We waited for her down the road and out of sight. It was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a grey, scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track.
"Terrible place, isn't it," said Tom, exchanging a frown with Doctor Eckleburg.
"Awful."
"It does her good to get away."
"Doesn't her husband object?"
"Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York. He's so dumb he doesn't know he's alive."
So Tom Buchanan and his girl and I went up together to New York-or not quite together, for Mrs. Wilson sat discreetly in another car. Tom deferred that much to the sensibilities of those East Eggers who might be on the train.
She had changed her dress to a brown figured muslin which stretched tight over her rather wide hips as Tom helped her to the platform in New York.
At the news-stand she bought a copy of "Town Tattle" and a moving-picture magazine and, in the station drug store, some cold cream and a small flask of perfume.
Upstairs, in the solemn echoing drive she let four taxi cabs drive away before she selected a new one, lavender-colored with grey upholstery, and in this we slid out from the mass of the station into the glowing sunshine.