An American Tragedy Read online

  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 deciding that even a hundred dollars was too much for her purse, unless it could be supplemented by some man’s. “It’s really a two-hundred dollar coat. I’m telling you that straight. Our regular price is one hundred and fifty. But if you could bring me a hundred and twenty-five dollars, since you want it so much, well, I’ll let you have it for that. And that’s like finding it. A stunning-looking girl like you oughtn’t to have no trouble in finding a dozen fellows who would be glad to buy that coat and give it to you. I know I would, if I thought you would be nice to me.”

  He beamed ingratiatingly up at her, and Hortense, sensing the nature of the overture and resenting it—from him—drew back slightly. At the same time she was not wholly displeased by the compliment involved. But she was not coarse enough, as yet, to feel that just any one should be allowed to give her anything. Indeed not. It must be some one she liked, or at least some one that was enslaved by her.

  And yet, even as Mr. Rubenstein spoke, and for some time afterwards, her mind began running upon possible individuals—favorites—who, by the necromancy of her charm for them, might be induced to procure this coat for her. Charlie Wilkens for instance—he of the Orphia cigar store—who was most certainly devoted to her after his fashion, but a fashion, however, which did not suggest that he might do much for her without getting a good deal in return.

  And then there was Robert Kain, another youth—very tall, very cheerful and very ambitious in regard to her, who was connected with one of the local electric company’s branch offices, but his position was not sufficiently lucrative—a mere entry clerk. Also he was too saving—always talking about his future.

  And again, there was Bert Gettler, the youth who had escorted her to the dance the night Clyde first met her, but who was little more than a giddy-headed dancing soul, one not to be relied upon in a crisis like this. He was only a shoe salesman, probably twenty dollars a week, and most careful with his pennies.

  But there was Clyde Griffiths, the person who seemed to have real money and to be willing to spend it on her freely. So ran her thoughts swiftly at the time. But could she now, she asked herself, offhand, inveigle him into making such an expensive present as this? She had not favored him so very much—had for the most part treated him indifferently. Hence she was not sure, by any means. Nevertheless as she stood there, debating the cost and the beauty of the coat, the thought of Clyde kept running through her mind. And all the while Mr. Rubenstein stood looking at her, vaguely sensing, after his fashion, the nature of the problem that was confronting her.

  “Well, little girl,” he finally observed, “I see you’d like to have this coat, all right, and I’d like to have you have it, too. And now I’ll tell you what I’ll do, and better than that I can’t do, and wouldn’t for nobody else—not a person in this city. Bring me a hundred and fifteen dollars at any time within the next few days—Monday or Wednesday or Friday, if the coat is still here, and you can have it. I’ll do even better. I’ll save it for you. How’s that? Until next Wednesday or Friday. More’n that no one would do for you, now, would they?”

  He smirked and shrugged his shoulders and acted as though he were indeed doing her a great favor. And Hortense, going away, felt that if only—only she could take that coat at one hundred and fifteen dollars, she would be capturing a marvelous bargain. Also that she would be the smartest-dressed girl in Kansas City beyond the shadow of a doubt. If only she could in some way get a hundred and fifteen dollars before next Wednesday, or Friday.

  Chapter 15

  AS HORTENSE well knew Clyde was pressing more and more hungrily toward that ultimate condescension on her part, which, though she would never have admitted it to him, was the privilege of two others. They were never together any more without his insisting upon the real depth of her regard for him. Why was it, if she cared for him the least bit, that she refused to do this, that or the other—would not let him kiss her as much as he wished, would not let him hold her in his arms as much as he would like. She was always keeping dates with other fellows and breaking them or refusing to make them with him. What was her exact relationship toward these others? Did she really care more for them than she did for him? In fact, they were never together anywhere but what this problem of union was uppermost—and but thinly veiled.

  And she liked to think that he was suffering from repressed desire for her all of the time that she tortured him, and that the power to allay his suffering lay wholly in her—sadistic trait which had for its soil Clyde’s own masochistic yearning for her.

  However, in the face of her desire for the coat, his statute and interest for her were beginning to increase. In spite of the fact that only the morning before she had informed Clyde, with quite a flourish, that she could not possibly see him until the following Monday—that all her intervening nights were taken—nevertheless, the problem of the coat looming up before her, she now most eagerly planned to contrive an immediate engagement with him without appearing too eager. For by then she had definitely decided to endeavor to persuade him, if possible, to buy the coat for her. Only of course, she would have to alter her conduct toward him radically. She would have to be much sweeter—more enticing. Although she did not actually say to herself that now she might even be willing to yield herself to him, still basically that was what was in her mind.

