F. Scott Fitzgerald | The Beautiful and the Damned

“Young enough. Beautiful child.”

Anthony chuckled in his one-syllable snort.

“Oh, Maury, you're in your second childhood. What do you mean by beautiful?”

Maury gazed helplessly into space.

“Well, I can't describe her exactly—except to say that she was beautiful. She was—tremendously alive. She was eating gumdrops.”

“What!”

“It was a sort of attenuated vice. She's a nervous kind—said she always ate gum-drops at teas because she had to stand around so long in one place.”

“What'd you talk about—Bergson? Bilphism? Whether the one-step is immoral?”

Maury was unruffled; his fur seemed to run all ways.

“As a matter of fact we did talk on Bilphism. Seems her mother's a Bilphist. Mostly, though, we talked about legs.”

Anthony rocked in glee.

“My God! Whose legs?”

“Hers. She talked a lot about hers. As though they were a sort of choice bric-a-brac. She aroused a great desire to see them.”

“What is she—a dancer?”

“No, I found she was a cousin of Dick's.”