His cheeks grew stiff in the cold wind. He turned his back to the rail and held onto his hat. His tie blew out from under his buttoned vest and flapped noisily at his chin.

What made him angriest of all was his own anger. He had not meant to carry it so far. Ethel’s simple statement that she had been “thinking things over” had told him all too plainly what the matter was; and though he would have been a fool to admit he understood, he had been even more of a fool to let temper carry him away. His heart had been touched by her helplessness far more than by her tears, and his pity became anger. The anger itself, he knew, was a kind of defense.

He’d better return. The Haumans might get ideas in their heads; Billie had already seen too much as it was. There was nothing he could do about it for the present but go back. He would not bring it up again; the next move was Ethel’s. Till that came about, he’d try from now on to forget it and enjoy himself, or at least be nice to the Haumans. It wasn’t their fault that he and Ethel had had a falling out. He remembered Hauman’s look of surprise as if he felt he had been rebuked.

Ethel did not look up when he returned. Hauman sat on the edge of his chair as before; his habit seemed to be to sit only on the edge of chairs. Billie was hanging onto herself in a dozen places, her white skirt blowing free from her grasp, her corsage swinging in the wind. Grandin was reminded of Swann’s Odette, whose idea of country clothes was a taffeta dress.

“You missed it,” she said brightly as he sat down. “Cliff’s chair broke under him and dumped him on the floor.”

Noticing how Hauman blushed, Grandin changed the subject. “This must be quite a change for you, Captain, after Guadalcanal and the hospital.”

“Yes, sir. It is, sir.”

“I suppose you’ve come in actual combat with the Japs?”

“Yes, sir, I have, quite a few times.”

“Are they—well, as hell-­bent on self-­destruction as we read about?”