His arms folded over his eyes to shield them from the sun, but listening keenly, John Grandin understood it all too well.

“But I’ll tell you what,” Cliff said. “One night when we were sitting at the desk in his apartment, just he and I—I’d gone over to his place so he could help me study—do you know what he did? Scotty put his hand on my knee, his whole hand, and left it there for a second. Can you beat that, Johnnie? Can you beat it?”

Grandin said: “And what did you do?”

“Do! Why, what do you suppose I did!” Cliff answered sharply. “I said, ‘Uh-­uh, Scotty, none of that!’—You should have seen his face.”

After a moment Grandin said: “And was that all there was to it?”

“Sure, I couldn’t have anything like that. After all!—And do you know what,” he went on; “he tried the same thing on Joe once too. Joe told me. Can you beat it, Johnnie? Gee, it was too bad, because he was really a wonderful guy, honest. You wouldn’t think so from what I’ve told you, but he was. Why, Scotty would have done anything for Joe and I, anything in the world. . . .”

Grandin sat up and drew off his robe. “I think I’ll have a swim,” he said.

Cliff said nothing. Very unlike himself, he seemed strangely preoccupied and moody. He sat in the sand, his arms over his knees, staring out over the water. At length he said—but after so long a pause that there seemed no connection at first: “Of course I was a lot younger then. . . .”

For a moment, John Grandin wondered whether he had heard correctly. If so, what was the meaning of that afterthought—or was it, indeed, an afterthought at all? But he refused to puzzle it out now. He got up and walked down to the surf.

He felt the need for action, exercise; but he stood for a moment at the edge of the sea studying the waves, as if testing their power in advance. A strong wind blew in from offshore, sending the great green rollers thundering far up the beach. His heels sank deep as the water swirled around his feet, undermining the sandy support beneath his soles; he felt the spray sting his face. Sharp though it was, it refreshed him. He walked into the surf, waited for one of the breakers to rear up, and plunged headlong through it.

Emerging on the other side, he was drawn rapidly out by the pull of the backward-­racing water. He swam for the next breaker just beyond, gathering itself to strike again. He rose to the top and went over before it folded and collapsed. In a few moments he was far out.