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 fiancee, 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 fiancee 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 fiancee 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 fiancee 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 her _pince-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, _nothing_ could 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, I _hope_ I 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'm _so_ sorry 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, it _can't_ be you mean anything,
_do_ you?"
"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. It _can't_ be 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."
"_Did_ I say that?" I asked in surprise.
"_Didn't_ you? 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
you _have_ done 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 taken _your_
advice, Mr. Starr. I am absolutely _free_."
"How did you manage it?" I heard myself asking.
"Robert _insisted_ on 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 you _anything_ to 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.
XXX
We were called early in the morning, to take the twins and Freule
Menela--the fiancee 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 fiancee
and I should meet _en tete-a-tete_; 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 fiancee 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 fiancee.
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 was _so_ kind of
Mr. van Buren to help me."