Question

Read the excerpt from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

Based on this excerpt, what inference can be made about the Buchanans?
They are people of exquisite taste and refinement, who have spent a fortune on the decorations of their home.
The image of luxury and elegance that they project is unstable like the wind blowing through the room.
The Buchanans have fallen on desperate times and are trying to mask their financial collapse from friends.
Like the open windows of their house, the Buchanans openly embrace new people and new ideas.

Answer 1

The best inference is: "The image of luxury and elegance that they project is unstable like the wind blowing through the room."

Reason: Fitzgerald’s rich, decorative detail (frosted wedding-cake ceiling, wine-colored rug) does show wealth, but the recurring breeze—blowing curtains like flags, rippling shadows—suggests motion and fragility, implying that their elegant appearance is not solid or permanent. The other choices either overstate facts (a direct claim about spending or financial collapse) or read an openness to people/ideas that the passage does not support.