For a period of four months at least this was exactly the way it worked out. After meeting her in this fashion, hewas devoting not an inconsiderable portion of his free time to attempting to interest her to the point where shewould take as much interest in him as she appeared to take in others. At the same time he could not tell whethershe could be made to entertain a singular affection for any one. Nor could he believe that there was only aninnocent camaraderie involved in all this. Yet she was so enticing that he was deliriously moved by the thoughtthat if his worst suspicions were true, she might ultimately favor him. So captivated was he by this savor ofsensuality and varietism that was about her, the stigmata of desire manifest in her gestures, moods, voice, theway she dressed, that he could not think of relinquishing her.
Rather, he foolishly ran after her. And seeing this, she put him off, at times evaded him, compelled him tocontent himself with little more than the crumbs of her company, while at the same time favoring him withdescriptions or pictures of other activities and contacts which made him feel as though he could no longer endureto merely trail her in this fashion. It was then he would announce to himself in anger that he was not going to seeher any more. She was no good to him, really. But on seeing her again, a cold indifference in everything she saidand did, his courage failed him and he could not think of severing the tie.
She was not at all backward at the same time in speaking of things that she needed or would like to have--littlethings, at first--a new powder puff, a lip stick, a box of powder or a bottle of perfume. Later, and without havingyielded anything more to Clyde than a few elusive and evasive endearments--intimate and languorous recliningsin his arms which promised much but always came to nothing--she made so bold as to indicate to him at differenttimes and in different ways, purses, blouses, slippers, stockings, a hat, which she would like to buy if only shehad the money. And he, in order to hold her favor and properly ingratiate himself, proceeded to buy them, thoughat times and because of some other developments in connection with his family, it pressed him hard to do so.
And yet, as he was beginning to see toward the end of the fourth month, he was apparently little farther advancedin her favor than he had been in the beginning. In short, he was conducting a feverish and almost painful pursuitwithout any definite promise of reward.
In the meantime, in so far as his home ties went, the irritations and the depressions which were almostinextricably involved with membership in the Griffiths family were not different from what they had ever been.
For, following the disappearance of Esta, there had settled a period of dejection which still endured. Only, in sofar as Clyde was concerned, it was complicated with a mystery which was tantalizing and something more-irritating;for when it came to anything which related to sex in the Griffiths family, no parents could possiblyhave been more squeamish.
And especially did this apply to the mystery which had now surrounded Esta for some time. She had gone. Shehad not returned. And so far as Clyde and the others knew, no word of any kind had been received from her.
However, Clyde had noted that after the first few weeks of her absence, during which time both his mother andfather had been most intensely wrought up and troubled, worrying greatly as to her whereabouts and why she didnot write, suddenly they had ceased their worries, and had become very much more resigned--at least not sotortured by a situation that previously had seemed to offer no hope whatsoever. He could not explain it. It was quite noticeable, and yet nothing was said. And then one day a little later, Clyde had occasion to note that hismother was in communication with some one by mail--something rare for her. For so few were her social orbusiness connections that she rarely received or wrote a letter.
One day, however, very shortly after he had connected himself with the Green-Davidson, he had come in ratherearlier than usual in the afternoon and found his mother bending over a letter which evidently had just arrivedand which appeared to interest her greatly. Also it seemed to be connected with something which requiredconcealment. For, on seeing him, she stopped reading at once, and, flustered and apparently nervous, arose andput the letter away without commenting in any way upon what she had been doing. But Clyde for some reason,intuition perhaps, had the thought that it might be from Esta. He was not sure. And he was too far away to detectthe character of the handwriting. But whatever it was, his mother said nothing afterwards concerning it. Shelooked as though she did not want him to inquire, and so reserved were their relations that he would not havethought of inquiring. He merely wondered, and then dismissed it partially, but not entirely, from his mind.
A month or five weeks after this, and just about the time that he was becoming comparatively well-schooled inhis work at the Green-Davidson, and was beginning to interest himself in Hortense Briggs, his mother came tohim one afternoon with a very peculiar proposition for her. Without explaining what it was for, or indicatingdirectly that now she felt that he might be in a better position to help her, she called him into the mission hallwhen he came in from work and, looking at him rather fixedly and nervously for her, said: "You wouldn't know,Clyde, would you, how I could raise a hundred dollars right away?"Clyde was so astonished that he could scarcely believe his ears, for only a few weeks before the mere mention ofany sum above four or five dollars in connection with him would have been preposterous. His mother knew that.
