LITMIR.BIZ

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me to.”

      “Oh, shucks,” replied Clyde foolishly and gayly, “what nonsense, Roberta. Why, everybody dances these days or nearly everybody. How can you think there’s anything wrong with it?”

      “Oh, I know,” replied Roberta oddly and quaintly, “maybe they do in your set. I know most of those factory girls do, of course. And I suppose where you have money and position, everything’s right. But with a girl like me, it’s different. I don’t suppose your parents were as strict as mine, either.”

      “Oh, weren’t they, though?” laughed Clyde who had not failed to catch the “your set”; also the “where you have money and position.”

      “Well, that’s all you know about it,” he went on. “They were as strict as yours and stricter, I’ll bet. But I danced just the same. Why, there’s no harm in it, Roberta. Come on, let me teach you. It’s wonderful, really. Won’t you, dearest?”

      He put his arm around her and looked into her eyes and she half relented, quite weakened by her desire for him.

      Just then the merry-go-round stopped and without any plan or suggestion they seemed instinctively to drift to the side of the pavilion where the dancers — not many but avid — were moving briskly around. Fox-trots and one-steps were being supplied by an orchestrelle of considerable size. At a turnstile, all the remaining portions of the pavilion being screened in, a pretty concessionaire was sitting and taking tickets — ten cents per dance per couple. But the color and the music and the motions of the dancers gliding rhythmically here and there quite seized upon both Clyde and Roberta.

      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 to-morrow. 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’s at the moment. But these spelled but an hour or two together at best, and Clyde was thinking of other week-ends like this. And there were so few remaining summer week-ends.

      Chapter 19

       Table of Contents

      The return of Roberta and Clyde, as well as their outing together, was quite unobserved, as they thought. On the car from Fonda they recognized no one. And at the Newtons’ Grace was already in bed. She merely awakened sufficiently to ask a few questions about the trip — and those were casual and indifferent. How was Roberta’s sister? Had she stayed all day in Homer or had she gone to Biltz or Trippetts Mills? (Roberta explained that she had remained at her sister’s.) She herself must be going up pretty soon to see her parents at Trippetts Mills. Then she fell asleep.

      But at dinner the next night the Misses Opal Feliss and Olive Pope, who had been kept from the breakfast table by a too late return from Fonda and the very region in which Roberta had spent Saturday afternoon, now seated themselves and at once, as Roberta entered, interjected a few genial and well-meant but, in so far as Roberta was concerned, decidedly troubling observations.

      “Oh, there you are! Look who’s back from Starlight Park. Howja like the dancing over there, Miss Alden? We saw you, but you didn’t see us.” And before Roberta had time to think what to reply, Miss Feliss had added: “We tried to get your eye, but you couldn’t see any one but him, I guess. I’ll say you dance swell.”

      At once Roberta, who had never been on very intimate terms with either of these girls and who had neither the effrontery nor the wit to extricate herself from so swift and complete and so unexpected an exposure, flushed. She was all but speechless and merely stared, bethinking her at once that she had explained to Grace that she was at her sister’s all day. And opposite sat Grace, looking directly at her, her lips slightly parted as though she would exclaim: “Well, of all things! And dancing! A man!” And at the head of the table, George Newton, thin and meticulous and curious, his sharp eyes and nose and pointed chin now turned in her direction.

      But on the instant, realizing that she must say something, Roberta replied: “Oh, yes, that’s so. I did go over there for a little while. Some friends of my sister’s were coming over and I went with them.” She was about to add, “We didn’t stay very long,” but stopped herself. For at that moment a certain fighting quality which she had inherited from her mother, and which had asserted itself in the case of Grace before this, now came to her rescue. After all, why shouldn’t she be at Starlight Park if she chose? And what right had the Newtons or Grace or anyone else to question her for that matter? She was paying her way. Nevertheless, as she realized, she had been caught in a deliberate lie and all because she lived here and was constantly being questioned and looked after in regard

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