Page 222 - tender-is-the-night

IX

They were waiting for him and incomplete without him.
He was still the incalculable element; Miss Warren and the
young Italian wore their anticipation as obviously as Ni-
cole. The salon of the hotel, a room of fabled acoustics, was
stripped for dancing but there was a small gallery of Eng-
lishwomen of a certain age, with neckbands, dyed hair and
faces powdered pinkish gray; and of American women of a
certain age, with snowy-white transformations, black dress-
es and lips of cherry red. Miss Warren and Marmora were
at a corner table—Nicole was diagonally across from them
forty yards away, and as Dick arrived he heard her voice:
‘Can you hear me? I’m speaking naturally.’
‘Perfectly,’
‘Hello, Doctor Diver.’
‘What’s this?’
‘You realize the people in the centre of the floor can’t
hear what I say, but you can?’
‘A waiter told us about it,’ said Miss Warren. ‘Corner to
corner— it’s like wireless.’
It was exciting up on the mountain, like a ship at sea.
Presently Marmora’s parents joined them. They treated the
Warrens with respect—Dick gathered that their fortunes
had something to do with a bank in Milan that had some-
thing to do with the Warren fortunes. But Baby Warren

222 Tender is the Night