Page 320 - tender-is-the-night

ions he disagreed with.
‘Of course I like formality—I like things to be just so,
and on the grand scale. I know you probably don’t but you
must admit it’s a sign of solidity in me.’
Dick did not even bother to dissent from this.
‘Of course I know people say, Baby Warren is racing
around over Europe, chasing one novelty after another, and
missing the best things in life, but I think on the contrary
that I’m one of the few people who really go after the best
things. I’ve known the most interesting people of my time.’
Her voice blurred with the tinny drumming of another gui-
tar number, but she called over it, ‘I’ve made very few big
mistakes—‘
‘—Only the very big ones, Baby.’
She had caught something facetious in his eye and she
changed the subject. It seemed impossible for them to hold
anything in common. But he admired something in her,
and he deposited her at the Excelsior with a series of com-
pliments that left her shimmering.
Rosemary insisted on treating Dick to lunch next day.
They went to a little trattoria kept by an Italian who had
worked in America, and ate ham and eggs and waffles. Af-
terward, they went to the hotel. Dick’s discovery that he was
not in love with her, nor she with him, had added to rather
than diminished his passion for her. Now that he knew he
would not enter further into her life, she became the strange
woman for him. He supposed many men meant no more
than that when they said they were in love—not a wild sub-
mergence of soul, a dipping of all colors into an obscuring

320 Tender is the Night