As John Grandin was getting into his blue suit just before dinner—the suit would have to take the place of a uniform that evening—he saw from the bedroom window that a fog had begun to gather on the flat sandy waste between the bluff and the sea. It moved along the sand like a low smoke, like vague amorphous vapor as yet unformed into clouds. It was like watching from the rim of a nearly extinct crater the little emanations of steam or gas arise faintly from its depths and float aimlessly about somewhere near the bottom. Yet the fog, unseen, had come from the upper air or from over the sea, drifting unseen toward the flat waste in the late afternoon, to take shape and become visible with the passing of the warm sunlight.

Ethel, her hair freshly set, her mouth touched up with the lipstick she so rarely used, was ready. She wore a long dark-­blue dinner gown with short sleeves, silver sandals, and no jewelry. She looked younger than at any time since they had come to the island; her figure was easily a match for the figure of any woman he would be seeing that evening; certainly more than a match for Billie’s broad hips and short stature. They went down to dinner early.

They had finished before the Haumans came in. Billie had on a short dress of shiny changeable silk, neither blue nor green, very bouffant and very young. Hauman was dressed as always in khaki; the only concession he seemed to have made to the evening was a clean shirt and an immaculate field scarf.

“We’ll be on the veranda,” Ethel said.

“I know,” Billie said; “you want to watch the moon rise.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t come up till much later,” Grandin said.

“Goodness, I hope we won’t miss it at the dance. It’s full tonight. Isn’t it thrilling?”

They sat on the porch just outside the half-­open window beyond which the Haumans were still at dinner. A heavy mist had gathered on the flats below; it was now almost certain that the evening and the night were to be obscured by a real Nantucket fog.

“I’m sorry, Ethel, but I hate dancing, as you know. However, I’ll try it once or twice, if you like.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He glanced at her, saw again how attractive she looked, and wanted to say something about it. But all he could bring out was: “In any case, I’m glad we decided to go. I’ll do my damnedest, Ethel, to see that you have a good time.”

“John,” she said, “I’m trying to forget that dreadful first night, I truly am. But it would be awful if we forgot it entirely and just let ourselves slip back into the—the nothing we’ve had for so long. . . .”

“O lord.”