Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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For a minute they stared at each other in silence and then she flushed slightly and discovered a desire to swallow.

“I suppose you’re Mr. Whitney.” She smiled faintly and advanced a step toward him. “I’m Myra Harper.”

For an instant longer he remained silent and motionless, and it flashed across Myra that he might be deaf; then suddenly he jerked into spirited life exactly like a mechanical toy started by the pressure of a button.

“Why, of course—why, naturally. I know—ah!” he exclaimed excitedly in a high-pitched elfin voice. Then raising himself on his toes in a sort of attenuated ecstasy of enthusiasm and smiling a wizened smile, he minced toward her across the dark carpet.

She blushed appropriately.

“That’s awfully nice of——”

“Ah!” he went on. “You must be tired; a rickety, cindery, ghastly trip, I know. Tired and hungry and thirsty, no doubt, no doubt!” He looked round him indignantly. “The servants are frightfully inefficient in this house!”

Myra did not know what to say to this, so she made no answer. After an instant’s abstraction Mr. Whitney crossed over with his furious energy and pressed a button; then almost as if he were dancing he was by her side again, making thin, disparaging gestures with his hands.