All the Sad Young Men by F. Scott Fitzgerald Read Free Book Online Page A

remember the wedding, Nick, in Hot Springs where I had the waiters and the musicians singing 'God save the King'?"
    "Now where was that, Mr. Hunter?" Nick concentrated doubtfully. "Seems to me that was--"
    "Next time they were back for more, and I began to wonder how much I'd paid them," continued Anson.
    "--seems to me that was at Mr. Trenholm's wedding."
    "Don't know him," said Anson decisively. He was offended that a strange name should intrude upon his reminiscences; Nick perceived this.
    "Naw--aw--" he admitted, "I ought to know that. It was one of YOUR crowd--Brakins. . . . Baker--"
    "Bicker Baker," said Anson responsively. "They put me in a hearse after it was over and covered me up with flowers and drove me away."
    "Ha-ha-ha," said Nick. "Ha-ha-ha."
    Nick's simulation of the old family servant paled presently and Anson went up-stairs to the lobby. He looked around--his eyes met the glance of an unfamiliar clerk at the desk, then fell upon a flower from the morning's marriage hesitating in the mouth of a brass cuspidor. He went out and walked slowly toward the blood-red sun over Columbus Circle. Suddenly he turned around and, retracing his steps to the Plaza, immured himself in a telephone-booth.
    Later he said that he tried to get me three times that afternoon, that he tried every one who might be in New York--men and girls he had not seen for years, an artist's model of his college days whose faded number was still in his address book--Central told him that even the exchange existed no longer. At length his quest roved into the country, and he held brief disappointing conversations with emphatic butlers and maids. So-and-so was out, riding, swimming, playing golf, sailed to Europe last week. Who shall I say phoned?
    It was intolerable that he should pass the evening alone--the private reckonings which one plans for a moment of leisure lose every charm when the solitude is enforced. There were always women of a sort, but the ones he knew had temporarily vanished, and to pass a New York evening in the hired company of a stranger never occurred to him--he would have considered that that was something shameful and secret, the diversion of a travelling salesman in a strange town.
    Anson paid the telephone bill--the girl tried unsuccessfully to joke with him about its size--and for the second time that afternoon started to leave the Plaza and go he knew not where. Near the revolving door the figure of a woman, obviously with child, stood sideways to the light--a sheer beige cape fluttered at her shoulders when the door turned and, each time, she looked impatiently toward it as if she were weary of waiting. At the first sight of her a strong nervous thrill of familiarity went over him, but not until he was within five feet of her did he realize that it was Paula.
    "Why, Anson Hunter!"
    His heart turned over.
    "Why, Paula--"
    "Why, this is wonderful. I can't believe it, ANSON!"
    She took both his hands, and he saw in the freedom of the gesture that the memory of him had lost poignancy to her. But not to him-- he felt that old mood that she evoked in him stealing over his brain, that gentleness with which he had always met her optimism as if afraid to mar its surface.
    "We're at Rye for the summer. Pete had to come East on business-- you know of course I'm Mrs. Peter Hagerty now--so we brought the children and took a house. You've got to come out and see us."
    "Can I?" he asked directly. "When?"
    "When you like. Here's Pete." The revolving door functioned, giving up a fine tall man of thirty with a tanned face and a trim mustache. His immaculate fitness made a sharp contrast with Anson's increasing bulk, which was obvious under the faintly tight cut-away coat.
    "You oughtn't to be standing," said Hagerty to his wife. "Let's sit down here." He indicated lobby chairs, but Paula hesitated.
    "I've got to go right home," she said. "Anson, why don't you--why don't you come out and have dinner with us to-night? We're just getting