I + 

Jane Carver opened the screened door that led from the living-room of her father-in-law’s house at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit, to the verandah that commanded a view of the sea. She closed it quietly behind her and walked quickly over to the wooden steps that led down to the grassy terrace. + 

Fifteen years of matrimony had not impaired the lightness of Jane’s step. Her fine straight hair was still untouched with grey, her waist was still slender, and her eyes were still bright. They gleamed, now, with a spark of irritation. Had Mrs. Ward and Isabel been present they would have recognized, immediately, the storm signal. “Tantrum” would have been their verdict. + 

Jane stood still, for a moment, by a porch pillar and looked up at the vast assuaging reaches of blue sky beyond the green festoons and orange flowers of the trumpet vine. The sky was delightfully impersonal, thought Jane. Its very impersonality was vaguely comforting. With an acute sense of peril, momentarily escaped, Jane drew in a great breath of the warm sea-scented air. She was feeling better, already, just because of the sky and the sunshine and the soft sea-breeze and the tender waving tendrils of the trumpet vine. + 

If she had stayed in that living-room another minute, Jane knew she would have been rude to her mother-in-law. And Jane had never been that. Not really. Not once in fifteen years. But if she had listened once more to Mrs. Carver’s gentle expression of the pious hope, already reiterated three times since luncheon, that the good weather that they were now enjoying did not mean that it was going to rain during Stephen’s vacation, Jane knew her record would have been broken. + 

It was terrible, thought Jane, it was really terrible, what it did to her to listen to Stephen’s family talk about Stephen. And incomprehensible. For Jane loved Stephen. They were very happy together. Yet, somehow, when his mother⁠— + 

Oh, well, there was no use going into it. She had been knitting quietly by the living-room fire when Aunt Marie had observed that it was a pleasant afternoon for the race and Uncle Stephen had remarked that there was not much wind and Mrs. Carver had opened her mouth to reply. The pious hope had cast its shadow before. Jane had known what was coming. She had sprung to her feet and made good her escape. + 

It all seemed rather silly, now, as she looked back on it. Jane opened her knitting-bag and sat down on the top step in the sunshine. + 

A sunshot August haze hung over the familiar view of lawn and beach and bay. The Seaconsit harbour was filled with flitting sails. The Saturday afternoon race would begin in half an hour. Her father-in-law’s launch was riding at anchor, ready to follow the contestants around the course, and Jane could see her father-in-law, dapper in blue coat and white flannels, standing at the end of the pier, binoculars in hand. He was watching Alden and Silly, rounding the first flag in their catboat, already manoeuvring for position, half an hour ahead of the starting gun. + 

Mrs. Carver was watching them, too, Jane knew, from a living-room window, but without binoculars. On racing afternoons the binoculars became the passionate personal property of Mr. Carver. No one else would have thought of touching them. + 

Jane picked up her worsted and began to knit. She was making a blue sweater for her fourteen-year-old daughter, copying the shoulder pattern from the printed directions on the Mothers’ Page of The Woman’s Home Magazine. She spread the periodical on the porch floor beside her and bent placidly over her work. The sweater would be becoming to Cicily. When this one was finished, she would knit another for Jenny and a third for little Steve, much as he disliked being dressed to match his sisters. All three children were very blond. Like the Carvers, thought Jane, with a little sigh. When she looked up she could see her son’s yellow head bent over his pad and paintbox on the beach at the foot of the lawn and the stiff white contour of his trained nurse’s figure, stretched in the shadow of a rock at his side. Her daughters were nowhere to be seen. They were out in their Aunt Silly’s kennels, perhaps, playing with the cocker-spaniel puppy that she had given them. + 

It was very peaceful, alone on the verandah. And very quiet. Jane could hear the faint eternal ripple of the little lapping waves on the beach beyond the lawn, the insistent put-put of an unseen motorboat in the harbour and the mechanical tap of a woodpecker in the oak tree near the garden. The click of her own knitting-needles was the only other sound that broke the sunny silence. + 

