The Sub-Deb
The time is in the evening of any day in any month in any year. The place is the front room of an apartment in 52nd Street, New York, the library of a house in 68th Street, the ball-room of the Ritz-Royce, a limousine outside the Country Club in Louisville, the Princeton campus, anywhere else you choose.
Enter Rosalind—kissable mouth, other details unnecessary. Enter to her Anthony Blaine.
He: Will you kiss me?
She: Sure!
(They kiss—definitely and thoroughly—in a most workmanlike manner.)
He: Did you ever kiss anyone before?
She: (Dreamily) Dozens, hundreds, thousands of boys.
He: Kiss me again.
(They kiss.)
She: How old are you?
He: Nineteen-past.
She: I’m sixteen-just.
He: Kiss me again.
(They kiss.)
She: You’re some kisser yourself.
He: Of course—Princeton, you know.
She: I knew it. Now, Yale men——
He: Don’t mention the brutes!
She: But Harvard men——
He: Sissies! Kiss me again.
(They kiss.)
She: When I was in——
He: You’re so loquacious.
(They kiss.)
She: By the way, who are you?
He: Anthony Blaine.
She: I’ve heard——
He: Don’t talk.
(They kiss.)
She: I’m——
He: What difference does it make who you are? Let’s get married.
She: Can’t. I’m engaged.
He: Whom to?
She: What?
He: To who—who to?
She: Oh. Why, to Dawson Ryder and Skeets McCormick and Amory Patch and—to a boy named Wilson—don’t remember his first name and—to a Yale boy I met in the dark and don’t know any of his names or what he looks like and to—oh, lots of others.
He: You love me, don’t you?
(They kiss.)
She: I love you! I love you! I’m mad about you. I can’t do without you.
(They kiss.)
He: My God! You’re spoiling both our lives.
She: My God! Am I?
He: Here! we’re losing time.
(They kiss—kiss—kiss.)
She: You’ve broken my heart.
He: My God!
She: My God!
He: Time’s up. I have a date with Cecelia Connage.
She: She’s my sister. She’s not very good at it.
He: Good-by! You’ve broken my heart and mussed me all up.
(They kiss. He stumbles toward the exit—a broken man—then—throws back his head with that proud Princeton gesture—and goes out.)
She: Oh, God! I want to die!
(She looks about her—misty-eyed—with a deep aching sadness—that will pass—that will pass in time—say, three minutes.—She looks for her vanity-bag—powders her nose—renews the carmine on those tired lips——)
She: Well? Are they going to keep me waiting all night? Next boy, please!