g,  so  I  said to  Doc Civet  here: 'There's
somebody that needs your help, Doc.'" "She's much  obliged, I'm  sure," said
another friend, without gratitude.  "But you got her dress  all wet when you
stuck her head in the pool." "Anything  I hate is to get my head stuck in  a
pool,"  mumbled  Miss Baedeker.  "They almost  drowned me once  over in  New
Jersey." "Then you  ought to leave it alone," countered Doctor Civet. "Speak
for  yourself!" cried Miss Baedeker violently. "Your hand shakes. I wouldn't
let you operate on me!" It was like that.  Almost  the last thing I remember
was standing with  Daisy and watching  the moving-picture  director and  his
Star.  They  were  still  under the white  plum tree  and  their  faces were
touching except for a pale, thin ray of moonlight between. It occurred to me
that he had been  very slowly bending toward her all evening  to attain this
proximity, and  even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and
kiss at her cheek. "I like her," said Daisy, "I think she's lovely." But the
rest offended  her--and  inarguably, because it  wasn't  a  gesture  but  an
emotion.  She was appalled  by West  Egg, this  unprecedented  "place." that
Broadway had  begotten upon  a Long Island fishing village--appalled  by its
raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate
that herded its inhabitants along  a  short-cut from nothing to nothing. She
saw something awful in  the very simplicity she failed to understand.  I sat
on the front steps with them while they  waited for their  car.  It was dark
here in front; only the bright  door sent ten square feet of light volleying
out  into the  soft  black morning.  Sometimes  a  shadow  moved  against  a
dressing-room  blind  above, gave  way  to  another  shadow,  an  indefinite
procession of shadows, who rouged  and powdered in an invisible glass.  "Who
is  this Gatsby  anyhow?"  demanded  Tom  suddenly.  "Some  big bootlegger?"
"Where'd you hear that?" I inquired. "I didn't hear it. I imagined it. A lot
of  these  newly  rich people  are just  big  bootleggers, you  know."  "Not
Gatsby," I said  shortly.  He was silent for  a moment. The pebbles  of  the
drive  crunched  under  his  feet. "Well,  he certainly must  have  strained
himself to get  this  menagerie together." A breeze stirred the gray haze of
Daisy's fur collar.  "At least they're  more  interesting than the people we
know," she said with an effort.  "You  didn't look  so interested." "Well, I
was." Tom laughed and  turned to me. "Did you notice Daisy's face when  that
girl asked her to put her under a cold shower?" Daisy began to sing with the
music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that
it had never  had before and would never have  again. When the  melody rose,
her voice  broke up sweetly,  following it, in  a way contralto voices have,
and each  change tipped out a little of  her  warm human magic upon the air.
"Lots  of people  come  who haven't been invited,"  she said suddenly. "That
girl hadn't been invited. They simply force their way in and he's too polite
to object." "I'd like  to know who  he is and  what he does," insisted  Tom.
"And I think I'll make a point of finding out." "I can tell  you right now,"
she answered. "He owned some drug-stores,  a  lot of drug-stores.  He  built
them up himself."  The dilatory limousine  came rolling up the drive.  "Good
night, Nick," said Daisy.  Her glance left me  and sought the lighted top of
the steps, where  THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, a neat, sad little waltz  of
that year, was drifting out the open door. After all, in the very casualness
of Gatsby's party there were romantic possibilities  totally absent from her
world. What was it up there in the song  that seemed to  be calling her back
inside?  What would happen now in the dim, incalculable hours?  Perhaps some
unbelievable  guest  would  arrive,  a person  infinitely  rare  and  to  be
marvelled  at,  some  authentically  radiant young  girl who with one  fresh
glance at Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five
years of unwavering  devotion. I stayed late  that night, Gatsby asked me to
wait until  he was free,  and I lingered in the garden  until the inevitable
swimming party had run  up, chilled and exalted, from the black beach, until
the lights were  extinguished in the guest-rooms overhead. When he came down
the steps at last the tanned skin was drawn unusually tight on his face, and
his eyes were  bright and tired. "She  didn't like it," he said immediately.
