An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser (i can read book club .TXT) 📕

from the adjacent living room⁠—a long, wide affair from which all obstructing furniture with the exception of wall chairs had been removed.

“You had better see about your program and your dance before all the others are gone,” cautioned Sondra.

“Yes, I will right away,” said Clyde, “but is two all I get with you?”

“Well, make it three, five and eight then, in the first half.” She waved him gayly away and he hurried for a dance card.

The dances were all of the eager foxtrotting type of the period with interpolations and variations according to the moods and temperaments of the individual dancers. Having danced so much with Roberta during the preceding month, Clyde was in excellent form and keyed to the breaking point by the thought that at last he was in social and even affectional contact with a girl as wonderful as Sondra.

And although wishing to seem courteous and interested in others with whom he was dancing, he was almost dizzied by passing contemplations of Sondra. She swayed so droopily and dreamily in the embrace of Grant Cranston, the while without seeming to, looking in his direction when he was near, permitting him to sense how graceful and romantic and poetic was her attitude toward all things⁠—what a flower of life she really was. And Nina Temple, with whom he was now dancing for his benefit, just then observed: “She is graceful, isn’t she?”

“Who?” asked Clyde, pretending an innocence he could not physically verify, for his cheek and forehead flushed. “I don’t know who you mean.”

“Don’t you? Then what are you blushing for?”

He had realized that he was blushing. And that his attempted escape was ridiculous. He turned, but just then the music stopped and the dancers drifted away to their chairs. Sondra moved off with Grant Cranston and Clyde led Nina toward a cushioned seat in a window in the library.

And in connection with Bertine with whom he next danced, he found himself slightly flustered by the cool, cynical aloofness with which she accepted and entertained his attention. Her chief interest in Clyde was the fact that Sondra appeared to find him interesting.

“You do dance well, don’t you? I suppose you must have done a lot of dancing before you came here⁠—in Chicago, wasn’t it, or where?”

She talked slowly and indifferently.

“I was in Chicago before I came here, but I didn’t do so very much dancing. I had to work.” He was thinking how such girls as she had everything, as contrasted with girls like Roberta, who had nothing. And yet, as he now felt in this instance, he liked Roberta better. She was sweeter and warmer and kinder⁠—not so cold.

When the music started again with the sonorous melancholy of a single saxophone interjected at times, Sondra came over to him and placed her right hand in his left and allowed him to put his arm about her waist, an easy, genial and unembarrassed approach which, in the midst of Clyde’s dream of her, was thrilling.

And then in her coquettish and artful way she smiled up in his eyes, a bland, deceptive and yet seemingly promising smile, which caused his heart to beat faster and his throat to tighten. Some delicate perfume that she was using thrilled in his nostrils as might have the fragrance of spring.

“Having a good time?”

“Yes⁠—looking at you.”

“When there are so many other nice girls to look at?”

“Oh, there are no other girls as nice as you.”

“And I dance better than any other girl, and I’m much the best-looking of any other girl here. Now⁠—I’ve said it all for you. Now what are you going to say?”

She looked up at him teasingly, and Clyde realizing that he had a very different type to Roberta to deal with, was puzzled and flushed.

“I see,” he said, seriously. “Every fellow tells you that, so you don’t want me to.”

“Oh, no, not every fellow.” Sondra was at once intrigued and checkmated by the simplicity of his retort. “There are lots of people who don’t think I’m very pretty.”

“Oh, don’t they, though?” he returned quite gayly, for at once he saw that she was not making fun of him. And yet he was almost afraid to venture another compliment. Instead he cast about for something else to say, and going back to the conversation at the table concerning riding and tennis, he now asked: “You like everything out-of-doors and athletic, don’t you?”

“Oh, do I?” was her quick and enthusiastic response. “There isn’t anything I like as much, really. I’m just crazy about riding, tennis, swimming, motorboating, aquaplaning. You swim, don’t you?”

“Oh, sure,” said Clyde, grandly.

“Do you play tennis?”

“Well, I’ve just taken it up,” he said, fearing to admit that he did not play at all.

“Oh, I just love tennis. We might play sometime together.” Clyde’s spirits were completely restored by this. And tripping as lightly as dawn to the mournful strains of a popular love song, she went right on. “Bella Griffiths and Stuart and Grant and I play fine doubles. We won nearly all the finals at Greenwood and Twelfth Lake last summer. And when it comes to aquaplaning and high diving you just ought to see me. We have the swiftest motorboat up at Twelfth Lake now⁠—Stuart has. It can do sixty miles an hour.”

At once Clyde realized that he had hit upon the one subject that not only fascinated, but even excited her. For not only did it involve outdoor exercise, in which obviously she reveled, but also the power to triumph and so achieve laurels in such phases of sport as most interested those with whom she was socially connected. And lastly, although this was something which he did not so clearly realize until later, she was fairly dizzied by the opportunity all this provided for frequent changes of costume and hence social show, which was the one thing above all others that did interest her. How she looked in a bathing suit⁠—a riding or tennis or dancing or automobile costume!

They danced on together, thrilled for