It was Phyllis who shone at Liliendaal
Phyllis and my alleged aunt were both particularly gracious to him on the way back to Arnhem, as if he had risen in their esteem now that they realized what an important man he is; but afterwards when I accused the L.C.P. of this piece of snobbishness, she vowed that it was only because they both realized how much he was giving up for the sake of—somebody.
Just because I could not be sure which one the somebody was, and whether he were more likely to prevail, after thiscoup d'état, I was uneasy in my mind, with the new knowledge of Alb's greatness. What are my dollars to his beautiful old houses, and a mother who is the daughter of an English earl? I suppose these things count with girls, even such adorable girls as Nell Van Buren and Phyllis Rivers.
A thing that happened the same evening has not relieved my anxiety.
At the Hotel Bellevue, each room on the floor where we live, has its own slip of balcony, separated from the next by a partition. I was sitting on mine, after we had all said good-night to each other, smoking a cigarette and waiting for the moon to rise, an act which she selfishly postpones at this time of the month, so as to give her admirers as much trouble and as little sleep as possible.
Suddenly I heard Phyllis's voice on the other side of the balcony partition.
"Dearest," she was saying dreamily, "isn't it strange how, on a night like this, you seem to see things clearly, which have been dark before?"
"It isn't so very strange," Nell answered practically. "The moon's coming up. And that's a sign we ought to be going to bed."
"I didn't mean that," said Phyllis. "I mean, there's a kind ofinfluenceon such a beautiful night, which makes you see into your own heart."
"What do you see?" asked Nell.
I wanted to know what, as much as Nell did, and a great deal more, judging from her tone. But unfortunately I had no right to try and find out, so I got up, and scraped my chair and prepared to go indoors. But I had forgotten to shut my match-box when I lighted a cigarette a few minutes before, and now I knocked it off the table where it had been lying, scattering over the floor every match I had left in the world.
If they intended to say anything really private, I had made noise enough to prevent them from doing it; so I thought I might conscientiously remain and pick up some of the matches. Thepersonnelof the hotel had gone to its beds, therefore, if I wanted to smoke later, it must be these matches or none.
"After all, I'm not quite sure what Idosee, when I come to ask myself, like that, in so many words," said Phyllis. "I do wish you'd advise me. Will you, dear?"
"Of course, if I can," came the answer, a little shortly.
"Well, supposingyoucared more than you thought you ought, for a man it couldn't be right to care for at all, because he belonged to some one else, what would you do?"
"Try to stop caring for him," said Nell.
"That's what I think, too; only it might be hard, mightn't it? Do you suppose it would be easier if a girl did her best to learn to love another man, who was free to care for her, and did seem to care for her, so as to take her mind off the—theforbiddenman?"
No answer. (I realized that they could not have heard the falling match-box, and I was at my window-door now, going in. But the door is a Dutch door, which means that it is cleaned and varnished every day; and the varnish stuck.)
"You might tell me what you think, Nell. You have had so much experience, in serials."
"Oh!" exclaimed Nell. "I—Ihateyou, Phil!"
Their door evidently did not stick, for suddenly it slammed, and I guessed that Nell had rushed in and banged it shut behind her.
* * * * * *
Now, it is the next day but one after this episode, and we are at Utrecht, after having visited an old "kastel" or two more in the neighborhood of Arnhem, and then following the Rhine where it winds among fields like a wide, twisted ribbon of silver worked into a fabric of green brocade. Its high waves, roughened by huge side-wheel steamers, spilt us into the Lek; and so, past queer little ferries and a great crowded lock or two, where Alb used his Club flag, we came straight to the fine old city of which one hears and knows more, somehow, than of any other in Holland.
I planned to do a little painting here; but, after all, I don't seem to take as much interest in composing pictures as in trying to puzzle out the meanings of several things.
I suppose a man never can hope to understand women; but even a woman sometimes fails to understand another woman. For instance, goaded by unsatisfied curiosity to know, not only my own fate, but everybody else's fate, all round, I was tempted to take advantage of nephewhood, and put the case, as I saw it, to the L.C.P.
I ventured to tell her what I overheard between the girls on their balcony.
"Now, you must know," I said, "that I'm in love with Phyllis."
"I thought it was Nell," said she.
"So did I, for a while; but I've discovered that it's Phyllis. And I shall be very much obliged to you if you can tell me something. In fact, if youcan, your dear nephew Ronny will present his aunt with a diamond ring."
"You mean if I tell you what you want to hear."
"No. It must be what you honestly think."
"I don't want a diamond ring," said she, which surprised me extremely. It was the first time anything worth having has been mentioned which she did not want, and, usually, ask for.
"A pearl one, then," I suggested in my astonishment.
"I don't want a pearl one—or any other one, so you can save yourself the trouble of working through a long list," replied the lady who is engaged to be my obliging relative. "But go on, and ask what you were going to ask. Anything I can do for you, as an aunt, I will. I am paid for it."
