Page 456 - tender-is-the-night

‘It’s true. Nobody cares whether you drink or not—‘ She
hesitated, ‘even when Abe drank hardest, he never offended
people like you do.’
‘You’re all so dull,’ he said.
‘But we’re all there is!’ cried Mary. ‘If you don’t like nice
people, try the ones who aren’t nice, and see how you like
that! All people want is to have a good time and if you make
them unhappy you cut yourself off from nourishment.’
‘Have I been nourished?’ he asked.
Mary was having a good time, though she did not know
it, as she had sat down with him only out of fear. Again she
refused a drink and said: ‘Self-indulgence is back of it. Of
course, after Abe you can imagine how I feel about it—since
I watched the progress of a good man toward alcoholism—‘
Down the steps tripped Lady Caroline Sibly-Biers with
blithe theatricality.
Dick felt fine—he was already well in advance of the
day; arrived at where a man should be at the end of a good
dinner, yet he showed only a fine, considered, restrained in-
terest in Mary. His eyes, for the moment clear as a child’s,
asked her sympathy and stealing over him he felt the old
necessity of convincing her that he was the last man in the
world and she was the last woman.
... Then he would not have to look at those two other fig-
ures, a man and a woman, black and white and metallic
against the sky... .
‘You once liked me, didn’t you?’ he asked.
‘LIKED you—I LOVED you. Everybody loved you. You
could’ve had anybody you wanted for the asking—‘

456 Tender is the Night