Claire Ambler (1928, Doubleday)/Part 1/Chapter 3

by Newton Booth Tarkington

III.

HE WAS all the more in a sighing condition because of Claire's devotion to the tasks that called her indoors. He understood them to be useful and altruistic—perhaps aiding her mother with household management, possibly performing secretarial duties for her father; at any rate, something better than the occupations of his sisters, who never did anything, he was convinced, except for themselves. Everything about this girl was beautifully admirable; hers was a deeper nature than that of other girls; and she was so conscientious that she wouldn't even break a promise unreasonably extorted by the old-fashioned prejudices of her mother. Nelson recognized a noble loyalty; but he was a little gloomy about it, too. He had a foreboding of rivalry; there were three or four dashing contemporaries of his whom Claire had not met; and it was partly with them in mind that he had suggested the departure to the rocks. In particular, he felt an uneasiness about the effect upon her of two of his close friends.

Platter Thomas and Bill Reek were "all right among men," Nelson thought; but he did not like their manners with girls. Platter and Bill were too informal; they were boisterous, coarse-grained, off-hand; and they were incapable of making fine distinctions; they would not understand that Claire Ambler wasn't the kind of person one slaps on the back. He had seen Platter and Bill presented to a girl on the beach and immediately take her into the surf and hold her under water as a means of establishing, without intermediate tediums, a proper camaraderie. The fact that girls seemed to be flattered by the attentions of the boorish pair, Nelson attributed to a swift and commodious motorboat, their joint property. The motorboat would not dazzle a girl who had seen so much of the world as Claire had, he thought; and yet her very conscientiousness might prevent her from declining invitations. Moreover, Platter and Bill would be certain to tell her about the boat as soon as they met her;—they never failed to drag in an apparently casual mention of it, and he had a premonition that he was going to find them annoying.

Herein he was a true prophet; they were so annoying, in fact, that he spoke of them to Claire before the evening was half over, and he showed feeling: "I s'pose they been bragging to you about that old tub o' theirs," he said severely, as he danced with her. "They never meet anybody new they don't begin right away to blah-blah about it. I hope you didn't flatter 'em by seeming to take any interest in it—I mean after this afternoon."

"After this afternoon, Nelson?" she asked vaguely.

"Yes," he said. "You know. I mean our caring for the same things. You know."

"Oh, yes," she returned quickly. "Of course."

"You meant it, didn't you, Claire?"

"Meant what?"

"Well—you know. I mean about our caring for the same things. Didn't you——?"

"Yes, Nelson."

"Well, since we found that out, don't you think it makes a difference? What I mean: when two people care for the same things, why, I shouldn't think one of 'em would seem so excited about meeting a lot of new men, and look in their eyes, and seem so eager and pleased when they cut in when we're dancing together and everything like that. What I mean: if I didn't remember this afternoon, the way you been behaving to-night I wouldn't even know we did care for the same things."

"But we do, Nelson."

"Well, then," he said reproachfully, "I think you might act more like it, Claire. The way you been acting to-night I wouldn't know whether you cared for the same things or just never thought about anything in the world except mere sex appeal. You haven't promised you'll go out in their old boat with 'em yet, have you?"

"Promised who?"

"Platter Thomas and Bill Reek."

"Which ones are they, Nelson? I've met so many and I get their names mixed up."

At this he was relieved. "Well, I'm glad you do," he said. "So you haven't."

"Haven't what?"

"Haven't said you'd go out in their boat."

"Let me see." A slight frown, as of perplexity, appeared upon her pretty brow. "There were three boys who asked me to motor with them, and one to go canoeing——"

"What!" Nelson interrupted. "You didn't——"

"Oh, yes," she said, remembering. "And there were two that talked about motorboating. One wanted me to go to-morrow morning and the other in the afternoon."

"Listen!" Nelson said. "You didn't promise you would, did you?"

Surprised, she looked up at his flushed and troubled face. "Well, they all seem so nice and cordial——"

"All?" he gasped. "All! D'you mean you're going to do what all of 'em asked you to? After this afternoon?"