It was pleasant to be alone. At Gull Rocks, Jane perversely reflected, one seldom was. The Carvers, as a family, were animated by the clan spirit. They did things, if at all, in concert. They even did nothing in concert. They abhorred solitude as nature does a vacuum. + 

Jane’s fingers were busy and her eyes were occupied, but her mind was not concerned with the work in hand. Quite mechanically she purled and plained and tossed the blue wool over her amber needles. She was thinking wise, thirty-six-year-old thoughts about the relative-in-law complex. “The relative-in-law complex” was the phrase that Jane herself had coined to account for the obvious injustice of her thoughts about Carvers. She was privately rather proud of it. The Freudian vocabulary was not yet a commonplace in the Western hemisphere, but Jane knew all about complexes and was vaguely comforted to feel herself in the grip of one that was undoubtedly authentic. There was nothing you could do about a complex. There it was⁠—like the shape of your nose. You had no moral responsibility for it and it innocently explained all the baser emotional reactions, of which, alone with your conscience, you were somehow subtly ashamed. + 

Jane was decidedly relieved to feel able to evade all moral responsibility for the emotions aroused in her breast by the constant society of Carvers. For, from any point of view but that of the enlightened Freudian, she could not but feel that they were distinctly unworthy. Even ridiculous. For years she had struggled against them. But emotions were strangely invincible. Ephemeral, however. That was a comfort. It was only when visiting at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit, that Jane fell a prey to the baser variety of which she was subtly ashamed. Safe at home with Stephen, in her little Colonial cottage in the suburbs of Chicago, Jane could always look back on the complications presented by life at Gull Rocks with a tolerant smile. Seen from that secure perspective, the congenital peculiarities of Carvers seemed always harmless, at times picturesque, and often pathetic. For ten months of the year they figured in her life as mere alien phenomena at which she marvelled detachedly, with easy amusement. In July and August they reared their sinister heads as dragons in her path. + 

Jane had spent July and August at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit, every summer but two since the birth of her first baby. The year that Steve was born, Stephen had gone East alone with their two little daughters. And the year after that Stephen had incredibly taken a three months’ vacation from the bank to make the grand tour of Europe, leaving the three children at home in the Colonial cottage in Mrs. Ward’s care. Twelve Julys and twelve Augusts at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit! When Jane put it like that, she really felt that she had joined the Holy Fellowship of Martyrs. Stephen didn’t know what it was like⁠—how could he, being born a Carver?⁠—marooned alone with the children at Gull Rocks summer after summer, while he held down his job at the bank at home and only came on to join them for a three weeks’ holiday. Stephen wanted his children brought up with some idea of the New England tradition. That was only natural, of course, still⁠— + 

However, Stephen was coming, that very afternoon, on the six o’clock train, for the three weeks’ holiday. Jane was very glad of that. Stephen’s coming would make everything much better. Gull Rocks was almost fun, when Stephen was there. They would swim with the children and Stephen would teach little Steve to sail and⁠— + 

Jane heard the screened door open behind her and the brisk, decided step of Aunt Marie crossing the piazza. She did not raise her head from her knitting. + 

“I’ve come out to keep you company,” said Aunt Marie pleasantly. + 

Jane made no comment. She was counting stitches again, softly, under her breath. She heard the Nantucket hammock at the corner of the verandah creak faintly under her aunt’s substantial weight. + 

“Have you read the August Atlantic?” asked Aunt Marie presently. + 

Jane shook her head in silence. She could hear the pages of the magazine flutter faintly in her aunt’s deliberate fingers. + 

“There’s a very good article in it,” continued Aunt Marie, in her pleasant practical New England voice, “by Cassandra Frothingham Perkins, on ‘The Decline of Culture.’ ” + 