This grew "curioser and curioser," as Alice had occasion to remark in her adventures. But having embarked upon my narrative, I went on——
"Whom do you think Phyllis meant when she spoke of trying to learn to love a man who seemed to love her? Was it Alb, or——"
"Mr. Robert van Buren, perhaps you were going to say," cut in the L.C.P.
"No, I don't mean him," I answered hurriedly. "Modesty forbids me to mention the name in my mind."
"But it was given to you by your sponsors in baptism. Will it make you very unhappy if I say I don't think thatwasthe name in her mind?"
"I shall have to bear it," I said. "But, of course, I shall be unhappy."
"We all seem to be unhappy lately," remarked the L.C.P.
"Except you."
"Yes, except me, of course," she responded. "Why should I be unhappy? Tibe loves me."
"You don't deserve it; but so do we all," said I.
She brightened.
"You are harmful, but necessary," I went on. "We are used to you. We have even acquired a taste for you, I don't know why, or how. But you have an uncanny, unauntlike fascination of your own, which we all feel. At times it is even akin to pain."
"Oh well, the pain will soon be over," said she. "We're at Utrecht now. Soon we'll be going to Zeeland, from Zeeland back to Rotterdam; and that's the end of the trip—and my engagement. It will be 'good-by' then."
"I feel now as if it would be good-by to everything," I sighed. "I never nursed a fond gazelle——"
"You tried to nurse two," said she. "You're like the dog who dropped the substance for the shadow."
"Which is which, please?—though to specify would perhaps be ungallant to both. Besides, I haven't dropped either of them. If Phyllis is lost to me, I may still be able to fall back on Nell, whom nobody else seems to claim at present."
"Oh, don't they?" murmured the L.C.P.
"Do they?"
"She may have left dozens of adorers at home, to pick up again when she goes back. She's a beautiful girl," said her chaperon.
"Radiantly so, and I used to think also possessed of a beautiful disposition. But since she flew out at poor little Phyllis, who was asking for advice and comfort, and cried, 'I hate you, Phil—' Now, you're a woman. What had Phyllis said to put her in a rage?"
The L.C.P. laughed. "Enough to put a saint in a rage," said she. "And Nell isn't a saint. But they've been more devoted to each other than ever, since, so she must have repented and apologized, and been forgiven, before the moon went down. Oh, you poor puzzled creature! I wouldn't be amanfor anything!"
And that was all the satisfaction I could get from her. I remain as much in the dark as ever. But Robert van Buren, his sisters, and his fiancée are arriving immediately, and perhaps I may get enlightenment during the visit. I ought to have some reward, since it is through me that the Viking is coming with the females of his kind, at this particular time.
In a moment of quixotic generosity at Enkhuisen, I promised Phyllis, as a newly adopted, if reluctant, brother, that I would make everything right for her. Afterwards, I was inclined to repent of the plan which had sprung, Minerva-like full-grown and helmeted, from my suffering brain. But it was too late then. I had to keep my word, for I was sure that, deep down in her mind, Phyllis was expecting me to perform some miracle.
Rather than disappoint her—and lower my self-esteem—I had a talk with Robert the day he was leaving. Not an intimate talk, for we aren't on those terms; but I managed to get out of him that he was parting from us before he had intended because of a letter from the fiancée.
"Young ladies are a little exacting when they are engaged, I suppose," said the poor fellow. "They feel they have more right than others to a man's society."
Then it was that I asked why he didn't bring Freule Menela, chaperoned by the twins, to Utrecht instead of waiting until we had got as far as Zeeland, which the fiancée might think too long a journey with such an object in view. He said that he would ask her.
"Don't seem too anxious," said I, airily. "And don't tell her you want her to be better acquainted with your cousin and step-cousin. Just remark that it will be a jolly excursion, eh? And you might add that Brederode and I—particularly I—are awfully keen on seeing her."
"Very well, I will give that message," said he. And I think he probably did give it, or something like it; for Nell had a telegram from him, while we were still doddering about in Friesland, asking if he might bring the ladies on a visit to Utrecht.
Now, it is "up to me" to carry out that plan made on the impulse of an unselfish moment.
Moral: do not have unselfish moments.
I believe that, in the dark ages, I was rather a good little boy. I used often to tell the truth, and the whole truth, even when most inconvenient to my pastors and masters. I gave pennies to the poor, unless I very much wanted them myself; I said "Now—I—Lay—Me," every night, and also in the morning till advised that it was inappropriate; and I sang in a boy's choir, so beautifully and with such a soulful expression in my eyes, that people used to pat my curls, and fear that I was destined to die young.
In those days, or even until a few weeks ago no one who looked at me would have believed me capable of plotting against young and innocent girls, annexing aunts on the hire system, or deluding uncles-in-law with misleading statements. Yet these things I have done, and worse; for I have kept my word to Phyllis Rivers.
