II

John Grandin looked at his watch again. It was nearly ten o’clock. He still didn’t feel like breakfast, but the best of the morning would soon be over if he didn’t get up. Besides, to lie there till noon would have been a tacit acknowledgment of failure if not guilt. Best to get up and act as if nothing had happened. As he stepped from bed, his feet tangled with the clothing he had dropped on the floor the night before.

He went to the window to see what the place was like and discovered, in daylight, the relation of Dune House to the sea. The hotel fronted a bluff, with a road along the edge. Below, a barren expanse of sand stretched like a vast arid prairie between the bluff and the beach, half a mile away. Far down on the shore a few large umbrellas had been set up, tilted at an angle against the sun; he could see two or three early figures lying about in the spots of shade. Though the sun was high and the day warm, a faint white mist hung over the sand, so faint as to leave him unsure whether it was mist at all or the glare of sun and sea.

An old lady coming along the drive stared up at him with a fixed stare and he moved quickly back from the window. He opened a suitcase, got out his shaving things, and his clothes for the day.

While shaving at the bathroom mirror, it suddenly occurred to him that if he hadn’t got into Ethel’s bed without his pajamas on, last night might have been a different story. He was angry to think that perhaps she thought he had planned it that way, as bait or lure or some such silly thing. That’s what came of quarreling; it made him self-­conscious about his every thought. Nothing he did afterward was right; everything had to be weighed carefully for its possible effect or non-­effect; each innocent move could be misconstrued. Double meanings would be rife, now, for days to come.

He opened the medicine chest and put away his shaving things. The small mirrored door caught the reflection of a figure on the grass outside. He looked out the window. On the rear lawn of the expensive-­looking cottage next door, a young girl with red hair lay on her back, sunbathing, partially covered with a white towel. Near by, on the grass, was a small heap of white clothing and a pair of sun glasses with white rims. The towel lay across her middle, fully exposing her full thighs, nearly exposing her breasts. She lay not more than a hundred feet away from him. Naked himself, he stood looking down at her almost naked figure. Because he did not know her—because she was someone he had never seen before and might never see again—a small excitement began to gather in his chest, sinking slowly down to his loins; and he yielded to the common daydream. He would like to walk across that wonderful lawn in his bare feet, drop down beside her, draw the towel slowly away, fold himself round her, and there in the hot sun, with neither of them knowing who the other was, take her and give himself up in one and the same act. A hundred people might look on; but if one word was spoken between the two of them, all would have been destroyed.

Not reluctantly (because nothing could come of this but further discomfort) he turned away. He went back to the bedroom, feeling both foolish and set up. Perhaps there was something in the air of this place, an indolence or sensuality to be aware of from the sun. . . .

Dressed, he discarded the yellow sleeveless sweater he had been about to put on in favor of another, because whenever he wore the yellow one Ethel invariably said, “I’ve always loved that yellow sweater.” There it was again: if he wore it this morning, Ethel was sure to give him a look—he had chosen it purposely, he was trying to win her back—and she would have been resentful.

He felt self-­conscious entering the dining room alone; it seemed to him an admission that something was wrong, almost a confirmation of a rumor probably afloat already. Besides the Howards, who had been sitting in the porch swing, had anyone heard the row? Surely in a place like this, where voices carried through walls or windows, no secret could be kept for long. Owing to the very nature of the place—the idleness of the guests (fallow ground for gossip), plus that natural interest in other people’s business which was the very essence of a summer hotel—someone was already talking, probably.

Ethel was not here. He must breakfast alone and pretend that all was well. The deaf hostess with the lavender hair, her left hand absently fingering one of her earrings, circulated in the center of the room, straightening folded napkins that had already been straightened, turning clean glasses upside down, gradually approaching his table and preparing her monologue as she came.

“. . . Good morning Mr. Grandin and isn’t this a fine morning. My you must have slept late, your wife was in hours ago. Well not hours but— Oh and she said she’d be going down to the drugstore this morning I suppose in case you wanted to know where she was . . .”

“Did Mrs. Grandin ask you to tell me that?”

“Mmm? Why I believe you’re going to have a very nice day but then this time of year is always wonderful anyway. Of course we do have a little fog at night and sometimes it doesn’t go away in the morning as early as some of us would like it to but as I tell the high school girls we can’t have everything, don’t you agree? My you look summery but then that’s what you’re here for isn’t it. Well I’ll go find a girl to get you some breakfast if there’s one still on duty but you never can tell these days . . .”

It wasn’t like Ethel to confide her plans to a stranger. Amused at this oblique way of communicating with him, he was yet relieved that she had taken the trouble to do so.—He wondered if it meant anything; that is, if it promised well for their day.

A girl came with the orange juice. He ordered his breakfast and looked about the room.

With the shades half drawn, the dining room was pleasantly dark, but beneath the shades could be seen the white glare of the morning. The cool semidarkness gave an attractive sub-­marine effect to the bare room; looking outdoors, it was as if one looked up through brighter and brighter layers of water to where the sun shone, in all its ultimate brightness, somewhere far above.

The only other guests present were the yellow-­haired young man and his mother. Except for a slight difference in the cut of their garments, they were dressed exactly alike in beach pajamas of green shantung, and green sandals. She was reading him a letter. He sat very straight at the table; and when they left the room together, he walked so erect that he seemed to be leaning over backward. They had not exchanged greetings with him, though once he had caught the young man’s glance and nodded good morning.