An American Tragedy - Theodore Dreiser [164]
The orchestrelle stopped and the dancers were coming out. But no sooner were they out than five-cent admission checks were once more sold for the new dance.
“I don’t believe I can,” pleaded Roberta, as Clyde led her to the ticket-stile. “I’m afraid I’m too awkward, maybe. I never danced, you know.”
“You awkward, Roberta,” he exclaimed. “Oh, how crazy. Why, you’re as graceful and pretty as you can be. You’ll see. You’ll be a wonderful dancer.”
Already he had paid the coin and they were inside.
Carried away by a bravado which was three-fourths her conception of him as a member of the Lycurgus upper crust and possessor of means and position, he led the way into a corner and began at once to illustrate the respective movements. They were not difficult and for a girl of Roberta’s natural grace and zest, easy. Once the music started and Clyde drew her to him, she fell into the positions and steps without effort, and they moved rhythmically and instinctively together. It was the delightful sensation of being held by him and guided here and there that so appealed to her—the wonderful rhythm of his body coinciding with hers.
“Oh, you darling,” he whispered. “Aren’t you the dandy little dancer, though. You’ve caught on already. If you aren’t the wonderful kid. I can hardly believe it.”
They went about the floor once more, then a third time, before the music stopped and by the time it did, Roberta was lost in a sense of delight such as had never come to her before. To think she had been dancing! And it should be so wonderful! And with Clyde! He was so slim, graceful—quite the handsomest of any of the young men on the floor, she thought. And he, in turn, was now thinking that never had he known any one as sweet as Roberta. She was so gay and winsome and yielding. She would not try to work him for anything. And as for Sondra Finchley, well, she had ignored him and he might as well dismiss her from his mind—and yet even here, and with Roberta, he could not quite forget her.
At five-thirty when the orchestrelle was silenced for lack of customers and a sign reading “Next Concert 7.30” hung up, they were still dancing. After that they went for an ice-cream soda, then for something to eat, and by then, so swiftly had sped the time, it was necessary to take the very next car for the depot at Fonda.
As they neared this terminal, both Clyde and Roberta were full of schemes as to how they were to arrange for tomorrow. For Roberta would be coming back then and if she could arrange to leave her sister’s a little early Sunday he could come over from Lycurgus to meet her. They could linger around Fonda until eleven at least, when the last train south from Homer was due. And pretending she had arrived on that they could then, assuming there was no one whom they knew on the Lycurgus car, journey to that city.
And as arranged so they met. And in the dark outlying streets of that city, walked and talked and planned, and Roberta told Clyde something—though not much—of her home life at Biltz.
But the great thing, apart from their love for each other and its immediate expression in kisses and embraces, was the how and where of further contacts. They must find some way, only, really, as Roberta saw it, she must be the one to find the way, and that soon. For while Clyde was obviously very impatient and eager to be with her as much as possible, still he did not appear to be very ready with suggestions—available ones.
But that, as she also saw, was not easy. For the possibility of another visit to her sister in Homer or her parents in Biltz was not even to be considered under a month. And apart from them what other excuses were there? New friends at the factory—the post-office—the library—the Y. W. C. A.—all suggestions of Clyde