quotations on an interminable amount of stock, then I fell asleep in my swivel-chair. Just before noon the phone woke me, and I started up with sweat breaking out on my forehead. It was
Jordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find in any other
way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing in at the office window, but this morning it
seemed harsh and dry. âIâve left Daisyâs house,â she said. âIâm at Hempstead, and Iâm going down to Southampton this afternoon.â Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisyâs house, but
the act annoyed me, and her next remark made me rigid. âYou werenât so nice to me last night.â âHow could it have mattered then?â Silence for a moment. Then:
âHowever â" I want to see you.â âI want to see you, too.â âSuppose I donât go to Southampton, and come into town this afternoon?â âNo â" I donât think this afternoon.â
âVery well.â âItâs impossible this afternoon. Various â"â"â We talked like that for a while, and then abruptly we werenât talking any longer. I
donât know which of us hung up with a sharp click, but I know I didnât care. I couldnât have talked to her across a tea-table that day if I never
talked to her again in this world. I called Gatsbyâs house a few minutes later, but the line was busy. I tried four times; finally an exasperated central told me the wire was being
kept open for long distance from Detroit. Taking out my time-table, I drew a small circle around the three-fifty train. Then I leaned back in my chair and tried to think.
It was just noon. when i phied the ashheaps on the train that morning i had crossed deliberately to the other side of the car. I suppose thereâd be a curious
crowd around there all day with little boys searching for dark spots in the dust, and some garrulous man telling over and over what had happened, until it became less and less
real even to him and he could tell it no longer, and Myrtle Wilsonâs tragic achievement was forgotten. Now I want to go back a little and tell what happened at the garage
after we left there the night before. They had difficulty in locating the sister, Catherine. She must have broken her rule against drinking that night, for when she arrived she was
stupid with liquor and unable to understand that the ambulance had already gone to Flushing. When they convinced her of this, she immediately fainted, as if that was the
intolerable part of the affair. Some one, kind or curious, took her in his car and drove her in the wake of her sisterâs body. Until long after midnight a changing crowd lapped up
against the front of the garage, while George Wilson rocked himself back and forth on the couch inside. For a while the door of the office was open, and every one who came into .
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