As Nick accompanies Tom to New York on the train, Tom Buchanan
forces Nick to get off with him in the Valley of Ashes in order to "meet my girl." On Main Street
they visit Wilson's repair shop where Myrtle Wilson emerges from the office door. After Tom tells
her to get on the train, Myrtle does so, but sits in another car. After they step down from the
train, Nick, Tom, and Myrtle take a cab to an apartment that Tom keeps for his and Myrtle's
rendezvous.
After Myrtle makes some phone
calls, her sister Catherine and her husband arrive along with the McKees. As the afternoon
progresses, Nick learns that Myrtle met Tom on the train one day, and they then began their
liaison. Now that she has seen Tom on several occasions, Myrtle feels entitled to some jealousy
of Daisy; however, when she calls out Daisy's name, Tom strikes her with his open hand so hard
that he breaks her nose. From witnessing the happenings in the appartment, Nick learns that
Myrtle is simply a mistress for Tom's physical pleasure, and he has no respect for her. But, he
will not permit her to say the name of his wife.
Evidently, there
is something missing in his marriage with Daisy, who herself has seemed distracted and careless
in her thinking when Nick meets her in Chapter One. When, for instance, Jordan Baker suggests to
her, "We ought to plan something," Daisy replies, "All right...What'll we plan?....What do people
plan?" After Tom leaves the room, Daisy abruptly throws her napkin on the table and gets up. When
she next speaks it is with "intense gaiety"; however, she admits to Nick that she is cynical,
telling Nick that when their daughter was born, she hoped the girl would be "a beautiful fool"
since that is the best thing to be. So, from his conversations with both Daisy and Tom, and his
afternoon with Tom, Nick perceives that the Buchanans marriage has serious problems and there is
much deception in their relationship; things are not what they have appeared to
be.
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