Читать книгу Dodsworth - Sinclair Lewis - Страница 40
*
ОглавлениеWhen, quite wordless, they had walked through Trafalgar Square, he snarled at Fran, “Oh, say it!”
“Need I?”
“Better get it over!”
“You seem to be saying it to yourself, quite successfully!”
“I am. Only hurry the execution. I have too much imagination.”
“Have you? If you had, would you have invited the charming and helpful and tactful Mr. A. B. Hurd to lunch with me? Couldn’t you have enjoyed his highly British presence by yourself?”
“Fran, we’ve said all of this about so many different people——Granted that I am a good deal of a fool about bringing the wrong kinds of people together——”
“You are, my beloved, and everybody gives you credit for being so loyal and hospitable!”
“Granted. And I admit Hurd likes himself a good deal. On the other hand, he’s generous, he’s honest, he’s probably a man of very little home-training as a youngster. And that——No, wait now! You don’t know what I’m going to say! In that I’ve expressed all our whole row, if we went on with it all afternoon. You’d just go on saying that he’s a fathead, and I’d just go on insisting that he’s got a kind heart. Can’t you ever forego the pleasure of catching me in an error? Here we are in London, with a free afternoon ahead of us and the job of lunching with Hurd done. Must you be sulky?”
“I am not sulky! Only you can’t expect me to be very radiant after an experience like that! Oh, it doesn’t matter.” She achieved a half-smile. “Never mind. We’ll be meeting some decent people here soon. No, don’t—don’t tell me that Hurd is decent. Probably he is. Probably he never beats his wife. I’m sure that his playmate, Sir Toppingham Cohen, is an adornment to any salon.... Oh, all right, Sam; I’ll be good. Only damn it, damn it, damn it, to think of wasting time like——Oh, let’s go to Bond Street and buy lots of painfully expensive things.”
