Page 83 - tender-is-the-night

sometimes wonder about such things. Just before the war
we were in Berlin—I was thirteen, it was just before Mother
died. My sister was going to a court ball and she had three
of the royal princes on her dance card, all arranged by a
chamberlain and everything. Half an hour before she was
going to start she had a side ache and a high fever. The doc-
tor said it was appendicitis and she ought to be operated
on. But Mother had her plans made, so Baby went to the
ball and danced till two with an ice pack strapped on un-
der her evening dress. She was operated on at seven o’clock
next morning.’
It was good to be hard, then; all nice people were hard
on themselves. But it was four o’clock and Rosemary kept
thinking of Dick waiting for Nicole now at the hotel. She
must go there, she must not make him wait for her. She kept
thinking, ‘Why don’t you go?’ and then suddenly, ‘Or let me
go if you don’t want to.’ But Nicole went to one more place
to buy corsages for them both and sent one to Mary North.
Only then she seemed to remember and with sudden ab-
straction she signalled for a taxi.
‘Good-by,’ said Nicole. ‘We had fun, didn’t we?’
‘Loads of fun,’ said Rosemary. It was more difficult than
she thought and her whole self protested as Nicole drove
away.

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