“I’ve seen that although you two are good friends, you’re not simple enough for Brenda, simple as you are, darling. I mean she’s a little too simple for you. It’s too obvious! People are such imbeciles when they try to evaluate friendships from the outside! But I, where you’re concerned, Hugh, don’t come in that class, do I? We are so close that I can evaluate your relations with people from the inside, as it were. There’s been a _rapport_ built up between us through these most vital years of our lives,—fifteen to thirty, isn’t it? We don’t fool each other. And no matter how much you and Brenda flirt, and how openly, I can only sigh, now that I’ve watched you together here, and see that your heart isn’t in it. Poor Brenda! And it might have solved everything.... I mean, you stood some chance of normal happiness if you could only have found her _simpatica_. But you’ll never bring yourself to marry any one without that. Oh, you see, I know—I know....” Hugh leaned up on one elbow and started scooping out a trench in the sand between himself and Joan. His dark head, silhouetted against the vivid blue-green of the noon Atlantic, was Grecian, Joan thought, in its beautiful symmetry. And his shoulders were as classic under the narrow straps of his damp bathing suit as they appeared when hidden under the most meticulously tailored of dinner jackets. “Fastidious strength. Strength to be used fastidiously. Aristocracy of body—as it is hardly known in the modern world,” Joan mused. “And he’s mine. I’ve only to reach a finger across this trench. Whisper one word. What am I waiting for? Why can’t I take him as he is, and not expect perfection? Why do I want the moon? What do I hope for, better than this! If Michael and Hugh and Doctor Steiner could only be rolled into a composite person, that would be ideal. But they can’t. Hugh’s himself, and couldn’t be himself and have all their qualities added. And why must I cling to this perfectionist view of my life! Ah! That is still to be discovered. But why wait to understand myself perfectly? I needn’t stop being analyzed just because I’m married. And it isn’t as if marriage were irrevocable. It isn’t. Though of course one does hate to make mistakes, for marriage is important. At the very least mistakes with it are a waste of time. But it’s pride, really. I’m as proud as Lucifer and can’t bear to be caught out in a mistake, important or unimportant.”