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The dining room gazed with frank appreciation at the handsome Marine captain and his beautiful wife. Forewarned by Ethel, Miss Fly had given them a table near an open window so that the visitors could admire the view. She beamed at the Grandins and their guests, then proudly surveyed the surrounding tables to see whether other guests had taken note, as if she were directly responsible for giving the diners this added treat. Two or three nodded by way of acknowledging her coup. The yellow-­haired young man, his shoulders hunched so high they almost touched his ear lobes, stared at the Grandin party, lost in unfathomable reverie.

“Gee, it’s nice being out here in Sconset,” Hauman said, as if they had just arrived. His three cocktails, which he had downed at a gulp as being in the nature of ladylike drinks, were taking effect. “Isn’t it nice being out here, Billie honey? I wish we lived at Dune House too. Why don’t we? I love a big dining room like this, don’t you? Gee you ought to have seen my daddy’s face when he saw our mess hall down at Parris Island. But that room wasn’t as big as this, I’ll bet. I don’t think it was nearly as big as this. Well, maybe. Say, I better order. Have you ordered, Billie honey? Oh excuse me! I’m forgetting! You first, Ethel.”

A moment later, Grandin saw Hauman frowning over his soup, his brow furrowed in thought.

“What are you worried about, Cliff?”

“Me? I’m not worried about anything! Nothing in the world. I’m not worried at all. Look, there’s Mr. and Mrs. Howard down to the other end of the room.” He angled for their glance, shifting his big frame back and forth, and waved. “Gee, they’re comical people, aren’t they? Aren’t they nice people, Billie?” He put his spoon down and frowned again. Then it came out. “Look, John,” he said, hitching in his chair as if to emphasize the seriousness of the matter, “I want to know your honest opinion. But honest, you know what I mean? I want you to tell me the truth, even if it hurts our feelings. Promise?”

“I will if I can,” Grandin said uneasily. “What is it?”

“Now listen. Tell us what’s your honest opinion of Billie’s chances as a writer. You’ve read her compositions and stuff. Now I mean, I’ve always said I’d never stand in the way of my wife’s career and I mean it. If she wants to become a writer, why then she should. Don’t you think so?”

“I’m afraid,” Grandin said, “it isn’t quite as easy as that—just wanting to.” It was his first knowledge that Billie “wrote,” something which he himself, having too much respect for the five or six great novels of the world, wouldn’t dream of attempting. He strove to avoid his wife’s eyes, and the eyes of the Haumans still more; he began for the first time to regret the whole happy day. But Billie herself took the problem out of his hands by announcing, importantly:

“You mustn’t hurry these things, Cliff. They take time. Besides, I haven’t definitely made up my mind yet whether I want to be an author or a chemist.”

Hauman’s enthusiasm was deflated. “Well gee, honey, I didn’t think there’d be any harm in asking, as long as we’ve got your professor right here. It’s a chance in a million to find out, isn’t it, if you’re on the right track?”

But Billie’s attention had been caught by something in the room. “Look at that over there, will you.” Her undisguised nod indicated the young man sitting with his mother, fixing their party with fascinated concentration. “Did you ever see anything like that one?” Her smile was unabashed contempt. “Blindfolded you could tell he’s 4-­F—and why.”

Hauman followed her nod, then immediately brought his glance back again. “Gee this potato salad is good, though. Sometime you ought to try the potato salad I make. My daddy loves it—says it’s the best he ever ate.”

His tact had been so swift that it was not tact at all. Far from diverting attention from what Billie had pointed out, he had unconsciously emphasized it; though he did manage to get the subject changed and the allusion (which for some reason he had found so inept) forgotten or passed over.

Crude though her remark had been, Billie was at least honest to her instincts; but her husband was embarrassed. The reason was not flattering. Young people did not mention such things in the presence of their elders. It was one more example of the age difference between them, one more reminder that Grandin was old enough to be his father. Or did Hauman’s refusal to acknowledge what indeed was obvious to them all spring from his natural decency and clean speech? Again and again he had observed the Captain’s avoidance of the least off-­color word. It was not prudery or priggishness; on the other hand, maybe it was just that. In any case, he could not but admire that healthy clean-­mindedness which automatically forced Hauman to change the subject, when almost any other man of Grandin’s acquaintance would, in like circumstance, have given instant utterance to the obvious and the vulgar.