CHAPTER 43

 Instead of mingling, this group had maintained a dignified unity, assuming the role of representing the staid nobility of the countryside

—East Egg condescending to West Egg, and vigilantly guarding against its spectral gaiety.

"Let's get out," whispered Casey after a rather wasteful and inappropriate half hour. "This is much too polite for me."

We got up, and she explained that we were going to find the host—I had never met him, she said, and it was making me

 uneasy. The undergraduate nodded cynically and morosely.

The bar, where we first looked, was crowded, but Alex was not there. Casey couldn't spot him from the top of the steps, and he wasn't on the veranda. On a whim, we tried

an important-looking door and entered a high Gothic library, paneled with carved English oak, and likely imported complete from some ruin abroad.

A stout, middle-aged man with enormous Eddie Brooks-style glasses was sitting somewhat drunk on the edge of a large table, staring with unsteady focus at the shelves of books.

As we entered, he turned around excitedly and scrutinized Casey from head to toe.

"What do you think?" he demanded impetuously. "About what?"

He waved his hand toward the bookshelves.

"About that. Actually, you needn't bother to find out. I found out. They're real."

"The books?" He nodded.