An American Tragedy

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!
At this point it was that a nervous and almost deranged look—never so
definite or powerful at any time before in his life—the border-line look
between reason and unreason, no less—so powerful that the quality of it was
even noticeable to Sondra—came into his eyes. He looked sick, broken,
unbelievably despairing. So much so that she exclaimed, "Why, what is it,

---

Clyde, dearie—you look so— oh, I can't say just how—forlorn or—Does he
love me so much? And can't he wait just three or four months? But, oh, yes he
can, too. It isn't as bad as he thinks. He'll be with me most of the time—the
lovekins will. And when he isn't, Sondra'll write him every day—every day."
"But, Sondra! Sondra! If I could just tell you. If you knew how much it
were going to mean to me—"
He paused here, for as he could see at this point, into the expression of
Sondra came a practical inquiry as to what it was that made it so urgent for
her to leave with him at once. And immediately, on his part, Clyde sensing
how enormous was the hold of this world on her—how integral a part of it
she was—and how, by merely too much insistence here and now, he might so
easily cause her to doubt the wisdom of her primary craze for him, was
moved to desist, sure that if he spoke it would lead her to questioning him in
such a way as might cause her to change—or at least to modify her
enthusiasm to the point where even the dream of the fall might vanish.
And so, instead of explaining further why he needed a decision on her part,
he merely desisted, saying: "It's because I need you so much now, dear—all
of the time. That's it, just that. It seems at times as though I could never be
away from you another minute any more. Oh, I'm so hungry for you all of the
time."
And yet Sondra, flattered as she was by this hunger, and reciprocating it in