This Side of Paradise

ROSALIND: (A little annoyed) Run along, little girl! Who are you engaged to, the iceman? the man that keeps the candy-store?

CECELIA: Cheap wit--good-by, darling, I'll see you later.

ROSALIND: Oh, be sure and do that--you're such a help.

(Exit CECELIA. ROSALIND finished her hair and rises, humming. She goes up to the mirror and starts to dance in front of it on the soft carpet. She watches not her feet, but her eyes--never casually but always intently, even when she smiles. The door suddenly opens and then slams behind AMORY, very cool and handsome as usual. He melts into instant confusion.) HE: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought-SHE: (Smiling radiantly) Oh, you're Amory Blaine, aren't you?

HE: (Regarding her closely) And you're Rosalind?

SHE: I'm going to call you Amory--oh, come in--it's all right--mother'll be right in--(under her breath) unfortunately.

HE: (Gazing around) This is sort of a new wrinkle for me.

SHE: This is No Man's Land.

HE: This is where you--you--(pause) SHE: Yes--all those things. (She crosses to the bureau.) See, here's my rouge--eye pencils.

HE: I didn't know you were that way.

SHE: What did you expect?

HE: I thought you'd be sort of--sort of--sexless, you know, swim and play golf.

SHE: Oh, I do--but not in business hours.

HE: Business?

SHE: Six to two--strictly.

HE: I'd like to have some stock in the corporation.

SHE: Oh, it's not a corporation--it's just "Rosalind, Unlimited." Fifty-one shares, name, good-will, and everything goes at $25,000 a year.

HE: (Disapprovingly) Sort of a chilly proposition.

SHE: Well, Amory, you don't mind--do you? When I meet a man that doesn't bore me to death after two weeks, perhaps it'll be different.

HE: Odd, you have the same point of view on men that I have on women.

SHE: I'm not really feminine, you know--in my mind.

HE: (Interested) Go on.

SHE: No, you--you go on--you've made me talk about myself. That's against the rules.

HE: Rules?

SHE: My own rules--but you--Oh, Amory, I hear you're brilliant. The family expects so much of you.

HE: How encouraging!

SHE: Alec said you'd taught him to think. Did you? I didn't believe any one could.

HE: No. I'm really quite dull.

(He evidently doesn't intend this to be taken seriously.) SHE: Liar.

HE: I'm--I'm religious--I'm literary. I've--I've even written poems.

SHE: Vers libre--splendid! (She declaims.) "The trees are green, The birds are singing in the trees, The girl sips her poison The bird flies away the girl dies."

HE: (Laughing) No, not that kind.

SHE: (Suddenly) I like you.

HE: Don't.

SHE: Modest too-HE: I'm afraid of you. I'm always afraid of a girl--until I've kissed her.