Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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He shook his head and laughed.

“Yes she does,” insisted Elaine. “I can tell. I hate her. She had you once and now she wants you back. I can see it in her eyes. I wish you’d stay in New York with me.”

“No,” he said stubbornly. “Going out and look her over. Diamond Dick’s an old girl of mine.”

Diana was standing on the station platform in the late afternoon, drenched with golden light. In the face of her immaculate freshness Charley Abbot felt ragged and old. He was only twenty-nine, but four wild years had left many lines around his dark, handsome eyes. Even his walk was tired—it was no longer a demonstration of fitness and physical grace. It was a way of getting somewhere, failing other forms of locomotion; that was all.

“Charley,” Diana cried, “where’s your bag?”

“I only came out to dinner—I can’t possibly spend the night.”

He was sober, she saw, but he looked as if he needed a drink badly. She took his arm and guided him to a red-wheeled coupé parked in the street.

“Get in and sit down,” she commanded. “You walk as if you were about to fall down anyhow.”