“You have not overstated your friend’s intelligence,” murmured the young Russian gleefully.  “At a short look from you he retreats.”

“Oh, Hal and I always understand each other,” smiled Jack.

“That is very interesting.  And yet I do not like Mr. Hastings as I like you,” replied the young woman.

She looked at him with a friendly, little flash in her eyes.  Had Jack been a few years older, and not warned, he might have been snared by this experienced flirt.  As it was, he did not take the trouble to answer her last little speech.

Just before they stepped into the car Mlle. Nadiboff uttered a few quick words, in some foreign tongue, to her man at the steering wheel.  The auto sped away.  Jack noted only, at first, that they were now going further from Spruce Beach.  The road down which they drove, however, was a beautiful one, and the submarine boy did not much mind where they went, provided he could find out how Mlle. Nadiboff meant to make the approach against his loyalty to the submarine company.

“Do you know, my Captain, that you are hardly a flattering escort?” began Mlle. Nadiboff, after they had whirled along for a mile or more.

“Why not?” Jack inquired, bluntly.

“Have you noticed how I seem to please most men?”

“I saw that several were very anxious dance with you last evening, and that, whenever you were seated, men flocked about your chair.”

“Why do you suppose they did that?” challenged Mlle. Nadiboff.

“Because you are a very handsome woman, and the men admired you,” Benson answered, plainly.

“Ah!  Then you think I am handsome?”

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” Jack answered.

“Do you admire me?”

The challenge came plain and direct.  Mlle. Nadiboff now gazed searchingly into the submarine boy’s eyes.

“I—­I think you a very handsome woman to look at,” Captain Jack admitted, readily.

“Is that all you have to say?”

“I—­I am afraid I do not understand you, Mademoiselle.”

“You have no desire to be especially gallant to me?  It would cause you no jealousy if you, saw that I preferred the company of other men?”

Jack Benson returned her glance, almost in, bewilderment for a moment.  Then he leaned back, trying to stifle the impulse to laugh, but he did not wholly succeed.

“You are amused?” cried the young Russian, half angry.

“Amused—­yes, at the idea of my falling in love, if that was what you meant to suggest,” replied Jack, again speaking very candidly.

“And why should that amuse you, my Captain?”

“Why, do you know how old I am, Mlle. Nadiboff?  Or rather, how young?  I am only sixteen.  At my age, if I formed any notion of being in love, it would be sensible to have me spanked and put on a short diet for a few days.”