Yet here she was asking him and apparently assuming that he might be able to assist her in this way. And rightly,for both his clothes and his general air had indicated a period of better days for him.
At the same time his first thought was, of course, that she had observed his clothes and goings-on and wasconvinced that he was deceiving her about the amount he earned. And in part this was true, only so changed wasClyde's manner of late, that his mother had been compelled to take a very different attitude toward him and wasbeginning to be not a little dubious as to her further control over him. Recently, or since he had secured this latestplace, for some reason he had seemed to her to have grown wiser, more assured, less dubious of himself, inclinedto go his own way and keep his own counsel. And while this had troubled her not a little in one sense, it ratherpleased her in another. For to see Clyde, who had always seemed because of his sensitiveness and unrest somuch of a problem to her, developing in this very interesting way was something; though at times, and in view ofhis very recent finery, she had been wondering and troubled as to the nature of the company he might bekeeping. But since his hours were so long and so absorbing, and whatever money he made appeared to be goinginto clothes, she felt that she had no real reason to complain. Her one other thought was that perhaps he wasbeginning to act a little selfish--to think too much of his own comfort--and yet in the face of his longdeprivations she could not very well begrudge him any temporary pleasure, either.
Clyde, not being sure of her real attitude, merely looked at her and exclaimed: "Why, where would I get ahundred dollars, Ma?" He had visions of his new-found source of wealth being dissipated by such unheard of andinexplicable demands as this, and distress and distrust at once showed on his countenance.
"I didn't expect that you could get it all for me," Mrs. Griffiths suggested tactfully. "I have a plan to raise themost of it, I think. But I did want you to help me try to think how I would raise the rest. I didn't want to go toyour father with this if I could help it, and you're getting old enough now to be of some help." She looked atClyde approvingly and interestedly enough. "Your father is such a poor hand at business," she went on, "and hegets so worried at times."She passed a large and weary hand over her face and Clyde was moved by her predicament, whatever it was. Atthe same time, apart from whether he was willing to part with so much or not, or had it to give, he was decidedlycurious about what all this was for. A hundred dollars! Gee whiz!
After a moment or two, his mother added: "I'll tell you what I've been thinking. I must have a hundred dollars,but I can't tell you for what now, you nor any one, and you mustn't ask me. There's an old gold watch of yourfather's in my desk and a solid gold ring and pin of mine. Those things ought to be worth twenty-five dollars atleast, if they were sold or pawned. Then there is that set of solid silver knives and forks and that silver platter andpitcher in there"--Clyde knew the keepsakes well--"that platter alone is worth twenty-five dollars. I believe theyought to bring at least twenty or twenty-five together. I was thinking if I could get you to go to some goodpawnshop with them down near where you work, and then if you would let me have five more a week for awhile" (Clyde's countenance fell)--"I could get a friend of mine--Mr. Murch who comes here, you know--toadvance me enough to make up the hundred, and then I could pay him back out of what you pay me. I have aboutten dollars myself."She looked at Clyde as much as to say: "Now, surely, you won't desert me in my hour of trouble," and Clyderelaxed, in spite of the fact that he had been counting upon using quite all that he earned for himself. In fact, heagreed to take the trinkets to the pawnshop, and to advance her five more for the time being until the differencebetween whatever the trinkets brought and one hundred dollars was made up. And yet in spite of himself, hecould not help resenting this extra strain, for it had only been a very short time that he had been earning so much.
And here was his mother demanding more and more, as he saw it--ten dollars a week now. Always somethingwrong, thought Clyde, always something needed, and with no assurance that there would not be more suchdemands later.
He took the trinkets, carried them to the most presentable pawnshop he could find, and being offered forty-fivedollars for the lot, took it. This, with his mother's ten, would make fifty-five, and with forty-five she couldborrow from Mr. Murch, would make a hundred. Only now, as he saw, it would mean that for nine weeks hewould have to give her ten dollars instead of five. And that, in view of his present aspirations to dress, live andenjoy himself in a way entirely different from what he previously considered necessary, was by no means apleasure to contemplate. Nevertheless he decided to do it. After all he owed his mother something. She had mademany sacrifices for him and the others in days past and he could not afford to be too selfish. It was not decent.
But the most enduring thought that now came to him was that if his mother and father were going to look to himfor financial aid, they should be willing to show him more consideration than had previously been shown him.
For one thing he ought to be allowed to come and go with more freedom, in so far as his night hours wereconcerned. And at the same time he was clothing himself and eating his meals at the hotel, and that was no smallitem, as he saw it.
