Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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Perhaps she suspected this. At any rate, Amory watched the night that should have been the consummation of romance glide by with great moths overhead and the heavy fragrance of roadside gardens, but without those broken words, those little sighs….

Afterward they suppered on ginger ale and devil’s food in the pantry, and Amory announced a decision.

“I’m leaving early in the morning.”

“Why?”

“Why not?” he countered.

“There’s no need.”

“However, I’m going.”

“Well, if you insist on being ridiculous——”

“Oh, don’t put it that way,” he objected.

“—just because I won’t let you kiss me. Do you think——”

“Now, Isabelle,” he interrupted, “you know it’s not that—even suppose it is. We’ve reached the stage where we either ought to kiss—or—or—nothing. It isn’t as if you were refusing on moral grounds.”

She hesitated.

“I really don’t know what to think about you,” she began, in a feeble, perverse attempt at conciliation. “You’re so funny.”

“How?”

“Well, I thought you had a lot of self-confidence and all that; remember you told me the other day that you could do anything you wanted, or get anything you wanted?”