Читать книгу The Beautiful and Damned / Прекрасные и обреченные. Уровень 4 - Френсис Скотт Фицджеральд, Френсис Фицджеральд - Страница 12

“How do you do?” he said, smiling and holding the door ajar.

Dick bowed.

“Gloria, this is Anthony.”

“Well!” she cried.

“Let me take your things.”

Anthony stretched out his arms and the brown mass of fur tumbled into them.

“Thanks.”

“What do you think of her, Anthony?” Richard Caramel demanded barbarously. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“Well!” cried the girl defiantly.

She was dazzling.

“I’m a solid block of ice,” murmured Gloria, glancing around. “We found a place where you could stand on an iron-bar grating, and it blew warm air up at you – but Dick wouldn’t wait there with me. I told him to go on alone and let me be happy.”

She seemed talking for her own pleasure, without effort. Anthony, sitting at one end of the sofa, examined her profile: the exquisite regularity of nose and upper lip, the chin, balanced beautifully on a rather short neck.

“I think you’ve got the best name I’ve heard,” she was saying, still apparently to herself. “Anthony Patch. You look like Anthony, rather majestic and solemn.”

Anthony smiled.

“My name is too flamboyant,” she went on, “I used to know two girls named Jinks, though, and just think what they were named – Judy Jinks and Jerry Jinks. Cute, what? Don’t you think?”

“Everybody in the next generation,” suggested Dick, “will be named Peter or Barbara – because at present all the piquant literary characters are named Peter or Barbara.”

Anthony continued the prophecy:

“Of course Gladys and Eleanor.”

“Displacing Ella and Stella,” interrupted Dick.

“And Pearl and Jewel,” Gloria added cordially, “and Earl and Elmer and Minnie.”

“Where are you from?” inquired Anthony.

“Kansas City, Missouri.”

“I must confess,” said Anthony gravely, “that even I’ve heard one thing about you.”

She sat up straight.

“Tell me. I’ll believe it. I always believe anything any one tells me about myself.”

“I’m not sure that I ought to,” said Anthony. She was so obviously interested.

“He means your nickname,” said her cousin.

“What name?” inquired Anthony, politely puzzled.

Instantly she was shy – then she laughed, and turned her eyes up as she spoke:

“Coast-to-Coast Gloria.” Her voice was full of laughter. “O Lord!”

Still Anthony was puzzled.

“What do you mean?”

“Me, I mean. That’s what some silly boys called me.”

“Don’t you see, Anthony,” explained Dick, “a great traveler? Isn’t that what you’ve heard? She’s been called that for years – since she was seventeen.”

“What have you heard of me?” asked she.

“Something about your tan.”

“My tan?” She was puzzled. Her hand rose to her throat.

“Do you remember Maury Noble? Man you met about a month ago. You made a great impression.”

She thought a moment.

“I remember – but he didn’t call me up.”

“He was afraid to, I don’t doubt.”