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 something about his taking the wheel and he thought he had better oblige the old fellow, if Audrey was quite, quite sure she didn’t mind, and would she come and sit by him instead—for one dance? ... As soon as two sailors had fixed cushions for Audrey, and the skipper had given the owner the course, all persons seemed to withdraw respectfully from the pair, who were in the shadow of a great spar, with the glimmer of the binnacle just in front of them. The square sail had been lowered, and the engines started, and a steady, faint throb kept the yacht mysteriously alive in every plank of her. The gramophone and the shuffle of feet continued, because Mr. Gilman had expressly desired that his momentary defection with a lady and in obedience to duty should not bring the ball to an end. Laughter and even giggles came from the ballroom. Males were dancing together. The power of the moon had increased. The binnacle-light, however, threw up a radiance of its own on to Mr. Gilman’s lowered face, the face of a kind, a good, and a dependably expert individuality who was watching over the safety, the welfare and the highest interests of every soul on board.
“I was very sorry to be laid up to-day,” Mr. Gilman began suddenly, in a very quiet voice, frowning benevolently at the black pointer on the compass. “But, of course, you know my great enemy.”
“No, I don’t,” said Audrey gently.
“Hasn’t Doc told you?”
“Doctor Cromarty? No, he doesn’t tell much.”
“Well,” said Mr. Gilman, looking round quickly and shyly, rather in the manner of a boy, “it’s liver.”
Audrey seemed to read in his face, first, that Doctor Cromarty had received secret orders never to tell anybody anything, and, second, that the great enemy was not liver. And she thought: “So this is human nature! Mature men, wise men, dignified men, do descend to these paltry deceits just in order to keep up appearances, though they must know quite well that they don’t deceive anyone who is worth deceiving.” The remarkable fact was that she did not feel in the least shocked or disdainful. She merely decided—and found a certain queer pleasure in the decision—that human nature was a curious phenomenon, and that there must be a lot of it on earth. And she felt kindly towards Mr. Gilman.
“If you’d said gout——” she remarked. “I always understood that men generally had gout.” And she consciously, with intention, employed a simple, innocent tone, knowing that it misled Mr. Gilman, and wanting it to mislead him.
“No!” he went on. “Liver. All sailors suffer from it, more or less. It’s the bugbear of the sea. I have a doctor on board because, with a score or so of crew, it’s really a duty to have a doctor.”