I don't often do things that I have set my mind against doing, but when Destiny lays a hand on one's steering-gear, unexpected things happen.

My idea has always been that, when my time came to fall seriously in love, the girl would be a Dutch girl. I like and respect Dutch girls. When you want them, there they are. There's no nonsense in them—at least, as little as possible, considering that they are females. They don't fuss about their temperaments, and imagine themselves Mysteries, and Chameleons, and Anomalies, and make themselves and their lovers miserable by trying to be inscrutable. You can generally tell pretty well what they are going to do next, and if you don't want them to, you can prevent them from doing it. Also they have good nerves and good complexions, and for these reasons, and many others, make perfect wives for men with family traditions to keep up. That is why I always intended to fall seriously in love with a Dutch girl, although my mother was an Englishwoman, and her father (an English earl who thought England the only land) made an American heiress his Countess.

More than once I've come near to carrying out my intention, but the feeling I had, never seemed the right feeling, so I let the matter drop, and waited for next time.

A few days ago, I found out that there would never be a next time. I knew this when Rob van Buren spoke of the two girls who were with him at the Prinzenhof on July tenth as his "American cousin and an English friend."

I can never fall in love with a Dutch girl now, for I have done the thing I did not mean to do, and it can't be undone in this world. Once and for all, that is settled, however it may go with me where the girl is concerned. But it will go hard if I do not have her in the end, and I shall if she is to be got; for the men of my blood soon make up their minds when they want a thing, and they do not rest much until it's theirs. This peculiarity has often landed them in trouble in past times, and may land me in trouble now; but I'm ready for the risk, as they were.

I didn't know at first which was the English girl—my girl with the chestnut hair, dark hazel eyes, and rose and white complexion; or the other girl with brown hair, eyes of violet, and skin of cream. But when I encountered my girl in the sea at half-past six in the morning, unchaperoned except by a foolish runaway horse attached to a bathing-machine, I should have guessed that she was the American, even if there had been nothing in her pretty voice to suggest it.

I am sorry that it couldn't have been the other way round, for my English mother's sake, since my fate isn't to be Dutch. But it can't be helped. I have seen The One Girl, and it would be the same if she were a Red Indian.

I was going to lead up to the subject when van Buren came to speak to me at the Horse Show; but he began it, by thanking me, in the grave way he has, for coming to his cousin's rescue in the morning. I shouldn't have referred to that little business, as she might not have mentioned her adventure; but as she had told the story, it gave me a foundation to work on.

I said truly that what I had done was nothing, but hinted that I should be pleased to meet the young lady again; and thereupon expected an invitation to visit his mother's box. To my surprise, it didn't come, and Robert's face showed that there was a reason why.

"My cousin doesn't deserve that you should take an interest in her," he blurted out. "She is pretty, yes, and perhaps that is why she is so spoiled, for she is vain and capricious and flippant. I wish it were Miss Rivers who had our blood in her veins."

Queerly enough, instead of cooling me off toward the girl, Robert's criticism of her had the opposite effect. I have liked Robert since I took him under my wing during my last and his first year at Leiden. Perhaps it tickles my vanity to know that he has been boyish enough to make me into a kind of hero, little though I deserve it, and whenever I have been able to do him a good turn I have done it; but suddenly I found myself thinking him a young brute, and feeling that he deserved kicking.

"I suppose Miss Van Buren hasn't paid enough attention to your High Mightiness," said I.

"She hasn't put herself out much," said he; "but it isn't that I care about, it's her attitude toward you. Of course you couldn't help hearing what she said yesterday at the Prinzenhof about the portrait of William the Silent. Because I asked her afterwards if she didn't think it looked like you, she said not a bit; anyhow she had only been joking, and it was an ugly portrait. Then, this morning at breakfast, when I heard what happened on the beach, I told her that perhaps she would have the chance this afternoon to thank you. Instead of being pleased, she answered that she'd thanked you enough already, that you had run no risk, as what you did was nothing much, after all, and she hoped I wouldn't bring you. I tell you, Brederode, I could have boxed her ears."

I must confess that mine tingled, and for a moment I felt hurt and angry with the girl, but it was only for a moment. Then I laughed.

"Served you right for forcing me upon her," said I. "Well, it's evident she's taken a dislike to me. It must be my business to change that, for I have exactly the opposite feelings toward her. Some day I shall make her like me."

