Love of the Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Author:F. Scott Fitzgerald
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

Section 14

They met, next afternoon, as strangers in an unfamiliar country. Last night was gone, the girl he had danced with was gone. A misty rose-and-blue hat with a trifling veil came along the terrace to him and paused, searching his face. Stahr was strange too in a brown suit and black tie that blocked him out more tangibly than a formal dinner coat, or when he was simply a face and voice in the darkness when they first met.

He was the first to be sure it was the same person as before—the upper half of the face that was Minna’s, luminous, with creamy temples and opalescent brow—the coco-colored curly hair. He could have put his arm around her and pulled her close with an almost family familiarity—already he knew the down on her neck, the very set of her backbone, the corners of her eyes and how she breathed—the very texture of the clothes that she would wear.

“Did you wait here all night?” she said, in a voice that was like a whisper.

“I didn’t move—didn’t stir.”

Still a problem remained, the same one—there was no special place to go.

“I’d like tea,” she suggested, “—if it’s some place you’re not known.”

“That sounds as if one of us had a bad reputation.”

“Doesn’t it?” she laughed.

“We’ll go to the shore,” Stahr suggested. “There’s a place there where I got out once and was chased by a trained seal.”

“Do you think the seal could make tea?”

“Well—he’s trained. And I don’t think he’ll talk—I don’t think his training got that far. What in hell are you trying to hide?”

After a moment she said lightly, “Perhaps the future,” in a way that might mean anything or nothing at all.

As they drove away she pointed at her jalopy in the parking lot.

“Do you think it’s safe?”

“I doubt it. I noticed some black-bearded foreigners snooping around.”

Kathleen looked at him alarmed.

“Really?” She saw he was smiling. “I believe everything you say,” she said. “You’ve got such a gentle way about you that I don’t see why they’re all so afraid of you.” She examined him with approval—fretting a little about his pallor, which was accentuated by the bright afternoon. “Do you work very hard? Do you really always work on Sundays?”

He responded to her interest—impersonal yet not perfunctory.

“Not always. Once we had—we had a house with a pool and all—and people came on Sunday. I played tennis and swam. I don’t swim any more.”

“Why not? It’s good for you. I thought all Americans swam.”

“My legs got very thin—a few years ago and it embarrassed me. There were other things I used to do—lots of things. I used to play handball when I was a kid, and sometimes out here—I had a court that was washed away in a storm.”

“You have a good build,” she said in formal compliment, meaning only that he was made with thin grace.

He rejected this with a shake of his head.

“I enjoy working most,” he said. “My work is very congenial.”

“Did you always want to be in movies?”

“No.

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