At once there was a bedlam of post-mortems, each one confessing his own stupidity and telling his neighbor how he could have avoided dropping out, all of it involving the recall of hundreds of interacting statements.
Ron clutched Anne’s hand. “Let’s go out on the terrace. This is getting too rough for us.”
Anne nodded. Her face was strained and white as if she, too, were stunned by the recognition of their inadequacy in this company. Through the wide doors they slipped out to the terrace and went down to the far end of it, overlooking the beach. They stood listening to the soft roar of the water, under the light of the moons which were now rising.
“We knew about this,” said Anne. “We knew about it even before we came.”
“Yeah, but never on a scale like this. Can you imagine how they’d b
