- Jake lingers alone over a drink at the Café Napolitain after Cohn finally bails. He makes eye contact with a girl walking down the street and she joins him. They both order a Pernod (a French liqueur similar to absinthe) and flirt halfheartedly. Though nothing’s said, it’s clear that this young lady is, to put it delicately, a woman of questionable repute.
- Jake and the girl, Georgette, take a horse-drawn cab to dinner. Georgette, assuming that Jake means to… engage her services, attempts to kiss him. He rejects her, saying that he’s sick.
- Once they’re at the restaurant, Foyot’s, Jake is annoyed by his companion and begins to regret his decision to take Georgette to dinner.
- She asks why he’s sick; he responds that he was hurt in the war.
- Fortunately, this lackluster conversation draws to a necessary halt—some of Jake’s friends, Mr. and Mrs. Braddocks, Frances, and Cohn, are at the restaurant. Georgette is introduced as Jake’s fiancée, and puts on a comically provocative and somewhat rude demeanor.
- The crowd agrees to go out dancing. They end up at a hot, unappealing-sounding dance club.
- At the club, a beautiful woman named Brett arrives with a group of homosexual men. Jake, who is obviously familiar with Brett, feels sick and irritated by her companions, and he describes them with disgust. Add "homophobic" to whatever mental image of Jake you’ve got going.
- To cope, Jake drinks more. Mrs. Braddocks introduces him to a young, pretentious American author; Jake is drunk, belligerent, and possibly about to vomit. He leaves rudely, and ends up at the bar with Cohn.
- Brett comes over for a chat with "the chaps." Cohn is spellbound. Jake describes her beauty for us, his readers—she is as sleek and curvy as a racing yacht, and has a killer fashion sense to boot.
- Jake officially ditches Georgette and leaves some money with the bartender in case she comes looking for him. He and Brett leave together to find a cab.
- Alone in the taxi, Brett confesses that she’s miserable.