The two Americans looked at Miss Morris to see how she received this, but she smiled good-naturedly.
"I know a man who did more than that for a woman," said Carlton, innocently. "He crossed an ocean and several countries to meet her, and he hasn't met her yet."
Miss Morris looked at him and laughed, in the safety that no one understood him but herself.
"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.