"The chances are that before you had been on board a dozen hours you would wish with all your heart that you were on shore again--especially if there happened to be a capful of wind." "Oh, I quite believe that. Being a woman, it only stands to reason that I should be both ill and frightened. Men are never either one or the other." Then, in a little while, she added: "Still, nonsense apart, I believe that I should very much like to go a long voyage." "Unless you chanced to have very pleasant companions, you would soon grow weary of the everlasting monotony of sea and sky: sky and sea." "I'm not quite so sure on that point. I cannot conceive that either the sky or the sea is ever really monotonous. And yet you, who have travelled so much, ought to know far better than I," she added, a minute later, as if correcting herself. "You have travelled much in the course of your life, Mr. Van Duren, have you not?" "Not so much, perhaps, as you imagine. Still, I have seen something of the world." "And yet you never talk to me about your travels! You have never told me a single one of your adventures." "I am not aware that I have any adventures to tell you about," said Van Duren, with an amused expression. "How can a man meet with adventures in these days of railroads and steamboats?" "Still, you must have encountered something, or seen something, that would be worth telling about." "Really, my life has been a most prosaic one." "Have you never shot a lion or a tiger?" "Certainly not." "Perhaps you have hunted a wild boar?" "I have never even seen such an animal." "Have you ever quarrelled with a man, and then fought a duel with him?" "I have quarrelled with many men, but have never fought a duel." "Have you ever been up in a balloon or down a coal-mine?" "Neither one nor the other." "Have you ever been pursued by Red Indians, or by wolves, or had a fight with a bear?" "I have never been so fortunate. I wish, for your sake, that I had." "Have you ever been shipwrecked?" Van Duren gave a little start, but did not immediately answer. He slowly exhaled the smoke, in a long, thin curl, from between his lips before he spoke. "Yes--I have been shipwrecked," he said, at last. Miriam's merry laugh rang out, and she clapped her hands for glee. "Every man knows some adventure worth telling," she said. "Yours is a shipwreck. I knew that I should find out what it was at last.--And now you will tell me all about it, won't you?" She looked at him with a pretty air of entreaty, and moved her chair a little closer to his. "There was really nothing about the affair that is worth telling," he said. He was intent, just now, on choosing another cigar out of his case, smelling at and nipping first one and then another. "It was a very trifling piece of business, I assure you." "Still, it was a shipwreck, and you were in it," urged Miriam. "Of course, if you do not choose to tell me anything about it, I have nothing further to say in the matter."