"Of course she did."  "She didn't like it,"  he insisted. "She didn't have a
good time." He was  silent, and I  guessed at his unutterable depression. "I
feel  far away from her," he said. "It's hard to make her  understand." "You
mean about the dance?" "The dance?" He dismissed all the dances he had given
with a snap of his fingers. "Old sport, the dance is unimportant." He wanted
nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: "I never loved
you."  After she had obliterated four years  with that  sentence  they could
decide upon the more practical measures to be taken.  One  of them was that,
after she was free, they were to go back to  Louisville and be  married from
her house--just as if it were five years ago.  "And she doesn't understand,"
he  said. "She  used to be  able to  understand. We'd sit for hours----"  He
broke off  and began to walk up and  down a desolate path of fruit rinds and
discarded favors and crushed  flowers. "I wouldn't ask too  much of  her," I
ventured.  "You  can't  repeat the past." "Can't  repeat the past?" he cried
incredulously. "Why of course you can!" He looked  around him wildly,  as if
the past  were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of
his hand. "I'm going to fix everything just the way it was before," he said,
nodding determinedly. "She'll see."  He talked a  lot  about the past, and I
gathered that he wanted to recover  something, some idea of himself perhaps,
that had gone into  loving Daisy. His life had  been confused and disordered
since then, but if he could once return to a  certain starting place and  go
over it all slowly, he could find out what  that  thing was. . . . . . . One
autumn night, five years before, they had been walking down the  street when
the leaves were falling, and they came to  a place where there were no trees
and the  sidewalk  was  white with moonlight. They stopped  here and  turned
toward each other. Now it was a cool night  with  that mysterious excitement
in it which comes at  the two changes of the year.  The quiet lights  in the
houses  were humming  out  into the darkness and there was a stir and bustle
among the stars. Out of the corner of  his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of
the sidewalks really formed a ladder and mounted to a secret place above the
trees--he  could climb to it, if  he climbed alone, and once there he  could
suck  on the pap of  life, gulp down  the  incomparable milk of  wonder. His
heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came  up  to  his own. He
knew that when he  kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions
to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp  again  like the mind of
God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had
been  struck  upon  a  star.  Then he kissed  her. At  his  lips' touch  she
blossomed for him like  a  flower and the incarnation was  complete. Through
all he  said, even through  his appalling sentimentality, I  was reminded of
something--an  elusive  rhythm,  a  fragment of lost words, that I had heard
somewhere  a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take  shape in my
mouth and  my  lips  parted  like  a dumb man's,  as  though  there was more
struggling upon  them  than a wisp of startled air. But  they made no sound,
and what I had  almost  remembered was uncommunicable forever.  Chapter 7 It
was when curiosity about  Gatsby was at  its  highest that the lights in his
house failed to go on one Saturday night--and, as obscurely as it had begun,
his  career as Trimalchio was over.  Only gradually did  I become aware that
the automobiles which turned  expectantly into his drive  stayed  for just a
minute and then drove sulkily away. Wondering if he were sick I went over to
find out--an  unfamiliar  butler  with  a  villainous  face squinted  at  me
suspiciously from the  door. "Is Mr. Gatsby  sick?" "Nope." After a pause he
added "sir." in  a dilatory, grudging way. "I hadn't seen him  around, and I
was  rather  worried. Tell  him Mr. Carraway came  over." "Who?" he demanded
rudely.  "Carraway." "Carraway.  All  right,  I'll  tell  him." Abruptly  he
slammed  the door. My  Finn informed me  that  Gatsby  had  dismissed  every
servant in his house a week ago and replaced them with half a  dozen others,
who never  went into West  Egg Village to be bribed  by  the  tradesmen, but
ordered moderate supplies over the telephone. The  grocery boy reported that
the kitchen looked like a pigsty, and the general opinion in the village was
that the new people weren't servants at  all.  Next day  Gatsby called me on
the phone. "Going away?" I  inquired. "No, old sport." "I hear you fired all
your  servants."  "I wanted somebody  who wouldn't gossip. Daisy  comes over
quite often--in the afternoons." So the whole caravansary had fallen in like
a card house at the disapproval  in her eyes. "They're some people Wolfshiem
wanted to do  something for. They're all brothers  and sisters. They used to
run a small hotel." "I see." He was calling up  at  Daisy's request--would I
come to lunch  at her house  to-morrow?  Miss Baker would be there. Half  an
hour later Daisy  herself  telephoned and seemed relieved to find that I was
coming. Something was up. And  yet I couldn't believe that they would choose
this occasion for a scene--especially for the  rather  harrowing  scene that
Gatsby had outlined in the  garden. The  next day  was broiling, almost  the
last,  certainly the warmest, of the summer. As my  train emerged  from  the
tunnel into  sunlight, only the hot whistles of the National Biscuit Company
broke the simmering hush at noon. The straw seats of  the car hovered on the
edge of  combustion; the woman next  to me  perspired delicately for a while
into  her white shirtwaist,  and then,  as her newspaper dampened under  her
fingers,  lapsed  despairingly  into  deep heat  with  a  desolate  cry. Her
pocket-book slapped to the floor. "Oh, my!" she  gasped. I picked it up with
a weary bend  and handed it back  to her,  holding it at arm's length and by
the  extreme  tip  of  the corners to indicate  that  I had no designs  upon
it--but every one near by, including  the woman, suspected me just the same.
"Hot!" said the conductor  to familiar faces.  "Some weather! hot! hot! hot!
