as it did then, rising from the collar of the rough jersey, and contrasted with the hat and coat of a man’s attire.  They paced the deck for an hour later, until every one else had left it, and at midnight were still loath to give up the beautiful night and the charm of their strange surroundings.  There were long silent places in their talk, during which Carlton tramped beside her with his head half turned, looking at her and noting with an artist’s eye the free light step, the erect carriage, and the unconscious beauty of her face.  The captain of the steamer joined them after midnight, and falling into step, pointed out to Miss Morris where great cities had stood, where others lay buried, and where beyond the hills were the almost inaccessible monasteries of the Greek Church.  The moonlight turned the banks into shadowy substances, in which the ghosts of former days seemed to make a part; and spurred by the young girl’s interest, the Italian, to entertain her, called up all the legends of mythology and the stories of Roman explorers and Turkish conquerors.

“I turn in now,” he said, after Miss Morris had left them.  “A most charming young lady.  Is it not so?” he added, waving his cigarette in a gesture which expressed the ineffectiveness of the adjective.

“Yes, very,” said Carlton.  “Good-night, sir.”

He turned, and leaned with both elbows on the rail, and looked out at the misty banks, puffing at his cigar.  Then he dropped it hissing into the water, and, stifling a yawn, looked up and down the length of the deserted deck.  It seemed particularly bare and empty.

“What a pity she’s engaged!” Carlton said.  “She loses so much by it.”

They steamed slowly into the harbor of the Piraeus at an early hour the next morning, with a flotilla of small boats filled with shrieking porters and hotel-runners at the sides.  These men tossed their painters to the crew, and crawled up them like a boarding crew of pirates, running wildly about the deck, and laying violent hands on any piece of baggage they saw unclaimed.  The passengers’ trunks had been thrown out in a heap on the deck, and Nolan and Carlton were clambering over them, looking for their own effects, while Miss Morris stood below, as far out of the confusion as she could place herself, and pointed out the different pieces that belonged to her.  As she stood there one of the hotel-runners, a burly, greasy Levantine in pursuit of a possible victim, shouldered her intentionally and roughly out of the way.  He shoved her so sharply that she lost her balance and fell back against the rail.  Carlton saw what had happened, and made a flying leap from the top of the pile of trunks, landing beside her, and in time to seize the escaping offender by the collar.  He jerked him back off his feet.

“How dare you—­” he began.