An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [388]
“I see. And it wasn’t by any chance because you were afraid that your uncle or Miss X might hear of it?”
“Oh, yes, I … that is, we both thought of that and talked of it. She understood how things were with me down there.”
“But not about Miss X?”
“No, not about Miss X.”
“And why not?”
“Well, because I didn’t think I could very well tell her just then. It would have made her feel too bad. I wanted to wait until she was all right again.”
“And then tell her and leave her. Is that what you mean?”
“Well, yes, if I still couldn’t care for her any more—yes, sir.”
“But not if she was in trouble?”
“Well, no, sir, not if she was in trouble. But you see, at that time I was expecting to be able to get her out of that.”
“I see. But didn’t her condition affect your attitude toward her— cause you to want to straighten the whole thing out by giving up this Miss X and marrying Miss Alden?”
“Well, no, sir—not then exactly—that is, not at that time.”
“How do you mean—’not at that time’?”
“Well, I did come to feel that way later, as I told you—but not then—that was afterwards—after we started on our trip to the Adirondacks—”
“And why not then?”
“I’ve said why. I was too crazy about Miss X to think of anything but her.”
“You couldn’t change even then?”
“No, sir. I felt sorry, but I couldn’t.”
“I see. But never mind that now. I will come to that later. Just now I want to have you explain to the jury, if you can, just what it was about this Miss X, as contrasted with Miss Alden, that made her seem so very much more desirable in your eyes. Just what characteristics of manner or face or mind or position—or whatever it was that so enticed you? Or do you know?”
This was a question which both Belknap and Jephson in various ways and for various reasons—psychic, legal, personal—had asked Clyde before, and with varying results. At first he could not and would not discuss her at all, fearing that whatever he said would be seized upon and used in his trial and the newspapers along with her name. But later, when because of the silence of the newspapers everywhere in regard to her true name, it became plain that she was not to be featured, he permitted himself to talk more freely about her. But now here on the stand, he grew once more nervous and reticent.
“Well, you see, it’s hard to say. She was very beautiful to me. Much more so than Roberta—but not only that, she was different from any one I had ever known—more independent—and everybody paid so much attention to what she did and what she said. She seemed to know more than any one else I ever knew. Then she dressed awfully well, and was very rich and in society and her name and pictures were always in the paper. I used to read about her every day when I didn’t see her, and that seemed to keep her before me a lot. She was daring, too–not so simple or trusting as Miss Alden was—and at first it was hard for me to believe that she was becoming so interested in me. It got so that I couldn’t think of any one or anything else, and I didn’t want Roberta any more. I just couldn’t, with Miss X always before me.”
“Well, it looks to me as if you might have been in love, or hypnotized at that,” insinuated Jephson at the conclusion of this statement, the tail of his right eye upon the jury. “If that isn’t a picture of pretty much all gone, I guess I don’t know one when I see it.” But with the audience and the jury as stony-faced as before, as he could see.
But immediately thereafter the swift and troubled waters of the alleged plot which was the stern trail to which all this was leading.
“Well, now, Clyde, from there on, just what happened? Tell us now, as near as you can recall. Don’t shade it or try to make yourself look any better or any worse. She is dead, and you may be, eventually, if these twelve gentlemen here finally so decide.” (And at this an icy chill seemed to permeate the entire courtroom as well as Clyde.) “But the truth for the peace of your own soul is the best,”—and here Jephson thought of Mason—let him counteract that if he can.