Is it hot enough for you? Is it hot? Is it  . .  .  ?" My commutation ticket
came back to me with a dark stain from his hand. That any one should care in
this  heat whose flushed lips he  kissed, whose  head made  damp  the pajama
pocket over his heart! . . . Through the hall of the Buchanans' house blew a
faint wind, carrying the sound of the telephone bell out to Gatsby and me as
we  waited  at  the  door.  "The master's body!"  roared the butler into the
mouthpiece. "I'm sorry, madame, but we can't furnish it--it's far too hot to
touch this noon!" What he really said  was: "Yes . .  . yes . . . I'll see."
He set down the  receiver and  came toward us, glistening slightly,  to take
our  stiff  straw  hats.  "Madame  expects  you in  the  salon!"  he  cried,
needlessly indicating the direction. In this heat every extra gesture was an
affront  to the common  store of life. The room, shadowed well with awnings,
was dark and cool. Daisy and Jordan  lay upon an enormous couch, like silver
idols  weighing down  their own white dresses against the  singing breeze of
the  fans. "We can't  move," they  said together. Jordan's fingers, powdered
white over their tan, rested for a moment in mine. "And Mr. Thomas Buchanan,
the athlete?" I inquired. Simultaneously I heard his  voice, gruff, muffled,
husky, at  the hall  telephone. Gatsby stood in  the  centre of  the crimson
carpet and gazed around with fascinated eyes. Daisy watched him and laughed,
her sweet, exciting  laugh; a tiny gust of powder rose  from her bosom  into
the air.  "The  rumor is," whispered  Jordan, "that that's Tom's girl on the
telephone." We were silent. The voice  in the hall rose high with annoyance:
"Very  well, then, I won't  sell you the car  at  all. .  . . I'm  under  no
obligations to you at all .  . . and  as for your bothering  me about it  at
lunch time, I  won't stand that at  all!" "Holding down the  receiver," said
Daisy cynically. "No, he's  not,"  I assured  her. "It's a bona-fide deal. I
happen to know about it." Tom flung open the door, blocked out its space for
a moment with his thick  body, and hurried  into the room.  "Mr. Gatsby!" He
put out his broad, flat hand with well-concealed dislike. "I'm  glad  to see
you, sir. . . . Nick. . . ." "Make us a cold drink," cried Daisy. As he left
the room again she got up and went over  to Gatsby and pulled his face down,
kissing him on  the  mouth. "You know I love you," she murmured. "You forget
there's a lady present,"  said Jordan.  Daisy looked around doubtfully. "You
kiss Nick  too." "What a low, vulgar girl!" "I don't care!" cried Daisy, and
began to clog on the brick fireplace. Then she  remembered the heat and  sat
down guiltily  on  the  couch just as a  freshly laundered  nurse leading  a
little girl came  into the room. "Bles-sed pre-cious," she crooned,  holding
out  her  arms.  "Come  to your own  mother  that  loves  you."  The  child,
relinquished by the nurse, rushed  across the room and rooted shyly into her
mother's dress. "The bles-sed  pre-cious! Did mother get powder on  your old
yellowy hair? Stand up now, and say--How-de-do." Gatsby and I in turn leaned
down and took the small, reluctant hand. Afterward  he kept  looking  at the
child  with  surprise.  I don't think he  had ever  really believed  in  its
existence before. "I got dressed  before luncheon," said the  child, turning
eagerly to Daisy.  "That's because your mother wanted to  show you off." Her
face bent into the single wrinkle of the small, white neck. "You dream, you.
You absolute little dream." "Yes," admitted the child calmly. "Aunt Jordan's
got on a white dress too." "How do you  like mother's friends?" Daisy turned
her around so that she faced Gatsby. "Do you think they're pretty?" "Where's
Daddy?" "She doesn't look like her father," explained Daisy. "She looks like
me. She's got my hair and shape of the face." Daisy sat back upon the couch.
The  nurse  took a  step  forward  and  held  out her hand.  "Come,  Pammy."
