Page 264 - tender-is-the-night

vince your patients that you have any character? Don’t you
think they’ll see you’re a gastropath?’
‘I’m going to bed,’ Nicole announced. Dick accompanied
her to the door of the elevator.
‘I’d come with you but I must show Franz that I’m not
intended for a clinician.’
Nicole walked into the elevator.
‘Baby has lots of common sense,’ she said meditatively.
‘Baby is one of—‘
The door slashed shut—facing a mechanical hum, Dick
finished the sentence in his mind, ‘—Baby is a trivial, self-
ish woman.’
But two days later, sleighing to the station with Franz,
Dick admitted that he thought favorably upon the matter.
‘We’re beginning to turn in a circle,’ he admitted. ‘Liv-
ing on this scale, there’s an unavoidable series of strains,
and Nicole doesn’t survive them. The pastoral quality down
on the summer Riviera is all changing anyhow—next year
they’ll have a Season.’
They passed the crisp green rinks where Wiener waltz-
es blared and the colors of many mountain schools flashed
against the pale-blue skies.
‘—I hope we’ll be able to do it, Franz. There’s nobody I’d
rather try it with than you—‘
Good-by, Gstaad! Good-by, fresh faces, cold sweet flow-
ers, flakes in the darkness. Good-by, Gstaad, good-by!

264 Tender is the Night