That night Huntington Wood invited his host and hostesses to dine at the Yacht Club. The place was very gay, for although the yachting season was on its wane, the hot weather had held and there were many yachts lying in the harbour. It was a lively room, a trifle more brilliant than select, as yachting contingents are apt to be, but rich in life and colour and gaiety. The "Sharks" were scarcely more than seated when Hermione, happening to glance toward the door, saw Harold Applebo. "The Pilot-fish!" she whispered. Applebo was quite alone. For a moment he stood in the doorway, sleepily surveying the room. From here and there people at different tables caught sight of him, then whispered to their table-companions, so that in that moment, brief as it was, the poet became the focus of every pair of eyes in the room. One might have travelled far and failed to find so striking a figure. Applebo was in the regulation yachting costume for evening dress, the only eccentric feature being a somewhat voluminous black silk scarf of poetic or artistic pattern. His great mane of reddish-yellow hair fell in a wavy mass, almost hiding his ears. His skin was clear as the water of the Great Dismal Swamp, and tanned to nearly the same tea-colour, with its golden lights. Antique ivory would best describe its tone. The amber eyes, darkly-fringed, blinked sleepily from table to table, as though looking for a vacant place. A peculiar silence had fallen on the room. Everybody was looking at Applebo, who, for his part, appeared as drowsily indifferent as a lion in the Zoo. He was standing straight as a poplar, yet quite at ease and with no hint of stiffness or self-consciousness. As his slow scrutiny passed the table occupied by Wood and his party, it paused for a moment. He smiled and slightly inclined his head, then crossed the room and took a single table in a far corner. At Wood's table, which was in the centre of the room, the captain was at one end, Paula at the other, Hermione facing the door, and Cécile and Wood directly confronting Applebo. Bell, as the poet entered, twisted about and gave him a goggle-eyed stare. "He's thinner!" announced Bell, with satisfaction; "a thundering sight thinner! Good-looking fool, ain't he ... huh?" He nodded at the others with the air of one discovering a new and surprising fact. "If you were to cut his thatch and poke him up a little with a sharp stick, he might be even handsome ... huh ... h'm..." He began to gurgle. Cécile found it quite impossible to keep her eyes from Applebo. Try as she did, they kept straying back. For his part, the poet was looking dreamily into space, and when his dinner arrived it appeared to consist of a succession of melons, which he devoured, one after the other, with infinite relish. Cécile estimated that he must have eaten at least six.