Mavick actually did enjoy it, for he had that brooding sort of nature, that self-satisfied attitude, that is able to appropriate to its own uses whatever comes.  And being an unemotional and very tolerable sailor, he was able to be as cynical at sea as on land, and as much of an oracle, in his wholly unobtrusive way.  The perfect personal poise of Mavick, which gave him an air of patronizing the ocean, and his lightly held skeptical view of life, made his company as full of flavor on ship as it was on shore.  He didn’t know anything more about the weather than the Weather Bureau knows, yet the helmsman of the yacht used to consult him about the appearances of the sky and a change of wind with a confidence in his opinion that he gave to no one else on board.  And Mavick never forfeited this respect by being too positive.  It was so with everything; he evidently knew a great deal more than he cared to tell.  It is pleasing to notice how much credit such men as Mavick obtain in the world by circumspect reticence and a knowing manner.  Jack, blundering along in his free-hearted, emotional way, and never concealing his opinion, was really right twice where Mavick was right once, but he never had the least credit for wisdom.

It was late in August that the Delancy yacht steamed into the splendid Bar Harbor, making its way slowly through one of the rare fogs which are sometimes seen by people who do not own real estate there.  Even before they could see an island those on board felt the combination of mountain and sea air that makes this favored place at once a tonic and a sedative to the fashionable world.

The party were expected at Bar Harbor.  It had been announced that the yacht was on its way, and some of the projected gayeties were awaiting its coming, for the society reenforcement of the half-dozen men on board was not to be despised.  The news went speedily round that Captain Delancy’s flag was flying at the anchorage off the landing.

Among the first to welcome them as they landed and strolled up to the hotel was Major Fairfax.

“Oh yes,” he said; “we are all here—­that is, all who know where they ought to be at the right moment.”

To the new-comers the scene was animated.  The exotic shops sparkled with cheap specialties; landaus, pony-phaetons, and elaborate buckboards dashed through the streets; aquatic and law-tennis costumes abounded.  If there was not much rowing and lawn-tennis, there was a great deal of becoming morning dressing for these sports, and in all the rather aimless idleness there was an air of determined enjoyment.  Even here it was evident that there was a surplus of women.  These lovers of nature, in the summer season, who had retired to this wild place to be free from the importunities of society, betrayed, Mavick thought, the common instinct of curiosity over the new arrival, and he was glad to take it as an evidence that they loved not nature less but man more.  Jack tripped up this ungallant speech by remarking that if Mavick was in this mood he did not know why he came ashore.  And Van Dam said that sooner or later all men went ashore.  This thin sort of talk was perhaps pardonable after the weariness of a sea voyage, but the Major promptly said it wouldn’t do.  And the Major seemed to be in charge of the place.