We crossed the Boulevard Montparnasse and sat down at a table. A boy came up with the Paris Times , and I bought one and opened it.
“What’s the matter, Frances?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said, “except that he wants to leave me.”
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, he told everyone that we were going to be married, and I told my mother and everyone, and now he doesn’t want to do it.”
“What’s the matter?”
“He’s decided he hasn’t lived enough. I knew it would happen when he went to New York.”
She looked up, very bright-eyed and trying to talk inconsequentially.
“I wouldn’t marry him if he doesn’t want to. Of course I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t marry him now for anything. But it does seem to me to be a little late now, after we’ve waited three years, and I’ve just gotten my divorce.”
I said nothing.
“We were going to celebrate so, and instead we’ve just had scenes. It’s so childish. We have dreadful scenes, and he cries and begs me to be reasonable, but he says he just can’t do it.”
“It’s rotten luck.”
“I should say it is rotten luck. I’ve wasted two years and a half on him now. And I don’t know now if any man will ever want to marry me. Two years ago I could have married anybody I wanted, down at Cannes. All the old ones that wanted to marry somebody chic and settle down were crazy about me. Now I don’t think I could get anybody.”