"But you don't want me to snub people, do you, Nelson? Just when they're anxious to be friendly and make me feel at home in a strange place?"

"Listen!" he said. "You mean you told all of 'em you would?"

"But what else could I do, Nelson?"

Nelson looked desperate. "You did, then! After this afternoon! You said we care for the same things and then you go ahead and get yourself all dated up like this!"

"But Nelson——"

"It's terrible," he said. "It's a terrible thing."

"But we do care for the same things, Nelson, don't you believe it?"

"Well, then, if we do, what makes you go and date yourself up for all this——"

But here he was unpleasantly interrupted. A muscular hand descended heartily upon his shoulder; Mr. Platter Thomas was "cutting in," and claimed the lady for his partner in the dance. Nelson was left with a sense of injury and no answer to an incomplete question. The sense of injury seemed to be located at first at a point in his lower throat; later, it spread to his chest, and then progressing rapidly, saturated his whole person. Breathing heavily, he determined to "cut in" himself, and insist upon a direct reply; but in this resolve he was anticipated by competitors. Indeed, he was thrice forestalled; and, when his chance came again, he had no more than said, "Listen! If we do care for the same things——" before another brisk slap on the shoulder warned him that his time was over.

He was unfortunate; he had bestowed his affections upon one who almost instantaneously became the outstanding belle of that sector of the New England coast. Claire was seldom able to dance more than the full length of the room without a change of partners, and, from Nelson's point of view, the worst thing about this was her visible enjoyment of an odious popularity. Flushed, laughing, radiant, she turned sparkling eyes to every new applicant, even though he might be one of the mere loutish hobbledehoys of sixteen who cluttered the floor instead of being kept at home and sent to bed, as they should have been, Nelson thought.

"Pups!" he muttered, watching two of these pursuing to "cut in," while a third danced rapidly away with her, evading them and evading Nelson too. "Pups!" And he said worse of them: "Mere filthy pups!"

For gradually, as the evening wore away, his disposition became soured. Whenever he was able to dance with her for more than a moment, he tried to obtain an answer to his question. "Claire, after this afternoon——" he would begin, and once that was as far as he got with it. Again, later, he said, "But if we do care for the same things, Claire——" and as she interrupted him there to say, "But you know we do, Nelson," he found only time to add, "Then why don't you act more like it?" She was not put to the trouble of a reply, as the noisy young Mr. Reek intervened.

True, as Nelson stood against the wall while she danced by with others, she would often give him a lovely, wistful glance. "Don't you know we care for the same things?" this tender quick look seemed to say. But he had begun to doubt her seriously, and at last, stung by a little mistake of hers, he decided to hold himself aloof. This mistake was of no great importance, except to Nelson; she was so careless as not to observe until too late that he was standing beside his former friend, Mr. Thomas, and as she danced by them, she flashed to Platter one of those lovely little glances identically wistful. For an instant Nelson thought himself the recipient; then the fatuous expression of Platter and Claire's slight confusion were together all too enlightening.

Immediately Nelson became more completely than ever a mechanism. That is to say, of course, he was like any other human being under the impulsion of strong feelings, a stoked engine compelled to motion. The metal engine will move as long as the fuel lasts; the engine of human appearance will move as long as the feeling lasts; and the difference is that the metal engine is (except for accident) guided by human intelligence while the human engine is not. Nevertheless, just as rails are provided for the metal engine, so are there tracks that the human engine must follow—tracks thus travelled for thousands of years by the mechanical humans stoked by common emotions. To Nelson it appeared that of his own choice he became haughty and indifferent to Claire; he believed that he selected this manner himself; for he had no means of knowing that this and his subsequent performances, as well, were only the operations of a machine running inevitably along over tracks so worn that they are among the most ancient.

Thus, running smoothly on rails—though in his own belief the way was rough and painful—he danced no more that night with Claire, nor so much as looked at her, nor bade her even the most frigid or careless good-night, nor any good-night at all; but in his own mind said farewell to her definitely and for ever. He would have nothing more to do with a girl who had only pretended to care for the same things that he did; and, to make her fully aware of his indifference to her, on the following morning, he risked his life.