Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Illustrated) (408 page)

Dolly is more than popular — she is a riot. The professor follows her about looking for a dance, but some young fellow is always too nimble for him and cuts in ahead. Several times he taps the shoulder of the man she’s dancing with, only to find she’s already sailed off in someone else’s arms.

Ben Manny stands in the stag-line frowning. The annoying conviction creeps over him that by not dancing with Dolly he’s missing something. She passes close to him and their eyes meet; her mouth is but a yard away and irresistably he takes a step after her —

Too late. A man grabs his arm hurriedly.

“I’ve got to leave immediately, Ben. Would you mind taking care of Miss Jones?”

And Grace Jones is unceremoniously thrust into his arms. He is in for an arduous hour.

Herc Harkness, a tall, lean boy, a little stewed, innocently calls Mimi Haughton’s attention to the fact that Dolly’s partners all look as if they were going to kiss her. When men are close to her they seem to see her lips surrounded by a crowd of honey bees.

An intermission in the dance brings Mimi and Dolly close together. With feigned cordiality, Mimi takes out her powder puff and pretends to look for a lipstick.

“How annoying,” she exclaims. “I’ve lost it. May I borrow yours?”

But a look in her eyes warns Dolly. She answers innocently that she hasn’t got a lipstick with her. Mimi smiles to herself knowing that Dolly has it in her handbag and moves contemptuously.

Dolly and Cupid walk out into the billiard room and sit in a window open to the gathering June dusk. Two boys have just finished playing tennis on the court outside and are putting up their rackets. It is a lovely and romantic night. Cupid, a little tight now, groans to think that he must pass the evening with Grace. He produces his flask and offers it to Dolly, who refuses it. He drains it and in doing so leans back farther and farther until he loses his balance and topples head over heels out the open window. So surprisingly neat has been his exit that Dolly jumps up with astonishment at finding that she is suddenly alone.

At this moment Grace, discouraged at her luck on the dance floor, has maneuvered the unhappy Ben into the billiard room and is suggesting that they sit down on a couch and talk. Ben is desperate — he has been with her for half an hour. His eyes, roaming about looking for an excuse, fall on a slim figure walking through the dark billiard room toward the music. Ben doesn’t recognize her but he pretends to and exclaims to Grace.

“That girl is looking for me. We have this dance.”

He dashes across the room and in terror lest Grace pursue him, he seizes Dolly and dances her around between the tables with,explaining and apologizing. Only then does he realize who he has in his arms.

“I wondered if you were going to dance with me,” Dolly says, looking up at him.

He has no answer.

“You hate me. Don’t you? If you keep on hating me I’m going back to New York tonight.”

“Don’t be absurd,” he says quickly.

“But you think I have no business here.”

“No, I don’t,” he says embarrassed. “I suppose any girl as pretty as you can go anywhere, even — “ He pauses.

“Even if she’s just out of jail,” she finishes for him, and adds, “So you really think I’m pretty?”

He looks down at her in the half darkness. Outside the window a boy lights a gas street lamp and the glow falls on her face. Grace has gone out of the billiard room, intercepting, annexing Professor Swope just outside the door. Ben and Dolly are alone.

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers involuntarily.

“What — what feature do you think is the prettiest?”

He looks at her once more — then it is as though an invisible hand presses his head forward, until their lips meet and cling.

For a moment they dance on — then simultaneously they break apart, and, breathing hard, Dolly leans back against a billiard table. Neither of them has seen the shadow of Mimi, a shadow with clenched fists, flit past down the hall.

“I beg your pardon,” Ben gasps.

“Oh, don’t say that! Don’t say that!”

“I forgot everything. Your lips were so beautiful.”

In a turmoil of emotion Dolly accompanies him back to the dancing floor. She must have him now or it will break her heart.

This ends the Third Sequence.

IV.

Night. Two unsteady figures detach themselves from the shadow of the Slide and Glide Club and move off down the street. They are Cupid Manny and his friend Herc Harkness. Taking care of Grace has proved too heavy an assignment and Cupid, encouraged by a pint of Scotch, has backed out.

