moved by the wind alone. She found friends amongst all nations,
and, in that cosmopolitan society of ships, dipped her flag to
those of England, France, Holland, Belgium, and Germany.

It was a wonderful life of freedom and gaiety. A great yacht
carries her own letter of introduction, and is accorded everywhere
the courtesies of a man-of-war, to whom, in a sense, she is a
sister. Official visits are paid and returned; naval punctilio
reigns; invitations are lavished from every side. There is,
besides, a freemasonry amongst those splendid wanderers of the
sea, a transcendent Bohemianism, that puts them nearly all upon a
common footing. A holiday spirit is in the air, and kings and
princes who at home are hidden within walls of triple brass, here
unbend like children out of school, and make friends and gossip
about their neighbours and show off their engine-rooms and their
ice plant and some new idea in patent boat davits after the manner
of very ordinary mortals. Not of course that kings and princes
predominate, but the same spirit prevailed with those who on shore
held their heads very high and practised a jealous exclusiveness.
Amongst them all Florence Fenacre was a favourite of favourites.
Young, beautiful, and the mistress of a noble fortune, there was
everything to cast a glamour about this charming American who had
come out of the unknown to take all hearts by storm.

Her haziness about distinctions of rank filled these Europeans
with an amused amazement. There was to them something quite royal
in her naivety and lack of awe; in her high spirit, her vivacity,
and her absolute disregard of those who failed to please her. She
convulsed one personage by describing another as "that tiresome
old man who's really too disreputable to have tagging around me