"Good-by, sweetheart!" With a reluctant backward glance the well-disciplined
child held to her nurse's hand and was pulled out the door, just as Tom came
back, preceding four gin rickeys that clicked  full  of ice. Gatsby took  up
his drink. "They certainly look  cool,"  he said,  with visible  tension. We
drank  in  long, greedy swallows. "I read somewhere that the  sun's  getting
hotter  every year," said  Tom genially.  "It  seems  that pretty  soon  the
earth's  going  to  fall  into  the  sun--or  wait  a  minute--it's just the
opposite--the sun's getting colder every year. "Come  outside," he suggested
to Gatsby, "I'd like you to have a look  at the place." I went with them out
to  the veranda.  On the green Sound, stagnant  in the heat, one  small sail
crawled   slowly   toward  the  fresher  sea.  Gatsby's  eyes  followed   it
momentarily;  he  raised  his  hand  and pointed across  the bay. "I'm right
across from you." "So you  are." Our eyes lifted over  the rose-beds and the
hot lawn and the weedy refuse of the dog-days  along-shore. Slowly the white
wings of the boat moved against  the  blue  cool limit of the sky. Ahead lay
the  scalloped  ocean  and the  abounding blessed  isles. "There's sport for
you," said  Tom, nodding. "I'd like  to be out there with him for  about  an
hour." We  had luncheon in the dining-room,  darkened  too against the heat,
and  drank down nervous gayety  with  the  cold  ale.  "What'll  we  do with
ourselves  this  afternoon?" cried Daisy,  "and the day after  that, and the
next thirty  years?"  "Don't be  morbid," Jordan said. "Life starts all over
again when it gets crisp in the fall." "But it's so hot," insisted Daisy, on
the verge of tears,  "and  everything's so confused. Let's all go  to town!"
Her voice struggled on through  the  heat,  beating  against it, molding its
senselessness into forms. "I've heard  of  making a garage out of a stable,"
Tom was  saying to Gatsby, "but I'm the first man who ever made a stable out
of  a  garage." "Who wants  to  go  to  town?"  demanded Daisy  insistently.
Gatsby's eyes floated toward her. "Ah," she cried, "you look so cool." Their
eyes met, and they stared  together  at  each other, alone in space. With an
effort  she glanced  down  at the  table.  "You  always  look so cool,"  she
repeated. She had told  him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was
astounded. His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back
at Daisy  as if he had just recognized her as some  one he  knew a long time
ago. "You resemble  the advertisement  of the man," she  went on innocently.
"You  know  the  advertisement  of the  man----" "All  right," broke in  Tom
quickly, "I'm perfectly willing to go to town.  Come on--we're all  going to
town." He  got up, his eyes still  flashing between  Gatsby and his wife. No
one  moved.  "Come  on!" His temper cracked  a  little.  "What's the matter,
anyhow? If we're going to town, let's  start."  His hand, trembling with his
effort  at  self-control,  bore to his  lips  the last of his glass  of ale.
Daisy's  voice got us  to our  feet and out on  to the blazing gravel drive.
"Are we just going to go?" she objected. "Like this? Aren't we  going to let
any one smoke a cigarette first?" "Everybody smoked all through lunch." "Oh,
let's have fun," she begged him. "It's too hot to  fuss." He didn't  answer.
"Have it your own way,"  she said. "Come on, Jordan." They went up-stairs to
get ready while we three men  stood there shuffling the hot pebbles with our
feet. A silver curve of the moon  hovered already in the western sky. Gatsby
started to speak, changed his mind, but not before Tom wheeled and faced him
expectantly. "Have  you got your stables here?" asked Gatsby with an effort.
"About a quarter of a mile down the road." "Oh."  A pause. "I don't see  the
idea of going to town," broke out Tom savagely. "Women get  these notions in
their  heads----"  "Shall we take anything to drink?" called  Daisy from  an
upper  window. "I'll get some whiskey," answered Tom. He went inside. Gatsby
turned to me rigidly: "I can't say anything in his house, old sport." "She's
got an indiscreet voice,"  I remarked. "It's full of----" I hesitated.  "Her
voice is full of money," he said suddenly. That was it. I'd never understood
before. It was full of money--that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and
fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it. . . . high in a white
palace the king's daughter, the golden girl. . . . Tom came out of the house
wrapping a quart  bottle  in a towel,  followed by Daisy and Jordan  wearing
small tight hats of metallic cloth and carrying light capes over their arms.
