Loading...

The Great Gatsby — Chapter 3 — Page 22

The bored haughty face that she turned to the world concealed somethingmost affectations conceal something eventually, even though they dont in the beginningand one day I found what it was. When we were on a house-party together up in Warwick, she left a borrowed car out in the rain with the top down, and then lied about itand suddenly I remembered the story about her that had eluded me that night at Daisys. At her first big golf tournament there was a row that nearly reached the newspapersa suggestion that she had moved her ball from a bad lie in the semifinal round. The thing approached the proportions of a scandalthen died away. A caddy retracted his statement, and the only other witness admitted that he might have been mistaken. The incident and the name had remained together in my mind. Jordan Baker instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest. She wasnt able to endure being at a disadvantage and, given this unwillingness, I suppose she had begun dealing in subterfuges when she was very young in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body. It made no difference to me. Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeplyI was casually sorry, and then I forgot.