Page 110 - tender-is-the-night

her; their long necks darted toward her and they fixed finely
critical glances upon her. She looked back at them defiantly,
acknowledging that she had heard what they said. Then she
threw off her exigent vis-à-vis with a polite but clipped part-
ing that she had just learned from Dick, and went over to
join him. The hostess—she was another tall rich American
girl, promenading insouciantly upon the national prosperi-
ty—was asking Dick innumerable questions about Gausse’s
Hôtel, whither she evidently wanted to come, and battering
persistently against his reluctance. Rosemary’s presence re-
minded her that she had been recalcitrant as a hostess and
glancing about she said: ‘Have you met any one amusing,
have you met Mr.—‘ Her eyes groped for a male who might
interest Rosemary, but Dick said they must go. They left im-
mediately, moving over the brief threshold of the future to
the sudden past of the stone façade without.
‘Wasn’t it terrible?’ he said.
‘Terrible,’ she echoed obediently.
‘Rosemary?’
She murmured, ‘What?’ in an awed voice.
‘I feel terribly about this.’
She was shaken with audibly painful sobs. ‘Have you got
a handkerchief?’ she faltered. But there was little time to
cry, and lovers now they fell ravenously on the quick sec-
onds while outside the taxi windows the green and cream
twilight faded, and the firered, gas-blue, ghost-green
signs began to shine smokily through the tranquil rain. It
was nearly six, the streets were in movement, the bistros
gleamed, the Place de la Concorde moved by in pink maj-

110 Tender is the Night