“What!” cried the girl, looking up at him with new interest.  “You don’t mean to say you are the officer that Russia demanded from England, and England refused to give up?”

“Oh, England could not give me up, of course, but she apologized, and assured Russia she had no evil intent.  Still, anything that sets the diplomatists at work is frowned upon, and the man who does an act which his government is forced to disclaim becomes unpopular with his superiors.”

“I read about it in the papers at the time.  Didn’t the rock fire back at you?”

“Yes, it did, and no one could have been more surprised than I when I saw the answering puff of smoke.”

“How came a cannon to be there?”

“Nobody knows.  I suppose that rock in the Baltic is a concealed fort, with galleries and gun-rooms cut in the stone after the fashion of our defences at Gibraltar.  I told the court-martial that I had added a valuable bit of information to our naval knowledge, but I don’t suppose this contention exercised any influence on the minds of my judges.  I also called their attention to the fact that my shell had hit, while the Russian shot fell half a mile short.  That remark nearly cost me my commission.  A court-martial has no sense of humor.”

“I suppose everything is satisfactorily settled now?”

“Well, hardly that.  You see, Continental nations are extremely suspicious of Britain’s good intentions, as indeed they are of the good intentions of each other.  No government likes to have—­ well, what we might call a ‘frontier incident’ happen, and even if a country is quite in the right, it nevertheless looks askance at any official of its own who, through his stupidity, brings about an international complication.  As concerns myself, I am rather under a cloud, as I told you.  The court-martial acquitted me, but it did so with reluctance and a warning.  I shall have to walk very straight for the next year or two, and be careful not to stub my toe, for the eyes of the Admiralty are upon me.  However, I think I can straighten this matter out.  I have six months’ leave coming on shortly, which I intend to spend in St. Petersburg.  I shall make it my business to see privately some of the officials in the Admiralty there, and when they realize by personal inspection what a well-intentioned idiot I am, all distrust will vanish.”

“I should do nothing of the kind,” rejoined the girl earnestly, quite forgetting the shortness of their acquaintance, as she had forgotten the flight of time, while on his part he did not notice any incongruity in the situation.  “I’d leave well enough alone,” she added.

“Why do you think that?” he asked.

“Your own country has investigated the matter, and has deliberately run the risk of unpleasantness by refusing to give you up.  How, then, can you go there voluntarily?  You would be acting in your private capacity directly in opposition to the decision arrived at by your government.”