“Twenty-three, twenty-four,” whispered Jane defensively. Then “Has it declined?” she asked. The innocence in her tone was not entirely ingenuous. + 

“Well, hasn’t it?” returned Aunt Marie very practically, as before. Then, after a pause, “You know who Cassandra Frothingham Perkins is, don’t you?” + 

“One of the Concord Perkinses,” said Jane, as glibly as a child responding with “1492” or “1066” to the question of a history teacher. She had not spent twelve summers at Gull Rocks, Seaconsit, in vain. + 

“She’s the daughter,” said Aunt Marie, “of Samuel Wendell Perkins, who wrote the Perkins biography of Emerson and Literary Rambles in Old Concord. The Atlantic publishes a lot of her stuff.” + 

“I’ve read it,” said Jane briefly. Who cared, she thought perversely, if culture had declined? But the question was purely rhetorical. For obviously Cassandra Frothingham Perkins did. And Aunt Marie Carver. All the Carvers, in fact. Nevertheless, the decline of culture was not a burning issue with Jane. + 

She bent her head again over the knitting directions in The Woman’s Home Magazine and her eye caught a flamboyant headline on the opposite page. “How Can We Keep Our Charm?” by Viola Vivasour. And below in explanatory vein, “Fifteen minutes a day devoted to Miss Vivasour’s simple formula of face creams solves woman’s eternal problem.” But Aunt Marie was again speaking. + 

“Cassandra’s made a little schedule,” she said. “She claims that fifteen minutes a day, spent reading the best books⁠—and she adds a little list of one hundred⁠—” + 

How much less important, thought Jane wickedly, the decline of culture than that of charm! Not, however, in the Carvers’ circle. There the significance of a five-foot bookshelf would always rise above that of a good cosmetic. The society of her relatives-in-law made Jane feel wantonly frivolous. She would just as soon read one article, she thought, or follow one recipe, as the other. Both equally absurd. Prepared for different publics⁠—that was all. + 

Jane heard the screened door open once more behind her and the heavy, slightly hesitant step of her mother-in-law crossing the piazza. She did not turn her head. Her hands still busy with her knitting, she gazed steadily out over the close-clipped lawn, pierced here and there with outcrops of granite rock, stretching smooth and green and freshly watered, three hundred feet before her, to where the coarser growth of beach grass, rooted in sandy soil, met the yellow fine of beach that fringed the blue expanse of sea. Jane loved the beach grass. It continued to exist in a state of nature, rooted in primeval sand, defeating the best efforts of the impeccable Portuguese gardener to impose on it an alien culture. There it was. The Carvers could do nothing about it. Jane wondered if her Aunt Marie had ever reflected that her Western niece-in-law was rather like the beach grass. + 

Mrs. Carver’s footsteps paused at her side. + 

“Dexter doesn’t think he can get me any lobster today, Jane.” Mrs. Carver’s voice was grave and just a trifle anxious. “Do you think Stephen would prefer bluefish or mackerel?” + 

“I don’t know,” said Jane. + 

“He’s so fond of sea food,” said Mrs. Carver. + 

Jane felt again that absurd surge of irritation. Stephen would never know what fish he was eating. Why fuss about it? + 

“I wanted to give him an old-fashioned shore dinner.” + 

The wistful note in the worried voice suddenly touched Jane’s heart. She looked up and met her mother-in-law’s anxious gaze. The fat, elderly face was creased in lines of vivid disappointment. Old age was pathetic, thought Jane, secure in the citadel of her thirty-six summers. Mothers were pathetic. + 

“I think he’d love mackerel,” she said warmly. + 

Mrs. Carver’s face brightened. + 

“I shall keep on trying for the lobster,” she said solemnly, “until the last minute.” + 

Suddenly Jane loved her mother-in-law. She loved her for the solemnity. It was touching and disarming. Why didn’t she always say the things that Mrs. Carver liked to hear? It was so easy to say them. She really must reform. + 

