Tender Is the Night (Reader's Edition). F. Scott Fitzgerald

      Daddy’s girl. Was it a ‘itty-bitty bravekins and did it suffer? Ooo-ooo-tweet, de tweetest thing, wasn’t she dest too tweet? Before her tiny fist the forces of lust and corruption rolled away; nay, the very march of destiny stopped; inevitable became evitable, syllogism, dialectic, all rationality fell away. Women would forget the dirty dishes at home and weep, even within the picture one woman wept so long that she almost stole the film away from Rosemary. She wept all over a set that cost a fortune, in a Duncan Phyfe dining-room, in an aviation port, and during a yacht-race that was only used in two flashes, in a subway and finally in a bathroom. But Rosemary triumphed. Her fineness of character, her courage and steadfastness intruded upon by the vulgarity of the world, and Rosemary showing what it took with a face that had not yet become mask-like—yet it was actually so moving that the emotions of the whole row of people went out to her at intervals during the picture. There was a break once and the light went on and after the chatter of applause Dick said to her sincerely: “I’m simply astounded. You’re going to be one of the best actresses on the stage.”

      Then back to Daddy’s Girl: happier days now, and a lovely shot of Rosemary and her parent united at the last in a father complex so apparent that Dick winced for all psychologists at the vicious sentimentality. The screen vanished, the lights went on, the moment had come.

      “I’ve arranged one other thing,” announced Rosemary to the company at large, “I’ve arranged a test for Dick.”

      “A what?”

      “A screen test, they’ll take one now.”

      There was an awful silence—then an irrepressible chortle from the Norths. Rosemary watched Dick comprehend what she meant, his face moving first in an Irish way; simultaneously she realized that she had made some mistake in the playing of her trump and still she did not suspect that the card was at fault.

      “I don’t want a test,” said Dick firmly; then, seeing the situation as a whole, he continued lightly, “Rosemary, I’m disappointed. The pictures make a fine career for a woman—but my God, they can’t photograph me. I’m an old scientist all wrapped up in his private life.”

      Nicole and Mary urged him ironically to seize the opportunity; they teased him, both faintly annoyed at not having been asked for a sitting. But Dick closed the subject with a somewhat tart discussion of actors: “The strongest guard is placed at the gateway to nothing,” he said. “Maybe because the condition of emptiness is too shameful to be divulged.”

      In the taxi with Dick and Collis Clay—they were dropping Collis, and Dick was taking Rosemary to a tea from which Nicole and the Norths had resigned in order to do the things Abe had left undone till the last—in the taxi Rosemary reproached him.

      “I thought if the test turned out to be good I could take it to California with me. And then maybe if they liked it you’d come out and be my leading man in a picture.”

      He was overwhelmed. “It was a darn sweet thought, but I’d rather look at you. You were about the nicest sight I ever looked at.”

      “That’s a great picture,” said Collis. “I’ve seen it four times. I know one boy at New Haven who’s seen it a dozen times—he went all the way to Hartford to see it one time. And when I brought Rosemary up to New Haven he was so shy he wouldn’t meet her. Can you beat that? This little girl knocks them cold.”

      Dick and Rosemary looked at each other, wanting to be alone, but Collis failed to understand.

      “I’ll drop you where you’re going,” he suggested. “I’m staying at the Lutetia.”

      “We’ll drop you,” said Dick.

      “It’ll be easier for me to drop you. No trouble at all.”

      “I think it will be better if we drop you.”

      “But—” began Collis; he grasped the situation at last and began discussing with Rosemary when he would see her again.

      Finally, he was gone, with the shadowy unimportance but the offensive bulk of the third party. The car stopped unexpectedly, unsatisfactorily, at the address Dick had given. He drew a long breath.

      “Shall we go in?”

      “I don’t care,” Rosemary said. “I’ll do anything you want.”

      He considered.

      “I almost have to go in—she wants to buy some pictures from a friend of mine who needs the money.”

      Rosemary smoothed the brief expressive disarray of her hair.

      “We’ll stay just five minutes,” he decided. “You’re not going to like these people.”

      She assumed that they were dull and stereotyped people, or gross and drunken people, or tiresome, insistent people, or any of the sorts of people that the Divers avoided. She was entirely unprepared for the impression that the scene made on her.