"I wonder you can think it worth while to trouble your head over my cousin, after what I've felt it right to tell you," said Robert. "I thought you ought to know, otherwise you would have considered it strange I didn't ask you to our box, as I should have been proud to do; but I was angry for your sake, and said I wouldn't bring you near her. Now, as things are, I don't see how you can meet my cousin. The van Buren blood is at its worst in her, and it has made her obstinate as a pig."

"Heavens, what a simile!" said I; yet I couldn't help laughing. "I, too, am obstinate as a pig; and being proud of my Dutch blood, I like her the better for hers, all the more because it's obstinate blood, and it wouldn't be true Dutch if it were not. I tell you, Robert, I'm going to know your cousin—not through you; I don't want that now, but in some other way, which will arrange itself sooner or later—probably sooner."

"I don't see how," Robert repeated. "I was in hopes that she and Miss Rivers, her stepsister, could have been persuaded by my mother to pay us a long visit, and give up an objectionable plan they have. But Cousin Helen—Nell, as Miss Rivers calls her—has been pig-headed even with my mother. I am sure it is not Miss Rivers's fault. She is not that kind of girl."

"Do you mind telling me the objectionable plan?" I asked.

"I shall be glad to tell," said he, "and see if you don't agree with me that it is monstrous, though, strange to say, now mother has talked with the girls, she does not seem to think it as bad as she was inclined to at first. She tells me that they are determined to persist, and she thinks they will come to no harm. My cousin has been left a motor-boat by a friend's will. You must have seen it: Captain Noble's 'Lorelei,' which used to lie near the Rowing Club. She and Miss Rivers have come to take a trip through the waterways of Holland, though my mother has learned that their financial circumstances hardly warrant such an undertaking."

"Plucky girls!" was my comment.

"Ah, but you don't know all. A young man is going with them, a strange American young man, whom they never saw till yesterday."

"By Jove! In what capacity—as chauffeur?"

"Not at all. As a sort of paying guest, so far as I can understand the arrangement."

"It sounds rather an odd one."

"I should say so; but I mustn't make you think it's worse than it is. There was a misunderstanding about the boat. The American thought he'd hired it from the caretaker, and they were sorry for his disappointment. He has an aunt, a Scotswoman of title, who is to be of the party."

"That makes all the difference, doesn't it?—not the title, but the aunt."

"It makes a difference, certainly; but the man may be an adventurer. He's an artist, it appears, named Starr——"

"What, the Starr whose Salon picture made so much talk in Paris this spring?"

"Yes; but being a good artist doesn't constitute him a good man. He might make love to the girls."

"Beast! So he might, aunt or no aunt. She'll probably aid and abet him. I don't know that I blame you for objecting to such an adventure for your cousin."

"Oh, it isn't so much for her—that is, except on principle. But I've done all I can, and my mother has done all she can, so you can imagine what my cousin's pig-headedness is like to resist us both. My mother tells me she could do nothing with her; and the girls are leaving us to-morrow. They go back to Rotterdam, where they expect to find Starr's aunt, and, they hope, a skipper for the motor-boat. Cousin Helen asked if I could recommend a suitable man; but even if I knew one, I should not make it easier for her to flout the wishes of the family."

"Naturally not," said I, with the sort of fellow-feeling for Robert which makes one wondrous kind. And I was sure that if I were Miss Van Buren's cousin, and had set myself against her doing a certain thing, she would not have done it.

"However, they are returning to Rotterdam early in the morning, and that being the case, as I was saying, I don't see how it will be possible for you to meet my cousin."

"I bet that I will meet her, and be properly introduced, too, before either of us is a week older," said I, and then was sorry I had clothed my resolve in such crude words. But it was too late to explain or apologize, for at that instant two or three men came up. The thought of what I had blurted out lay heavy on my mind afterwards, and if it had not seemed a far-fetched and even school-missish thing to do, I would have sent a line to Robert asking him to erase that clumsy and impertinent boast from his memory. If he is stupid enough or awkward enough to repeat anything of our conversation, and give Miss Van Buren the impression that I tried to make a wager concerning her, it will be all up with me, I know.

As it is, I can only hope that my words will go out at one ear as fast as they went in at the other.

Next morning I had made no definite plan of action, but thought that as Miss Van Buren was going to Rotterdam, it could do no harm for me to go to Rotterdam too, and see what would happen next. Things of some sort were bound to happen, and one way or other my chance might come before she started on her journey.

My mother is at ChÂteau Liliendaal, the place where she likes best to spend July and August when we don't run over to England; but she didn't expect me to join her for some days, and meanwhile I was free to do as I chose.

