The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald [80]
"D'you remember Caramel, Richard Caramel? I believe you met him one night."
"I remember. He was writing a book."
"Well, he sold it to the movies. Then they had some scenario man named Jordan work on it. Well, Dick subscribes to a clipping bureau and he's furious because about half the movie reviewers speak of the 'power and strength of William Jordan's "Demon Lover."' Didn't mention old Dick at all. You'd think this fellow Jordan had actually conceived and developed the thing."
Bloeckman nodded comprehensively.
"Most of the contracts state that the original writer's name goes into all the paid publicity. Is Caramel still writing?"
"Oh, yes. Writing hard. Short stories."
"Well, that's fine, that's fine.... You on this train often?"
"About once a week. We live in Marietta."
"Is that so? Well, well! I live near Cos Cob myself. Bought a place there only recently. We're only five miles apart."
"You'll have to come and see us." Anthony was surprised at his own courtesy. "I'm sure Gloria'd be delighted to see an old friend. Anybody'll tell you where the house is—it's our second season there."
"Thank you." Then, as though returning a complementary politeness: "How is your grandfather?"
"He's been well. I had lunch with him to-day."
"A great character," said Bloeckman severely. "A fine example of an American."
THE TRIUMPH OF LETHARGY
Anthony found his wife deep in the porch hammock voluptuously engaged with a lemonade and a tomato sandwich and carrying on an apparently cheery conversation with Tana upon one of Tana's complicated themes.
"In my countree," Anthony recognized his invariable preface, "all time—peoples—eat rice—because haven't got. Cannot eat what no have got." Had his nationality not been desperately apparent one would have thought he had acquired his knowledge of his native land from American primary-school geographies.
When the Oriental had been squelched and dismissed to the kitchen, Anthony turned questioningly to Gloria:
"It's all right," she announced, smiling broadly. "And it surprised me more than it does you."
"There's no doubt?"
"None! Couldn't be!"
They rejoiced happily, gay again with reborn irresponsibility. Then he told her of his opportunity to go abroad, and that he was almost ashamed to reject it.
"What do you think? Just tell me frankly."
"Why, Anthony!" Her eyes were startled. "Do you want to go? Without me?"
His face fell—yet he knew, with his wife's question, that it was too late. Her arms, sweet and strangling, were around him, for he had made all such choices back in that room in the Plaza the year before. This was an anachronism from an age of such dreams.
"Gloria," he lied, in a great burst of comprehension, "of course I don't. I was thinking you might go as a nurse or something." He wondered dully if his grandfather would consider this.
As she smiled he realized again how beautiful she was, a gorgeous girl of miraculous freshness and sheerly honorable eyes. She embraced his suggestion with luxurious intensity, holding it aloft like a sun of her own making and basking in its beams. She strung together an amazing synopsis for an extravaganza of martial adventure.
After supper, surfeited with the subject, she yawned. She wanted not to talk but only to read "Penrod," stretched upon the lounge until at midnight she fell asleep. But Anthony, after he had carried her romantically up the stairs, stayed awake to brood upon the day, vaguely angry with her, vaguely dissatisfied.
"What am I going to do?" he began at breakfast. "Here we've been married a year and we've just worried around without even being efficient people of leisure."
"Yes, you ought to do something," she admitted, being in an agreeable and loquacious humor. This was not the first of these discussions, but as they usually developed Anthony in the rôle of protagonist, she had come to avoid them.
"It's not that I have any moral compunctions about work," he continued, "but grampa may die to-morrow and he may live for ten years. Meanwhile we're living above