Four." Another splash. "Four." Another splash.
"Three-half." Another splash. "Three-half." Another splash. "Three."
Another splash. "Two-half." Another splash. "Three." Another splash.
"Five." "That'll do, 'Orace," came the voice from the wheel. Then an
entranced silence.

The scene had the air of being ideal. And yet it was not. Something lacked.
That something was the owner. The owner lay indisposed in the sacred
owner's cabin. And this was a pity because a dance had been planned for
that night. It might have taken place without the owner, but the strains of
the gramophone and especially the shuffling of feet on the deck would have
disturbed him. True, he had sent up word by Doctor Cromarty that he was not
to be considered. But the doctor had delivered the message without any
conviction, and the unanimous decision was that the owner must, at all
costs, be considered.

It was Ostend, on top of the owner's original offer to Audrey, that had
brought about the suggestion of a dance. They had coasted up round
Gris-Nez from Boulogne to Ostend, and had reached the harbour there barely
in time to escape from the worst of a tempest that had already begun to
produce in the minds of sundry passengers a grave doubt whether yachting
was, after all, the most delightful of pursuits. Some miles before the
white dome of the Kursaal was sighted the process of moral decadence had
set in, and passengers were lying freely to each other, and boastfully
lying, just as though somebody had been accusing them of some dreadful
crime of cowardice or bad breeding instead of merely inquiring about the
existence of physical symptoms over which they admittedly had no control
whatever. The security of a harbour, with a railway station not fifty
yards from the yacht's bowsprit, had restored them, by dint of calming
secret fears, to their customary condition of righteousness and rectitude.
Several days of gusty rainstorms had elapsed at Ostend, and the passengers
had had the opportunity to study the method of managing a yacht, and to
visit the neighbourhood. The one was as wondrous as the other. They found
letters and British and French newspapers on their plates at breakfast. And
the first object they had seen on the quay, and the last object they saw
there, was the identical large limousine which they had left on the quay at
Boulogne. It would have taken them to Ghent but for the owner's powerful
objection to their eating any meal off the yacht. Seem