This Side of Paradise (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (28 page)

ROSALIND:
(Sighs)
Yes, I suppose some day I’ll marry a ton of it—out of sheer boredom.

MRS. CONNAGE:
(Referring to note-book)
I had a wire from Hartford. Dawson Ryder is coming up. Now there’s a young man I like, and he’s floating in money. It seems to me that since you seem tired of Howard Gillespie you might give Mr. Ryder some encouragement. This is the third time he’s been up in a month.

ROSALIND: How did you know I was tired of Howard Gillespie?

MRS. CONNAGE: The poor boy looks so miserable every time he comes.

ROSALIND: That was one of those romantic, pre-battle affairs. They’re all wrong.

MRS. CONNAGE:
(Her say said)
At any rate, make us proud of you tonight.

ROSALIND: Don’t you think I’m beautiful?

MRS. CONNAGE: You know you are.

 

(From down-stairs is heard the moan of a violin being tuned, the roll of a drum.
MRS. CONNAGE turns quickly to her
daughter.)

MRS. CONNAGE: Come!

ROSALIND: One minute!

 

(Her mother leaves. ROSALIND goes to the glass where she gazes at herself with great satisfaction. She kisses her hand and 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.

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 blase, 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, to-morrow

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 début. 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: Rosalind—Once more I ask you. Don’t you care a blessed thing about me?

(AMORY
walks in briskly.)

AMORY: My dance.

ROSALIND: Mr. Gillespie, this is Mr. Blaine.

GILLESPIE: I’ve met Mr. Blaine. From Lake Geneva, aren’t you?

AMORY: Yes.

GILLESPIE:
(Desperately)
I’ve been there. It’s in the—the Middle West, isn’t it?

AMORY:
(Spicily)
Approximately. But I always felt that I’d rather be provincial hot-tamale than soup without seasoning.

GILLESPIE: What!

AMORY: Oh, no offense.

(GILLESPIE
bows and leaves.)

ROSALIND: He’s too much
people.

AMORY: I was in love with a
people
once.

ROSALIND: So?

AMORY: Oh, yes—her name was Isabelle—nothing at all to her except what I read into her.

ROSALIND: What happened?

AMORY: Finally I convinced her that she was smarter than I was—then she threw me over. Said I was critical and impractical, you know.

ROSALIND: What do you mean impractical?

AMORY: Oh—drive a car, but can’t change a tire.

ROSALIND: What are you going to do?

AMORY: Can’t say—run for President, write—

ROSALIND: Greenwich Village?

AMORY: Good heavens, no—I said write—not drink.

ROSALIND: I like business men. Clever men are usually so homely.

AMORY: I feel as if I’d known you for ages.

ROSALIND: Oh, are you going to commence the “pyramid” story?

AMORY: No—I was going to make it French. I was Louis XIV and you were one of my—my—
(Changing his tone)
Suppose—we fell in love.

ROSALIND: I’ve suggested pretending.

AMORY: If we did it would be very big.

ROSALIND: Why?

AMORY: Because selfish people are in a way terribly capable of great loves.

ROSALIND:
(Turning her lips up)
Pretend.

 

AMORY: I can’t say sweet things. But you are beautiful.

ROSALIND: Not that.

AMORY: What then?

ROSALIND:
(Sadly)
Oh, nothing—only I want sentiment, real sentiment—and I never find it.

AMORY: I never find anything else in the world—and I loathe it.

ROSALIND: It’s so hard to find a male to gratify one’s artistic taste.

(Some one has opened a door and the music of a waltz surges into the room.
ROSALIND
rises.)

ROSALIND: Listen! they’re playing “Kiss Me Again.”

 

AMORY: Well?

ROSALIND: Well?

AMORY:
(Softly—the battle lost)
I love you.

ROSALIND: I love you—now.

 

AMORY: Oh, God, what have I done?

ROSALIND: Nothing. Oh, don’t talk. Kiss me again.

AMORY: I don’t know why or how, but I love you—irom the moment I saw you.

ROSALIND: Me too—I—I—oh, to-night’s to-night.

 

ROSALIND:
(Her lips scarcely stirring)
Don’t let me go—I don’t care who knows what I do.

AMORY: Say it!

ROSALIND: I love you-now
(They part.)
Oh—I am very youthful, thank God—and rather beautiful, thank God—and happy, thank God, thank God
—(She pauses
and then, in an odd burst
ofprophecy,
adds) Poor Amory!

 

(He kisses her again.)

Within two weeks Amory and Rosalind were deeply and passionately in love. The critical qualities which had spoiled for each of them a dozen romances were dulled by the great wave of emotion that washed over them.

“It may be an insane love-affair,” she told her anxious mother, “but it’s not inane.”

The wave swept Amory into an advertising agency early in March, where he alternated between astonishing bursts of rather exceptional work and wild dreams of becoming suddenly rich and touring Italy with Rosalind.

They were together constantly, for lunch, for dinner, and nearly every evening—always in a sort of breathless hush, as if they feared that any minute the spell would break and drop them out of this paradise of rose and flame. But the spell became a trance, seemed to increase from day to day; they began to talk of marrying in July—in June. All life was transmitted into terms of their love, all experience, all desires, all ambitions, were nullified—their senses of humor crawled into corners to sleep; their former love-affairs seemed faintly laughable and scarcely regretted juvenalia.

For the second time in his life Amory had had a complete bouleversement and was hurrying into line with his generation.

Amory wandered slowly up the avenue and thought of the night as inevitably his—the pageantry and carnival of rich dusk and dim streets . . . it seemed that he had closed the book of fading harmonies at last and stepped into the sensuous vibrant walks of life. Everywhere these countless lights, this promise of a night of streets and singing—he moved in a half-dream through the crowd as if expecting to meet Rosalind hurrying toward him with eager feet from every corner.... How the unforgettable faces of dusk would blend to her, the myriad footsteps, a thousand overtures, would blend to her footsteps; and there would be more drunkenness than wine in the softness of her eyes on his. Even his dreams now were faint violins drifting like summer sounds upon the summer air.