After he had slammed the door he had gone downstairs. As he strode through the small lobby, avoiding all eyes and looking neither to right nor to left, his own final words still rang in his ears—Then all right!—and he wondered what under the sun they were supposed to have meant. At the moment there had been no doubt; they were inevitable and right, flung out without premeditation. Now they struck him as meaningless except as they marked finis, a signing off, to the whole painful futile session. Without these words (or some others equally pointless and unprovocative, from which bitterer recriminations could not spring) it might have gone on till the last shred of decency had been stripped from them both and they were reduced to mere skeletons of hate, unable further to draw blood.

He had opened the screen door and bumped into a tight canvas frame stretched from the ceiling of the porch to the floor, serving as a blackout to the lighted lobby within. He stepped around this and found himself a chair somewhere along the veranda in the dark.

Through the windows at his back came the tinkling notes of the harp. They rippled to an abrupt high finish, which was immediately followed by a patting of fingertips and the buzz of released talk. A few feet from his chair a swing creaked slowly back and forth; he saw the glow of two cigarettes, going lighter and darker at intervals.

A couple was sitting nearby—young or old, he could not tell; but from the unbroken silence maintained between them, they were obviously in full understanding or rapport if not actually in embrace.

He was cold in his stomach. The ordeal had left him almost physically ill. It was no time to go over in his mind all that had been said, weigh the justice or injustice of Ethel’s grievances, or plan his defense should they arise again. All he wanted was to sit in the night air and allow this sickness of self (if it would) to pass away. Besides, in view of his long neglect, her complaints were not unjustified. He could almost be surprised they had not risen before. What did surprise him was that the attack had been voluble, articulate, and complete. For once she had not been at a loss for words. It was the first time in their married life that he had been left without a rag of self-respect.

There was a strong hint of fog in the dark, a dampness brushing his cheeks and forehead. Somewhere, but as if far off, he heard the sea—not the wash of it as it rose and fell, but only the intermittent dull pound as the breakers struck the beach.