Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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Diana saw him first at the Restaurant Mont Mihiel, sitting at a side table with a plump, indiscriminate blonde from the halfworld. She excused herself unceremoniously to her escort and made her way toward him. He looked up as she approached and she felt a sudden faintness, for he was worn to a shadow and his eyes, large and dark like her own, were burning in red rims of fire.

“Why, Charley——”

He got drunkenly to his feet and they shook hands in a dazed way. He murmured an introduction, but the girl at the table evinced her displeasure at the meeting by glaring at Diana with cold blue eyes.

“Why, Charley——” said Diana again, “you’ve come home, haven’t you.”

“I’m here for good.”

“I want to see you, Charley. I—I want to see you as soon as possible. Will you come out to the country tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” He glanced with an apologetic expression at the blonde girl. “I’ve got a date. Don’t know about tomorrow. Maybe later in the week——”

“Break your date.”

His companion had been drumming with her fingers on the cloth and looking restlessly around the room. At this remark she wheeled sharply back to the table.