“Is that little Steve on the beach?” said Mrs. Carver. + 

“Yes,” said Jane. + 

“Don’t you think the sun is too hot for him?” asked Mrs. Carver. + 

“No,” said Jane. + 

“The glare’s very bright on those rocks,” said Mrs. Carver, “and Miss Parrot never seems to notice⁠—” + 

“The doctor said the sun was good for him,” said Jane tartly. Her moment of reform was short-lived. + 

“We can’t be too careful,” said Mrs. Carver. + 

They couldn’t be, of course. Why was she so perverse? Poor little Steve, pulled down, still, from his scarlet fever in June, still watched by his nurse, still worrying them all with that heart that wasn’t quite right yet, but would be, so the doctor said, by next spring! + 

“I think he ought to come into the shade,” said Mrs. Carver. + 

Jane rose abruptly and picked up the megaphone behind the hammock. + 

“Yoo-hoo!” she called. “Miss Parrot!” The white cap turned promptly in response to her call. “Bring Steve up, please!” + 

She sank on the steps again and picked up her knitting. She could see Miss Parrot’s slender starched figure rise from behind her rock. It assumed a slightly admonitory angle. Steve’s yellow head was raised from the sands in obvious protest. + 

“She doesn’t know how to manage children,” said Mrs. Carver. + 

Steve, pad and paintbox in hand, was wading through the beach grass, now, beside his nurse. His thin little voice could be heard, raised in inarticulate argument. Miss Parrot walked steadily on. Steve, reaching the smooth green turf of the lawn, paused to scratch a mosquito bite on his brown little knee. + 

“Why doesn’t she wait for him?” said Mrs. Carver. + 

“Oh, he’s all right,” said Jane. “He loves Miss Parrot.” + 

Mrs. Carver watched her grandson’s approach in silence. + 

“I don’t want to come up, Mumsy!” he cried. “I was painting the harbour.” + 

“Don’t run, dear,” said Mrs. Carver. + 

“You can finish your painting tomorrow,” said Jane. + 

“The light will be different, Mumsy!” His tanned little nine-year-old countenance was eager with protest. + 

“Mrs. Carver thinks the sun is too hot on the beach, Miss Parrot,” said Jane. + 

The trained nurse turned her pretty, pleasant face upon them with a tolerant smile. + 

“All righty!” she said. “Come on, Stevey, we’ll paint in the garden.” + 

“I don’t want to,” said Steve. He glared crossly at his grandmother. + 

Miss Parrot smiled again, throwing a glance of frank, professional understanding at the adults on the verandah. + 

“Oh, yes, you do,” she said easily. “If Grandma wants you to, Grandma’s the doctor!” + 

She disappeared around the corner of the house. Steve trailed aggrievedly after her. When he was irritated, reflected Jane, his little nine-year-old figure took on exactly the angle of that of her preposterous father-in-law. Mrs. Carver’s lips were slightly compressed. Jane knew what was coming. + 

“I don’t like that woman’s tone,” said Mrs. Carver. + 

“She’s a very good heart nurse,” said Jane. + 

“She has no proper deference,” said Mrs. Carver. + 

Jane’s lips, in their turn, were slightly compressed at the familiar phrase. Proper deference! That commodity that the Carvers sought in vain, throughout the world, looking for it, Jane thought, with the most pathetic optimism, in the most unlikely places. In the manners of Irish housemaids, on the lips of trained nurses, and in the emotional reactions of modern grandchildren. They never lost their simple faith that they ought to find it. That it was somehow owing to them. Was it, thought Jane curiously, because they were all over sixty? Or because they were Carvers? Stephen was a Carver, yet proper deference meant nothing in his life. + 

“Here comes Alden!” said Mrs. Carver suddenly. “Marie, are you ready?” + 

The figure of Mr. Carver had indeed deserted the pier and advanced to the beach grass. He was waving peremptorily. Aunt Marie rose from the Nantucket hammock a trifle hastily. + 

