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Chapters (51)
  1. Introduction by Michael Bronski
  2. BEGINNING
  3. II
  4. III
  5. IV
  6. V
  7. VI
  8. VII
  9. VIII
  10. IX
  11. X
  12. XI
  13. XII
  14. XIII
  15. MIDDLE
  16. II
  17. III
  18. IV
  19. V
  20. VI
  21. VII
  22. VIII
  23. IX
  24. X
  25. XI
  26. XII
  27. XIII
  28. XIV
  29. XV
  30. XVI
  31. XVII
  32. XVIII
  33. XIX
  34. XX
  35. END
  36. II
  37. III
  38. IV
  39. V
  40. VI
  41. VII
  42. VIII
  43. IX
  44. X
  45. XI
  46. XII
  47. XIII
  48. XIV
  49. XV
  50. XVI
  51. About the Author

If he was going to turn on Cliff, however, just because he had renounced him, he was a pretty poor sport indeed. He looked at the large blond head turned aside, the strong shoulders, the childlike mouth, and all the incredible life and youthfulness of him. Certainly he knew now that he was fond of the fellow. Yet it was still impossible to say—and would always be impossible to say it—Cliff, I’m very fond of you. . . . The innocence and clean good looks of Cliff Hauman touched him deeply. He should be able to accept him at last, in the best sense of him, with a real understanding of what Cliff had meant to him and would always mean, long after Cliff had passed from his sight and ken. It might be armor enough, then, against entanglement or danger. It might not, too; but at least John Grandin would understand what the relationship was and what it meant—what he himself was, what he wanted, and did not want. . . .

IV

IV

Ethel Grandin stood at the bedroom window, looking down over the bluff toward the beach. She had purposely waited in the little writing room downstairs till they had all gone; after the mystery of her husband’s alien coldness last night and his sudden walking away from her as if she did not exist, she had to be alone with herself this morning. From the writing room she saw the Haumans come out on the porch, finally, head for the rose arbor across the road, and disappear down the stairway of the bluff; a few minutes later they were followed by the Howards, who had returned from their walk. When at length her husband went across in his torn cotton robe and slippers, carrying his towel over his arm—looking very alone and somehow pathetic, perhaps because he did not know he was being looked at by her—she left the writing room at last, passed through the nearly deserted lobby, and went upstairs to the bedroom. Here she could be sure of at least a couple of hours alone before her husband returned from the beach for lunch.

Through the white haze of the morning, she could just discern the group far down on the beach, lying about under the sunshade; though from this distance she could not tell one from another. Only Pete was clear and plain, sitting on his perch, perhaps dozing in the sun, as, in all probability, none of the guests was in the surf.