If I must commit a crime, my artistic sense bids me do it well; and then, of course, when one has started in a certain direction, one is often carried along a little farther than one intended to go at first.
That was what happened to me, in the affair of Robert van Buren and his fiancée.
I was pledged to Phyllis and myself to free the Viking somehow—anyhow. It was rash of me to give this pledge, also it was quixotic; and many hours did not pass after making it, before I was seized with regret, and convictions that I had been an ass.
Exactly how I was going to do the deed did not occur to me at the time, but I had an idea which fitted in with my other villainies so well, that it seemed really a pity not to add it to the richly colored pattern.
It was for this reason that I dreaded returning to the Hotel du Pays Bas from a walk about Utrecht, knowing as I did that the van Buren party would have arrived.
I stayed out, sketching, as long as there was any light, and got a few good bits of the old town; a shadowed glimpse of one of Utrecht's strange canals, unique in Holland, with its double streets, one above the other; an impression of the Cathedral spire, seen beyond a series of arched bridges; a couple of fishermen bringing up a primitive net, fastened on four branches, and sparkling as it came out of the water, like a spider-web spun of crystal.
I was careful not to appear till dinner-time; but one is obliged in self-defense to dine early in Holland, because what seems early to a foreigner seems late to a Dutchman. At seven o'clock I went to the L.C.P.'s sitting-room (it has become a regular thing for her to have a sitting-room), and behold, they were all assembled.
Nell was plainly dressed in the simplest kind of a white frock, but Phyllis had made quite a toilet. Poor child! I could guess why. She need not, however, have given herself the pains. The fiancée, compared with her, was like a withered lemon beside a delicately ripening peach.
The van Buren twins are delicious creatures; but they did not count in the little drama. Besides, they are, in any case, too young for drama. They are just beginning to rehearse for the first act of life; and I think for them it will be a pretty pastoral, never drama or tragedy, or even lively comedy.
I knew from Phyllis's description what sort of girl the fiancée would turn out to be, except that I didn't expect to find her quite so smart. Her dress, and the hat she had put on for the hotel dinner, might have come from the Rue de la Paix; which was all the more credit to her, as I have heard a dozen times if I have heard it once, that she is very poor—as poor as she is proud.
Now was my time to set the ball rolling; and valiantly I gave it the first kick. I feigned to be much taken at first sight with the young lady from The Hague. At once I flung myself into conversation with her, in which we were both so deeply absorbed, that when the L.C.P. suggested going down to dinner, nobody can have been surprised when I said, "Please, all whom it may concern, I want to sit next to Freule Menela van der Windt at the dinner table." Indeed, most of the party have long passed the stage of being surprised at anything I do; a state of mind to which I have carefully trained them. The Viking, however, has not often seen me at my best, so he stared at this audacity, but on second thoughts decided not to be displeased.
Neither was the fiancée displeased. I did not attribute her pleasure to the power of my manly charms; but the young lady is the sort of young lady to be complimented by almost any marked attention from any man, especially when other girls, prettier than herself, are present.
I continued to absorb myself in Freule Menela.
She has, I soon discovered, a veneering of intelligence, and a smattering of information on a number of subjects useful in a drawing-room. We talked about Dutch art, and French art, and so many facts was the maiden able to launch at my head, that the lovely pink-and-white twins gazed at their future sister-in-law with ingenuous admiration.
Evidently she had gleaned from Robert all he had to tell about me, as well as about the other members of the party, for she is not the sort of girl to lay herself out for strangers unless she considers them worth while.
Apparently she did consider me worth while; and during dinner she had hardly a word for the Viking, who sat on her other side; but that was all the better for him, because it gave him a chance to talk across the table to Phyllis, and to look at her when he was sitting dumb.
"There's going to be an illumination this evening," said Brederode. "You know the parks and gardens you admired so much last night, as we came through the canal into Utrecht? Well, there will be colored lights there; and a walk along the towing-path would be rather nice, if any one feels inclined for it."
"Oh, do let's go!" exclaimed Phyllis; and the twins echoed her enthusiastically.
That was enough for Brederode, though neither Nell nor the L.C.P. replied; and I asked myself by whose side he was planning to walk. Had he proposed the excursion with an eye to monopolizing the English or the American Angel?
I stifled the pang which I could not help feeling at the thought that he should have either, and in a low voice asked Freule Menela van der Windt if I might be her cavalier, in order to continue our very interesting argument? I had already forgotten what the last one was about; but that was a detail.
Had she been a little less well-bred, I think she would have bridled. As it was, she really did smirk a little, in a ladylike way.
We took cabs, and drove out past all that was commercial, to the place where the towing-path began to be prettiest, and the illuminations the most fantastic.
I was in a cab with the fiancée and her prospective sisters-in-law; but when we got out to walk, I self-sacrificingly flung the twins to the Chaperon, and, alone with the young lady from The Hague (she never lets you forget for five minutes together that she is from The Hague) I slackened my pace and regulated hers to it, that we might drop behind the others.
