“But he ran no danger,” she answered.

“He didn’t, didn’t he?” said Carlton, looking at her closely and laughing.  “I think he was in very great danger all the time.”

“Shocking!” said Miss Morris, reprovingly; “and in her very presence, too.”  She knitted her brows and frowned at him.  “I really believe if you were in prison you would make pretty speeches to the jailer’s daughter.”

“Yes,” said Carlton, boldly, “or even to a woman who was a prisoner herself.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, turning away from him to the others.  “How far was it that Leander swam?” she asked.

The English captain pointed out two spots on either bank, and said that the shores of Abydos were a little over that distance apart.  “As far as that?” said Miss Morris.  “How much he must have cared for her!” She turned to Carlton for an answer.

“I beg your pardon,” he said.  He was measuring the distance between the two points with his eyes.

“I said how much he must have cared for her!  You wouldn’t swim that far for a girl.”

“For a girl!” laughed Carlton, quickly.  “I was just thinking I would do it for fifty dollars.”

The English captain gave a hasty glance at the distance he had pointed out, and then turned to Carlton.  “I’ll take you,” he said, seriously.  “I’ll bet you twenty pounds you can’t do it.”  There was an easy laugh at Carlton’s expense, but he only shook his head and smiled.

“Leave him alone, captain,” said the American Secretary.  “It seems to me I remember a story of Mr. Carlton’s swimming out from Navesink to meet an ocean liner.  It was about three miles, and the ocean was rather rough, and when they slowed up he asked them if it was raining in London when they left.  They thought he was mad.”

“Is that true, Carlton?” asked the Englishman.

“Something like it,” said the American, except that I didn’t ask them if it was raining in London.  I asked them for a drink, and it was they who were mad.  They thought I was drowning, and slowed up to lower a boat, and when they found out I was just swimming around they were naturally angry.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t bet with me,” said the captain, with a relieved laugh.

That evening, as the Englishman was leaving the smoking-room, and after he had bidden Carlton good-night, he turned back and said:  “I didn’t like to ask you before those men this morning, but there was something about your swimming adventure I wanted to know:  Did you get that drink?”

“I did,” said Carlton—­“in a bottle.  They nearly broke my shoulder.”

As Carlton came into the breakfast-room on the morning of the day he was to meet the Princess Aline at dinner, Miss Morris was there alone, and he sat down at the same table, opposite to her.  She looked at him critically, and smiled with evident amusement.

“`To-day,’” she quoted, solemnly, “`the birthday of my life has come.’”