I was in hopes that I might see Miss Van Buren in the train, if I took the most popular one in the morning; but she and her stepsister were not on board, so I fancied Robert must be driving them back in the borrowed car, despite his objections to their proceedings.

I went straight to the Rowing Club, where I have several friends, and as I knew from Robert that the motor-boat was 'Lorelei' I easily found out where she was lying. The next thing was to go and have a look at her, to see if preparations were being made for an immediate start.

I had forgotten what she was like, but I found her a handsome little craft, with two cabins, and deck-room to accommodate four or five passengers; also I learned from a man employed on the quay close by that the motor was an American one of thirty horse-power. He told me as well, by way of gossip, that a rakish barge, moored with her pert brass nose almost on "Lorelei's" stern, had been hired, and would be towed by the owners of the motor-boat.

I didn't know what to make of this bit of information, as Robert had not mentioned a barge; but the skylight meant a studio, so I saw the man Starr's hand in the arrangement, and began to hate the fellow.

By the time I had loitered in the neighborhood for half an hour or more, it was noon, and it occurred to me that I might go and lunch at Miss Van Buren's hotel. But this would look like dogging the girl's footsteps, and eventually I decided upon a more subtle means of gaining my end.

Nevertheless, I strolled past the house; but, seeing nobody worth seeing, I reluctantly turned my steps farther on to a garden restaurant—a middle-class place, with tables under chestnuts and beeches or in shady arbors for parties of two or four.

It was early still, but the restaurant is popular, and all the small tables under the trees were appropriated. Fortunately, several arbors were empty, although one or two were engaged, and I walked into the first I came to.

For a few moments I was kept waiting, then a fluent waiter appeared to recommend the most desirable dishes of the day. His eloquence was in full tide, when a man paused before the entrance of my arbor, hesitated, and went on to the next.

"That is engaged, sir," called out the waiter.

"I don't understand Dutch," answered the new-comer in American-English. "Can you speak French?"

The waiter could, and did. The man—a good-looking fellow, with singularly brilliant black eyes and a fetching smile—explained that it was he who had engaged the arbor, that he was expecting a lady, and would not order luncheon until she joined him.

He sat down with his gray flannel back to me, but I could see him through the screen of leaves and lattice, and it was clear that he was nervous. He kept jumping up, going to the doorway, staring out, and returning to throw himself on the hard green bench with an impatient sigh. Evidently She was late.

An omelet arrived for me, and still my neighbor was alone; but I had scarcely taken up my fork when a light, tripping step sounded crisply on the crushed sea-shells of the path outside. A shadow darkened the doorway, and for an instant a pocket-edition of a woman, in a neat but well-worn tailor-made dress, hung on my threshold. Rather like a trim gray sparrow she was, expecting a crumb, then changing her mind and hopping further on to find it.

But the change of mind came only with the springing up of the young man in the adjoining arbor.

"Aunt Fay, is that you?" he inquired, in an anxious voice, speaking the name with marked emphasis.

"Oh!" chirped the gray sparrow, flitting to the next doorway, "I must have counted wrong. I saw a young man alone, and—Then you are my nephew—Ronald."

She also threw stress upon the name and the relationship, and, though I knew nothing of the face that lurked behind a tissue veil, I became aware that the lady was an American.

"Funny thing," I said to myself. "They don't seem to have met before. She must be a long-lost aunt."

My neighbor would have ushered his relative into the arbor, but she lingered outside.

"Come, Tibe," she cried, with a shrill change of tone. "Here, Tibe, Tibe, Tibe!"

There was a sudden stir in the garden, a pulling of chairs closer to small tables, a jumping about of waiters, a few stifled shrieks in feminine voices, and a powerful tan-colored bulldog, with a peculiarly concentrated and earnest expression on his countenance, bounded through the crowd toward his mistress, with a fine disregard of obstacles. Evidently, if there was any dodging to be done, he had been brought up to expect others to do it; and I thought the chances were that he would seldom be disappointed.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Nephew Ronald, as the monster cannoned against him. "You didn't mention This."

"No; I knew you were sure to love him. I wouldn't have anything to do with a creature who didn't. Isn't he exquisite?"

"He's a dream," said the young man; but he did not specify what kind of dream.

"Where I go, there Tibe goes also," went on the lady. "His name is Tiberius, but it's rather long to say when he's doing something that you want him to stop. He'll lunch with us like a perfect gentleman. Oh, he is more flower than dog! Tibe, come away from that door instantly!"

