Jennie Gerhardt - Драйзер Теодор - Страница 33

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"Now, look here," he said. "You don't mean that. Why did you say you liked me? Have you changed your mind? Look at me." (She had lowered

her eyes.) "Look at me! You haven't, have you?"

"Oh no, no, no," she half sobbed, swept by some force beyond her control.

"Well, then, why stand out against me? I love you, I tell you—I'm crazy about you. That's why I came back this time. It was to see you!"

"Was it?" asked Jennie, surprised.

"Yes, it was. And I would have come again and again if necessary. I tell you I'm crazy about you. I've got to have you. Now tell me you'll come

with me."

"No, no, no," she pleaded. "I can't. I must work. I want to work. I don't want to do anything wrong. Please don't ask me. You mustn't. You must

let me go. Really you must. I can't do what you want."

"Tell me, Jennie," he said, changing the subject. "What does your father do?"

"He's a glass-blower."

"Here in Cleveland?"

"No, he works in Youngstown."

"Is your mother alive?"

"Yes, sir."

"You live with her?"

"Yes, sir."

He smiled at the "sir."

"Don't say 'sir' to me, sweet!" he pleaded in his gruff way. "And don't insist on the MR. Kane. I'm not 'mister' to you any more. You belong to

me, little girl, me." And he pulled her close to him.

"Please don't, Mr. Kane," she pleaded. "Oh, please don't. I can't! I can't!

You mustn't."

But he sealed her lips with his own.

"Listen to me, Jennie," he repeated, using his favourite expression. "I tell you you belong to me. I like you better every moment. I haven't had a

chance to know you. I'm not going to give you up. You've got to come to

me eventually. And I'm not going to have you working as a lady's maid.

You can't stay in that place except for a little while. I'm going to take you somewhere else. And I'm going to leave you some money, do you hear?

You have to take it."

At the word money she quailed and withdrew her hand.

"No, no, no!" she repeated. "No, I won't take it."

"Yes, you will. Give it to your mother. I'm not trying to buy you. I know what you think. But I'm not. I want to help you. I want to help your

family. I know where you live. I saw the place to-day. How many are

there of you?"

"Six," she answered faintly.

"The families of the poor," he thought.

"Well, you take this from me," he insisted, drawing a purse from his coat.

"And I'll see you very soon again. There's no escape, sweet."

"No, no," she protested. "I won't. I don't need it. No, you mustn't ask me."

He insisted further, but she was firm, and finally he put the money away.

"One thing is sure, Jennie, you're not going to escape me," he said soberly. "You'll have to come to me eventually. Don't you know you will?

Your own attitude shows that. I'm not going to leave you alone."

"Oh, if you knew the trouble you're causing me."

"I'm not causing you any real trouble, am I?" he asked. "Surely not."

"Yes. I can never do what you want."

"You will! You will!" he exclaimed eagerly, the bare thought of this prize escaping him heightening his passion. "You'll come to me." And he drew her close in spite of all her protests.

"There," he said when, after the struggle, that mystic something between them spoke again, and she relaxed. Tears were in her eyes, but he did not see them. "Don't you see how it is? You like me too."

"I can't," she repeated, with a sob.

Her evident distress touched him. "You're not crying, little girl, are you?"

he asked.

She made no answer.

"I'm sorry," he went on. "I'll not say anything more to-night. We're almost at your home. I'm leaving tomorrow, but I'll see you again. Yes, I will,

sweet. I can't give you up now. I'll do anything in reason to make it easy for you, but I can't, do you hear?"

She shook her head.

"Here's where you get out," he said, as the carriage drew up near the corner. He could see the evening lamp gleaming behind the Gerhardt

cottage curtains.

"Good-bye," he said as she stepped out.

"Good-bye," she murmured.

"Remember," he said, "this is just the beginning."

"Oh no, no!" she pleaded.

He looked after her as she walked away.

"The beauty!" he exclaimed.

Jennie stepped into the house weary, discouraged, ashamed. What had she

done? There was no denying that she had compromised herself

irretrievably. He would come back.

He would come back. And he had offered her money. That was the worst

of all.

The inconclusive nature of this interview, exciting as it was, did not leave any doubt in either Lester Kane's or Jennie's mind; certainly this was not the end of the affair. Kane knew that he was deeply fascinated. This girl was lovely. She was sweeter than he had had any idea of. Her hesitancy,

her repeated protests, her gentle "no, no, no" moved him as music might.

Depend upon it, this girl was for him, and he would get her. She was too

sweet to let go. What did he care about what his family or the world

might think?

It was curious that Kane held the well-founded idea that in time Jennie

would yield to him physically, as she had already done spiritually. Just

why he could not say. Something about her—a warm womanhood, a

guileless expression of countenance—intimated a sympathy toward sex

relationship which had nothing to do with hard, brutal immorality. She

was the kind of a woman who was made for a man—one man. All her

attitude toward sex was bound up with love, tenderness, service. When

the one man arrived she would love him and she would go to him. That

was Jennie as Lester understood her. He felt it. She would yield to him

because he was the one man.

On Jennie's part there was a great sense of complication and of possible

disaster. If he followed her of course he would learn all. She had not told him about Brander, because she was still under the vague illusion that, in the end, she might escape. When she left him she knew that he would

come back. She knew, in spite of herself that she wanted him to do so. Yet she felt that she must not yield, she must go on leading her straitened,

humdrum life. This was her punishment for having made a mistake. She

had made her bed, and she must lie on it.

The Kane family mansion at Cincinnati to which Lester returned after

leaving Jennie was an imposing establishment, which contrasted

strangely with the Gerhardt home. It was a great, rambling, two-storey

affair, done after the manner of the French chateaux, but in red brick and brownstone. It was set down, among flowers and trees, in an almost park-like enclosure, and its very stones spoke of a splendid dignity and of a

refined luxury. Old Archibald Kane, the father, had amassed a tremendous

fortune, not by grabbing and brow-beating and unfair methods, but by

seeing a big need and filling it. Early in life he had realised that America was a growing country. There was going to be a big demand for vehicles

—wagons, carriages, drays—and he knew that some one would have to

supply them. Having founded a small wagon industry, he had built it up

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