“I’ll get my sneakers,” she said, and vanished into the house. + 

“Now, where is your Uncle Stephen?” said Mrs. Carver. Jane, you’ll need your hat.” She was hurriedly swathing her own with a purple face veil. + 

“Didn’t you hear the horn?” called Mr. Carver. “I blew it twice.” + 

“We didn’t, dear,” said Mrs. Carver. “The wind’s offshore.” + 

“Jane, not much time,” said Mr. Carver. He took out his watch as he spoke. “It’s twenty minutes to three. Where are your rubber shoes?” + 

“I’ll get them,” said Jane. “They’re in my room.” + 

“Gall your Uncle Stephen,” said Mrs. Carver. “He’s working in the study.” + 

“I can’t see why you can’t all be ready at the proper time,” Jane heard her father-in-law observe as she crossed the porch. “I only keep up the launch for the pleasure of the family.” The screened door banged behind her. She crossed the living-room with an air of extreme deliberation. What a ridiculous old man Mr. Carver was! Domestic dictator! Why didn’t they all revolt? Why hadn’t they all revolted, years ago, long before she came into the family? + 

Jane paused before the living-room chimneypiece to kick, vindictively, a smouldering log back into the ashes and place the screen before the dying fire. Always this fuss about nothing, every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon, at twenty minutes to three! That launch! The Whim! Ironic name! It ought to be called The Duty, The Responsibility, The Obligation. Or perhaps, like a British dreadnought, The Invincible. It was invincible, when manned by Mr. Carver. Those Wednesday and Saturday races! That sacred necessity of following them, twice every week, out of the harbour and into the bay, around the three buoys and home. Watching those ridiculous catboats with Alden and Silly at the helm of one, appraising the wind, discussing the course, commending the seamanship. No one cared to go⁠—except Mr. Carver. Take today when Mrs. Carver wanted to telephone for lobsters and Aunt Marie to read the Atlantic and Uncle Stephen to work in the study and she just to be let alone for a quiet afternoon, to finish Cicily’s sweater and think of Stephen’s arrival. No one ever cared to go, really⁠—except the children. And they couldn’t because they made Mrs. Carver nervous, climbing around the boat, and Mr. Carver irritated, ever since little Steve had dropped the compass and broken the glass and spilled the alcohol all over the varnished table in the cabin. + 

“I only keep up the launch,” thought Jane in resentful retrospect, as she crossed the hall, “for the pleasure of the family.” What bunk! It was really Mrs. Carver’s fault, of course. She should have taken him in hand just as soon as she married him. Her weakness was his strength. She’d made him what he was today and the rising generations had to suffer for her folly. Stephen might have been like that if he had married a woman like his own mother. There was lots of “Carver” in Stephen. Jane knew she had been good for him. All the Wards had been good for him. Her father in one way, and her mother, and even Isabel, in quite another. The West had been good for him. Jane paused at the living-room door. + 

“Uncle Stephen?” she said. + 

The elderly professor was seated at his brother’s mahogany secretary, bent over a little pile of manuscript. He did not hear her. + 

“Uncle Stephen!” said Jane again. + 

Her uncle raised his shiny bald head abruptly. His big blue eyes looked mildly up at her over his gold-rimmed spectacles. His face was very fat and round and pink and his head was very spherical and almost hairless. In spite of his white moustache, Jane always thought he looked just like a good-natured baby. Uncle Stephen was always good-natured and Jane was very fond of him. He didn’t seem at all like a Carver. Was that perhaps because of Aunt Marie, the indomitable daughter of “the great Nielson,” with whom he had been united in matrimony for more than forty years? Aunt Marie seemed so much more like a Carver than Uncle Stephen himself. There was a subtle warning in that thought, reflected Jane. In patiently eradicating, throughout a long lifetime, the more disagreeable traits of a husband, did a wife herself acquire them? + 

