her previous attitude of thorough enjoyment. For his part, Armitage of course had no reason for altering his bearing, and that he did not was observed and appreciated by his companion. This eventually had the effect of restoring both to their former footing.

"Yes," she said finally, "it has been rather a novel experience. I am indebted to you."

"Not to me," said Armitage. Then, by way of conversation, "novel experiences, as a rule, are not so easily had."

"No, I grasp them whenever," she jerked her head toward the cabin above and smiled, "whenever I can, conveniently. My old tutor in Munich was always impressing it upon me never to neglect such opportunities."

"Opportunities? Oh, I see—slumming." Armitage glanced about the apartment and laughed.

She frowned.

"I was speaking categorically, not specifically; at least I meant to. I did not mean slumming; I detest it. 'Seine erfahrungen erweitern'—enlarging one's experience—is the way my teacher put it. Life is so well-ordered with us. There are many well-defined things to do—any number of them. The trouble is, they are all so well defined. We glide along and take our switches, as father would say, like so many trains." She smiled. "And so I love to run off the track once in a while."

"May I have the credit of having misplaced the switch?" Armitage's eyes were twinkling as the girl arose with a nod.

In the upper cabin, Mrs. Wellington, apparently, still slept, to Armitage's great joy. Her daughter, with hardly a glance into the cabin, stepped to the rail and looked down the bay with radiant face. The promise of the early hours had been established; it was a beautiful day. It was one of these mornings typical of the hour; it looked like morning, smelt like morning, there was the distinct, clean, pure, inspiring feel of morning. The skies were an even turquoise with little filmy, fleecy shreds of clouds drifting across; the air was elixir; and the blue waters, capped here and there with white, ran joyously to meet the green sloping shores, where the haze still lingered. Ahead, an island glowed like an opal.

"Perfect, perfectly stunning!" cried the girl. Somehow Armitage felt the absence of that vague barrier which, heretofore, she had seemed almost unconsciously to interpose, as her eyes, filled with sheer vivacity, met his.

"What are those little things bobbing up and down in the water over there?" she asked.

"I believe that is the torpedo testing ground," he said.

"Torpedoes! Ugh!" She shrugged her shoulders. "Mother knew Vereshchagin, who was in the Petrapavlovsk when she struck the Japanese torpedo and turned upside down. Do you know anything about torpedoes?"

"Not much; a little." Armitage thrilled at the first sign she had given him that she considered or was in any way curious regarding his personality.

She looked at him.

"I am certain I have seen you before," she said. "You don't live in Newport?"

"That is not my home," said Armitage. "I come from Kentucky. I am something of a wanderer, being a sort of fighter by profession."

The girl started.

"Not a prize fighter?" She glanced quickly at the handsome, square, fighting face, the broad chest and shoulders, and flushed. "Are you really that?"

Armitage had intended to tell her he was a naval officer, but obsessed of the imp of mischief, he nodded.

"I can imagine situations wherein I might fight for a prize."

She overlooked what she regarded as the apparent modesty of his answer.

"Really!" she exclaimed. "How interesting! Now I am glad I met you. I had no idea you were that, of all things. You seemed—" She checked herself. "But tell me, how did you begin? Tommy Dallas is keen on your sort. Did he ever—ever back you, I believe he calls it—in a fight?"

The new trend speedily had become distasteful to Armitage, who inwardly was floundering for a method of escape from the predicament into which his folly had led him. He had no wish to pose as a freak in her eyes. Still, no solution offered itself.

"No," he said at length, "he never backed me. As a matter of fact, I am more of a physical instructor, now."

"Oh," she said, disappointedly, "I was going to gloat over Tommy. Physical instructor! Do you know father is looking for one for my two kid brothers? Why don't you apply?"

"Thanks," said Armitage, a bit ungraciously, "perhaps I shall."

Plainly the girl's interest in him was fast waning. Extremely chapfallen and deeply disgusted with himself, Armitage bowed, and, muttering something about looking after his luggage, withdrew.

CHAPTER III

PRINCE VASSILI KOLTSOFF

When Miss Wellington entered the cabin she found her mother in the same position in which she had left her, but her eyes were open, looking straight at the girl.

"Mother, I never knew you to do anything quite so bourgeois before." There was a gleam of mischief in her eyes. "Sleeping in a public place! You weren't sleeping, were you?"

"No, I was not," said her mother. "I have been thinking, planning."

"Oh, Prince Koltsoff!"

"Yes." Mrs. Wellington raised her hand languidly to her face. "He wrote he was coming to us this afternoon, direct from the Russian ambassador's at Bar Harbor. Did he not?"

"Yes, unless Miss Hatch was mistaken in what she said the other day."

"Miss Hatch," said the elder woman, "is one of the few secretaries I ever had who does not make mistakes. However, that is neither here nor there. Prince Koltsoff has been in Newport for a week."

"A week! The idea! Where? Not with the Van Antwerps?" Miss Wellington's eyes blazed with interest.

"No, not with any one that I was able to discover. But Clarie Pembroke, of the British legation, was driving from the Reading Room to the yacht club with your father the other day. He told me he was certain he saw Koltsoff standing on a side street near the Aquidneck."

"Why on earth did n't you tell me before?" cried the daughter. "What a delightful mystery!" She smiled with mischief. "Do you suppose after all he is some no-account? You know Russian princes are as numerous as Russian bears; they can be as great bounders and as indigent as Italian counts—"

"All of which you have heard me say quite frequently," interrupted Mrs. Wellington placidly. "Koltsoff is not pinchbeck. The Koltsoffs are an illustrious Russian family, and have been for years. I think I know my Almanach de Gotha. Why, Koltsoff is aide-de-camp to the Czar and has, I believe, estates in southern Russia. His father fought brilliantly in the Russo-Turkish War and gained the Cross of St. Anne; his great, or great-great-grandfather, I don't recall which, was a general of note of Catherine the Great's, and if certain intimate histories of that time are not wholly false, her rewards for his services were scandalously bestowed."

"No doubt," said the girl carelessly. "And Koltsoff?"

"A genuinely distinguished fellow. He was educated, of course, at the cadet school in St. Petersburg and during the Japanese War was with the Czar. I met him in London, last May, at Lord McEncroe's, as I have already told you, I think, and when he spoke of coming to America this summer I engaged him for August."

"It was rather farsighted of you," said the girl admiringly. "Newport needs some excitement this season. If he 's anything like that last Russian who came here on a warship two years ago, you will shine as a benefactor, especially in the eyes of reporters."

Mrs. Wellington smiled grimly.

"The Grand Duke Ivan?"

"Yes; what a great bearded beast he was! I remember father bemoaning, when Ivan the Terrible departed, that there was no more of his favorite Planet brandy left in the Reading Room cellars."

Mrs. Wellington did not smile. She was eying her daughter curiously. "I want you and the Prince to become good friends," she