His lips moved lazily over her face.
“You taste so good,” he sighed.
“How do you mean, lover?”
“Oh, just sweet, just sweet…” he held her closer.
“Amory,” she whispered, “when you’re ready for me I’ll marry you.”
“We won’t have much at first.”
“Don’t!” she cried. “It hurts when you reproach yourself for what you can’t give me. I’ve got your precious self—and that’s enough for me.”
“Tell me…”
“You know, don’t you? Oh, you know.”
“Yes, but I want to hear you say it.”
“I love you, Amory, with all my heart.”
“Always, will you?”
“All my life—Oh, Amory—”
“What?”
“I want to belong to you. I want your people to be my people. I want to have your babies.”
“But I haven’t any people.”
“Don’t laugh at me, Amory. Just kiss me.”
“I’ll do what you want,” he said.
“No, I’ll do what you want. We’re you—not me. Oh, you’re so much a part, so much all of me…”
He closed his eyes.
“I’m so happy that I’m frightened. Wouldn’t it be awful if this was—was the high point?…”
She looked at him dreamily.
“Beauty and love pass, I know…. Oh, there’s sadness, too. I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses—”
“Beauty means the agony of sacrifice and the end of agony….”
“And, Amory, we’re beautiful, I know. I’m sure God loves us—”
“He loves you. You’re his most precious possession.”
“I’m not his, I’m yours. Amory, I belong to you. For the first time I regret all the other kisses; now I know how much a kiss can mean.”
Then they would smoke and he would tell her about his day at the office—and where they might live. Sometimes, when he was particularly loquacious, she went to sleep in his arms, but he loved that Rosalind—all Rosalinds—as he had never in the world loved any one else. Intangibly fleeting, unrememberable hours.
AQUATIC INCIDENT
One day Amory and Howard Gillespie meeting by accident downtown took lunch together, and Amory heard a story that delighted him. Gillespie after several cocktails was in a talkative mood; he began by telling Amory that he was sure Rosalind was slightly eccentric.
He had gone with her on a swimming party up in Westchester County, and some one mentioned that Annette Kellerman had been there one day on a visit and had dived from the top of a rickety, thirty-foot summer-house. Immediately Rosalind insisted that Howard should climb up with her to see what it looked like.
A minute later, as he sat and dangled his feet on the edge, a form shot by him; Rosalind, her arms spread in a beautiful swan dive, had sailed through the air into the clear water.
“Of course I had to go, after that—and I nearly killed myself. I thought I was pretty good to even try it. Nobody else in the party tried it. Well, afterward Rosalind had the nerve to ask me why I stooped over when I dove. ‘It didn’t make it any easier,’ she said, ‘it just took all the courage out of it.’ I ask you, what can a man do with a girl like that? Unnecessary, I call it.”
Gillespie failed to understand why Amory was smiling delightedly all through lunch. He thought perhaps he was one of these hollow optimists.
FIVE WEEKS LATER
Again the library of the Connage house. ROSALIND is alone, sitting on the lounge staring very moodily and unhappily at nothing. She has changed perceptibly—she is a trifle thinner for one thing; the light in her eyes is not so bright; she looks easily a year older.
Her mother comes in, muffled in an opera-cloak. She takes in ROSALIND with a nervous glance.
MRS. CONNAGE: Who is coming tonight?
(ROSALIND fails to hear her, at least takes no notice.)
MRS. CONNAGE: Alec is coming up to take me to this Barrie play, “Et tu, Brutus.” (She perceives that she is talking to herself.) Rosalind! I asked you who is coming tonight?
ROSALIND: (Starting) Oh—what—oh—Amory—
MRS. CONNAGE: (Sarcastically) You have so many admirers lately that I couldn’t imagine which one. (ROSALIND doesn’t answer.) Dawson Ryder is more patient than I thought he’d be. You haven’t given him an evening this week.
ROSALIND: (With a very weary expression that is quite new to her face.) Mother—please—
MRS. CONNAGE: Oh, I won’t interfere. You’ve already wasted over two months on a theoretical genius who hasn’t a penny to his name, but go ahead, waste your life on him. I won’t interfere.
ROSALIND: (As if repeating a tiresome lesson) You know he has a little income—and you know he’s earning thirty-five dollars a week in advertising—
MRS. CONNAGE: And it wouldn’t buy your clothes. (She pauses but ROSALIND makes no reply.) I have your best interests at heart when I tell you not to take a step you’ll spend your days regretting. It’s not as if your father could help you. Things have been hard for him lately and he’s an old man. You’d be dependent absolutely on a dreamer, a nice, well-born boy, but a dreamer—merely clever. (She implies that this quality in itself is rather vicious.)
ROSALIND: For heaven’s sake, mother—
(A maid appears, announces Mr. Blaine who follows immediately. AMORY’S friends have been telling him for ten days that he “looks like the wrath of God,” and he does. As a matter of fact he has not been able to eat a mouthful in the last thirty-six hours.)
AMORY: Good evening, Mrs. Connage.
MRS. CONNAGE: (Not unkindly) Good evening, Amory.
(AMORY and ROSALIND exchange glances—and ALEC comes in. ALEC’S attitude throughout has been neutral. He believes in his heart that the marriage would make AMORY mediocre and ROSALIND miserable, but he feels a great sympathy for both of them.)
ALEC: Hi, Amory!
AMORY: Hi, Alec! Tom said he’d meet you at the theatre.
ALEC: Yeah, just saw him. How’s the advertising to-day? Write some brilliant copy?
AMORY: Oh, it’s about the same. I got a raise—(Every one looks at him rather eagerly)—of two dollars a week. (General collapse.)
MRS. CONNAGE: Come, Alec, I hear the car.
(A good night, rather chilly in sections. After MRS. CONNAGE and ALEC go out there is a pause. ROSALIND still stares moodily at the fireplace. AMORY goes to her and puts his arm around her.)
AMORY: Darling girl.
(They kiss. Another pause and then she seizes his hand, covers it with kisses and holds it to her breast.)
ROSALIND: