The Essential Works of Theodore Dreiser. Theodore Dreiser
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countenance; a variation and play which, if it indicated anything definite, indicated that she was seeking to inflict an unwarranted injury on him. For since he had been drawing closer and closer to Sondra, his hopes had heightened so intensely that, hearkening to this demand on the part of Roberta now, his brow wrinkled and his manner changed from one of comparatively affable, if nervous, consideration to that of mingled fear, opposition as well as determination to evade drastic consequence. For this would spell complete ruin for him, the loss of Sondra, his job, his social hopes and ambitions in connection with the Griffiths — all — a thought which sickened and at the same time caused him to hesitate about how to proceed. But he would not! he would not! He would not do this! Never! Never!! Never!!!
Yet after a moment he exclaimed equivocally: “Well, gee, that’s all right, too, Bert, for you, because that fixes everything without any trouble at all. But what about me? You don’t want to forget that that isn’t going to be easy for me, the way things are now. You know I haven’t any money. All I have is my job. And besides, the family don’t know anything about you yet — not a thing. And if it should suddenly come out now that we’ve been going together all this time, and that this has happened, and that I was going to have to get married right away, well, gee, they’ll know I’ve been fooling ’em and they’re sure to get sore. And then what? They might even fire me.”
He paused to see what effect this explanation would have, but noting the somewhat dubious expression which of late characterized Roberta’s face whenever he began excusing himself, he added hopefully and evasively, seeking by any trick that he could to delay this sudden issue: “Besides, I’m not so sure that I can’t find a doctor yet, either. I haven’t had much luck so far, but that’s not saying that I won’t. And there’s a little time yet, isn’t there? Sure there is. It’s all right up to three months anyway.” (He had since had a letter from Ratterer who had commented on this fact.) “And I did hear something the other day of a doctor over in Albany who might do it. Anyway, I thought I’d go over and see before I said anything about him.”
His manner, when he said this, was so equivocal that Roberta could tell he was merely lying to gain time. There was no doctor in Albany. Besides it was so plain that he resented her suggestion and was only thinking of some way of escaping it. And she knew well enough that at no time had he said directly that he would marry her. And while she might urge, in the last analysis she could not force him to do anything. He might just go away alone, as he had once said in connection with inadvertently losing his job because of her. And how much greater might not his impulse in that direction now be, if this world here in which he was so much interested were taken away from him, and he were to face the necessity of taking her and a child, too. It made her more cautious and caused her to modify her first impulse to speak out definitely and forcefully, however great her necessity might be. And so disturbed was he by the panorama of the bright world of which Sondra was the center and which was now at stake, that he could scarcely think clearly. Should he lose all this for such a world as he and Roberta could provide for themselves — a small home — a baby, such a routine work-a-day life as taking care of her and a baby on such a salary as he could earn, and from which most likely he would never again be freed! God! A sense of nausea seized him. He could not and would not do this. And yet, as he now saw, all his dreams could be so easily tumbled about his ears by her and because of one false step on his part. It made him cautious and for the first time in his life caused tact and cunning to visualize itself as a profound necessity.
And at the same time, Clyde was sensing inwardly and somewhat shamefacedly all of this profound change in himself.
But Roberta was saying: “Oh, I know, Clyde, but you yourself said just now that you were stumped, didn’t you? And every day that goes by just makes it so much the worse for me, if we’re not going to be able to get a doctor. You can’t get married and have a child born within a few months — you know that. Every one in the world would know. Besides I have myself to consider as well as you, you know. And the baby, too.” (At the mere mention of a coming child Clyde winced and recoiled as though he had been slapped. She noted it.) “I just must do one of two things right away, Clyde — get married or get out of this and you don’t seem to be able to get me out of it, do you? If you’re so afraid of what your uncle might think or do in case we get married,” she added nervously and yet suavely, “why couldn’t we get married right away and then keep it a secret for a while — as long as we could, or as long as you thought we ought to,” she added shrewdly. “Meanwhile I could go home and tell my parents about it — that I am married, but that it must be kept a secret for a while. Then when the time came, when things got so bad that we couldn’t stay here any longer without telling, why we could either go away somewhere, if we wanted to — that is, if you didn’t want your uncle to know, or we could just announce that we were married some time ago. Lots of young couples do that nowadays. And as for getting along,” she went on, noting a sudden dour shadow that passed over Clyde’s face like a cloud, “why we could always find something to do — I know I could, anyhow, once the baby is born.”
When first she began to speak, Clyde had seated himself on the edge of the bed, listening nervously and dubiously to all she had to offer. However, when she came to that part which related to marriage and going away, he got up — an irresistible impulse to move overcoming him. And when she concluded with the commonplace suggestion of going to work as soon as the baby was born, he looked at her with little less than panic in his eyes. To think of marrying and being in a position where it would be necessary to do that, when with a little luck and without interference from her, he might marry Sondra.
“Oh, yes, that’s all right for you, Bert. That fixes everything up for you, but how about me? Why, gee whiz, I’ve only got started here now as it is, and if I have to pack up and get out, and I would have to, if ever they found out about this, why I don’t know what I’d do. I haven’t any business or trade that I could turn my hand to. It might go hard with both of us. Besides my uncle gave me this chance because I begged him to, and if I walked off now he never would do anything for me.”
In his excitement he was forgetting that at one time and another in the past he had indicated to Roberta that the state of his own parents was not wholly unprosperous and that if things did not go just to his liking here, he could return west and perhaps find something to do out there. And it was some general recollection of this that now caused her to ask: “Couldn’t we go out to Denver or something like that? Wouldn’t your father be willing to help you get something for a time, anyhow?”
Her tone was very soft and pleading, an attempt to make Clyde feel that things could not be as bad as he was imagining. But the mere mention of his father in connection with all this — the assumption that he, of all people, might prove an escape from drudgery for them both, was a little too much. It showed how dreadfully incomplete was her understanding of his true position in this world. Worse, she was looking for help from that quarter. And, not finding it, later might possibly reproach him for that — who could tell — for his lies in connection with it. It made so very clear now the necessity for frustrating, if possible, and that at once, any tendency toward this idea of marriage. It could not be — ever.
And yet how was he to oppose this idea with safety, since she felt that she had this claim on him — how say to her openly and coldly that he could not and would not marry her? And unless he did so now she might think it would be fair and legitimate enough for her to compel him to do so. She might even feel privileged to go to his uncle — his cousin (he could see Gilbert’s cold eyes) and expose him! And then destruction! Ruin! The end of all his dreams in connection with Sondra and everything else here. But all he could think of saying now was: “But I can’t do this, Bert, not now, anyway,” a remark which at once caused Roberta to assume that the idea of marriage, as she had interjected it here, was not one which, under the circumstances, he had the courage to oppose — his saying, “not now, anyway.” Yet even as she was thinking this, he went swiftly on with: “Besides I don’t want to get married so soon. It means too much to me at this time. In the first place I’m not old enough and I haven’t got anything to get married on. And I can’t leave here. I couldn’t do half as well anywhere else. You don’t realize what this chance means to me. My father’s all right, but he couldn’t do what my uncle could and he wouldn’t. You don’t know or you wouldn’t ask