Page 318 - tender-is-the-night

es that peopled the small hotels of Europe.
‘Of course it’s none of my business,’ Baby repeated, as a
preliminary to a further plunge, ‘but to leave her alone in an
atmosphere like that—‘
‘I went to America because my father died.’
‘I understand that, I told you how sorry I was.’ She fid-
dled with the glass grapes on her necklace. ‘But there’s so
MUCH money now. Plenty for everything, and it ought to
be used to get Nicole well.’
‘For one thing I can’t see myself in London.’
‘Why not? I should think you could work there as well as
anywhere else.’
He sat back and looked at her. If she had ever suspected
the rotted old truth, the real reason for Nicole’s illness, she
had certainly determined to deny it to herself, shoving it
back in a dusty closet like one of the paintings she bought
by mistake.
They continued the conversation in the Ulpia, where
Collis Clay came over to their table and sat down, and a
gifted guitar player thrummed and rumbled ‘Suona Fanfara
Mia’ in the cellar piled with wine casks.
‘It’s possible that I was the wrong person for Nicole,’ Dick
said. ‘Still she would probably have married some one of
my type, some one she thought she could rely on—indef-
initely.’
‘You think she’d be happier with somebody else?’ Baby
thought aloud suddenly. ‘Of course it could be arranged.’
Only as she saw Dick bend forward with helpless laugh-
ter did she realize the preposterousness of her remark.

318 Tender is the Night