On the way back to his chair, Grandin stopped in the smoker for a cigarette. A bluff hearty man came in chewing a toothpick. Catching sight of the paratrooper he exclaimed, “Why Jimmy, how are you, boy? Didn’t think we’d be seeing you this summer a-­tall. Drop around to the Srail Club some afternoon and we’ll open a keg of nails.”

“I’ve only got an eight-­day leave, Judge, I won’t be coming out to Sconset. Not much, is it?”

“Oh I don’t know,” the Judge said slowly, looking slyly around the group. “Eight days wouldn’t be nothin’ a-­tall in Sconset. But for Nantucket it’s plenty,” and he winked broadly at Grandin.

The paratrooper protested with spirit; and as if by pre­arranged mutual agreement, the two of them fell into a lively argument as to the relative merits of their respective towns on the island, an argument that seemed to be a virtual routine, almost a ritual, practiced by old-­time residents of Nantucket. Though good-­humored enough, the discussion continued at such heat and length that Grandin, on finishing his cigarette, was glad to get back to his Pullman chair.

The moving landscape beyond the window was inviting, typical, and rural. It was not the kind of New England he had known in Maine, during his few visits to his wife’s parents, nor in Williamstown, where he went to college. Here were long rolling fields, very little forest, great sandy wastes studded with pine scrub, and always there was the feeling of the sea somewhere, not far away—almost the sound of the sea itself. Unaccountably John Grandin felt a nostalgia for the Atlantic island he was yet to know. He leaned back in the comfortable chair in the hopes of a nap.

Gazing idly along the car with half-­closed eyes, he felt himself already very near asleep, assisted in this by the swaying motion of the train. Passengers came and went in his dimming vision but he scarcely noticed, now, who or what they were. He wondered what the hotel room would be like; he thought of Ethel. . . .