Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald онлайн

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When the sandwiches arrived Mr. Powell stood up. Unaccustomed to white servants he obviously expected an introduction.

“Are you a married lady?” he inquired of Amanthis, when the servant was gone.

“No,” she answered, and added from the security of eighteen, “I’m an old maid.”

Again he laughed politely.

“You mean you’re a society girl.”

She shook her head. Mr. Powell noted with embarrassed enthusiasm the particular yellowness of her yellow hair.

“Does this old place look like it?” she said cheerfully. “No, you perceive in me a daughter of the countryside. My suitors are farmers—or else, promising young barbers from the next village with somebody’s late hair still clinging to their coat-sleeves.”

“Your daddy oughtn’t to let you go with a barber,” said the tourist disapprovingly. He considered—“You ought to be a society girl.”

He began to tap his foot rhythmically on the porch and in a moment Amanthis discovered that she was unconsciously doing the same thing.

“Stop!” she commanded. “Don’t make me do that.”