"Shall  we all  go in my car?"  suggested Gatsby. He  felt  the  hot,  green
leather of the seat. "I ought to have left it in the shade." "Is it standard
shift?" demanded Tom. "Yes." "Well, you take my coupe  and let me drive your
car  to town."  The suggestion was distasteful  to Gatsby.  "I  don't  think
there's much gas," he objected. "Plenty of gas,"  said Tom boisterously.  He
looked at the gauge. "And if it runs out I can stop at a drug-store. You can
buy  anything  at a drug-store  nowadays."  A pause followed this apparently
pointless   remark.  Daisy  looked  at  Tom  frowning,  and  an  indefinable
expression, at once definitely unfamiliar  and vaguely recognizable, as if I
had only  heard it  described in words, passed over Gatsby's face. "Come on,
Daisy," said Tom, pressing her with his hand toward Gatsby's car. "I'll take
you in this circus wagon." He  opened the  door, but  she moved out from the
circle  of  his  arm.  "You  take Nick and  Jordan. We'll follow you  in the
coupe." She walked close  to Gatsby, touching his coat with her hand. Jordan
and Tom  and I  got  into  the  front seat of  Gatsby's car, Tom  pushed the
unfamiliar gears  tentatively,  and we shot  off into  the  oppressive heat,
leaving them  out of  sight behind. "Did you see that?"  demanded Tom.  "See
what?" He  looked at me keenly, realizing that Jordan and I  must have known
all along. "You  think I'm pretty dumb, don't you?" he suggested. "Perhaps I
am,  but I have a--almost  a  second sight, sometimes, that tells me what to
do. Maybe you don't believe that, but  science----" He paused. The immediate
contingency overtook him, pulled  him back from the edge  of the theoretical
abyss. "I've  made a  small investigation  of this fellow," he continued. "I
could  have gone  deeper  if I'd  known----" "Do you  mean  you've been to a
medium?" inquired Jordan humorously. "What?" Confused, he stared at us as we
laughed.  "A medium?" "About Gatsby." "About Gatsby!  No, I  haven't. I said
I'd been making a small investigation of his past." "And you found he was an
Oxford man," said  Jordan helpfully. "An  Oxford  man!" He  was incredulous.
"Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit." "Nevertheless he's  an Oxford man."
"Oxford, New  Mexico," snorted Tom contemptuously, "or something like that."
"Listen, Tom. If  you're  such a snob, why  did you  invite  him  to lunch?"
demanded Jordan  crossly. "Daisy invited him; she  knew him before  we  were
married--God  knows where!" We were all irritable now  with the  fading ale,
and  aware  of  it  we drove for a  while in silence. Then  as Doctor T.  J.
Eckleburg's faded eyes came into sight down the road, I remembered  Gatsby's
caution about gasoline. "We've got enough to get us to town," said Tom. "But
there's a garage right here," objected Jordan. "I don't want to  get stalled
in this baking heat."  Tom threw on both brakes impatiently, and we  slid to
an abrupt dusty stop  under Wilson's sign.  After  a  moment the  proprietor
emerged from the interior of  his establishment and gazed hollow-eyed at the
car. "Let's have some gas!" cried Tom roughly. "What do you think we stopped
for--to admire the view?" "I'm sick," said Wilson without moving. "Been sick
all  day."  "What's the matter?" "I'm all run  down."  "Well,  shall  I help
myself?" Tom  demanded.  "You  sounded  well  enough on the  phone." With an
effort Wilson left the shade and support of the doorway and, breathing hard,
unscrewed the cap of the tank. In the sunlight his face was green. "I didn't
mean to interrupt your lunch," he said. "But I need money  pretty bad, and I
was wondering what you were going to do with your old car." "How do you like
this one?" inquired Tom. "I bought  it last week." "It's a nice yellow one,"
said Wilson, as he strained  at the handle.  "Like to buy it?" "Big chance,"
Wilson smiled faintly. "No, but I could make some money on the other." "What
do you want money for, all of a sudden?" "I've been here too long. I want to
get away. My  wife and I want to go West." "Your  wife does," exclaimed Tom,
startled. "She's  been talking  about it for ten  years."  He rested  for  a
moment against the pump,  shading his eyes. "And now she's going whether she
wants to or not. I'm going to get her  away." The coupe flashed by us with a
flurry of dust and the flash of a waving hand. "What do I owe you?" demanded
Tom  harshly.  "I  just got wised  up to something funny the last two days,"
remarked Wilson. "That's why I want to get away. That's why I been bothering
you about  the  car."  "What do I owe you?" "Dollar twenty."  The relentless
beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before
I realized that  so  far  his  suspicions  hadn't alighted on  Tom.  He  had
discovered that Myrtle had  some  sort of life  apart  from him  in  another
world,  and the shock had made him physically sick. I stared at him and then
at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less  than  an hour before--and it
occurred to me  that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or
race, so profound as the difference  between the  sick and the well.  Wilson
was so sick that he  looked  guilty, unforgivably guilty--as  if he had just
got some poor girl with child. "I'll let you have that car," said Tom. "I'll
send  it  over  to-morrow  afternoon."  That  locality  was  always  vaguely
disquieting, even in  the broad glare of afternoon, and now I turned my head
as though I had been warned of something behind. Over the ashheaps the giant
eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg kept  their vigil, but  I perceived, after  a
moment, that other eyes were regarding us with peculiar intensity  from less
than twenty feet away. In one of  the  windows over the garage  the curtains
had been moved  aside  a little,  and Myrtle Wilson was  peering down at the
car.  So engrossed was she that she had no consciousness of being  observed,
and one emotion after another crept into her face like objects into a slowly
developing  picture.  Her  expression  was  curiously  familiar--it  was  an
expression I had often seen on women's faces, but on Myrtle Wilson's face it
seemed purposeless and  inexplicable until  I realized that her  eyes,  wide
with jealous terror,  were fixed not on Tom, but on Jordan  Baker,  whom she
took to be his wife.  There is no confusion like the  confusion of a  simple
mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips  of panic. His wife
and  his  mistress, until an  hour ago secure  and  inviolate, were slipping
precipitately from his control.  Instinct  made  him step on the accelerator
with the double purpose of overtaking Daisy and leaving  Wilson  behind, and
we sped  along toward  Astoria at  fifty  miles  an  hour, until,  among the
spidery  girders of the elevated, we came  in sight  of the easy-going  blue
coupe. "Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool," suggested Jordan.