The towing-path and the canal were beautiful and fantastic as some night picture of Venice. A faint mist had risen out of the water at sunset, and the red, green, and gold lamps suspended from trees and barges seemed to hang in it like jewels caught in a veil of gauze. The trees arched over us tenderly, bending as if to listen to words of love. The soft rose-radiance that hovered in the air made lovely faces irresistible, and plain ones tolerable. Any normal man would have been impelled to propose to the nearest pretty girl, whether he had been previously in love with her or not, and the nearest pretty girl would have said "yes—yes," without stopping to think about her feelings to-morrow.
Freule Menela van der Windt is not pretty; but without herpince-nez, she looked almost piquant in the pink lights and blue shadows which laced our features as we passed, for which I was devoutly thankful, as it made my task comparatively easy. I found her softer, more feminine, more sympathetic, than she had been in the hotel. She would, she said, like to see America; and that gave me my chance. It was a pity, I told her, that such an intelligent and broad-minded young lady should not travel about the world before settling down in such a small, though charming, country as Holland.
Instantly she caught me up, with a little laugh. "Why should you take it for granted that I am going to 'settle down' anywhere?"
"Oh," said I, rather embarrassed at this direct attack, "I—er—was told that Mr. van Buren had been lucky enough to persuade you to live in Rotterdam."
"Never!" exclaimed Freule Menela, deeply interested in this conversation about herself. "I will never live in Rotterdam!"
"But," I ventured, with an air of eagerness, "if you should marry a man whose interests are in Rotterdam——"
"It isn't at all decided that I shall marry such a man," she answered sharply.
"Not decided?" I repeated anxiously. "Look here, you know, I don't think it's fair to other men that it should be taken for granted you're engaged, if you're not really."
"Why should it matter to other men?" asked the lady.
"Oh, well, it might, you see. There might—er—be some man who met you for the first time after he'd heard of your engagement, and who for his own peace of mind didn't dare let himself admire your brilliant talents as much as he would like to."
Now, I had got as far as I intended to go. Some dim idea of rescuing the Viking from the girl he doesn't love, to give him to the girl he does (and I do), had been floating in my mind ever since that stormy night at Enkhuisen. I had thought that Freule Menela was the sort of girl who might drop the meat for the sake of the shadow; but having indicated the presence of a floating, ghostly shadow—which might belong to any one or no one—I had no idea of advancing further, even to bestow happiness on Phyllis.
I had argued with my conscience, "If she's a woman who's ready to throw over the man she's engaged to, just because he isn't very rich or particularly eligible in her eyes, and because some other vague person looming on the horizon has more money than Number One, why, it's a sure sign that she accepted Number One because she couldn't get any one else, therefore she doesn't deserve to keep him, and she does deserve not only to see him slip away, but to see the shadow go with him."
However, I had not taken Freule Menela's talents into due account—or my own failings.
"Is there such a man?" she asked.
"There might be," I cautiously repeated. "The question is, are you engaged to Mr. van Buren, or are you not?"
"There has been an understanding between his family and mine, for many years, that some day we should marry," she answered. "And, of course, he's very fond of me, though you might not think it from his manner. He often appears to feel more interest in women for whom he cares nothing, than in me, to whom he is devoted. That is a characteristic of men who have his reserved nature."
"I'm afraid I don't understand reserved natures," said I. "If I care for any one, I can't help showing it."
"I have often thought," went on Freule Menela, "of telling Robert van Buren that he and I are not suited to each other. My ideal man is very different. And besides, as I said,nothingcould induce me to settle down in Rotterdam."
"You might make that the determining point," I suggested, "if you were looking for an excuse to save his feelings."
"Do you really think so?" she asked.
"I certainly do. Then you could leave him the choice. Rotterdam, without you; the more lively place, with you. Oh! don't you think, for your sake and his, you ought to do this at once?"
"And a little for the sake of—the other man?" she asked, archly.
I dared not inquire, stonily, "What other man?" lest the work I had accomplished should be destroyed in a single stroke. So I said——
"Yes, and for the sake of the other man."
"You believe it would really matter to him?"
She looked up so anxiously as she put this question that, quite apart from the interests of Phyllis Rivers, I could not have dashed hers, or any other woman's hopes, by giving an unchivalrous answer. Let come what might, I could not deliberately bring the pallor of humiliation to a female face, especially after words of mine had once caused it to glow with pleasure.
"How could I believe otherwise?" I demanded; and my tone sounded almost too sincere in my own ears.
For a moment Freule Menela van der Windt did not answer, and I hoped that her thoughts had hopped to some other branch of the subject; but presently she broke out, as if impelled by impulse to utter her thought to a congenial soul.
"Isn't it strange how sometimes one seems to know a person one has only just met, better than another, with whom one has been intimate for years?"
"That is often so," I hurried to assure her, with the idea of establishing the commonplaceness of such an experience.
