Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

1275 страница из 1457

In a moment two gendarmes in a great hurry came running down the moonlit street.

Two days after this it came out in the papers—“War hero deserts wife en route to Paris,” I think, or “American Bride arrives penniless, Husbandless at Gare du Nord.” The police were informed, of course, and word was sent out to the provincial departments to seek an American named James Cooley who was without carte d’identité. The newspapers learned the story at the American Aid Society and made a neat pathetic job of it, because Milly was young and pretty and curiously loyal to her husband. Almost her first words were to explain that it was all because his nerves had been shattered in the war.

Young Driscoll was somewhat disappointed to find that she was married. Not that he had fallen in love at first sight—on the contrary, he was unusually level-headed—but after the moonlight rescue, which rather pleased him, it didn’t seem appropriate that she should have a heroic husband wandering over France. He had carried her to his own pension that night, and his landlady, an American widow named Mrs. Horton, had taken a fancy to Milly and wanted to look after her, but before eleven o’clock on the day the paper appeared, the office of the American Aid Society was literally jammed with Samaritans. They were mostly rich old ladies from America who were tired of the Louvre and the Tuileries and anxious for something to do. Several eager but sheepish Frenchmen, inspired by a mysterious and unfathomable gallantry, hung about outside the door.