Page 209 - tender-is-the-night

VII

It was late afternoon when they wound up the discus-
sion as to what Dick should do, he must be most kind and
yet eliminate himself. When the doctors stood up at last,
Dick’s eyes fell outside the window to where a light rain was
falling—Nicole was waiting, expectant, somewhere in that
rain. When, presently, he went out buttoning his oil-skin at
the throat, pulling down the brim of his hat, he came upon
her immediately under the roof of the main entrance.
‘I know a new place we can go,’ she said. ‘When I was ill
I didn’t mind sitting inside with the others in the evening—
what they said seemed like everything else. Naturally now I
see them as ill and it’s—it’s—‘
‘You’ll be leaving soon.’
‘Oh, soon. My sister, Beth, but she’s always been called
Baby, she’s coming in a few weeks to take me somewhere;
after that I’ll be back here for a last month.’
‘The older sister?’
‘Oh, quite a bit older. She’s twenty-four—she’s very Eng-
lish. She lives in London with my father’s sister. She was
engaged to an Englishman but he was killed—I never saw
him.’
Her face, ivory gold against the blurred sunset that strove
through the rain, had a promise Dick had never seen before:
the high cheekbones, the faintly wan quality, cool rather

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