'He isn't causing a row,' Daisy looked desperately from one to the other. 'You're causing a row. Please have a little self-control.'
'Self-control!' repeated Tom incredulously. 'I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that's the idea you can count me out… Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they'll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.'
Flushed with his impassioned gibberish, he saw himself standing alone on the last barrier of civilisation.
'We're all white here,' murmured Jordan.
'I know I'm not very popular. I don't give big parties. I suppose you've got to make your house into a pigsty in order to have any friends—in the modem world.'
Angry as I was, as we all were, I was tempted to laugh whenever he opened his mouth. The transition from libertine to prig was so complete.
'I've got something to tell you, old sport—'began Gatsby. But Daisy guessed at his intention.
'Please, don't!' she interrupted helplessly. 'Please let's all go home. Why don't we all go home?'
'That's a good idea,' I got up. 'Come on, Tom. Nobody wants a drink.'
'I want to know what Mr Gatsby has to tell me.'
'Your wife doesn't love you,' said Gatsby. 'She's never loved you. She loves me.'
'You must be crazy!' exclaimed Tom automatically.
Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement.
'She never loved you, do you hear?' he cried. 'She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me. It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me!'
At this point Jordan and I tried to go, but Tom and Gatsby insisted with competitive firmness that we remain—as though neither of them had anything to conceal and it would be a privilege to partake vicariously of their emotions.
'Sit down, Daisy,' Tom's voice groped unsuccessfully for the paternal note. 'What's been going on?I want to hear all about it.'
'I told you what's been going on,' said Gatsby. 'Going on for five years—and you didn't know.'