  For quite a little while she was unable to think how to proceed. How was she to see him this day, or the next at the very latest? How should she go about putting before him the need of this gift, or loan, as she finally worded it to herself? She might hint that he could loan her enough to buy the coat and that later she would pay him back by degrees (yet o
nce in possession of the coat she well knew that that necessity would never confront her). Or, if he did not have so much money on hand at one time, she could suggest that she might arrange with Mr. Rubenstein for a series of time payments which could be met by Clyde. In this connection her mind suddenly turned and began to consider how she could flatter and cajole Mr. Rubenstein into letting her have the coat on easy terms. She recalled that he had said he would be glad to buy the coat for her if he thought she would be nice to him.

  Her first scheme in connection with all this was to suggest to Louise Ratterer to invite her brother, Clyde and a third youth by the name of Scull, who was dancing attendance upon Louise, to come to a certain dance hall that very evening to which she was already planning to go with the more favored cigar clerk. Only now she intended to break that engagement and appear alone with Louise and Greta and announce that her proposed partner was ill. That would give her an opportunity to leave early with Clyde and with him walk past the Rubenstein store.

  But having the temperament of a spider that spins a web for flies, she foresaw that this might involve the possibility of Louise’s explaining to Clyde or Ratterer that it was Hortense who had instigated the party. It might even bring up some accidental mention of the coat on the part of Clyde to Louise later, which, as she felt, would never do. She did not care to let her friends know how she provided for herself. In consequence, she decided that it would not do for her to appeal to Louise nor to Greta in this fashion.

  And she was actually beginning to worry as to how to bring about this encounter, when Clyde, who chanced to be in the vicinity on his way home from work, walked into the store where she was working. He was seeking for a date on the following Sunday. And to his intense delight, Hortense greeted him most cordially with a most engaging smile and a wave of the hand. She was busy at the moment with a customer. She soon finished, however, and drawing near, and keeping one eye on her floor-walker who resented callers, exclaimed: “I was just thinking about you. You wasn’t thinking about me, was you? Trade last.” Then she added, sotto voce, “Don’t act like you are talking to me. I see our floor-walker over there.”

  Arrested by the unusual sweetness in her voice, to say nothing of the warm smile with which she greeted him, Clyde was enlivened and heartened at once. “Was I thinking of you?” he returned gayly. “Do I ever think of any one else? Say! Ratterer says I’ve got you on the brain.”

  “Oh, him,” replied Hortense, pouting spitefully and scornfully, for Ratterer, strangely enough, was one whom she did not interest very much, and this she knew. “He thinks he’s so smart,” she added. “I know a lotta girls don’t like him.”

  “Oh, Tom’s all right,” pleaded Clyde, loyally. “That’s just his way of talking. He likes you.”

  “Oh, no, he don’t, either,” replied Hortense. “But I don’t want to talk about him. Watcha doin’ around six o’clock tonight?”

  “Oh, gee!” exclaimed Clyde disappointedly. “You don’t mean to say you got to-night free, have you? Well, ain’t that tough? I thought you were all dated up. I got to work!” He actually sighed, so depressed was he by the thought that she might be willing to spend the evening with him and he not able to avail himself of the opportunity, while Hortense, noting his intense disappointment, was pleased.

  “Well, I gotta date, but I don’t want to keep it,” she went on with a contemptuous gathering of the lips. “I don’t have to break it. I would though if you was free.” Clyde’s heart began to beat rapidly with delight.

  “Gee, I wish I didn’t have to work now,” he went on, looking at her. “You’re sure you couldn’t make it to-morrow night? I’m off then. And I was just coming up here to ask you if you didn’t want to go for an automobile ride next Sunday afternoon, maybe. A friend of Hegglund’s got a car—a Packard—and Sunday we’re all off. And he wanted me to get a bunch to run out to Excelsior Springs. He’s a nice fellow” (this because Hortense showed signs of not being so very much interested). “You don’t know him very well, but he is. But say, I can talk to you about that later. How about to-morrow night? I’m off then.”

  Hortense, who, because of the hovering floor-walker, was pretending to show Clyde some handkerchiefs, was now thinking how unfortunate that a whole twenty-four hours must intervene before she could bring him to view the coat with her—and so have an opportunity to begin her machinations. At the same time she pretended that the proposed meeting for the next night was a very difficult thing to bring about—more difficult than he could possibly appreciate. She even pretended to be somewhat uncertain as to whether she wanted to do it.