“I will now give my celebrated imitation of the Dean.”

The Dean one gathers is a person who walks with his feet turned out, with a fifty cent piece in his eye and with his head bobbing up and down as if it were on a wire. Also that he habitually reels from one side to the other.

“You stagoning,” says Herc reprovingly.

“What’s that?”

“Stagoning from one side to the other side. Watch me.”

They compete against each other, unaware that not far behind them a third party is apparently playing the same game. The third party, however, is fifty years old, doesn’t stagger and seems quite at home in his impersonation. In fact he is the Dean. Luckily he is nearsighted.

Suddenly Cupid and Here stop short. Under a lamp-post on the next corner stands the sinister figure Joe Jakes, the cop, and he is bending a curious gaze in their direction. They turn quickly and break into a run. So does Joe Jakes. They see the Dean — caught between two fires they duck into a long hedge-bordered walk, intending to hide until the danger is over.

“That was pretty close,” whispers Cupid.

“Sh!”

To their horror the Dean turns up the walk and comes toward them. They retreat. Before them is the open door of a house and over it the sign “Faculty Club” but this they do not see. They have no choice but to go in. Always fifty feet behind them, walking very deliberately, comes the Dean.

Upstairs they went. Came the Dean. Into a large reception room they hurried. Came the Dean. To their confused minds he seemed to be pursuing them with deadly persistence. They ran into a room separated from by drawn curtains. To their relief the Dean did not appear. Peeking through they saw him handing his hat, coat and gloves to an attendant, as if he were making a stay.

They took breath and looked around. A table was spread for twelve diners and on it a large card proclaimed the dinner of the Sociology Department. Slowly it dawned on them that they are in the very camp of the enemy.

“Look!” said Herc. “Beautiful food.”

A dish of glowing hors d’oeuvre adorned the center of the table and suddenly they realize that they are hungry. They nibble on a canape of anchovy, then a canape caviare.. . five minutes pass … a lone, slightly rumpled sardine sleeps upon the dish in solitary state.

“No need for these little forks now,” suggests Cupid. “Let’s take ‘em away.”

The forks are removed. That leaves three utensils on side of each plate and only two on the other. The discrepancy is remedied by the removal of the butter knives.

“Let’s take all the silver,” says Herc, “I got a low mark in sociology last year.”

“Fine.”

They gather up the remaining tableware and while Herc ties it up neatly into a napkin, Cupid draws aside the curtain to investigate the commotion now audible in the next room. It is full of people. He starts as he discovers Dolly and Professor Swope. The professor has his back toward the curtain. Signalling violently Cupid manages to catch Dolly’s eye. She stares back in astonishment. He beckons her, warning her to silence. After some maneuvering, she manages to slip through the curtain into the dining room where with considerable pride Cupid and Herc show her the napkin full of silver.

“But you’ll be caught and expelled,” she says in alarm. “You’d better put it all back where it was and go home to bed.”

It takes some time to get this through their befuddled minds and any minute the diners may come in from the next room; Dolly hurries to the window and looks out — under the lamp-post across the street stands the figure of Joe Jakes, the proctor.

Simultaneously there is a sound of movement from the next room. Dolly opens the door of a large linen closet, hustles the two boys protesting inside, and hurriedly turns the key. She picks up the napkin full of silver and starts for the table, just as the curtains quiver. She has only time to step aside and pretend to enter with the others.

It is on the tip of her tongue to tell the whole story to the professor and to hand him the bundle, but she realizes in time that he of all people would fail to understand. He would think — heavens! He would think that
she
had stolen the silver — that he had indeed been rash to bring along a girl just out of jail.

With dignity the party seats itself and Dolly, trembling a little, continues to hold the bulky bundle on her knee. In a moment all will be known and she must either give over Cupid and his friend to the authorities or leave the University in disgrace.

At this point a waiter picks up the hors d’oeuvre once so resplendent and finds that it consists of one sardine. He rushes to the steward. It is incredible. Amazed and horrified the steward orders him to say nothing, but to serve the soup.

