Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“What’s the trouble, Marcia?”

“Guy I don’t like down in front.”

During the last act as she waited for her specialty she had an odd attack of stage fright. She had never sent Horace the promised post-card. Last night she had pretended not to see him—had hurried from the theatre immediately after her dance to pass a sleepless night in her apartment, thinking—as she had so often in the last month—of his pale, rather intent face, his slim, boyish figure, the merciless, unworldly abstraction that made him charming to her.

And now that he had come she felt vaguely sorry—as though an unwonted responsibility was being forced on her.

“Infant prodigy!” she said aloud.

“What?” demanded the negro comedian standing beside her.

“Nothing—just talking about myself.”

On the stage she felt better. This was her dance—and she always felt that the way she did it wasn’t suggestive any more than to some men every pretty girl is suggestive. She made it a stunt.

“Uptown, downtown, jelly on a spoon,

After sundown shiver by the moon.”