"You feel it, too?" Her eyes were fixed on me, and I answered "Yes," before I had time to decide whether, at this point, it would not be safer not to feel it.
"I've often been told that American men are very impulsive. But—are there many like you?" asked Freule Menela.
"Lots," I said quickly.
"Oh, then it's really true that it is quite a usual thing among your country people, for a man to tell a girl he cares for her, when he has seen her only once?"
"I—er—really don't know about that," I answered, beginning to be disturbed in soul.
"You know only how it is with yourself?" Freule Menela murmured, with a girlish laugh that betrayed suppressed excitement. "Well, Mr. Starr, I think it would be foolish to pretend to misunderstand. I have heard much about you—perhaps you have heard a little of me?—yet you have taken me by storm. The thing I love best is art. You are a great artist—and you are a man of the world. You have all the fire of genius—and geniuses have a right to do things which other men may not do. I believe you have made me more interested in you, in these last two hours we have spent together, than I have been in any one else in as many years. And because of you, and what you have said—so delicately yet so unmistakably—I am going now to take your advice about Robert."
Before I could stop her, even if I had had the courage and presence of mind, she walked quickly away from me, and joined Phyllis and van Buren, who were sauntering a few yards ahead.
My brain whirled, and threatened to give way in the horror of the situation. I could have shouted aloud with the shrill intensity of a drowning man, "Alb, save me!" But Alb was far in front, strolling with the van Buren twins, while the one van Buren in whom he is really interested walked behind him with my temporary aunt. And in any case, he could have done nothing. Before my stunned wits had time to rebound, Phyllis the sweet and gentle had turned and flown to me, as if for refuge, like a homing dove threatened by a hawk.
"Brother dear," she whispered, "may I walk with you, please? Freule Menela says there is something she has been wanting all day to talk over with Mr. van Buren; so I thought I had better leave them alone, and drop behind with you—if you don't mind having me?"
"Mind!" I echoed in my turmoil of spirit. "It's a happy relief."
"I thought you seemed quite fascinated by Freule Menela," exclaimed the poor innocent one, "I asked Mr. van Buren if he were not jealous."
"How unkind of you!"
"I didn't mean to be unkind—at least, IhopeI didn't," said Phyllis. "Only, do you know, dear brother—since I am to confide my real feelings to you—I'm never quite sure of myself where that girl is concerned. I can't stand her. I'msosorry for poor Mr. van Buren. What do you suppose he answered when I asked him that question about being jealous of you—that rather naughty question? He said, 'Would to Heaven she were his, not mine!'"
Had I been on St. Lawrence's gridiron, I could not have helped chortling.
"I'm not at all sure she isn't," I muttered, under my breath; but Phyllis caught the words.
"What do you mean?" she gasped. "Oh, itcan'tbe you mean anything,doyou?"
"Well, anyhow, I mean that it's very likely she won't long be his," I explained, fired with anxiety to please the girl at any cost.
"It sounds too glorious to be true. Itcan'tbe true! But if it could! It's no use saying I wouldn't be glad—for poor Mr. van Buren's sake; he's so much too nice for her—mercenary, conceited, selfish little creature."
"Right, on every count," said I.
"I don't quite understand you," said Phyllis. "But I can't help feeling that, if anything splendid does happen, it will be all through you—somehow. You promised me, didn't you?—well, I don't know exactly what you promised; but it made me feel happy and sure everything would come out well, that night when you said you'd like to have me for a sister."
"DidI say that?" I asked in surprise.
"Didn'tyou? I thought——"
"Go on thinking so, then," I sighed; "and anything else that will make you happy—little sister."
"Thank you. Now I know, by the mysterious way you're looking at me, that youhavedone something. I believe you made him—I mean Mr. van Buren—come to see us again sooner than he intended to."
"Perhaps. And perhaps I made him bring Freule Menela with him."
"Did you? I wish—but no. I mustn't think of that."
"Wait a few hours and then think what you like," said I. Yet I spoke gloomily. I could see where the Viking was to come in. But I could not so clearly see how I was to get out.
We walked a very long way before any one seemed to wonder where we were going, and why we should be going there; but at last we came to a tea-garden, or a beer-garden, or both; and the L.C.P. said that we must stop and give Tibe a bowl of milk.
Not a member of the party who did not appear singularly absent-minded, on stopping and grouping with the others again, not excepting Tibe himself; but his absent-mindedness was caused only by the antics of a water-rat, which he would have liked to see added to his milk. When it occurred to him to drink the milk, unenriched by such an addition, we were all eating pink and white ices, and Dutch cakes that must have been delicious to those who had no Freule Menela sticking in their throats.
Phyllis walked beside me all the way back to the hotel, and was dearer than ever now that, through my own quixotic act, I saw her rapidly becoming unattainable. But, as the ladies said good-night to us at the foot of the stairs, Freule van der Windt contrived to whisper, as she slipped her hand into mine—"For better for worse, I've takenyouradvice, Mr. Starr. I am absolutelyfree."
