Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

1029 страница из 1457

“Did she break the engagement?”

“She cern’ly did. While I was getting better she used to sit by my bed for hours looking at me with the funniest expression in her eyes. Finally I asked for a mirror—I thought I must be all cut up or something. But I wasn’t. Then one day she began to cry. She said she’d been thinking it over and perhaps it was a mistake and all that sort of thing. Seemed to be referring to some quarrel we’d had when we said good-bye just before I got hurt. But I was still a pretty sick man and the whole thing didn’t seem to make any sense unless there was another man in it somewhere. She said that we both wanted our freedom, and then she looked at me as if she expected me to make some explanation or apology—and I couldn’t think what I’d done. I remember leaning back in the bed and wishing I could die right then and there. Two months later I heard she’d sailed for home.”

Elaine leaned anxiously over the table.

“Don’t go to the country with her, Charley,” she said. “Please don’t go. She wants you back—I can tell by looking at her.”