We have changed our privacy policy. In addition, we use cookies on our website for various purposes. By continuing on our website, you consent to our use of cookies. You can learn about our practices by reading our privacy policy.

Tender is the Night Book Two, Chapter Thirteen Summary

  • Dick walks into the party hall of the St. Moritz Hotel and sees Baby and Nicole looking pretty in their ski suits.
  • Some guys were talking to them, but they were in their own worlds.
  • Nicole looks happy to see Dick, and she asks where someone is.
  • Dicks says that someone missed his train, but that Dick will meet him in a bit. Then he compliments Nicole’s and Baby’s beauty.
  • Nicole pleads with him to be happy, to talk to some of the girls around. He says he doesn’t want to. He’s careful as he knows this is a delicate subject.
  • Baby starts talking business, updating them on the increase in the family fortune.
  • Dick says he has to go meet someone at the train station.
  • This "someone" is the 40-year-old Franz Gregorovius.
  • Baby isn’t impressed with him; Dick likes him; Nicole is scared of him.
  • Dick’s keeping his eye out for a pretty girl he’s been watching.
  • But Franz is here on business. He wants Dick to help him buy the old clinic where he met Nicole then run it together.
  • Baby encourages Dick to consider it; Gregorovius argues that Dick would have patients, and therefore new material for a book. Nicole says she’s all the crazy Dick needs, making Franz nervous.
  • Baby is thinking she wouldn’t have to worry so much about Nicole if she was living right near a clinic.
  • Dick says he needs to think it over, and then all the people in the hall head out to sleigh down the hill to another hotel.
  • Dick thinks Baby’s encouragement is another way to get him to understand that he’s a Warren family possession and he resents her, but tries to keep it inside.
  • On the way back down, he’s surly and argumentative.
  • When Dick takes Nicole to her room for bed, she mentions that Baby has a good idea.
  • Dick starts to respond with negative comments about Baby, but Nicole closes the door in his face.
  • But the next day, he gives Franz his enthusiastic acceptance of the offer to buy the clinic with Franz.