This Side of Paradise

(Exeunt. Enter ALEC and CECELIA.) CECELIA: Just my luck to get my own brother for an intermission.

ALEC: (Gloomily) I'll go if you want me to.

CECELIA: Good heavens, no--with whom would I begin the next dance? (Sighs.) There's no color in a dance since the French officers went back.

ALEC: (Thoughtfully) I don't want Amory to fall in love with Rosalind.

CECELIA: Why, I had an idea that that was just what you did want.

ALEC: I did, but since seeing these girls--I don't know. I'm awfully attached to Amory. He's sensitive and I don't want him to break his heart over somebody who doesn't care about him.

CECELIA: He's very good looking.

ALEC: (Still thoughtfully) She won't marry him, but a girl doesn't have to marry a man to break his heart.

CECELIA: What does it? I wish I knew the secret.

ALEC: Why, you cold-blooded little kitty. It's lucky for some that the Lord gave you a pug nose.

(Enter MRS. CONNAGE.) MRS. CONNAGE: Where on earth is Rosalind?

ALEC: (Brilliantly) Of course you've come to the best people to find out. She'd naturally be with us.

MRS. CONNAGE: Her father has marshalled eight bachelor millionaires to meet her.

ALEC: You might form a squad and march through the halls.

MRS. CONNAGE: I'm perfectly serious--for all I know she may be at the Cocoanut Grove with some football player on the night of her debut. You look left and I'll-ALEC: (Flippantly) Hadn't you better send the butler through the cellar?

MRS. CONNAGE: (Perfectly serious) Oh, you don't think she'd be there?

CECELIA: He's only joking, mother.

ALEC: Mother had a picture of her tapping a keg of beer with some high hurdler.

MRS. CONNAGE: Let's look right away.

(They go out. ROSALIND comes in with GILLESPIE.) GILLESPIE: Rosalind--Once more I ask you. Don't you care a blessed thing about me?

(AMORY walks in briskly.) AMORY: My dance.

ROSALIND: Mr. Gillespie, this is Mr. Blaine.

GILLESPIE: I've met Mr. Blaine. From Lake Geneva, aren't you?

AMORY: Yes.

GILLESPIE: (Desperately) I've been there. It's in the--the Middle West, isn't it?

AMORY: (Spicily) Approximately. But I always felt that I'd rather be provincial hot-tamale than soup without seasoning.

GILLESPIE: What!

AMORY: Oh, no offense.

(GILLESPIE bows and leaves.) ROSALIND: He's too much people.

AMORY: I was in love with a people once.

ROSALIND: So?

AMORY: Oh, yes--her name was Isabelle--nothing at all to her except what I read into her.

ROSALIND: What happened?

AMORY: Finally I convinced her that she was smarter than I was--then she threw me over. Said I was critical and impractical, you know.

ROSALIND: What do you mean impractical?