But Uncle Stephen’s pleasant pink old face had assumed a guilty expression. + 

“Good Lord, Janie!” he said regretfully. “Is it twenty minutes to three?” + 

“You bet it is,” said Jane briefly. And her eyes met those of her uncle in a twinkle of understanding. Jane never discussed Carvers with Carvers, but she knew just how Uncle Stephen felt about The Whim. Fumbling a little in his haste, he began to put away his manuscripts in a shabby brown briefcase. + 

“I wanted to finish these notes,” he said helplessly, “but⁠—” + 

“What are you doing?” asked Jane. The activities of Uncle Stephen at Gull Rocks were always refreshing. Jane thought scholarship a trifle amusing. Impersonal, however, and assuaging, like the blue sky. Uncle Stephen’s conversation could always be counted on to rise above the domestic plane. + 

“A monograph,” he said meekly, “on the Letters of William Wycherley, for the Modern Language Society. His correspondence with Alexander Pope.” + 

“I thought Wycherley wrote plays,” said Jane vaguely. In spite of the early exhortations of Miss Thomas, the details of a Bryn Mawr education were fast fading from her memory. + 

“He did, my dear,” said Uncle Stephen. “Good plays and bad poems and very bad letters.” + 

“Then why write monographs on them?” asked Jane. + 

“They are interesting,” said Uncle Stephen, rising from his chair, “because they stimulated Pope to reply.” + 

“Then why not write on Pope’s answers?” + 

“That has been done, my dear.” + 

Jane felt that the mysteries of scholarship were beyond her. + 

“Pope was very fond of him,” said Uncle Stephen, as they turned toward the door. “He said ‘the love of some things rewards itself, as of Virtue and of Mr. Wycherley.’ ” + 

As she mounted the stairs in search of her rubber shoes, Jane wished that she were a scholar. Scholarship would be a resource at Gull Rocks. She wished that she were capable of generating a passionate interest in the thoughts of Alexander Pope on Virtue and Mr. Wycherley. She wished that she were capable of generating a passionate interest in almost anything that would serve to pass the time. On the landing she met Miss Parrot. + 

“Mrs. Carver,” said the trained nurse. Her voice was pleasant but a trifle cool. + 

“Yes,” said Jane. + 

“I wanted to speak to you again about Steve’s diet,” said Miss Parrot. “His grandmother will keep on giving him too much sugar. He had three tablespoons on his raspberries at luncheon. I can’t convince her it won’t build him up⁠—” + 

“I’ll speak to her,” said Jane. She turned to mount the stairs. + 

“And Mrs. Carver⁠—” + 

“Yes,” said Jane, pausing again on the third step above the landing. + 

“I’ll have to speak to you again about my supper tray. The desserts⁠—last night the cook sent me up only three prunes. I thought you’d like to know.” + 

“Oh, I love to know!” thought Jane. But⁠—“I’m sorry, Miss Parrot,” she said. “I’ll see about it.” + 

“And Mrs. Carver⁠—Madam Carver spoke to me again about using the back stairs. I’m not a servant, Mrs. Carver.” + 

“You’re a guest, Miss Parrot,” said Jane, “as I am myself. You’ll have to use whatever stairs Madam Carver asks you to.” + 

Miss Parrot’s pretty lips were firmly compressed. Jane looked at her in silence. She was a very good heart nurse. Jane fell a prey to inner panic. + 

“Please be patient, Miss Parrot,” she said weakly. “It won’t be for long now.” + 

“I shall use the front stairs,” said Miss Parrot firmly. And turned to descend them. + 