"How did you manage it?" I heard myself asking.
"Robertinsistedon living in Rotterdam. He wouldn't even consent to winter at The Hague, though it's so near; so his blood is on his own head."
"And joy in his heart," I might have added. But I did not speak at all.
"Haven't youanythingto say?" she asked coyly; though her eyes, as they fixed mine, were not coy, but eager; and I felt, eerily, that she was wondering whether the millions, of which she'd heard, were in English pounds or American dollars.
I hesitated. If I replied "Nothing," she would probably snatch Robert back from Phyllis's lips, and I had not gone so far along the path of villainy to fail my Burne-Jones Angel now.
"I will tell you what I have to say to-morrow," I answered, in a low voice; and then I am afraid that, to be convincing, I almost squeezed her hand.
We were called early in the morning, to take the twins and Freule Menela—the fiancée no longer—for a drive through Utrecht, to see the beautiful parks and the Cathedral before starting on the day's journey. Since the making of this plan, however, many things were changed. Robert and Menela were both "disengaged," and how they would think it decorous to behave to each other, how the twins would treat the lady (if the truth had been revealed), remained to be seen. If I had had no personal interest at stake, I should have found pleasure in the situation, and in watching how things shaped themselves; but, as it was, I realized that I might be one of the things to be shaped, and that I should be lucky if I were allowed to shape myself.
I thought it well to be late to breakfast, lest the erstwhile fiancée and I should meeten tête-à-tête; and it was evident, at a glance, that Lisbeth and Lilli already knew all. The admirable Menela had probably told them in their bedroom over night, thus giving the pair plenty of solid food for dreams; and the pretty creatures were pale, self-conscious, and nervous, not knowing how to bear themselves after the earthquake which had shaken the relationship of years.
Robert also was uneasy; but, to my regret, emotion enhanced his good looks. What I had done had not been done for his benefit. I had not jeopardized my happiness to make him more attractive, to give fire to his eyes, and an expression of manly self-control striving with passion, to his already absurdly perfect features. Though, plainly, he was undergoing some mental crisis, he held his feelings so well in leash that no outsider could have judged whether he were the saddest or the happiest of men, and his sisters watched him anxiously, hoping to receive a guiding clue for their own behavior.
As for Freule Menela, she was as composed as ever, and had a self-satisfied air, as though, having slept on it, she was more pleased than ever with the course she had adopted.
Phyllis knew nothing yet, except what she had gleaned from me last night, I was sure of that; but I was not so sure about Alb, who wore a clouded brow. Whether he was worrying over his own affairs, or whether friend Robert had commandered his hero's sympathy, I could not guess, and dared not ask. Nor had I much time to speculate upon Alb's business, for I saw by Freule Menela's eye that my own was pressing, and all my energies were bent in steering clear of her during the good-by excursion through Utrecht.
Luckily, the party distributed itself in two carriages, and though I could not resist the fair Menela's "Come with me, Mr. Starr," fortunately the L.C.P. jumped in with Tibe, whose mood was so obstreperous that clearly he did not find canal life relaxing. Then arose a discussion between Nell and Phyllis as to which should sit in the other carriage, and Nell came to us, wishing, perhaps, to avoid Alb, whose society seems of late to cast a blight of silence upon her.
"Now," said I to myself, "if the late fiancée can't wind her tentacles round a new victim in this vehicle, neither can Robert escape her toils by proposing to Phyllis in that one, surrounded by his family circle. If he doesn't seize his chance soon, he'll miss it forever; because once his Freule discovers that she isn't to be claimed by another, she'll find it convenient to change her mind about life in Rotterdam. I may be saint—or villain—enough to keep her dangling till sunset; but then, at latest, I shall have to cut her down; and woe to any Viking who happens to lie about loose and unattached, when she falls to earth with a dull thud."
Far be it from the clever lady of The Hague to admit that there was a place on earth of which she did not know everything; and though I have reason to believe that she never saw Utrecht till yesterday, she was so busy telling us about it that we were behind the others in arriving on board "Mascotte," our appointed rendezvous.
I noticed instantly that Phyllis was not on deck, helping Alb to entertain the twins, as her kind soul would have prompted her to do. Of course, she might be below, in one of the cabins; but where was Robert? It was a coincidence that he, too, should be missing. Yet no one attempted to offer an explanation. Lilli and Lisbeth merely looked flurried and pink when Freule Menela came airily on board with me, and Alb appeared interested in giving instructions to Hendrik, who disputed respectfully with Tibe possession of countless yards of his beloved cotton waste.
At last, however, I began to wonder why we did not get away. The day's trip was to be a return to Amsterdam, not with the object of reviving impressions of that city, but for the pleasure of the run through the River Vecht, which Alb praised as the prettiest stream in the Netherlands, and named a miniature Thames. It was ten o'clock, and, as usual, we were timed to start at ten; but I did not consider it my place to ask the reason why, or any other question about starting. Mine, but to do or die—and keep out of reach of Freule Menela.
