on
Gomez: but anyone who had taken the trouble to watch and study the
conduct and social relations of these two men would have seen that his
civility was a forced civility, and that he endured the Spaniard's
society under constraint of some kind.

And now all the world was flocking to Cowes for the regatta, and Lesbia
and her chaperon were established on board Mr. Smithson's yacht, the
_Cayman_; and the captain of the _Cayman_ and all her crew were
delivered over to Lesbia to be her slaves and to obey her lightest
breath. The _Cayman_ was to lie at anchor off Cowes for the regatta
week; and then she was to sail for Hyde, and lie at anchor there for
another regatta week; and she was to be a floating-hotel for Lady Lesbia
so long as the young lady would condescend to occupy her.

The captain was an altogether exceptional captain, and the crew were a
picked crew, ruddy faced, sandy whiskered for the most part, Englishmen
all, honest, hardy fellows from between the Nore and the Wash, talking
in an honest provincial patois, dashed with sea slang. They were the
very pink and pattern of cleanliness, and the _Cayman_ herself from stem
to stern was dazzling and spotless to an almost painful degree.

Not content with the existing arrangements of the yacht, which were at
once elegant and luxurious, Mr. Smithson had sent down a Bond Street
upholsterer to refit the saloon and Lady Lesbia's cabin. The dark velvet
and morocco which suited a masculine occupant would not have harmonised
with girlhood and beauty; and Mr. Smithson's saloon, as originally
designed, had something of the air of a _tabagie_. The Bond Street man
stripped away all the velvet and morocco, plucked up the Turkey carpet,
draped the scuttle-ports with pale yellow cretonne garnished with orange
pompons, subdued the glare of the skylight by a blind of oriental silk,
covered the divans with Persian saddlebags, the floor with a delicate
Indian matting, and furnished the saloon with all that was most feminine
in the way of bamboo chairs and tea-tables, Japanese screens and fans
of gorgeous colouring. Here and there against the fluted yellow drapery
he fastened a large Rhodes plate; and the thing was done. Lady Lesbia's
cabin was all bamboo and embroidered India muslin. An oval glass, framed
in Dresden biscuit, adorned the side, a large white bearskin covered the
floor. The berth was pretty enough for the cradle of a duchess's first
baby. Even Lesbia, spoiled by much in