Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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They took a table and were served with olive sandwiches and tea. He was so good-looking, she thought, and marvelously dressed. His grey eyes regarded her with interest from under immaculate ash-blond hair. She wondered how he passed his days, how he liked her costume, what he was thinking of at that moment.

“How long will you be here?” he asked.

“Well, two weeks, off and on. I’m going down to Princeton for the February prom and then up to a house party in Westchester County for a few days. Are you shocked at me for going out so soon? Father would have wanted me to, you know. He was very modern in all his ideas.”

She had debated this remark on the train. She was not going to a house party. She was not invited to the Princeton prom. Such things, nevertheless, were necessary to create the illusion. That was everything—the illusion.

“And then,” she continued, smiling, “two of my old beaus are in town, which makes it nice for me.”

She saw Scott blink and she knew that he appreciated the significance of this.