The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald [81]
"How you've changed!" remarked Gloria. "Once you told me you didn't see why an American couldn't loaf gracefully."
"Well, damn it, I wasn't married. And the old mind was working at top speed and now it's going round and round like a cog-wheel with nothing to catch it. As a matter of fact I think that if I hadn't met you I would have done something. But you make leisure so subtly attractive—"
"Oh, it's all my fault—"
"I didn't mean that, and you know I didn't. But here I'm almost twenty-seven and—"
"Oh," she interrupted in vexation, "you make me tired! Talking as though I were objecting or hindering you!"
"I was just discussing it, Gloria. Can't I discuss—"
"I should think you'd be strong enough to settle—"
"—something with you without—"
"—your own problems without coming to me. You talk a lot about going to work. I could use more money very easily, but I'm not complaining. Whether you work or not I love you." Her last words were gentle as fine snow upon hard ground. But for the moment neither was attending to the other—they were each engaged in polishing and perfecting his own attitude.
"I have worked—some." This by Anthony was an imprudent bringing up of raw reserves. Gloria laughed, torn between delight and derision; she resented his sophistry as at the same time she admired his nonchalance. She would never blame him for being the ineffectual idler so long as he did it sincerely, from the attitude that nothing much was worth doing.
"Work!" she scoffed. "Oh, you sad bird! You bluffer! Work—that means a great arranging of the desk and the lights, a great sharpening of pencils, and 'Gloria, don't sing!' and 'Please keep that damn Tana away from me,' and 'Let me read you my opening sentence,' and 'I won't be through for a long time, Gloria, so don't stay up for me,' and a tremendous consumption of tea or coffee. And that's all. In just about an hour I hear the old pencil stop scratching and look over. You've got out a book and you're 'looking up' something. Then you're reading. Then yawns—then bed and a great tossing about because you're all full of caffeine and can't sleep. Two weeks later the whole performance over again."
With much difficulty Anthony retained a scanty breech-clout of dignity.
"Now that's a slight exaggeration. You know darn well I sold an essay to The Florentine—and it attracted a lot of attention considering the circulation of The Florentine. And what's more, Gloria, you know I sat up till five o'clock in the morning finishing it."
She lapsed into silence, giving him rope. And if he had not hanged himself he had certainly come to the end of it.
"At least," he concluded feebly, "I'm perfectly willing to be a war correspondent."
But so was Gloria. They were both willing—anxious; they assured each other of it. The evening ended on a note of tremendous sentiment, the majesty of leisure, the ill health of Adam Patch, love at any cost.
"Anthony!" she called over the banister one afternoon a week later, "there's some one at the door." Anthony, who had been lolling in the hammock on the sun-speckled south porch, strolled around to the front of the house. A foreign car, large and impressive, crouched like an immense and saturnine bug at the foot of the path. A man in a soft pongee suit, with cap to match, hailed him.
"Hello there, Patch. Ran over to call on you."
It was Bloeckman; as always, infinitesimally improved, of subtler intonation, of more convincing ease.
"I'm awfully glad you did." Anthony raised his voice to a vine-covered window: "Glor-i-a! We've got a visitor!"
"I'm in the tub," wailed Gloria politely.
With a smile the two men acknowledged the triumph of her alibi.
"She'll be down. Come round here on the