Soon they were eating their sandwiches on the windy upper deck, sitting back in their chairs and maintaining the appearance of a group of friends enjoying themselves. Hauman alone did not sit back. With his big hands clasped together and his elbows on his knees, he sat on the edge of the small folding chair, which miraculously did not collapse under him, and leaned forward eagerly into the group.

“Well, Miss Cowles”—Grandin had made an effort to remember the name—“I didn’t know you were a married woman.”

“Please say Billie,” she said, and then added, “I wasn’t. Cliff and I were only married yesterday.”

“Oh,” Ethel said, “so this is a honeymoon. Congratulations, Mr. Hauman!”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“In fact,” Billie went on, “Cliff is the reason why I guess I didn’t pay much attention in class the last few months. I guess I even missed whole lectures, didn’t I?”

“I—yes, I believe there were a few times I was obliged to mark you absent. . . .”

But she was paying no attention. She smiled artificially at the Grandins, just as artificially at her husband, and desperately tried to keep herself together and her large white hat from being blown away. A strong breeze blew in from the sea and tore at everything loose it could find. The dying corsage on her white-­silk frock swung back and forth; she clutched at it to prevent its being ripped from her dress. Her hair blew about her eyes so that she was obliged to keep her fingers to her forehead in order to see. The full skirt whipped about her knees, adding a tiny fluttering tremolo to the general noise of the wind.

Ethel kept up an amiable conversation with the Haumans. Under the circumstances, Grandin marveled at his wife’s ability to do this; the more so because she had no gift for small talk. Though inwardly troubled by he knew not what, she was yet able to maintain the social conventions as if nothing was the matter. With him, Ethel was a poor dissembler, unable to mask her feelings; to strangers, even to friends, she presented a front that revealed nothing of herself. Further, she showed an interest in the Haumans which he knew, in view of their quarrel, she could not really feel, except for the irresistible fact that they were honeymooners. He was grateful to her for this; it absolved him from the responsibility of taking part, for he soon discovered that he had no grounds for conversation with them.