," and she took an experimental step or two. "Yes; not even
sprained. That reminded me of Porthos," she added, looking up at him,
her eyes very bright.

He laughed.

"Porthos would have done it with one hand," he said, "while saluting you
with the other."

She hesitated a little, looking along the beach; and he, guessing her
thought, raised his cap and started to walk on. But again her voice
stopped him. Perhaps she, too, was something of a mind-reader.

"I owe you some thanks, you know," she said. "You mustn't go off till
I've paid them!"

Dan swung around, his face glowing.

"Not thanks!" he protested. "But if you would take pity on a lonely
exile and talk to him a little, you'd certainly be doing a noble
action!"

"Is it as bad as all that?" and Dan noticed how the corners of her eyes
crinkled when she smiled.

"You can't imagine how lonely I've been!" he said. "Especially the past
few days. I didn't feel it so much till I was starting home. America!"
and he took off his hat.

"The land of freedom!" she added, softly.

"Do you feel it that way, too?" he asked eagerly. "I've never been much
of a patriot--just took things as a matter of course, I guess; but six
weeks in Europe is enough to make a patriot of any American. Whenever I
see the old flag, I feel like going down on my knees and kissing it.
I've just begun to realise what it stands for!"

She had turned back toward the hotel, walking slowly with Dan beside
her, and her face was beaming as she looked up at him.

"You are right--oh, so right!" she cried. "And how much more would you
realise it if, like me, you had been born in another country and felt
for yourself the injustice, the oppression, of which you have seen only
a little! For such as I, America is indeed the Promised Land!"

So she was foreign-born! Dan glanced at her with a shy curiosity.

"You are a Russian?" he asked. "Pardon me if I seem intrusive."

"You do not. No, I am not a Russian. Worse than that! I am a Pole!"

The words were uttered with a tragic emphasis which left him speechless.
He could think of nothing to say that was not banal or superficial, and
he realised that here were deep waters! He glanced once or twice at her
face, which had grown suddenly dark and brooding; then, with a little
motion of her hands, she seemed to push her thoughts away.

"You do not know much of Polish history, perhaps," she said, in a
lighter tone. "But if you are fond of tales of heroism,