Tender Is the Night by Francis Scott Fitzgerald Page B

almost wish it were I.
I might as well be killed now I have nothing to live for.” He broke off and rocked
to and fro with sorrow.
    Again
the iron shutter parted above and the same British voice said:
    “ Rilly , this must stup immejetely .”
    Simultaneously
Abe North, looking somewhat distracted, came out of the hotel, perceived them
against the sky, white over the sea. Rosemary shook her head warningly before
he could speak and they moved another bench further down the road. Rosemary saw
that Abe was a little tight.
    “What
are YOU doing up?” he demanded.
    “I just
got up.” She started to laugh, but remembering the voice above, she restrained
herself.
    “Plagued
by the nightingale,” Abe suggested, and repeated, “probably plagued by the
nightingale. Has this sewing-circle member told you what happened?”
    Campion
said with dignity:
    “I only
know what I heard with my own ears.”
    He got
up and walked swiftly away; Abe sat down beside Rosemary.
    “Why did
you treat him so badly?”
    “Did I?”
he asked surprised. “He’s been weeping around here all morning.”
    “Well,
maybe he’s sad about something.”
    “Maybe
he is.”
    “What
about a duel? Who’s going to duel? I thought there was something strange in
that car. Is it true?”
    “It
certainly is coo-coo but it seems to be true.”
    X
    The
trouble began at the time Earl Brady’s car passed the Divers’ car stopped on
the road—Abe’s account melted impersonally into the thronged night—Violet McKisco was telling Mrs. Abrams something she had found out
about the Divers—she had gone upstairs in their house and she had come upon
something there which had made a great impression on her. But Tommy is a
watch-dog about the Divers. As a matter of fact she is inspiring and
formidable—but it’s a mutual thing, and the fact of The Divers together is more
important to their friends than many of them realize. Of course it’s done at a
certain sacrifice—sometimes they seem just rather charming figures in a ballet,
and worth just the attention you give a ballet, but it’s more than that—you’d
have to know the story. Anyhow Tommy is one of those men that Dick’s passed
along to Nicole and when Mrs. McKisco kept hinting at
her story, he called them on it. He said:
    “Mrs. McKisco , please don’t talk further about Mrs. Diver.”
    “I
wasn’t talking to you,” she objected.
    “I think
it’s better to leave them out.”
    “Are
they so sacred?”
    “Leave
them out. Talk about something else.”
    He was
sitting on one of the two little seats beside Campion. Campion told me the
story.
    “Well,
you’re pretty high-handed,” Violet came back.
    You know
how conversations are in cars late at night, some people murmuring and some not
caring, giving up after the party, or bored or asleep. Well, none of them knew
just what happened until the car stopped and Barban cried in a voice that shook everybody, a voice for cavalry.
    “Do you
want to step out here—we’re only a mile from the hotel and you can walk it or
I’ll drag you there. YOU’VE GOT TO SHUT UP AND SHUT YOUR WIFE UP!”
    “You’re
a bully,” said McKisco . “You know you’re stronger
muscularly than I am. But I’m not afraid of you—what they ought to have is the
code duello—”
    There’s
where he made his mistake because Tommy, being French, leaned over and clapped
him one, and then the chauffeur drove on. That was where you passed them. Then
the women began. That was still the state of things when the car got to the
hotel.
    Tommy
telephoned some man in
Cannes
to act as second and McKisco said he wasn’t going to
be seconded by Campion, who wasn’t crazy for the job anyhow, so he telephoned
me not to say anything but to come right down. Violet McKisco collapsed and Mrs. Abrams took her to her room and gave her a bromide whereupon
she fell comfortably asleep on the bed. When I got there I tried to argue with