An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [255]
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, what could her parents do? And was not Clyde worthy of her and them, too? Of course—even though nearly all in her set fancied that he was not quite all he should be, just because he didn’t have as much money as they had. But he would have—would he not—after he was married to her—and get as good a place in her father’s business as Gil Griffiths had in his father’s?
Yet a moment later, thinking of her life here and what her going off in such a way would mean to her father and mother just then—in the very beginning of the summer season—as well as how it would disrupt her own plans and cause her mother to feel especially angry, and perhaps even to bring about the dissolution of the marriage on the ground that she was not of age, she paused—that gay light of adventure replaced by a marked trace of the practical and the material that so persistently characterized her. What difference would a few months make, anyhow? It might, and no doubt would, save Clyde from being separated from her forever, whereas their present course might insure their separation.
Accordingly she now shook her head in a certain, positive and yet affectionate way, which by now Clyde had come to know spelled defeat—the most painful and irremediable defeat that had yet come to him in connection with all this. She would not go! Then he was lost—lost—and she to him forever maybe. Oh, God! For while her face softened with a tenderness which was not usually there—even when she was most moved emotionally—she said: “I would, honey, if I did not think it best not to, now. It’s too soon. Mamma isn’t going to do anything right now. I know she isn’t. Besides she has made all her plans to do a lot of entertaining here this summer, and for my particular benefit. She wants me to be nice to—well, you know who I mean. And I can be, without doing anything to interfere with us in any way, I’m sure—so long as I don’t do anything to really frighten her.” She paused to smile a reassuring smile. “But you can come up here as often as you choose, don’t you see, and she and these others won’t think anything of it, because you won’t be our guest, don’t you see? I’ve fixed all that with Bertine. And that means that we can see each other all summer long up here, just about as much as we want to, don’t you see? Then in the fall, when I come back, and if I find that I can’t make her be nice to you at all, or consider our being engaged, why, I will run away with you. Yes, I will, darling—really and truly.”
Darling! The fall!
She stopped, her eyes showing a very shrewd conception of all the practical difficulties before them, while she took both of his hands in hers and looked up into his face. Then, impulsively and conclusively, she threw both arms about his neck and, pulling his head down, kissed him.
“Can’t you see, dearie? Please don’t look so sad, darling. Sondra loves her Clyde so much. And she’ll do anything and everything to make things come out right. Yes, she will. And they will, too. Now you wait and see. She won’t give him up ever—ever!”
And Clyde, realizing that he had not one moving argument wherewith to confront her, really—not one that might not cause her to think strangely and suspiciously of his intense anxiety, and that this, because of Roberta’s demand, and unless—unless—well—, unless Roberta let him go it all spelled defeat for him, now looked gloomily and even desperately upon her face. The beauty of her! The completeness of this world! And yet not to be allowed to possess her or it, ever. And Roberta with her demand and his promise in the immediate background! And no way of escape save by flight! God!