Hauman talked effusively of their rooming house in Nantucket, the funny place they had found for breakfast with the wonderful doughnuts, the Children’s Beach near their street, the Whaling Museum they had already been through (the first admissions that morning), the Yacht Club. He turned continually as he walked along, not to assure himself that he was being listened to but to note what response he was getting. Though it was all senseless, Grandin couldn’t help but be pleased. It was a long while since anyone had paid him such flattering attention.

Mr. Howard was sitting on the veranda alone. He frowned on the party, then sprang to his feet as Grandin introduced the Haumans. “Glad to meet you, Captain,” he said, noticing at once the double silver bars. Grandin lingered behind a moment while Hauman shepherded the women inside. He wanted to find out if the Howards had been aware of the quarrel; perhaps Mr. Howard’s attitude this morning would tell him.

“Why don’t you come down to the beach with us?”

“Maybe later, thanks,” Mr. Howard said. “Right now I’m trying to get used to the fact that I’ll probably be a bachelor most of the morning. On a day like this, too!”

“All the more reason for coming with us, then.” But since this didn’t seem to be the answer Mr. Howard was expecting, he added: “Is Mrs. Howard a late sleeper?”

“She never gets up,” Mr. Howard said, almost with pride. “I don’t expect to lay eyes on her till noon, if then.”

When he opened the door to the bedroom he found Hauman alone, pulling off his shirt.

“Hi, John!”

“Where are the women?”

“Oh, they’re in the bathroom. I thought you and I could dress here, and Mrs. Grandin and Billie in there.”

It did seem an odd procedure; the custom generally, in Grandin’s experience, was that husband and wife dressed and undressed together. For a moment he wondered what it was it reminded him of. Then he remembered. It was like schooldays, like dates in his youth, like a college houseparty, when the men dressed together in one room and the girls in another, with jokes, as often as not, over the partition or through the door, and mock threats of entering before the girls were ready, to their delighted screams of protest.