Right next door to us. Well, we’ll see a lot of each other, what? How about a canter to-morrow before seven? Bertine and I go nearly every day. And we’ll have a picnic tomorrow, if nothing interferes, canoeing and motoring. Don’t worry about not riding well. I’ll get Bertine to let you have Jerry — he’s just a sheep. And you don’t need to worry about togs, either. Grant has scads of things. I’ll dance the next two dances with others, but you sit out the third one with me, will you? I know a peach of a place outside on the balcony.”
She was off with fingers extended but with a “we-understand-each- other” look in her eye. And outside in the shadow later she pulled his face to hers when no one was looking and kissed him eagerly, and, before the evening was over, they had managed, by strolling along a path which led away from the house along the lake shore, to embrace under the moon.
“Sondra so glad Clydie here. Misses him so much.” She smoothed his hair as he kissed her, and Clyde, bethinking him of the shadow which lay so darkly between them, crushed her feverishly, desperately. “Oh, my darling baby girl,” he exclaimed. “My beautiful, beautiful Sondra! If you only knew how much I love you! If you only knew! I wish I could tell you ALL. I wish I could.”
But he could not now — or ever. He would never dare to speak to her of even so much as a phase of the black barrier that now lay between them. For, with her training, the standards of love and marriage that had been set for her, she would never understand, never be willing to make so great a sacrifice for love, as much as she loved him. And he would be left, abandoned on the instant, and with what horror in her eyes!
Yet looking into his eyes, his face white and tense, and the glow of the moon above making small white electric sparks in his eyes, she exclaimed as he gripped her tightly: “Does he love Sondra so much? Oh, sweetie boy! Sondra loves him, too.” She seized his head between her hands and held it tight, kissing him swiftly and ardently a dozen times. “And Sondra won’t give her Clydie up either. She won’t. You just wait and see! It doesn’t matter what happens now. It may not be so very easy, but she won’t.” Then as suddenly and practically, as so often was her way, she exclaimed: “But we must go now, right away. No, not another kiss now. No, no, Sondra says no, now. They’ll be missing us.” And straightening up and pulling him by the arm she hurried him back to the house in time to meet Palmer Thurston, who was looking for her.
The next morning, true to her promise, there was the canter to Inspiration Point, and that before seven — Bertine and Sondra in bright red riding coats and white breeches and black boots, their hair unbound and loose to the wind, and riding briskly on before for the most part; then racing back to where he was. Or Sondra halloing gayly for him to come on, or the two of them laughing and chatting a hundred yards ahead in some concealed chapel of the aisled trees where he could not see them. And because of the interest which Sondra was so obviously manifesting in him these days — an interest which Bertine herself had begun to feel might end in marriage, if no family complications arose to interfere — she, Bertine, was all smiles, the very soul of cordiality, winsomely insisting that he should come up and stay for the summer and she would chaperon them both so that no one would have a chance to complain. And Clyde thrilling, and yet brooding too — by turns — occasionally — and in spite of himself drifting back to the thought that the item in the paper had inspired — and yet fighting it — trying to shut it out entirely.
And then at one point, Sondra, turning down a steep path which led to a stony and moss-lipped spring between the dark trees, called to Clyde to “Come on down. Jerry knows the way. He won’t slip. Come and get a drink. If you do, you’ll come back again soon — so they say.”
And once he was down and had dismounted to drink, she exclaimed: “I’ve been wanting to tell you something. You should have seen Mamma’s face last night when she heard you were up here. She can’t be sure that I had anything to do with it, of course, because she thinks that Bertine likes you, too. I made her think that. But just the same she suspects that I had a hand in it, I guess, and she doesn’t quite like it. But she can’t say anything more than she has before. And I had a talk with Bertine just now and she’s agreed to stick by me and help me all she can. But we’ll have to be even more careful than ever now, because I think if Mamma got too suspicious I don’t know what she might do — want us to leave here, even now maybe, just so I couldn’t see you. You know she feels that I shouldn’t be interested in any one yet except some one she likes. You know how it is. She’s that way with Stuart, too. But if you’ll take care not to show that you care for me so much whenever we’re around any one of our crowd, I don’t think she’ll do anything — not now, anyhow. Later on, in the fall, when we’re back in Lycurgus, things will be different. I’ll be of age then, and I’m going to see what I can do. I never loved any one before, but I do love you, and, well, I won’t give you up, that’s all. I won’t. And they can’t make me, either!”
She stamped her foot and struck her boot, the while the two horses looked idly and vacantly about. And Clyde, enthused and astonished by this second definite declaration in his behalf, as well as fired by the thought that now, if ever, he might suggest the elopement and marriage and so rid himself of the sword that hung so threateningly above him, now gazed at Sondra, his eyes filled with a nervous hope and a nervous fear. For she might refuse, and change, too, shocked by the suddenness of his suggestion. And he had no money and no place in mind where they might go either, in case she accepted his proposal. But she had, perhaps, or she might have. And having once consented, might she not help him? Of course. At any rate, he felt that he must speak, leaving luck or ill luck to the future.
And so he said: “Why couldn’t you run away with me now, Sondra, darling? It’s so long until fall and I want you so much. Why couldn’t we? Your mother’s not likely to want to let you marry me then, anyhow. But if we went away now, she couldn’t help herself, could she? And afterwards, in a few months or so, you could write her and then she wouldn’t mind. Why couldn’t we, Sondra?” His voice was very pleading, his eyes full of a sad dread of refusal — and of the future that lay unprotected behind that.
And by now so caught was she by the tremor with which his mood invested him, that she paused — not really shocked by the suggestion at all — but decidedly moved, as well as flattered by the thought that she was able to evoke in Clyde so eager and headlong a passion. He was so impetuous — so blazing now with a flame of her own creating, as she felt, yet which she was incapable of feeling as much as he, as she knew — such a flame as she had never seen in him or any one else before. And would it not be wonderful if she could run away with him now — secretly — to Canada or New York or Boston, or anywhere? The excitement her elopement would create here and elsewhere — in Lycurgus, Albany, Utica! The talk and feeling in her own family as well as elsewhere! And Gilbert would be related to her in spite of him — and the Griffiths, too, whom her mother and father so much admired.
For a moment there was written in her eyes the desire and the determination almost, to do as he suggested — run away — make a great lark of this, her intense and true love. For, once married,