Page 224 - tender-is-the-night

dred years before, yet, in spite of the tragic affair with the
guards’ officer there was something wooden and onanistic
about her.
‘I don’t mind the responsibility,’ she declared, ‘but I’m
in the air. We’ve never had anything like this in the family
before—we know Nicole had some shock and my opinion is
it was about a boy, but we don’t really know. Father says he
would have shot him if he could have found out.’
The orchestra was playing ‘Poor Butterfly”; young Mar-
mora was dancing with his mother. It was a tune new
enough to them all. Listening, and watching Nicole’s shoul-
ders as she chattered to the elder Marmora, whose hair was
dashed with white like a piano keyboard, Dick thought of
the shoulders of a violin, and then he thought of the dis-
honor, the secret. Oh, butterfly—the moments pass into
hours—
‘Actually I have a plan,’ Baby continued with apologet-
ic hardness. ‘It may seem absolutely impractical to you but
they say Nicole will need to be looked after for a few years. I
don’t know whether you know Chicago or not—‘
‘I don’t.’
‘Well, there’s a North Side and a South Side and they’re
very much separated. The North Side is chic and all that,
and we’ve always lived over there, at least for many years,
but lots of old families, old Chicago families, if you know
what I mean, still live on the South Side. The University
is there. I mean it’s stuffy to some people, but anyhow it’s
different from the North Side. I don’t know whether you un-
derstand.’

224 Tender is the Night