Hascombe discovered that the satisfaction of being exclusive is usually
tempered by the discomfort of being bored. So lofty and forbidding had
been his manner that no one had ventured to intrude even a casual good
morning. A bachelor under thirty, with a competence of such dimensions
that it had entailed incompetency, and a doting family that danced
attendance upon his every whim, he was figuratively as well as literally
at sea in this new environment. At times he faltered in his stern
determination not to allow any one to become acquainted with him. It was
only the fear that any leniency might result in undue liberty on the
part of some aggressive American that caused him to preserve his deep
seclusion.

Bored, blasé, blighted, he had one more affliction to endure. The young
person had gotten hopelessly on his nerves; in fact, she was the most
disturbing object on the horizon. She played shuffle-board in front of
his chair when he wanted to read; she practised new dance-steps with
the first officer when he wanted to sleep; she caused him to lift his
unwilling eyes a dozen times an hour by her endless circuits of the
deck. She was on terms of friendship with everybody on board except
himself, including the second class and steerage. There seemed no end to
her activities, no limit to her enthusiasm. The more she attracted his
unwilling attention, the more persistently he ignored her.

As the time passed and danger of intrusion lessened, his ennui
increased. One dull, humid day, when the whole world resembled a
dripping sponge, Percival reached the limit of his endurance. The canvas
was down, and nothing could be seen but long vistas of slippery decks,
with barefooted Chinese sailors everlastingly mopping and slopping about
in the wet. He had counted the five hundred and fiftieth raindrop that
clung to the red life-belt at the rail when he saw the young Scotchman