1.
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on
2. which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon.
3. They were both in white and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they
4. had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have
5. stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the
6. groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut
7. the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room and the curtains
8. and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor. The
9. younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at her
10. end of the divan, completely motionless and with her chin raised a little as if
11. she we're balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall. If she saw me
12. out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost
13. surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in. The
14. another girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a
15. conscientious expression— then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh,
16. and I laughed too and came forward into the room. ‘I’m p-paralyzed with
17. happiness.’ She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my
18. hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in
19. the world she so much wanted to see. That was a way she had. She hinted in a
20. murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that
21. Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant
22. criticism that made it no less charming.) At any rate Miss Baker’s lips fluttered,
23. she nodded at me almost imperceptibly and then quickly tipped her head back
24. again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given
25. her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips.
26. Almost any exhibition of complete self sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from
27. me.