He had felt it, without alarm at first, for the men of the West laughed him to scorn and refused to shorten sail.

They still refused.

Perhaps they could not.
One thing was certain: he could scarcely manage to take in a single reef on his own account.

He was beginning to realise that the men with whom rumour was busy were men marked down by their letters; and they either would not or could not aid him in shortening sail.
For a month, now, under his bland and graceful learning among the intimates of his set, Dysart had been slowly but steadily going to pieces.

At such moments as this it showed on the surface.