CHAPTER 9

At this point, Miss Taylor said "Absolutely!" with such suddenness that I was startled—it was the first word she had uttered since I arrived. Evidently, it surprised her as much as it did me, for she yawned and with a series of quick, deft movements stood up from the room.

"I'm stiff," she complained. "I've been lying on that sofa for as long as I can remember."

"Don't look at me," Lily retorted. "I've been trying to get you to New York all afternoon."

"No, thanks," said Miss Taylor to the four cocktails just arriving from the pantry, "I'm absolutely in training."

Her host looked at her incredulously.

"You are!" He took down his drink as if it were the last drop in the glass. "How you ever get anything done is beyond me."

I looked at Miss Taylor wondering what it was she 'got done.' I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by

throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity from a wan, charmingly

discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before.

"You live in West Egg," she remarked contemptuously. "I know somebody there."

"I don't know a single——"

"You must know Alex Sterling."