  “Just pretend you’re examining these handkerchiefs here,” she continued, fearing the floor-walker might interrupt. “I gotta nother date for then,” she continued thoughtfully, “and I don’t know whether I can break it or not. Let me see.” She feigned deep thought. “Well, I guess I can,” she said finally. “I’ll try, anyhow. Just for this once. You be here at Fifteenth and Main at 6.15—no, 6.30’s the best you can do, ain’t it?—and I’ll see if I can’t get there. I won’t promise, but I’ll see and I think I can make it. Is that all right?” She gave him one of her sweetest smiles and Clyde was quite beside himself with satisfaction. To think that she would break a date for him, at last. Her eyes were warm with favor and her mouth wreathed with a smile.

  “Surest thing you know,” he exclaimed, voicing the slang of the hotel boys. “You bet I’ll be there. Will you do me a favor?”

  “What is it?” she asked cautiously.

  “Wear that little black hat with the red ribbon under your chin, will you? You look so cute in that.”

  “Oh, you,” she laughed. It was so easy to kid Clyde. “Yes, I’ll wear it,” she added. “But you gotta go now. Here comes that old fish. I know he’s going to kick. But I don’t care. Six-thirty, eh? So long.” She turned to give her attention to a new customer, an old lady who had been patiently waiting to inquire if she could tell her where the muslins were sold. And Clyde, tingling with pleasure because of this unexpected delight vouchsafed him, made his way most elatedly to the nearest exit.

  He was not made unduly curious because of this sudden favor, and the next evening, promptly at six-thirty, and in the glow of the overhanging arc-lights showering their glistening radiance like rain, she appeared. As he noted, at once, she had worn the hat he liked. Also she was enticingly ebullient and friendly, more so than at any time he had known her. Before he had time to say that she looked pretty, or how pleased he was because she wore that hat, she began:

  “Some favorite you’re gettin’ to be, I’ll say, when I’ll break an engagement and then wear an old hat I don’t like just to please you. How do I get that way is what I’d like to know.”

  He beamed as though he had won a great victory. Could it be that at last he might be becoming a favorite with her?

  “If you only knew how cute you look in that hat, Hortense, you wouldn’t knock it,” he urged admiringly. “You don’t know how sweet you do look.”

  “Oh, ho. In this old thing?” she scoffed. “You certainly are easily pleased, I’ll say.”

  “An’ your eyes are just like soft, black velvet,” he persisted eagerly. “They’re wonderful.” he was thinking of an alcove in the Green-Davidson hung with black velvet.

  “Gee, you certainly have got ’em to-night,” she laughed, teasingly. “I’ll have to do something about you.” Then, before he could make any reply to this, she went off into an entirely fictional account of how, having had a previous engagement with a certain alleged young society man—Tom Keary by name—who was dogging her steps these days in order to get her to dine and dance, she had only this evening decided to “ditch” him, preferring Clyde, of course, for this occasion, anyhow. And she had called Keary up and told him that she could not see him to-night—called it all off, as it were. But just the same, on coming out of the employee’s entrance, who should she see there waiting for her but this same Tom Keary, dressed to perfection in a bright gray raglan and
spats, and with his closed sedan, too. And he would have taken her too the Green-Davidson, if she had wanted to go. He was a real sport. But she didn’t. Not to-night, anyhow. Yet, if she had not contrived to avoid him, he would have delayed her. But she espied him first and ran the other way.

  “And you should have just seen my little feet twinkle up Sargent and around the corner into Bailey Place,” was the way she narcissistically painted her flight. And so infatuated was Clyde by this picture of herself and the wonderful Keary that he accepted all of her petty fabrications as truth.

  And then, as they were walking in the direction of Gaspie’s, a restaurant in Wyandotte near Tenth which quite lately he had learned was much better than Frissell’s, Hortense took occasion to pause and look in a number of windows, saying as she did so that she certainly did wish that she could find a little coat that was becoming to her—that the one she had on was getting worn and that she must have another soon—a predicament which caused Clyde to wonder at the time whether she was suggesting to him that he get her one. Also whether it might not advance his cause with her if he were to buy her a little jacket, since she needed it.

  But Rubenstein’s coming into view on this same side of the street, its display window properly illuminated and the coat in full view, Hortense paused as she had planned.

  “Oh, do look at that darling little coat there,” she began, ecstatically, as though freshly arrested by the beauty of it, her whole manner suggesting a first and unspoiled impression. “Oh, isn’t that the dearest, sweetest, cutest little thing you ever did see?” she went on, her histrionic powers growing with her desire for it. “Oh, just look at the collar, and those sleeves and those pockets. Aren’t they the snappiest things you ever saw? Couldn’t I just warm my little hands in those?” She glanced at Clyde out of the tail of her eye to see if he was being properly impressed.