“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.’”
Carlton poured out his coffee, with a shake of his head, and frowned. “Oh, you can laugh,” he said, “but I didn’t sleep at all last night. I lay awake making speeches to her. I know they are going to put me between the wrong sisters,” he complained, “or next to one of those old ladies-in-waiting, or whatever they are.”
“How are you going to begin?” said Miss Morris. “Will you tell her you have followed her from London—or from New York, rather—that you are young Lochinvar, who came out of the West, and——”
“I don’t know,” said Carlton, meditatively, “just how I shall begin; but I know the curtain is going to rise promptly at eight o’clock—about the time the soup comes on, I think. I don’t see how she can help but be impressed a little bit. It isn’t every day a man hurries around the globe on account of a girl’s photograph; and she is beautiful, isn’t she?”
Miss Morris nodded her head encouragingly.
“Do you know, sometimes,” said Carlton, glancing over his shoulders to see if the waiters were out of hearing, “I fancy she has noticed me. Once or twice I have turned my head in her direction without meaning to, and found her looking—well, looking my way, at least. Don’t you think that is a good sign?” he asked, eagerly.