Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“That’s right,” he answered, frowning. “Old girl of mine. In fact, my only old girl.”

“Oh, you’ve known her all your life.”

“No.” He shook his head. “When I first met her she was a canteen worker in the war.”

“She was!” Elaine raised her brows in surprise. “Why she doesn’t look——”

“Oh, she’s not nineteen anymore—she’s nearly twenty-five.” He laughed. “I saw her sitting on a box at an ammunition dump near Soissons one day with enough lieutenants around her to officer a regiment. Three weeks after that we were engaged!”

“Then what?” demanded Elaine sharply.

“Usual thing,” he answered with a touch of bitterness. “She broke it off. Only unusual part of it was that I never knew why. Said good-bye to her one day and left for my squadron. I must have said something or done something then that started the big fuss. I’ll never know. In fact I don’t remember anything about it very clearly because a few hours later I had a crash and what happened just before has always been damn dim in my head. As soon as I was well enough to care about anything I saw that the situation was changed. Thought at first that there must be another man.”