TENDER IS THE NIGHT (The Original 1934 Edition). Фрэнсис Скотт Фицджеральд
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what?”
“Kimberly. Didn’t you know?”
“I wasn’t sure. Mrs. Rogers introduced you in such a mumble.”
There was a slight pause.
“Yanci,” he repeated; “beautiful Yanci, with her dark-blue eyes and her lazy soul. Do you know why I’m not quite satisfied, Yanci?”
“Why?”
Imperceptibly she had moved her face nearer until as she waited for an answer with her lips faintly apart he knew that in asking she had granted.
Without haste he bent his head forward and touched her lips.
He sighed, and both of them felt a sort of relief—relief from the embarrassment of playing up to what conventions of this sort of thing remained.
“Thanks,” he said as he had when she first stopped the car.
“Now are you satisfied?”
Her blue eyes regarded him unsmilingly in the darkness.
“After a fashion; of course, you can never say—definitely.”
Again he bent toward her, but she stooped and started the motor. It was late and Yanci was beginning to be tired. What purpose there was in the experiment was accomplished. He had had what he asked. If he liked it he would want more, and that put her one move ahead in the game which she felt she was beginning.
“I’m hungry,” she complained. “Let’s go down and eat.”
“Very well,” he acquiesced sadly. “Just when I was enjoying—the Mississippi.”
“Do you think I’m beautiful?” she inquired almost plaintively as they backed out.
“What an absurd question!”
“But I like to hear people say so.”
“I was just about to—when you started the engine.”
Downtown in a deserted all-night lunch room they ate bacon and eggs. She was pale as ivory now. The night had drawn the lazy vitality and languid color out of her face. She encouraged him to talk to her of New York until he was beginning every sentence with, “Well now, let’s see——”
The repast over, they drove home. Scott helped her put the car in the little garage, and just outside the front door she lent him her lips again for the faint brush of a kiss. Then she went in.
The long living room which ran the width of the small stucco house was reddened by a dying fire which had been high when Yanci left and now was faded to a steady undancing glow. She took a log from the fire box and threw it on the embers, then started as a voice came out of the half darkness at the other end of the room.
“Back so soon?”
It was her father’s voice, not yet quite sober, but alert and intelligent.
“Yes. Went riding,” she answered shortly, sitting down in a wicker chair before the fire. “Then went down and had something to eat.”
“Oh!”
Her father left his place and moved to a chair nearer the fire, where he stretched himself out with a sigh. Glancing at him from the corner of her eye, for she was going to show an appropriate coldness, Yanci was fascinated by his complete recovery of dignity in the space of two hours. His graying hair was scarcely rumpled; his handsome face was ruddy as ever. Only his eyes, crisscrossed with tiny red lines, were evidence of his late dissipation.
“Have a good time?”
“Why should you care?” she answered rudely.
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“You didn’t seem to care earlier in the evening. I asked you to take two people home for me, and you weren’t able to drive your own car.”
“The deuce I wasn’t!” he protested. “I could have driven in—in a race in an arana, areaena. That Mrs. Rogers insisted that her young admirer should drive, so what could I do?”
“That isn’t her young admirer,” retorted Yanci crisply. There was no drawl in her voice now. “She’s as old as you are. That’s her niece—I mean her nephew.”
“Excuse me!”
“I think you owe me an apology.” She found suddenly that she bore him no resentment. She was rather sorry for him, and it occurred to her that in asking him to take Mrs. Rogers home she had somehow imposed on his liberty. Nevertheless, discipline was necessary—there would be other Saturday nights. “Don’t you?” she concluded.
“I apologize, Yanci.”
“Very well, I accept your apology,” she answered stiffly.
“What’s more, I’ll make it up to you.”
Her blue eyes contracted. She hoped—she hardly dared to hope that he might take her to New York.
“Let’s see,” he said. “November, isn’t it? What date?”
“The twenty-third.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.” He knocked the tips of his fingers together tentatively. “I’ll give you a present. I’ve been meaning to let you have a trip all fall, but business has been bad.” She almost smiled—as though business was of any consequence in his life. “But then you need a trip. I’ll make you a present of it.”
He rose again, and crossing over to his desk sat down.
“I’ve got a little money in a New York bank that’s been lying there quite a while,” he said as he fumbled in a drawer for a check book. “I’ve been intending to close out the account. Let—me—see. There’s just——” His pen scratched. “Where the devil’s the blotter? Uh!”
He came back to the fire and a pink oblong paper fluttered into her lap.
“Why, Father!”
It was a check for three hundred dollars.
“But can you afford this?” she demanded.
“It’s all right,” he reassured her, nodding. “That can be a Christmas present, too, and you’ll probably need a dress or a hat or something before you go.”
“Why,” she began uncertainly, “I hardly know whether I ought to take this much or not! I’ve got two hundred of my own downtown, you know. Are you sure——”
“Oh, yes!” He waved his hand with magnificent carelessness. “You need a holiday. You’ve been talking about New York, and I want you to go down there. Tell some of your friends at Yale and the other colleges and they’ll ask you to the prom or something. That’ll be nice. You’ll have a good time.”
He sat down abruptly in his chair and gave vent to a long sigh. Yanci folded up the check and tucked it into the low bosom of her dress.
“Well,” she drawled softly with a return to her usual manner, “you’re a perfect lamb to be so sweet about it, but I don’t want to be horribly extravagant.”
Her father did not answer. He gave another little sigh and relaxed sleepily into his chair.
“Of course I do want to go,” went on Yanci.
Still her father was silent. She wondered if he were asleep.
“Are you asleep?” she demanded, cheerfully now. She bent toward him; then she stood up and looked at him.
“Father,” she said uncertainly.
Her father remained motionless; the ruddy color had melted suddenly out of his face.
“Father!”
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