The flower had paused to see whether he approved of my lunch, and from the way he turned back a protruding black drapery of underlip from a pair of upstanding ivory tusks, I judged that neither it nor I found favor in his eyes. Perhaps he resented laughter in mine; yet there was something after all in the flower simile, if not precisely what the blossom's adoring mistress meant. Tibe's face distinctly resembled a pansy, but an appalling pansy, the sort of pansy you would not like to meet in the dark.

Whatever may have been his opinion of me, he had to be dragged by the collar from my door, and later I caught the glitter of his gaze through the lattice.

Aunt Fay slipped in between bench and table, sitting down opposite to me, and when the nephew took his old place I had glimpses of her over his shoulder.

She was unfastening her veil. Now it had fallen. Alas for any hopes which the trim, youthful figure might have raised! Her thick gray hair was plastered down over temples, cheeks, and ears, and a pair of uncommonly large blue spectacles left her eyes to the imagination.

"I began to be afraid there might have been some mistake in the telegram I sent, after I got your letter saying I mustn't come to your address," began Nephew Ronald, hastily, after a moment of silence that followed the dropping of the veil. "What I said was, 'Buiten Oord, third arbor on the left as you come in by main entrance, lunch quarter past twelve. Any cabman will know the place.' Was the message all right?"

"Yes," replied Aunt Fay; "but I suffer a little with my eyes. That's why I stopped when I came to the next arbor. I'm late, because darling Tibe ran away just as I was hailing a cab, so I had to let that one go, and rescue him from the crowd. Wherever he goes he has a throng round him. People admire him so much. Down, my angel! You mustn't put your feet on strange gentlemen's tables, when you're invited to lunch. He's hungry, poor lamb."

"I hope you are also," said Nephew, politely; but his voice was heavy. I wondered if he were disappointed in Aunt, or if it was only that the Pansy had got on his nerves. "Here's my waiter. We'll have something to eat, and talk things over as we lunch. There's a tremendous menu for a table d'hÔte meal—thoroughly Dutch. No other people could get through it and live. Probably you would prefer——"

"Let me see. Potage d'Artois; Caneton de Luxembourg; Soles aux fines herbes; Pommes Natures; Fricandeau de Veau; Haricots Princesse; Poulet roti; Compote; Homard frais; Sauce Ravigottes; Salad melÉ; CrÊme au chocolat; Fromage; Fruit. Humph, funnily arranged, isn't it? But Tibe and I have been living in furnished lodgings, and we—er—have eaten rather irregularly. I dare say between us we might manage the lunch as it is."

Nephew Ronald ordered it, and another silence fell. I think that he drummed on the table.

"We might as well get to business," suggested the lady. "Does the aunt engagement begin immediately?"

"I—er—there's one difficulty," faltered the young man. "Unfortunately I injudiciously let drop that my aunt was a fine woman."

"Really! You might better have waited till you made her acquaintance. You can't pick and choose in a hurry, when you must have a ready-made aunt, my dear sir. Myself, I prefer small women. They are more feminine."

"Please don't be angry. You see, it was like this. I said that, when I still hoped to have a real aunt on hand for my purpose. That was the way the scrape began. I inadvertently let out her name and a lot of things——"

"To the young ladies I'm to chaperon?"

"Yes, to the young ladies. If they remember the description——"

"You can say you referred to your aunt's character when you remarked that she was a fine woman."

"I suppose so" (still doubtfully). "But then there's another trouble, you know. I advertised in Het Nieus van den Dag for a Scotch aunt."

I moved suddenly, for a queer thought jumped into my head. The blue spectacles were focused on me, and there was a low murmur, to which the man responded in his usual tone. "No danger. Dutch. I heard him talking to the waiter."

Now, perhaps I should have called through the lattice and the leaves: "Combination of Dutch and English. Half and half. As much at home in one language as the other." But for several reasons I was silent. One was, that it was easier to be silent than to make a fuss. Another was that, if the suspicion which had just sprung into my head had any foundation, it was mine or any man's duty to know the truth and act upon it. So I sat still, and went on with my luncheon as my next door neighbors went on with theirs; and no one remembered my existence except Tibe.

"I've no moral objection to being a Scotch aunt," said the obliging lady.

"It's your accent, not your morals, that sticks in my throat."

"The latter, I trust were sufficiently vouched for in the letter from our American Consul here. You can call on him if you choose. Few ready-made aunts obtained by advertisement would have what I have to recommend me. As for a Scotch accent, I've bought Burns, and a Crockett in Tauchnitz, and by to-morrow I'll engage that no one—unless a Scotsman—would know me from a Scotswoman. Hoot, awa', mon. Come ben."

