Miss Morris looked up in some surprise, and smiled consciously, with a natural feminine interest in an affair of love, and one which was a secret as well.
“Oh,” she said, “I beg your pardon; we—I had not heard of it.”
“No, it is not a thing one could announce exactly,” said Carlton; “it is rather in an embyro state as yet—in fact, I have not met the young lady so far, but I mean to meet her. That’s why I am going abroad.”
Miss Morris looked at him sharply to see if he were smiling, but he was, on the contrary, gazing sentimentally at the horizon-line, and puffing meditatively on his pipe. He was apparently in earnest, and waiting for her to make some comment.
“How very interesting!” was all she could think to say.
“Yes, when you know the details, it is,—very interesting,” he answered. “She is the Princess Aline of Hohenwald,” he explained, bowing his head as though he were making the two young ladies known to one another. “She has several other names, six in all, and her age is twenty-two. That is all I know about her. I saw her picture in an illustrated paper just before I sailed, and I made up my mind I would meet her, and here I am. If she is not in Grasse, I intend to follow her to wherever she may be.” He waved his pipe at the ocean before him, and recited, with mock seriousness:
“‘Across the hills and far away,
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
And deep into the dying day,
The happy Princess followed him.’