It was through Nell that the mystery was solved, as we stood chatting on deck.
"Where's Phil?" she inquired of the twins.
"Gone back to the hotel to find something she forgot to pack," said Lilli.
"And brother Robert has taken her," said Lisbeth, with a fleeting glance at the self-deposed fiancée.
This revelation of Phyllis's diplomacy came upon me with a shock. She is such a simple-minded Angel; but I suppose all girls are alike in some ways. And she is so kind-hearted, she must have been anxious to put Robert out of his misery as soon as she could. Well, she couldn't have done it much sooner.
"There they come," cried Lilli. And perhaps I should have been tempted to search their faces for news if Freule Menela had not turned her back upon the advancing figures, and begun to talk, with an air of proprietorship, to me.
"It's found!" cried Phyllis, to all whom it might concern. "I was so—fond of it, I should have hated losing it. And it wassokind of Mr. van Buren to help me."
I wondered whether there were others on board beside myself who detected in this announcement a double meaning? Something in her voice told me that she really was thankful not to have lost the thing of which she was so fond, the thing for which she had gone back to the hotel, the thing Mr. van Buren had kindly helped her to find. But there was no chance for a self-sacrificing brother to question his sister. Freule Menela saw to that.
It was my luck at its worst, to be torn in my mind on this exquisite day on the Vecht. Once in a while it dimly comes back to me that, in a past existence unbrightened by Nell Van Buren and Phyllis Rivers, I came to Holland with the object of painting pictures. Never, since my arrival in the bright little country of wide spaces, have I had a keener incentive to improve the shining hours; but how can a man remember that he's an artist when the girl he loves has engaged herself to another man, and one of the few girls he never could love is rapidly engaging herself to him?
It was in self-defense, not a real desire for work, that I fled to "Waterspin" and screened myself behind easel and canvas. And then it was but to find that I had jumped from the frying-pan into the fire.
My move was made while "Mascotte" and her fat companion lay at rest, that Alb might buy fruit for us from a fruit boat; and Freule Menela also availed herself of the quiet interval.
"May I come and watch you paint?" she asked, in a tone which showed that vanity made her sure of a welcome.
I longed for the brutal courage to say that I could never work with an audience; but I remembered letting slip last night the fact that I constantly sat sketching on the deck of "Mascotte," during the most crowded hours of life.
I murmured something, with a smile which needed oiling; and, accepting the grudging help of my hand, she floated across with an affected little scream.
"I saw a lovely picture you painted for Miss Rivers," she said, when she was settled in a camp-stool at my side. "Will you do one for me?"
"With pleasure," I answered. "This one shall be for you. But if you want it to be good, we mustn't talk. I shall have to concentrate my mind on my work."
"Thanks for the compliment," she laughed. "I give you leave to forget me—for a little while."
So I did my best to take her at her word, and tried impressionist sketches of the charming and ever-changing scene, upon which her presence was the sole blot; the beautiful old houses set back from the river on flowery lawns, faded coats-of-arms glowing red and blue and gold over quaint doorways shaded by splendid trees; fairy villas rising from billows of pink peonies and green hydrangeas; humble cottages, with tiny window-panes of twinkling glass, shining out from bowers of late roses; dove-gray windmills beckoning across piles of golden hay; above, clouds like flocks of snowy sheep, racing along wide sky-pastures, blue with the blue of forget-me-nots; below, a crystal flood foaming white with water-lilies that dipped before the prow of our advancing boat.
Over this crust of pearl, poised always long-stemmed, yellow lilies, like hovering butterflies; and, in a clear space of water, each little wave caught the sun and sky reflection, so that it seemed rimmed with gold and set with a big, oval turquoise.
"Well—have I pleased you?" Freule Menela asked at last.
"Well—have I pleased you?" Freule Menela asked at last
The moment had come for an understanding. With my two hands, unaided I had saved Phyllis, and now I must save—or lose—myself. Of course there was no choice which to do. I had played my fish and caught it, and as it was not the kind of fish I liked for dinner, I must tear it off the hook and throw it back into the sea, wriggling. I told myself that it was a bad, as well as an unattractive fish, that if I hadn't hooked it, most surely it would have bolted the beautiful little golden minnow I had been protecting. Still—still, there it was, smiling on the hook, that bad fish, trusting the hand which had caught and would betray it. It deserved nothing of that hand or any other hand; but suddenly, I found mine powerless.
"Phyllis, Phyllis," I groaned in spirit, "you will be my death, for to save you I caught this fish; now I may have to eat it, and it will surely choke me."
Before my eyes stretched a horrible vista of years, lived through with Freule Menela—mean little, vain, disloyal Freule Menela—by my side, contentedly spending my money and bearing my name, while I faded like a lovely lily on the altar of self-sacrifice.
