Page 96 - tender-is-the-night

and nearer the elevator. When they reached the door she
said suddenly:
‘I know you don’t love me—I don’t expect it. But you said
I should have told you about my birthday. Well, I did, and
now for my birthday present I want you to come into my
room a minute while I tell you something. Just one min-
ute.’
They went in and he closed the door, and Rosemary
stood close to him, not touching him. The night had drawn
the color from her face—she was pale as pale now, she was a
white carnation left after a dance.
‘When you smile—‘ He had recovered his paternal atti-
tude, perhaps because of Nicole’s silent proximity, ‘I always
think I’ll see a gap where you’ve lost some baby teeth.’
But he was too late—she came close up against him with
a forlorn whisper.
‘Take me.’
‘Take you where?’
Astonishment froze him rigid.
‘Go on,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, please go on, whatever they
do. I don’t care if I don’t like it—I never expected to—I’ve al-
ways hated to think about it but now I don’t. I want you to.’
She was astonished at herself—she had never imagined
she could talk like that. She was calling on things she had
read, seen, dreamed through a decade of convent hours.
Suddenly she knew too that it was one of her greatest rôles
and she flung herself into it more passionately.
‘This is not as it should be,’ Dick deliberated. ‘Isn’t it just
the champagne? Let’s more or less forget it.’

96 Tender is the Night