True to her promise, the following day Hortense returned to Mr. Rubenstein, and with all the cunning of hernature placed before him, with many reservations, the nature of the dilemma which confronted her. Could she, byany chance, have the coat for one hundred and fifteen dollars on an easy payment plan? Mr. Rubenstein's headforthwith began to wag a solemn negative. This was not an easy payment store. If he wanted to do business thatway he could charge two hundred for the coat and easily get it.
"But I could pay as much as fifty dollars when I took the coat," argued Hortense.
"Very good. But who is to guarantee that I get the other sixty-five, and when?""Next week twenty-five, and the week after that twenty five and the next week after that fifteen.""Of course. But supposin' the next day after you take the coat an automobile runs you down and kills you. Thenwhat? How do I get my money?"Now that was a poser. And there was really no way that she could prove that any one would pay for the coat.
And before that there would have to be all the bother of making out a contract, and getting some reallyresponsible person--a banker, say--to endorse it. No, no, this was not an easy payment house. This was a cashhouse. That was why the coat was offered to her at one hundred and fifteen, but not a dollar less. Not a dollar.
Mr. Rubenstein sighed and talked on. And finally Hortense asked him if she could give him seventy-five dollarscash in hand, the other forty to be paid in one week's time. Would he let her have the coat then--to take homewith her?
"But a week--a week--what is a week then?" argued Mr. Rubenstein. "If you can bring me seventy-five nextweek or to-morrow, and forty more in another week or ten days, why not wait a week and bring the wholehundred and fifteen? Then the coat is yours and no bother. Leave the coat. Come back to-morrow and pay metwenty-five or thirty dollars on account and I take the coat out of the window and lock it up for you. No one caneven see it then. In another week bring me the balance or in two weeks. Then it is yours." Mr. Rubensteinexplained the process as though it were a difficult matter to grasp.
But the argument once made was sound enough. It really left Hortense little to argue about. At the same time itreduced her spirit not a little. To think of not being able to take it now. And yet, once out of the place, her vigorrevived. For, after all, the time fixed would soon pass and if Clyde performed his part of the agreement promptly,the coat would be hers. The important thing now was to make him give her twenty-five or thirty dollarswherewith to bind this wonderful agreement. Only now, because of the fact that she felt that she needed a newhat to go with the coat, she decided to say that it cost one hundred and twenty-five instead of one hundred andfifteen.
And once this conclusion was put before Clyde, he saw it as a very reasonable arrangement--all thingsconsidered--quite a respite from the feeling of strain that had settled upon him after his last conversation withHortense. For, after all, he had not seen how he was to raise more than thirty-five dollars this first week anyhow.
The following week would be somewhat easier, for then, as he told himself, he proposed to borrow twenty ortwenty-five from Ratterer if he could, which, joined with the twenty or twenty-five which his tips would bringhim, would be quite sufficient to meet the second payment. The week following he proposed to borrow at leastten or fifteen from Hegglund--maybe more--and if that did not make up the required amount to pawn his watchfor fifteen dollars, the watch he had bought for himself a few months before. It ought to bring that at least; it costfifty.
But, he now thought, there was Esta in her wretched room awaiting the most unhappy result of her one romance.
How was she to make out, he asked himself, even in the face of the fact that he feared to be included in thefinancial problem which Esta as well as the family presented. His father was not now, and never had been, of anyreal financial service to his mother. And yet, if the problem were on this account to be shifted to him, how wouldhe make out? Why need his father always peddle clocks and rugs and preach on the streets? Why couldn't hismother and father give up the mission idea, anyhow?
But, as he knew, the situation was not to be solved without his aid. And the proof of it came toward the end ofthe second week of his arrangement with Hortense, when, with fifty dollars in his pocket, which he was planningto turn over to her on the following Sunday, his mother, looking into his bedroom where he was dressing, said:
"I'd like to see you for a minute, Clyde, before you go out." He noted she was very grave as she said this. As amatter of fact, for several days past, he had been sensing that she was undergoing a strain of some kind. At thesame time he had been thinking all this while that with his own resources hypothecated as they were, he could donothing. Or, if he did it meant the loss of Hortense. He dared not.
And yet what reasonable excuse could he give his mother for not helping her a little, considering especially theclothes he wore, and the manner in which he had been running here and there, always giving the excuse ofworking, but probably not deceiving her as much as he thought. To be sure, only two months before, he hadobligated himself to pay her ten dollars a week more for five weeks, and had. But that only proved to her verylikely that he had so much extra to give, even though he had tried to make it clear at the time that he waspinching himself to do it. And yet, however much he chose to waver in her favor, he could not, with his desirefor Hortense directly confronting him.
He went out into the living-room after a time, and as usual his mother at once led the way to one of the benchesin the mission-- a cheerless, cold room these days.
"I didn't think I'd have to speak to you about this, Clyde, but I don't see any other way out of it. I haven't anyonebut you to depend upon now that you're getting to be a man. But you must promise not to tell any of the others-Frankor Julia or your father. I don't want them to know. But Esta's back here in Kansas City and in trouble, and Idon't know quite what to do about her. I have so very little money to do with, and your father's not very much ofa help to me any more."She passed a weary, reflective hand across her forehead and Clyde knew what was coming. His first thought wasto pretend that he did not know that Esta was in the city, since he had been pretending this way for so long. Butnow, suddenly, in the face of his mother's confession, and the need of pretended surprise on his part, if he were tokeep up the fiction, he said, "Yes, I know.""You know?" queried his mother, surprised.
"Yes, I know," Clyde repeated. "I saw you going in that house in Beaudry Street one morning as I was goingalong there," he announced calmly enough now. "And ............