Page 323 - tender-is-the-night

‘He’s only a baby,’ she said, sniffling. ‘You know I’m yours
first.’
In reaction he put his arms about her but she relaxed wea-
rily backward; he held her like that for a moment as in the
end of an adagio, her eyes closed, her hair falling straight
back like that of a girl drowned.
‘Dick, let me go. I never felt so mixed up in my life.’
He was a gruff red bird and instinctively she drew away
from him as his unjustified jealousy began to snow over the
qualities of consideration and understanding with which
she felt at home.
‘I want to know the truth,’ he said.
‘Yes, then. We’re a lot together, he wants to marry me,
but I don’t want to. What of it? What do you expect me to
do? You never asked me to marry you. Do you want me to
play around forever with half-wits like Collis Clay?’
‘You were with Nicotera last night?’
‘That’s none of your business,’ she sobbed. ‘Excuse me,
Dick, it is your business. You and Mother are the only two
people in the world I care about.’
‘How about Nicotera?’
‘How do I know?’
She had achieved the elusiveness that gives hidden sig-
nificance to the least significant remarks.
‘Is it like you felt toward me in Paris?’
‘I feel comfortable and happy when I’m with you. In Par-
is it was different. But you never know how you once felt.
Do you?’
He got up and began collecting his evening clothes—if he

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