Page 72 - tender-is-the-night

terwards.’
Rosemary did not like the picture of herself looking on
and she demurred, but Mrs. Speer’s consciousness was still
clogged with sleep and she was reminded of night calls to
death and calamity when she was the wife of a doctor. ‘I like
you to go places and do things on your own initiative with-
out me—you did much harder things for Rainy’s publicity
stunts.’
Still Rosemary did not see why she should go, but she
obeyed the sure, clear voice that had sent her into the stage
entrance of the Odeon in Paris when she was twelve and
greeted her when she came out again.
She thought she was reprieved when from the steps she
saw Abe and McKisco drive away—but after a moment the
hotel car came around the corner. Squealing delightedly
Luis Campion pulled her in beside him.
‘I hid there because they might not let us come. I’ve got
my movie camera, you see.’
She laughed helplessly. He was so terrible that he was no
longer terrible, only dehumanized.
‘I wonder why Mrs. McKisco didn’t like the Divers?’ she
said. ‘They were very nice to her.’
‘Oh, it wasn’t that. It was something she saw. We never
did find exactly what it was because of Barban.’
‘Then that wasn’t what made you so sad.’
‘Oh, no,’ he said, his voice breaking, ‘that was something
else that happened when we got back to the hotel. But now I
don’t care— I wash my hands of it completely.’
They followed the other car east along the shore past

72 Tender is the Night