"I  love  New  York  on  summer  afternoons when  every one's away.  There's
something very sensuous about it--overripe,  as if all sorts of funny fruits
were going  to fall into your hands." The word "sensuous" had  the effect of
further disquieting Tom, but before he could invent a protest the coupe came
to a stop, and Daisy signaled us to draw up alongside. "Where are we going?"
she cried. "How about the movies?" "It's so  hot," she complained.  "You go.
We'll ride around and meet you after." With an effort her wit  rose faintly,
"We'll meet you on some corner. I'll be the man smoking two cigarettes." "We
can't argue about it here,"  Tom  said impatiently, as  a  truck  gave out a
cursing whistle behind us. "You follow me to the south side of Central Park,
in front of the Plaza." Several times he turned his head and looked back for
their car, and if the traffic delayed them he slowed up until they came into
sight. I think he was afraid they would dart  down a side  street and out of
his life forever. But they didn't. And we all  took the less explicable step
of  engaging the  parlor of a suite  in the Plaza Hotel.  The prolonged  and
tumultuous  argument that  ended by herding  us  into  that room eludes  me,
though  I have a  sharp physical  memory  that,  in the  course  of  it,  my
underwear kept climbing  like a damp  snake around  my legs and intermittent
beads of sweat raced cool across my back. The notion originated with Daisy's
suggestion  that  we  hire five bath-rooms  and  take  cold  baths, and then
assumed more  tangible form as "a  place  to  have a mint julep." Each of us
said over and  over that it was a "crazy  idea."--we all talked at once to a
baffled clerk and thought, or pretended  to think,  that  we were being very
funny.  . . . The  room was large and stifling,  and, though it  was already
four o'clock, opening the windows admitted Only a gust of hot shrubbery from
the Park. Daisy went to the mirror and stood with her back to us, fixing her
hair. "It's  a  swell suite," whispered  Jordan respectfully,  and every one
laughed. "Open  another  window,"  commanded Daisy, without turning  around.
"There aren't  any more." "Well, we'd  better telephone for an axe----" "The
thing to do is to forget about the heat," said Tom impatiently. "You make it
ten times worse  by  crabbing about  it." He  unrolled the bottle of whiskey
from the towel and put it on the table.  "Why not let her alone, old sport?"
remarked Gatsby. "You're the  one that  wanted to come to town." There was a
moment  of silence. The telephone book slipped from its nail and splashed to
the floor, whereupon Jordan whispered, "Excuse me."--but  this time  no  one
laughed. "I'll pick it  up," I offered. "I've got it."  Gatsby examined  the
parted string, muttered "Hum!" in an interested way, and tossed the book  on
a  chair. "That's a great expression of yours, isn't  it?" said Tom sharply.
"What is?" "All  this 'old  sport' business. Where'd you pick that up?" "Now
see here, Tom," said Daisy, turning around from the mirror, "if you're going
to make personal remarks I won't stay here a minute. Call  up and order some
ice for the mint julep."  As Tom  took  up  the receiver the compressed heat
exploded  into sound  and we  were  listening to  the  portentous chords  of
Mendelssohn's Wedding  March  from  the  ballroom  below.  "Imagine marrying
anybody  in this heat!" cried  Jordan dismally. "Still--I was married in the
middle  of June,"  Daisy remembered, "Louisville  in June! Somebody fainted.
Who was  it  fainted,  Tom?"  "Biloxi,"  he answered  shortly. "A man  named
Biloxi. 'blocks' Biloxi, and he  made boxes--that's a  fact--and he was from
Biloxi,  Tennessee." "They  carried  him into  my  house,"  appended Jordan,
"because we lived just two doors from the church. And he stayed three weeks,
until Daddy told him he had  to get out. The day  after he left Daddy died."
