Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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Fifi shook her head.

“No, I came out to hide my face.”

“You were ashamed because you had broken your engagement?”

“Terribly. If you desert a man at the altar you brand him for the rest of his life.”

“Why?” he demanded sharply.

“Why not?”

“You’re not asking me. I’m asking you…. However, let that pass. Now, when you arrived here, how did you pass your time?”

“I walked mostly—walked along the beach.”

“It was on one of these walks that you met the—ah—person your aunt told me of over the telephone?”

Fifi pinkened slightly.

“Yes.”

“What was he doing when you first saw him?”

“He was looking down at me out of a tree.”

There was a general exclamation from her aunts, in which the word “monkey” figured.

“Did he attract you immediately?” demanded Doctor Gallup.

“Why, not especially. At first I only laughed.”

“I see. Now, as I understand, this man was very—ah—very originally clad.”

“Yes,” agreed Fifi.

“He was unshaven?”

“Yes.”

“Ah!” Doctor Gallup seemed to go through a sort of convolution like a medium coming out of a trance. “Miss Fifi,” he cried out triumphantly, “did you ever read ‘The Sheik’?”