In another instant I should have said yes, she had pleased me; she would have answered; and just because she is a woman I should have had to say something which she might have taken as she chose; so that it would have been all over for Ronald Lester Starr; but at this moment the two boats began to slow down. I suppose that Toon, at the steering-wheel of "Waterspin," must have received a message, which I was too preoccupied to hear; and as speed slackened, came the voice which others know as that of my Aunt Fay.
Never had it been so welcome, sounded so sweet, as now, when it brought my reprieve.
"Ronald dear," cooed the mock-Scottish accents, "you'd better get ready at once to lunch on shore, for Jonkheer Brederode has another surprise for us—and I know that by this time your hands, if not your face, are covered with paint."
Wonderful woman! It was as if inspiration had sent her to my rescue. Not that I am at all sure she would have laid herself out to rescue me from any snare, had she known of its existence; for though, before the watery world I am "Ronny dear" to her, she is not as considerate with me in private as she used to be when we first started.
We have been frank with each other at times, the L.C.P. and I, and the pot has said in plain words what it thinks of the kettle's true character. When the time comes for us to part it may be that her little ladyship will be still more frank, and let me know, in polite language, that seeing the last of her borrowed nephew is "good riddance of bad rubbish." Nevertheless, her extraordinary, though indescribable, cleverness has woven a kind of web about us all; and whether I am able to respect the L.C.P. or not, I was conscious of passionate gratitude to her as she arrested me with the bad fish half-way to my mouth.
The boats stopped at a private landing, small, but so remarkable that I thought for an instant the whole thing must be an optical illusion.
We had come to rest in the deep shadow of enormous trees. Leaning over the rail of a snug little harbor two dummy men in rakish hats and dark coats stared at the new arrivals with lack-luster eyes. And the dummies, and the wooden wall on which they were propped, with a strange painted motto consisting of snakes, and dogs, and sticks, and a yard measure, were all repeated with crystal-clear precision in the green mirror of quiet water.
"How annoying, just as we were going to have another delicious talk!" exclaimed Menela.
"Yes," said I. "But it can't be helped. Where are we? Is this fairyland?"
"It must be the place of Heer Dudok de Wit," answered the young lady, snappily. "He is a wonderful man, and many people say that no visit to Holland can be complete without a visit to his house. He's a great character—has walked all over the world, and brought back curiosities for his museum, to which he gives free admission. And from what I hear, there is nothing else he won't give, if asked for it—he's so generous—from a night's lodging or all his best peaches, up to a present of a thousand gulden to a distressed stranger. This can be no other house than his; and I believe Rudolph Brederode is a far-off cousin of Heer de Wit, just as Rudolph is of mine, on the other side. I don't see our host, though. Perhaps he is away on one of his walking tours."
"Or in bed," said I. "Taking a noon-day nap, to forget the heat."
"No, for one of his peculiarities is, never to go to bed. He hasn't been in bed for twenty-five years. I don't know how he sleeps—but, look! there he is now. I recognize him from photographs in newspapers."
My eyes followed her nod, which appeared to be aimed at the river. I looked for a boat, but spied a head floating among water-lilies.
It was not a loose head of some early Dutch martyr miraculously preserved—as seemed possible in a place of such surprises—for it smiled and bowed, and addressed Brederode as its dear Rudolph.
Its wet hair, glittering like silver in the water, was rather long, its eyes were like brown jewels, it had faultless features, not at all of a modern cast, but like those one sees in a seventeenth-century portrait; and its smile, even when visible only as far down as the lower lip, was charming.
The famous Mr. Dudok de Wit, bobbing nearer, explained that he had unduly prolonged his daily swimming bath, owing to the sultriness of the day. As it was, he had been in the water no more than an hour or two, but he was delighted to see us, would come out at once, and expect us to lunch with him at Breukelen, which is the name of his place.
He did come out, in a neat bathing-suit, desiring us to follow him into the house, where we might amuse ourselves until he was dressed, wandering among his treasures in the drawing-room.
The luncheon in the quaint old house, the stroll through the grounds and the hour in the museum, were among Alb's successes; but I was past grudging it to him; besides, he flaunted no triumphant airs. Why should he, when Phyllis had eyes only for her Viking, and Nell, in a newly developed appreciation of her twin cousins, had no time to remember his existence?
I did think that she might have stretched out a hand to save me from Menela, but if she had any conception of what was going on, she thought me able to take care of myself, and I should have been left to the tender mercies of the creature I had freed had it not been for the L.C.P.
During the afternoon, when we had left Breukelen and were gliding on, along the lily-burdened river toward Amsterdam, she unobtrusively made it her business to protect me from the sallies of the enemy, even engaging that enemy herself, as if she were my squire at arms. Now, if never before, she was worth her weight in gold, and as I saw her politely entangle the unwilling Menela in conversation, I vowed to buy her a present worth having when we arrived in Amsterdam.