“I’m sick of it all,” Hugh said. “There’s no earthly point in it.” “This isn’t a Mess of women,” Cunwell protested, though that was not the expression he used. “I dare say it isn’t. But the fact is that our pretty language wouldn’t pass muster in a room full of men. We are miles outside any possible limit.” Driss opened sleepy eyes. “There’s nothing else to talk about,” he observed, “so we talk like this. We are all sick of it--the same as you, Fane-Herbert. But we shan’t stop. We can’t stop. It’s a habit now.” And he rang the bell for cigarettes. Hartington was powerless; the causes of change in the Gunroom were such as his influence could not affect. A hot climate, monotony of labour, and the absence of any kind of intellectual exercise or stimulus brought the midshipmen to such a pass that first they described their own minds as being “like cesspools”--stagnant and foul--and then ceased to care whether their minds were like cesspools or not. From this it was a short step to carelessness about those things for which in other circumstances, they would have been greatly concerned--their hair, their hands, the linen they wore, and the sheets in their hammocks. Their health suffered, and they did not care. In body and mind they became flabby and slack; and still they did not care. Rapidly they were losing their self-respect. When they were ashore the deterioration seemed to have gone not so far, and yet far enough. There were in those parts no women with whom they could go, but at the Club were armchairs, and a bar where cocktails had nothing to do with their wine bills. When John went to see the Fane-Herberts the change in him was remarkable. He would wash, shave, and dress himself more carefully. For a couple of hours, perhaps, his speech would be clean. But consciousness of the ship’s life never left him, and he felt in Margaret’s presence always at a disadvantage, as if he had entered a drawing-room in dirty boots. Self-respect is not to be laid aside and instantly reassumed, and John was for ever sensible of a kind of inferiority to which he could not believe others were blind. As a result he became abnormally sensitive, interpreting a momentary silence as purposeful neglect of himself, and imagining deliberate coldness whenever Margaret was less responsive than he desired. When Ordith, too, was there, John found it impossible to meet him on even ground. Ordith was a Wardroom officer, and aware of the conditions of life in the _Pathshire’s_ Gunroom. No doubt he looked upon the midshipmen with contempt, and smiled to think that one of them presumed to be his rival. Little by little John fell into the background. Margaret, wondering at his lack of enterprise, and not understanding its true cause, was led to imagine that he had ceased to care. His conversation with her became colourless, his manner nervous and embarrassed. As the weeks passed they fell further and further apart.