Jane mounted to her room in silence. At thirty-six life was terrible, she thought, as she pulled on her rubber shoes. It had no dignity. It wasn’t at all what you expected, when you were young. Youth wasn’t dignified, of course, but it was simple, it was joyous, it was expectant. In youth life seemed⁠—important. The things you thought about were important, no matter how inadequately you thought about them. But later you found yourself involved in a labyrinth of trifles. Worrying, ridiculous trifles. Things that didn’t matter, yet had to be coped with. And you’d lost that sustaining sense that, at any moment, something different might be going to happen. At thirty-six you found yourself a buffer state between the older generation and the younger. You had to keep your son’s trained nurse and you had to keep the peace with your mother-in-law. Did Miss Parrot think she liked to live with Mrs. Carver? Did Mrs. Carver think she liked to live with Miss Parrot? If she could live with both of them, Jane thought, they might at least succeed in living with each other for two brief months⁠— + 

“Jane!” It was the voice of her mother-in-law, raised in anxious protest from the terrace below her window. “What are you doing, dear? The launch is waiting!” + 

Jane snatched up a hat and ran from her room. She dashed down the stairs. Oh, well! Stephen was coming that evening. They would go home in three weeks. Miss Parrot was a good heart nurse. She took all the responsibility. And Steve was much better. Gull Rocks had done a lot for him. The sun and the sea air. Her mother-in-law was pathetic. She couldn’t really help Mr. Carver. And Stephen was coming. + 

Jane banged the screened door and overtook Mrs. Carver on the path to the pier. She slipped her hand through her plump arm. + 

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was talking to Miss Parrot.” + 

“What about?” asked Mrs. Carver. + 

“She was telling me she didn’t like prunes,” said Jane, laughing. + 

“Did she think that you cared?” inquired Mrs. Carver with acerbity. + 

“Yes. But she was wrong!” Jane dropped her mother-in-law’s arm and stooped to pluck a handful of sweet fern from among the beach grass. The grey-green petals, wrenched from the fibrous stem, exhaled a pungent perfume. Jane buried her nose in them. They were very sweet and warm from the sun. She ran lightly ahead of her mother-in-law out onto the pier. + 

Mr. Carver was standing on the float, his watch in his hand. He looked severely at her from under his straw hat-brim. + 

“Quickly, now,” said Mr. Carver. + 

Jane sprang from the float to the boat. Aunt Marie was seated in a canvas deck chair. Her ankles looked thick and her small, wide feet very flat and stubby in her white sneakers. She had brought the August Atlantic with her. Jane knew she wouldn’t be allowed to read it. Uncle Stephen was sitting on the little varnished bench along the rail. He looked more like a baby than ever, thought Jane, in his round canvas boating hat. A semicircle of pink scalp showed under its floppy brim in the rear. Mr. Carver was carefully handing his wife up over the little landing-ladder. Her feet fumbled on the rubber treads and she clung a trifle nervously to his blue serge sleeve. + 

“We may be in time yet,” said Mr. Carver quite happily. Then, with severity, “The starting gun is late.” His tone implied that starting guns were not what they used to be. In the days when he was president of the Seaconsit Yacht Club⁠— + 

Jane, perched on the rail, her rubber-shod feet upon the varnished bench, suddenly realized that she was laughing aloud. Carvers were pathetic. They were all over sixty. They didn’t know how funny they were. Jane felt distinctly sorry for them. To a discerning daughter-in-law they didn’t really matter. + 

One white-clad sailor was pulling up the ladder. Another was standing by to push off the launch. Mr. Carver had taken his seat at the wheel. His shrivelled little New England face, with its grey Vandyke beard, was turned sideways and upward, estimating the weather. + 

“Not much wind,” he said. + 

The whir of the gasoline engine increased in volume, then quieted suddenly to a steady purr. The water widened between the launch and the pier. Jane turned to watch the catboats, veering and tacking now, around the first buoy. Suddenly she heard the gun. Mr. Carver rose from his seat, still holding the wheel, to observe the start. Alden and Silly were well in the rear. That was too bad, thought Jane. She had long ago decided that, all things considered, it was preferable to listen to Alden talking all evening of how he had won a race than of how he had lost one. + 