However, there was another problem that had soon arisen and it was this. Not so long after the matter of thehundred dollars, he encountered his mother in Montrose Street, one of the poorest streets which ran north fromBickel, and which consisted entirely of two unbroken lines of wooden houses and two-story flats and manyunfurnished apartments. Even the Griffiths, poor as they were, would have felt themselves demeaned by thethought of having to dwell in such a street. His mother was coming down the front steps of one of the lesstatterdemalion houses of this row, a lower front window of which carried a very conspicuous card which read"Furnished Rooms." And then, without turning or seeing Clyde across the street, she proceeded to another housea few doors away, which also carried a furnished rooms card and, after surveying the exterior interestedly,mounted the steps and rang the bell.
Clyde's first impression was that she was seeking the whereabouts of some individual in whom she wasinterested and of whose address she was not certain. But crossing over to her at about the moment theproprietress of the house put her head out of the door, he heard his mother say: "You have a room for rent?""Yes." "Has it a bath?" "No, but there's a bath on the second floor." "How much is it a week?" "Four dollars.""Could I see it?" "Yes, just step in."Mrs. Griffiths appeared to hesitate while Clyde stood below, not twenty-five feet away, and looked up at her,waiting for her to turn and recognize him. But she stepped in without turning. And Clyde gazed after hercuriously, for while it was by no means inconceivable that his mother might be looking for a room for some one,yet why should she be looking for it in this street when as a rule she usually dealt with the Salvation Army or theYoung Women's Christian Association. His first impulse was to wait and inquire of her what she was doing here,but being interested in several errands of his own, he went on.
That night, returning to his own home to dress and seeing his mother in the kitchen, he said to her: "I saw youthis morning, Ma, in Montrose Street.""Yes," his mother replied, after a moment, but not before he had noticed that she had started suddenly as thoughtaken aback by this information. She was paring potatoes and looked at him curiously. "Well, what of it?" sheadded, calmly, but flushing just the same--a thing decidedly unusual in connection with her where he wasconcerned. Indeed, that start of surprise interested and arrested Clyde.
"You were going into a house there--looking for a furnished room, I guess.""Yes, I was," replied Mrs. Griffiths, simply enough now. "I need a room for some one who is sick and hasn'tmuch money, but it's not so easy to find either." She turned away as though she were not disposed to discuss thisany more, and Clyde, while sensing her mood, apparently, could not resist adding: "Gee, that's not much of astreet to have a room in." His new work at the Green-Davidson had already caused him to think differently ofhow one should live-- any one. She did not answer him and he went to his room to change his clothes.
A month or so after this, coming east on Missouri Avenue late one evening, he again saw his mother in the neardistance coming west. In the light of one of the small stores which ranged in a row on this street, he saw that shewas carrying a rather heavy old-fashioned bag, which had long been about the house but had never been muchused by any one. On sight of him approaching (as he afterwards decided) she had stopped suddenly and turnedinto a hallway of a three-story brick apartment building, and when he came up to it, he found the outside door was shut. He opened it, and saw a flight of steps dimly lit, up which she might have gone. However, he did nottrouble to investigate, for he was uncertain, once he reached this place, whether she had gone to call on some oneor not, it had all happened so quickly. But waiting at the next corner, he finally saw her come out again. Andthen to his increasing curiosity, she appeared to look cautiously about before proceeding as before. It was thisthat caused him to think that she must have been endeavoring to conceal herself from him. But why?
His first impulse was to turn and follow her, so interested was he by her strange movements. But he decided laterthat if she did not want him to know what she was doing, perhaps it was best that he should not. At the same timehe was made intensely curious by this evasive gesture. Why should his mother not wish him to see her carrying abag anywhere? Evasion and concealment formed no part of her real disposition (so different from his own).
Almost instantly his mind proceeded to join this coincidence with the time he had seen her descending the stepsof the rooming house in Montrose Street, together with the business of the letter he had found her reading, andthe money she had been compelled to raise--the hundred dollars. Where could she be going? What was shehiding?
He speculated on all this, but he could not decide whether it had any definite connection with him or any memberof the family until about a week later, when, passing along Eleventh near Baltimore, he thought he saw Esta, orat least a girl so much like her that she would be taken for her anywhere. She had the same height, and she wasmoving along as Esta used to walk. Only, now he thought as he saw her, she looked older. Yet, so quickly hadshe come and gone in the mass of people that he had not been able............