constrained to assure her of my surprise. I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years.

“Who is he?” I demanded. “Do you know?”

“He's just a man named Gatsby.”

“Where is he from, I mean? And what does he do?”

“Now you're started on the subject,” she answered with a wan smile. “Well, — he told me once he was an Oxford man.”

A dim background started to take shape behind him but at her next remark it faded away.

“However, I don't believe it.”

“Why not?”