Chance

Flora de Barral is the abandoned daughter of a bankrupt business, who must now live in a world without privilege and money. The red tint of his clear-cut face with trim short black whiskers under a cap of curly iron-grey hair was the only warm spot in the dinginess of that room cooled by the cheerless tablecloth.  We knew him already by sight as the owner of a little five-ton cutter, which he sailed alone apparently, a fellow yachtsman in the unpretending band of fanatics who cruise at the mouth of the Thames.  But the first time he addressed the waiter sharply as ‘steward’ we knew him at once for a sailor as well as a yachtsman. -Excerpt from Chance.