John Grandin was so oppressed by Billie’s chatter and by the prospect of the Yacht Club dance—if indeed he did intend to go through with it for Ethel’s sake—that he felt he couldn’t sit there for the rest of the meal. When the dessert orders were about to be taken, he suddenly stood up. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’m going upstairs.”

Ethel gave him a distressed and angered look, and Hauman called after him: “Hey, don’t you want your dessert, Johnnie? Or coffee?”

“I don’t feel like it, thanks. Excuse me. . . .”

When Ethel came in she stood just inside the bedroom door looking at him with a searching gaze for a long uncomfortable moment. Then she said:

“I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

He looked up from the wicker chair, affecting surprise. “For Pete’s sake what’s the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with you, that’s what I’d like to know. You’re acting like a ten-­year-­old child.”

“I didn’t care for dessert. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Why did you have to pick on Billie in that shameless way? And if you’re objecting because she called the Howards old, you’re being pretty silly. Where’s your sense of humor? They are old. To a girl Billie’s age we’re all old.”

“I’m not interested in her opinions. Billie’s a fool.”

“John!” Ethel came across the room. She stood directly over him, her arms folded, looking down at his averted face.

He waited in unbearable silence. Finally he said, as casually as he was able: “If you don’t mind I’m going out for a walk.”

“I do mind! I want you to go down to the Haumans’ room this minute and apologize, or I—I’ll—”

“You’ll what?”

She stared at him with a kind of fierce searching intensity; but when she spoke, the words were scarcely audible: “I’m beginning to think, John, that I don’t know you at all. . . .”

He walked out to the road. Except for a barely perceptible glow along the far horizon of the sea, the night was almost totally black. Behind him he heard the tinkly notes of the harp grow fainter and fainter. He felt the hard surface of the road beneath his feet; it seemed to vibrate regularly to the pound of the surf a good half mile away, though this may only have been because he could also hear the sound as well. He turned his steps in the direction of the resounding beach; but remembering the wartime rule forbidding civilians to come within five hundred yards of the beach at night, he had no intention of going there. Nor did he want to: it was a long and difficult walk, the night was dark, and he was tired, sick with a self-­distaste.