Page 365 - tender-is-the-night

‘Nothing about Dick. I must talk to Franz.’
‘It is about Dick.’
There was terror in her face and collaborating alarm in
the faces of the Diver children, near at hand. Kaethe col-
lapsed with: ‘Your father is ill in Lausanne—Dick wants to
talk to Franz about it.’
‘Is he very sick?’ Nicole demanded—just as Franz came up
with his hearty hospital manner. Gratefully Kaethe passed
the remnant of the buck to him—but the damage was done.
‘I’m going to Lausanne,’ announced Nicole.
‘One minute,’ said Franz. ‘I’m not sure it’s advisable. I
must first talk on the phone to Dick.’
‘Then I’ll miss the train down,’ Nicole protested, ‘and
then I’ll miss the three o’clock from Zurich! If my father is
dying I must—‘ She left this in the air, afraid to formulate
it. ‘I MUST go. I’ll have to run for the train.’ She was run-
ning even as she spoke toward the sequence of flat cars that
crowned the bare hill with bursting steam and sound. Over
her shoulder she called back, ‘If you phone Dick tell him I’m
coming, Franz!’ ...
... Dick was in his own room in the hotel reading The New
York Herald when the swallow-like nun rushed in—simulta-
neously the phone rang.
‘Is he dead?’ Dick demanded of the nun, hopefully.
‘Monsieur, il est parti—he has gone away.’
‘Com-MENT?’
‘Il est parti—his man and his baggage have gone away
too!’
It was incredible. A man in that condition to arise and

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