Читать книгу The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald - F. Scott Fitzgerald - Страница 175

By Friday Yanci’s spirits had partly recovered from their chill depression. Scott’s voice over the telephone in mid-morning was like a tonic, and she told him of the delights of Princeton with convincing enthusiasm, drawing vicariously upon a prom she had attended there two years before. He was anxious to see her, he said. Would she come to dinner and the theatre that night? Yanci considered, greatly tempted. Dinner—she had been economizing on meals, and a gorgeous dinner in some extravagant show place followed by a musical comedy appealed to her starved fancy, indeed; but instinct told her that the time was not yet right. Let him wait. Let him dream a little more, a little longer.

“I’m too tired, Scott,” she said with an air of extreme frankness; “that’s the whole truth of the matter. I’ve been out every night since I’ve been here, and I’m really half-dead. I’ll rest up on this house party over the weekend and then I’ll go to dinner with you any day you want me.”

There was a minute’s silence while she held the phone expectantly.

“Lot of resting up you’ll do on a house party,” he replied; “and, anyway, next week is so far off. I’m awfully anxious to see you, Yanci.”

“So am I, Scott.”

She allowed the faintest caress to linger on his name. When she had hung up she felt happy again. Despite her humiliation on the train her plan had been a success. The illusion was still intact; it was nearly complete. And in three meetings and half a dozen telephone calls she had managed to create a tenser atmosphere between them than if he had seen her constantly in the moods and avowals and beguilements of an out-and-out flirtation.

When Monday came she paid her first week’s hotel bill. The size of it did not alarm her—she was prepared for that—but the shock of seeing so much money go, of realizing that there remained only one hundred and twenty dollars of her father’s present, gave her a peculiar sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She decided to bring guile to bear immediately, to tantalize Scott by a carefully planned incident, and then at the end of the week to show him simply and definitely that she loved him.

As a decoy for Scott’s tantalization she located by telephone a certain Jimmy Long, a handsome boy with whom she had played as a little girl and who had recently come to New York to work. Jimmy Long was deftly maneuvered into asking her to go to a matinée with him on Wednesday afternoon. He was to meet her in the lobby at two.

On Wednesday she lunched with Scott. His eyes followed her every motion, and knowing this she felt a great rush of tenderness toward him. Desiring at first only what he represented, she had begun half-unconsciously to desire him also. Nevertheless, she did not permit herself the slightest relaxation on that account. The time was too short and the odds too great. That she was beginning to love him only fortified her resolve.

“Where are you going this afternoon?” he demanded.

“To a matinée—with an annoying man.”

“Why is he annoying?”

“Because he wants me to marry him and I don’t believe I want to.”

There was just the faintest emphasis on the word “believe.” The implication was that she was not sure—that is, not quite.

“Don’t marry him.”

“I won’t—probably.”

“Yanci,” he said in a low voice, “do you remember a night on that boulevard——”

She changed the subject. It was noon and the room was full of sunlight. It was not quite the place, the time. When he spoke she must have every aspect of the situation in control. He must say only what she wanted said; nothing else would do.

“It’s five minutes to two,” she told him, looking at her wrist watch. “We’d better go. I’ve got to keep my date.”

“Do you want to go?”

“No,” she answered simply.

This seemed to satisfy him, and they walked out to the lobby. Then Yanci caught sight of a man waiting there, obviously ill at ease and dressed as no habitué of the Ritz ever was. The man was Jimmy Long, not long since a favored beau of his Western city. And now—his hat was green, actually! His coat, seasons old, was quite evidently the product of a well-known ready-made concern. His shoes, long and narrow, turned up at the toes. From head to foot everything that could possibly be wrong about him was wrong. He was embarrassed by instinct only, unconscious of his gaucherie, an obscene specter, a Nemesis, a horror.

“Hello, Yanci!” he cried, starting toward her with evident relief.

With a heroic effort Yanci turned to Scott, trying to hold his glance to herself. In the very act of turning she noticed the impeccability of Scott’s coat, his tie.

“Thanks for luncheon,” she said with a radiant smile. “See you tomorrow.”

Then she dived rather than ran for Jimmy Long, disposed of his outstretched hand and bundled him bumping through the revolving door with only a quick “Let’s hurry!” to appease his somewhat sulky astonishment.

The incident worried her. She consoled herself by remembering that Scott had had only a momentary glance at the man, and that he had probably been looking at her anyhow. Nevertheless, she was horrified, and it is to be doubted whether Jimmy Long enjoyed her company enough to compensate him for the cut-price, twentieth-row tickets he had obtained at Black’s Drug Store.

But if Jimmy as a decoy had proved a lamentable failure, an occurrence of Thursday offered her considerable satisfaction and paid tribute to her quickness of mind. She had invented an engagement for luncheon, and Scott was going to meet her at two o’clock to take her to the Hippodrome. She lunched alone somewhat imprudently in the Ritz dining room and sauntered out almost side by side with a good-looking young man who had been at the table next to her. She expected to meet Scott in the outer lobby, but as she reached the entrance to the restaurant she saw him standing not far away.

On a lightning impulse she turned to the good-looking man abreast of her, bowed sweetly and said in an audible, friendly voice, “Well, I’ll see you later.”

Then before he could even register astonishment she faced about quickly and joined Scott.

“Who was that?” he asked, frowning.

“Isn’t he darling-looking?”

“If you like that sort of looks.”

Scott’s tone implied that the gentleman referred to was effete and overdressed. Yanci laughed, impersonally admiring the skillfulness of her ruse.

It was in preparation for that all-important Saturday night that on Thursday she went into a shop on 42nd Street to buy some long gloves. She made her purchase and handed the clerk a fifty-dollar bill so that her lightened pocketbook would feel heavier with the change she could put in. To her surprise the clerk tendered her the package and a twenty-five-cent piece.

“Is there anything else?”

“The rest of my change.”

“You’ve got it. You gave me five dollars. Four-seventy-five for the gloves leaves twenty-five cents.”

“I gave you fifty dollars.”

“You must be mistaken.”

Yanci searched her purse.

“I gave you fifty!” she repeated frantically.

“No, ma’am, I saw it myself.”

They glared at each other in hot irritation. A cash girl was called to testify, then the floor-manager; a small crowd gathered.

“Why, I’m perfectly sure!” cried Yanci, two angry tears trembling in her eyes. “I’m positive!”

The floor-manager was sorry, but the lady really must have left it at home. There was no fifty-dollar bill in the cash drawer. The bottom was creaking out of Yanci’s rickety world.

“If you’ll leave your address,” said the floor manager, “I’ll let you know if anything turns up.”

“Oh, you damn fools!” cried Yanci, losing control. “I’ll get the police!”

And weeping like a child she left the shop. Outside, helplessness overpowered her. How could she prove anything? It was after six and the store was closing even as she left it. Whichever employee had the fifty-dollar bill would be on her way home now before the police could arrive, and why should the New York police believe her, or even give her fair play?

In despair she returned to the Ritz, where she searched through her trunk for the bill with hopeless and mechanical gestures. It was not there. She had known it would not be there. She gathered every penny together and found that she had fifty-one dollars and thirty cents. Telephoning the office, she asked that her bill be made out up to the following noon—she was too dispirited to think of leaving before then.

She waited in her room, not daring even to send for ice water. Then the phone rang and she heard the room clerk’s voice, cheerful and metallic.

“Miss Bowman?”

“Yes.”

“Your bill, including tonight, is ex-act-ly fifty-one twenty.”

“Fifty-one twenty?” Her voice was trembling.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you very much.”

Breathless, she sat there beside the telephone, too frightened now to cry. She had ten cents left in the world!