Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

574 страница из 1457

“But it does—because I think I’m in love with you.”

He looked at her ironically.

“Thus swelling your January total to half a dozen,” he suggested. “Suppose I call your bluff and ask you to come to India with me?”

“Shall I?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“We can get married in Callao.”

“What sort of life can you offer me? I don’t mean that unkindly, but seriously; what would become of me if the people who want that twenty-thousand-dollar reward ever catch up with you?”

“I thought you weren’t afraid.”

“I never am—but I won’t throw my life away just to show one man I’m not.”

“I wish you’d been poor. Just a little poor girl dreaming over a fence in a warm cow country.”

“Wouldn’t it have been nice?”

“I’d have enjoyed astonishing you—watching your eyes open on things. If you only wanted things! Don’t you see?”

“I know—like girls who stare into the windows of jewelry-stores.”

“Yes—and want the big oblong watch that’s platinum and has diamonds all round the edge. Only you’d decide it was too expensive and choose one of white gold for a hundred dollars. Then I’d say: ‘Expensive? I should say not!’ And we’d go into the store and pretty soon the platinum one would be gleaming on your wrist.”