The Essential Fitzgerald - 45 Short Stories & Novels in One Edition. F. Scott Fitzgerald

touches her mirrored mouth with it. Then she turns out the lights and leaves the room. Silence for a moment. A few chords from the piano, the discreet patter of faint drums, the rustle of new silk, all blend on the staircase outside and drift in through the partly opened door. Bundled figures pass in the lighted hall. The laughter heard below becomes doubled and multiplied. Then some one comes in, closes the door, and switches on the lights. It is CECELIA. She goes to the chiffonier, looks in the drawers, hesitates—then to the desk whence she takes the cigarette-case and extracts one. She lights it and then, puffing and blowing, walks toward the mirror.)

      CECELIA: (In tremendously sophisticated accents) Oh, yes, coming out is such a farce nowadays, you know. One really plays around so much before one is seventeen, that it’s positively anticlimax. (Shaking hands with a visionary middle-aged nobleman.) Yes, your grace—I b’lieve I’ve heard my sister speak of you. Have a puff—they’re very good. They’re—they’re Coronas. You don’t smoke? What a pity! The king doesn’t allow it, I suppose. Yes, I’ll dance.

      (So she dances around the room to a tune from downstairs, her arms outstretched to an imaginary partner, the cigarette waving in her hand.)

      SEVERAL HOURS LATER

      The corner of a den downstairs, filled by a very comfortable leather lounge. A small light is on each side above, and in the middle, over the couch hangs a painting of a very old, very dignified gentleman, period 1860. Outside the music is heard in a foxtrot.

      ROSALIND is seated on the lounge and on her left is HOWARD GILLESPIE, a vapid youth of about twenty-four. He is obviously very unhappy, and she is quite bored.

      GILLESPIE: (Feebly) What do you mean I’ve changed. I feel the same toward you.

      ROSALIND: But you don’t look the same to me.

      GILLESPIE: Three weeks ago you used to say that you liked me because I was so blasé, so indifferent—I still am.

      ROSALIND: But not about me. I used to like you because you had brown eyes and thin legs.

      GILLESPIE: (Helplessly) They’re still thin and brown. You’re a vampire, that’s all.

      ROSALIND: The only thing I know about vamping is what’s on the piano score. What confuses men is that I’m perfectly natural. I used to think you were never jealous. Now you follow me with your eyes wherever I go.

      GILLESPIE: I love you.

      ROSALIND: (Coldly) I know it.

      GILLESPIE: And you haven’t kissed me for two weeks. I had an idea that after a girl was kissed she was—was—won.

      ROSALIND: Those days are over. I have to be won all over again every time you see me.

      GILLESPIE: Are you serious?

      ROSALIND: About as usual. There used to be two kinds of kisses: First when girls were kissed and deserted; second, when they were engaged. Now there’s a third kind, where the man is kissed and deserted. If Mr. Jones of the nineties bragged he’d kissed a girl, every one knew he was through with her. If Mr. Jones of 1919 brags the same every one knows it’s because he can’t kiss her any more. Given a decent start any girl can beat a man nowadays.

      GILLESPIE: Then why do you play with men?

      ROSALIND: (Leaning forward confidentially) For that first moment, when he’s interested. There is a moment—Oh, just before the first kiss, a whispered word—something that makes it worth while.

      GILLESPIE: And then?

      ROSALIND: Then after that you make him talk about himself. Pretty soon he thinks of nothing but being alone with you—he sulks, he won’t fight, he doesn’t want to play—Victory!

      (Enter DAWSON RYDER, twenty-six, handsome, wealthy, faithful to his own, a bore perhaps, but steady and sure of success.)

      RYDER: I believe this is my dance, Rosalind.

      ROSALIND: Well, Dawson, so you recognize me. Now I know I haven’t got too much paint on. Mr. Ryder, this is Mr. Gillespie.

      (They shake hands and GILLESPIE leaves, tremendously downcast.)

      RYDER: Your party is certainly a success.

      ROSALIND: Is it—I haven’t seen it lately. I’m weary—Do you mind sitting out a minute?

      RYDER: Mind—I’m delighted. You know I loathe this “rushing” idea. See a girl yesterday, to-day, tomorrow.

      ROSALIND: Dawson!

      RYDER: What?

      ROSALIND: I wonder if you know you love me.

      RYDER: (Startled) What—Oh—you know you’re remarkable!

      ROSALIND: Because you know I’m an awful proposition. Any one who marries me will have his hands full. I’m mean—mighty mean.

      RYDER: Oh, I wouldn’t say that.

      ROSALIND: Oh, yes, I am—especially to the people nearest to me. (She rises.) Come, let’s go. I’ve changed my mind and I want to dance. Mother is probably having a fit.

      (Exeunt. Enter ALEC and CECELIA.)

      CECELIA: Just my luck to get my own brother for an intermission.

      ALEC: (Gloomily) I’ll go if you want me to.

      CECELIA: Good heavens, no—with whom would I begin the next dance? (Sighs.) There’s no color in a dance since the French officers went back.

      ALEC: (Thoughtfully) I don’t want Amory to fall in love with Rosalind.

      CECELIA: Why, I had an idea that that was just what you did want.

      ALEC: I did, but since seeing these girls—I don’t know. I’m awfully attached to Amory. He’s sensitive and I don’t want him to break his heart over somebody who doesn’t care about him.

      CECELIA: He’s very good looking.

      ALEC: (Still thoughtfully) She won’t marry him, but a girl doesn’t have to marry a man to break his heart.

      CECELIA: What does it? I wish I knew the secret.

      ALEC: Why, you cold-blooded little kitty. It’s lucky for some that the Lord gave you a pug nose.

      (Enter MRS. CONNAGE.)

      MRS. CONNAGE: Where on earth is Rosalind?

      ALEC: (Brilliantly) Of course you’ve come to the best people to find out. She’d naturally be with us.

      MRS. CONNAGE: Her father has marshalled eight bachelor millionaires to meet her.

      ALEC: You might form a squad and march through the halls.

      MRS. CONNAGE: I’m perfectly serious—for all I know she may be at the Cocoanut Grove with some football player on the night of her debut. You look left and I’ll—

      ALEC: (Flippantly) Hadn’t you better send the butler through the cellar?

      MRS. CONNAGE: (Perfectly serious) Oh, you don’t think she’d be there?

      CECELIA: He’s only joking, mother.

      ALEC: Mother had a picture of her tapping a keg of beer with some high hurdler.

      MRS. CONNAGE: Let’s look right away.

      (They go out. ROSALIND comes in with GILLESPIE.)

      GILLESPIE: