Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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“How goes it?” she asked cheerfully. “Not very well, I suppose.”

“Oh, yes,” he answered stiffly, “I manage.”

“Taking in the happy crowd?”

“Heavens, yes.” He looked around him. “Betty, why are they happy? What are they smiling at? What do they find to smile at?”

Betty flashed at him a glance of radiant amusement.

“The women may smile because they have pretty teeth, Sylvo.”

“You smile,” continued Sylvester cynically, “because you’re comfortably married and have two children. You imagine you’re happy, so you suppose everyone else is.”

Betty nodded.

“You may have hit it, Sylvo——” The chauffeur glanced around and she nodded at him. “Good-bye.”

Sylvo watched with a pang of envy which turned suddenly to exasperation as he saw she had turned and smiled at him once more. Then her car was out of sight in the traffic, and with a voluminous sigh he galvanized his cane into life and continued his stroll.

At the next corner he stopped in at a cigar store and there he ran into Waldron Crosby. Back in the days when Sylvester had been a prize pigeon in the eyes of debutantes he had also been a game partridge from the point of view of promoters. Crosby, then a young bond salesman, had given him much safe and sane advice and saved him many dollars. Sylvester liked Crosby as much as he could like anyone. Most people did like Crosby.