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 effulgent¹ and heterogeneous² 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 tunes³, given off like intoxicating⁴ 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 clan⁵ 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 arduously⁶ 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 meditation⁷ upon medicine. Also, the passengers themselves danced with conscientiousness⁸, 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.