He felt that he was bridging over the difference between life at sea and life on land--that he was asserting his right to maintain in a drawing-room the privileges he had gained on the deck of the _Streak_.
And Margaret, moreover, was especially friendly to-night, for she too felt the difference, and recognised that, after all, life on shore is the freer.

There are certain conventionalities of a drawing-room that a man is less likely to break through, more certain to remember, than the unwritten rules of cruising etiquette.

Most men who have led a free life are a little less likely to make love under the restraint of a white tie than they are when untrammelled by restraints of dress, which always imply some restraint of freedom.
At least Margaret thought so.

And Claudius felt it, even though he would not acknowledge it.

They talked about the voyage; about what they had said and done, about the accident, and a hundred other things.