An American tragedy, v. 1

by Theodore Dreiser

"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 to 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.

And he, aroused by her intense interest, surveyed the coat with not a little curiosity. Unquestionably it was a pretty coat—very. But, gee, what would a coat like that cost, anyhow? Could it be that she was trying to interest him in the merits of a coat like that in order that he might get it for her? Why, it must be a two-hundred-dollar coat at least. He had no idea as to the value of such things, anyhow. He certainly couldn't afford a coat like that. And especially at this time when his mother was taking a good portion of his extra cash for Esta. And yet something in her manner seemed to bring it to him that that was exactly what she was thinking. It chilled and almost numbed him at first.

And yet, as he now told himself sadly, if Hortense wanted it, she could most certainly find some one who would get it for her—that young Tom Keary, for instance, whom she had just been describing. And, worse luck, she was just that kind of a girl. And if he could not get it for her, some one else could and she would despise him for not being able to do such things for her.