After a moment she  added  as if she might have  sounded  irreverent, "There
wasn't  any  connection."  "I used to  know a Bill Biloxi  from  Memphis," I
remarked. "That was  his cousin.  I knew  his whole family history before he
left. He gave me an aluminum putter  that I use to-day."  The music had died
down as the ceremony began and now a  long  cheer floated  in at the window,
followed by intermittent cries of  "Yea-ea-ea!" and  finally  by a  burst of
jazz as the dancing began. "We're  getting  old,"  said  Daisy. "If we  were
young we'd rise and dance."  "Remember Biloxi," Jordan  warned her. "Where'd
you know him, Tom?" "Biloxi?" He concentrated with an effort. "I didn't know
him. He was a friend of Daisy's." "He was not," she denied. "I'd never  seen
him before. He came down in the private car." "Well, he said he knew you. He
said he was raised in  Louisville. Asa Bird brought him  around at  the last
minute and asked if we  had room for  him."  Jordan smiled. "He was probably
bumming his way  home. He told me he was  president of your class  at Yale."
Tom and  I looked at each other blankly.  "Biloxi?" "First  place, we didn't
have any president----" Gatsby's foot beat  a short, restless tattoo and Tom
eyed him  suddenly. "By the  way, Mr.  Gatsby, I understand you're an Oxford
man." "Not  exactly." "Oh,  yes,  I understand you went to  Oxford." "Yes--I
went there." A pause. Then Tom's voice, incredulous and insulting: "You must
have gone there about the time Biloxi went to  New  Haven." Another pause. A
waiter knocked and came in with crushed mint  and  ice  but, the silence was
unbroken  by  his  "thank you." and  the  soft  closing  of the  door.  This
tremendous  detail was to be cleared up at last. "I  told you I went there,"
said  Gatsby.  "I  heard  you,  but  I'd like  to  know when."  "It  was  in
nineteen-nineteen, I only stayed five months. That's why I can't really call
myself  an  Oxford  man." Tom  glanced  around to  see  if  we mirrored  his
unbelief. But we were all  looking at Gatsby. "It was  an  opportunity  they
gave to some of the officers after the  Armistice," he continued.  "We could
go to any of the universities in England or France." I wanted to  get up and
slap him on the back.  I had  one of those renewals of complete faith in him
that  I'd experienced before. Daisy rose,  smiling faintly, and  went to the
table.  "Open  the whiskey, Tom," she ordered,  "and  I'll  make you  a mint
julep. Then you won't seem so stupid  to yourself. . . . Look at  the mint!"
"Wait a minute,"  snapped Tom, "I want to ask Mr. Gatsby one more question."
"Go on," Gatsby said politely. "What kind of a row  are you trying  to cause
in my house  anyhow?"  They  were out in  the  open at  last and  Gatsby was
content.  "He isn't causing a row." Daisy looked desperately from one to the
other.  "You're   causing  a  row.  Please  have  a  little   self-control."
"Self-control!" Repeated Tom incredulously.  "I  suppose the latest thing is
to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if
that's  the  idea you  can  count me  out. . .  .  Nowadays  people begin by
sneering at  family  life and  family  institutions, and next  they'll throw
everything  overboard  and  have  intermarriage  between  black and  white."
Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the
last  barrier of civilization.  "We're all white here,"  murmured Jordan. "I
know I'm not very popular. I don't give big parties. I suppose you've got to
make  your house into a  pigsty in order  to have any friends--in the modern
world." Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh  whenever  he
opened his mouth. The  transition  from libertine to  prig was so  complete.
"I've  got something to  tell YOU,  old  sport----" began  Gatsby. But Daisy
guessed  at  his  intention. "Please  don't!"  she  interrupted  helplessly.
"Please let's all go home. Why don't  we all go home?" "That's a good idea."
I got up. "Come on, Tom.  Nobody  wants  a drink." "I want to know  what Mr.
Gatsby has to tell me." "Your wife  doesn't  love  you," said Gatsby. "She's
never  loved  you.  She loves  me."  "You  must  be  crazy!"  exclaimed  Tom
automatically. Gatsby sprang to  his feet, vivid with excitement. "She never
loved you,  do you hear?" he cried. "She only married you because I was poor
and she was tired of waiting  for  me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her
heart she never loved  any one except me!"  At this point Jordan and I tried
to  go, but  Tom  and  Gatsby  insisted  with competitive firmness  that  we
remain--as though neither of them had anything  to conceal and it would be a
privilege to partake vicariously of their emotions. "Sit down, Daisy," Tom's
voice groped unsuccessfully for the paternal note. "What's been going on?  I
want to hear all about it." "I told you what's been  going on," said Gatsby.
"Going on for five years--and you didn't know." Tom turned to Daisy sharply.
"You've been seeing this fellow for five years?"  "Not seeing," said Gatsby.
"No, we couldn't  meet. But both of us loved each other all  that time,  old
sport,  and  you didn't know. I  used to laugh sometimes."--but there was no
laughter in his eyes----"  to think that you didn't know." "Oh--that's all."
