of illusions-about-human-nature, but it
is fun, after all, isn't it?"

"What?"

"Getting down to the facts."

Accompanied by the tattoo of her necklace, Miss Thompkins moved away in the
direction of Madame Piriac, who was engaged with Musa.

"Admit I'm rather brilliant to-night," she threw over her shoulder.

The dice seem to be always loaded in favour of the Misses Thompkins of
society. Less than a quarter of an hour later Doctor Cromarty, showing his
head just above the level of the deck, called out:

"Price, ye can wind up that box o' yours. Mr. Gilman is coming on deck.
He's wonderful better."

CHAPTER XXXII

BY THE BINNACLE

The owner was at the wheel. But he had not got there at once. This singular
man, who strangely enough was wearing one of his most effulgent and
heterogeneous club neckties, had begun by dancing. He danced with all three
ladies, one after the other; and he did not merely dance--he danced
modernly, he danced the new dances to the new tunes, given off like
intoxicating gas from the latest of gramophones. He knew how to hold the
arm of a woman above her head, while coiling his own around it in the
manner of a snake, and he knew how to make his very body a vast
syncopation. The effect of his arrival was as singular as himself. Captain
Wyatt, Doctor Cromarty and Mr. Price withdrew to that portion of the deck
about the wheel which convention had always roped off for them with
invisible ropes. The captain, by custom, messed by himself, whereas the
other two had their meals in the saloon, entering and leaving quickly and
saying little while at table. But apart from meals the three formed a
separate clan on the yacht. The indisposition of the owner had dissolved
this clan into the general population of the saloon. The recovery of the
owner re-created it. Mr. Price had suddenly begun to live arduously for the
gramophone alone. And when summoned by the owner to come and form half of
the third couple for dancing, Doctor Cromarty had the air of arousing
himself from a meditation upon medicine. Also, the passengers themselves
danced with conscientiousness, with elaborate gusto and with an earnest
desire to reach a high standard. And between dances everybody went up to
Mr. Gilman and said how lovely it all was. And it really was lovely.

Mr. Gilman had taken the wheel after about the sixth dance. Approaching
Audrey, who owed him the next dance, he had said that the skipper had
hinted somethi