The scarcity of silver now begins to be felt. The Dean summons the steward and points out that no doubt this little detail has been overlooked. The steward cannot believe his eyes. There is a rapid scurrying between the dining room and the kitchen, from which presently red-faced waiters appear looking as if they had gone through the third degree. Eventually the steward approaches the Dean.

“The silver has been stolen, sir.”

“Stolen?”

The word goes down the table. Dolly trembles violently — a spoon slips from the bundle and falls to the floor — fortunately without noise.

“That is unfortunate,” says the Dean. “Put out some more silver.”

“There is no more. It has all been rented to the prom committee for the dance tomorrow night.”

The Dean looks at him wrathfully.

“We’ve got to eat,” he roars. “Get us something — even if it’s only chopsticks. Unless somebody’s stolen the dinner.”

The kitchen is ransacked. Waiters presently appear with half pint spoons of tin or wood, toasting forks with two prongs, carving knives, pancake turners, cleavers, even an egg beater, and with horrified glances at one another the faculty begins to dine.

Let us draw a curtain over the obscene spectacle and return to Dolly. On her left fate has placed a certain professor pedagogue well along in years, but of amorous inclinations. He has been to many faculty dinners, but he has never drawn such a high number before. Under the very eyes of his wife he begins, with a suggestive wink, to work on Dolly.

His method is to pinch her leg under the table, and each time that she feels his hand on her knee she draws away. Unfortunately the movement invariably dislodges a piece of silver, which falls with a sharp tinkle to the floor. She holds her breath to see if anyone has heard and then kicks it deftly far under the table.

The professor, seeing her forced wooden smile and imagining that he is making an impression, continues his tactics. He even begins to edge his chair toward her until recalled to himself by a frigid glance from his wife.

In the closet Cupid and Herc, refreshed by a short sleep, awaken and try the door. It is locked. Philosophically they settle down to wait and meanwhile beguile the time with cigarettes, blowing the smoke out through the keyhole. The Dean sniffs suspiciously. Seeing a cloud of it arise, apparently from Professor Valentine, he says:

“It is not the custom to smoke until the end of dinner.”

A minute later another cloud of it drifts out of Professor Valentine’s lap and the Dean angrily orders him to put out his cigarette. Professor Valentine begins protesting his innocence and this effectually distracts his attention from Dolly, and she takes advantage of this to wipe some rouge from her lips. It is high time, for there is now a pleasant pile of silver on the floor.

The Dean rises to begin his speech.

“What,” he demands, “is the greatest influence on college life today?”

From the closet in harmony floats the fragment of a song:

“The Black Bottom
—
a new Twister
— “

At Dolly’s nervous suggestion Professor Swope gets up and closes the window.

The party is to finish with the college cheer. It is the custom at dinners to give this with the napkin held in the right hand and waved to and fro. The Dean gives the signal and all arise.

Dolly is in a panic. She lays the bundle on the table and reaches for the nearest napkin, which happens to be that of Professor Swope. The professor’s hand gropes over the table, hunting for it-encounters the napkin containing the silver instead.

“Are you ready?” cries the Dean, raising his napkin.

“Ray! Ray! Ray!

“Rah! Rah! Rah! — “

The cheer gets no farther, for from Professor Swope’s waving napkin fly the knives, forks and spoons, bounding and scattering from end to end of the table like flowers from a cornucopia.

The Dean’s face grows purple, Professor Swope’s goes white. Everyone looks at the latter, horrified at his unprecedented temerity. Throwing down his napkin the Dean stalks from the room and, chattering excitedly, the others follow.

*****

This finishes the Fourth Sequence.

V.

Leaving the professor to clear himself as best he can Dolly lingers discreetly behind. When the room is empty she unlocks the door of the linen closet and with some impatience tells Cupid and Herc that they must go straight to their rooms before they cause further trouble.

They are pathetic in their helplessness. They start to walk out through the reception room — Dolly barely prevents them in time. A glance out the window shows Joe Jakes still on guard under the lamp-post across the street. Dolly sees that by themselves they are incapable of getting home without detection. But she thinks of her duty to the professor — hesitates —