Tom tapped his  thick fingers together  like  a clergyman and leaned back in
his chair. "You're crazy!"  he exploded. "I  can't speak about what happened
five  years ago, because I didn't know  Daisy then--and  I'll be damned if I
see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the
back door.  But all the rest of that's a God damned lie. Daisy loved me when
she married  me and she loves me now." "No,"  said Gatsby, shaking his head.
"She does, though. The trouble is  that sometimes she gets foolish ideas  in
her  head and doesn't know what she's  doing." He nodded sagely. "And what's
more, I love Daisy too. Once in a while I go  off on a spree and make a fool
of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time."
"You're revolting," said Daisy. She turned to me, and her voice, dropping an
octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn: "Do you know why we left
Chicago? I'm surprised  that  they  didn't  treat  you to the  story of that
little spree." Gatsby walked over and stood  beside her. "Daisy,  that's all
over now," he said earnestly. "It doesn't matter any more. Just tell him the
truth--that you never loved him--and it's all wiped out forever." She looked
at  him blindly. "Why--how could I  love  him--possibly?" "You  never  loved
him." She  hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a  sort of appeal,
as  though she realized at  last what  she  was doing--and as though she had
never,  all along, intended doing anything at all. But  it  was done now. It
was  too late. "I never  loved him," she said,  with perceptible reluctance.
"Not  at Kapiolani?" demanded Tom suddenly. "No." From the ballroom beneath,
muffled and  suffocating chords were  drifting up on hot waves of air.  "Not
that day I carried you  down  from the Punch Bowl to keep your  shoes  dry?"
There was a husky tenderness in his tone. . . . "Daisy?" "Please don't." Her
voice was  cold,  but the rancor was gone  from it.  She looked  at  Gatsby.
"There, Jay," she said--but her hand as she  tried to light a  cigarette was
trembling.  Suddenly she  threw the  cigarette  and the burning match on the
carpet. "Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now--isn't
that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly.  "I did
love  him once--but I loved you too." Gatsby's eyes  opened and closed. "You
loved  me  TOO?"  he repeated. "Even that's a lie," said Tom savagely.  "She
didn't know you were alive. Why--there're things  between Daisy and  me that
you'll never  know, things that neither  of us can ever  forget." The  words
seemed to bite physically into Gatsby.  "I want to speak to Daisy alone," he
insisted. "She's all excited now----" "Even alone I can't say  I never loved
Tom," she admitted in a pitiful voice. "It wouldn't  be true." "Of course it
wouldn't," agreed Tom. She  turned to  her husband. "As if  it  mattered  to
you," she  said. "Of course it matters. I'm going to take better care of you
from now on."  "You don't understand,"  said Gatsby,  with a touch of panic.
"You're  not going to take care of her  any more." "I'm not?" Tom opened his
eyes wide and laughed. He could afford to control himself now. "Why's that?"
"Daisy's leaving  you." "Nonsense." "I am, though," she  said with a visible
effort. "She's not  leaving  me!"  Tom's words  suddenly  leaned  down  over
Gatsby. "Certainly not for a common swindler who'd have to steal the ring he
put on her finger." "I won't stand this!" cried Daisy. "Oh, please let's get
out." "Who are you,  anyhow?" broke out Tom. "You're one  of that bunch that
hangs  around with Meyer Wolfshiem--that  much I happen to know. I've made a
little   investigation   into  your  affairs--and   I'll  carry  it  further
to-morrow." "You  can  suit  yourself about that,  old  sport."  said Gatsby
steadily. "I  found out  what your  'drug-stores' were." He turned to us and
spoke  rapidly.  "He and  this  Wolfshiem  bought up  a  lot  of side-street
drug-stores here  and in Chicago and  sold  grain alcohol over  the counter.
That's one  of his little  stunts.  I picked  him for a bootlegger the first
time I  saw  him,  and I  wasn't  far wrong."  "What about it?"  said Gatsby
politely. "I guess your friend Walter Chase wasn't too  proud to come in  on
it." "And you left him in the lurch, didn't  you? You let him go to jail for
a month over in New Jersey. God! You ought to hear  Walter on the subject of
YOU." "He came to us dead broke. He was very glad to pick up some money, old
sport."  "Don't you  call me 'old sport'!" cried Tom.  Gatsby  said nothing.
"Walter could have you up on the  betting laws too, but Wolfshiem scared him
into  shutting his  mouth." That  unfamiliar yet  recognizable look was back
again  in  Gatsby's face. "That drug-store business was just  small change,"
continued Tom  slowly, "but you've got something on now that Walter's afraid
to  tell  me about." I glanced  at  Daisy, who was staring terrified between
Gatsby and her husband, and at Jordan, who had begun to balance an invisible
but absorbing  object  on  the  tip of  her  chin.  Then  I  turned back  to
Gatsby--and was  startled a