“Perhaps ‘astonished’ would be the more accurate word,” Jack replied, smiling now.

“My Captain, you were very pleasant with me, the first evening that we met.”

“That was before,” nodded Captain Benson, still smiling.  He stood cap in hand, his whole bearing respectful, for he did not intend to be discourteous even to this known adventuress.  He would grant her at least the courtesy due her sex.

“Before what?” she asked.

“Well, er—­before that automobile ride the day.”

“And why should that change your attitude toward me, my Captain?” asked the young Russian.  Her tone was coaxing, almost cooing; her eyes extremely moist, as though the tears would spring forth in another instant.

“Why, you see, Mademoiselle,” laughed Jack, coolly, “the finish of that automobile ride was just a trifle too exciting for me.  I have plenty of the strenuous side of life out at sea.  When on shore my tastes are all for the quiet, peaceful life.”

“But surely you do not reproach me with having made the automobile ride unpleasant?”

“Only that, as I remember it, you dropped some dust—­or something—­into my eyes, and right after that two men took me away in your car—­and then things happened to me.”

“Why, that was all a joke,” protested the handsome young woman, gazing keenly into his eyes.

“Then I’ll laugh now—­ha! ha!  But seriously, Mademoiselle, I haven’t a sense of humor that will appreciate carrying a joke quite as far as that one was carried.”

“It was all a joke,” Mlle Nadiboff insisted.  “At least, M. Lemaire so assured me.  What ever you may have thought, my Captain, I beg you will not believe that I had any notion of helping to cause you real discomfort.”

Her tone was so sincere in its ring, her eyes looked so honestly and appealingly into the boy’s that Jack, for an instant, had to wonder whether he were dreaming.

“My Captain,” continued the Russian girl, in a voice that trembled softly, “I see, now, that I have been fearfully—­cruelly—­misunderstood by you.  That is more than I can bear.  Come, let us take a little walk together in the grounds.  I want you to tell me just what part you thought I had in some affair against you.  I insist; it is my right to know this.  Your arm, my Captain!”

As she spoke, Mlle. Nadiboff slipped her soft little right hand inside of Captain Jack’s arm.

Captain Jack took hold of that hand to disengage it.  But Mlle. Nadiboff merely held the tighter, while the boy was conscious that she was gazing up at him appealingly.

“I don’t wish to be rude, Mademoiselle; don’t, force me to be,” the submarine boy urged.  “Will you kindly release my arm?”

Then, with a subdued though angry exclamation, the girl obeyed.

“You will not even hear me?” she cried, stamping one foot lightly against the veranda boards, while now her eyes brimmed with tears.