"But—er—my aunt's rather by way of being a swell. She wouldn't be found dead saying 'hoot, awa', 'or 'come ben.' There's just a little indescribable burr-r——"

"Then I will have just a little indescribable burr-r. And you can buy me a Tartan blouse and a Tam."

"I'm afraid a Tam wouldn't—wouldn't quite suit your style, or—or that of any well-regulated aunt; and a well-regulated aunt is absolutely essential to the situation. I——"

"Do you mean to insinuate that I am not a well-regulated aunt?" There was a rustling in the arbor. "Come, Tibe," the lady added in a firm voice, "you and I will go away and leave this gentlemen to select from all the other charming and eligible aunts who have no doubt answered his quite conventional and much-to-be-desired advertisement."

"For heaven's sake, don't go!" cried the man, springing to his feet. "There, your dog's got the duck. But it doesn't matter. Nobody else worth speaking of—nobody in any way possible—has answered my advertisement. I can't lose you. But, you see, I somehow fancied from your letter that you were large and imposing, just what I wanted; and you said you'd lately been in Scotland——"

"The accent was one of the few things I did not wish to bring away with me," sniffed the lady. "Under the table, Tibe; we're not going, after all, for the moment. And as you have the duck, you may as well eat it."

"Good dog," groaned the stricken young man. If he had not, to the best of my belief, been engaged in concocting a treacherous plot against one whom I intended to protect, I could have pitied him.

Both sat down again. There was a pause while plates were changed, and then the female plotter took up the running.

"I may be conceited," said she, "but my opinion is that you're very lucky to get me. I may not be Scotch, and I may not be a 'swell,' but I am—a lady."

"Oh—of course."

"What were the others like who answered your advertisement?"

"All Dutch, and spoke broken English, except one, who was German. She wore a reform dress, hunched up behind with unspeakable elastic things. You'd make allowances if you knew what I've gone through since the day before yesterday, when I found, after telegraphing a frantic appeal to my aunt in Scotland, that she's left home and they could give me no address. I've had an awful time. My nerves are shattered."

"Then you'd better secure peace by securing me. An aunt in the hand is worth two in the bush."

"A good aunt needs no bush. I mean—oh, I don't know what I mean; but, of course, I ask nothing better than to secure you."

"No; you mean you think you'll get nothing better. Ha, ha! I agree with you. But Tibe and I didn't come here to be played with. You're giving us a very good lunch, but I have his future and mine to think of. I admit, I'm in want of an engagement as a traveling companion to ladies in Holland; but you aren't the only person to whom it occurs to put ads in Dutch papers. If you'd searched the columns of Het Nieus van den Dag you might have seen mine. I have not been without answers, and I don't know that I should care to be an aunt, anyway. It makes one seem so old. What I came to say was that, unless you can offer me an immediate engagement——"

"Oh, I can and do. I beg of you to be my aunt from this moment."

"Tibe to travel with me and have every comfort?"

"Yes, yes, and luxury."

"A pint of warm milk every morning, half a pound of best beef or chicken with vegetables at noon, two new-laid eggs at——"

"Certainly. He has but to choose—he seems to know his own mind pretty well."

"I don't think it a subject for joking. That duck was close to the edge of the table. We'd better talk business. Your letter said a hundred gulden a week to a suitable aunt, and a two months' engagement certain. Well, it's not enough. I should want at least three hundred dollars extra, down in advance (I can't do it in gulden in my head) for your sake."

"For my sake?"

"Don't you see, to do you credit as a relative, I must have things, nice things, plenty of nice things? Tartan blouses, and if not Tams, cairngorms. Yes, a cairngorm brooch would be realistic. I saw a beauty yesterday—only two hundred gulden. No aunt of yours can go for a trip on the waterways of Holland unless she's well fitted out."

"I've been admiring the dress you are wearing. It's wonderfully trim."

"Thanks. But it happens to be about a hundred years old, and is the only one I have left. As for my hat, and boots—but Tibe and I have suffered some undeserved vicissitudes of late."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Of course you must have three hundred dollars to begin with."

"By the way, am I Mrs. or Miss?"

"You must know best as to——"

"I mean me in the part of your aunt."

"Oh, you're neither Miss nor Mrs."

"Really!"

"I mean, you're married, but you have a title."

"That will come more expensive. A person of title should have a diamond guard for her wedding-ring. You feel that, don't you?"

"Now you speak of it, I do."

"Would you like her to wear a cap for indoors?"

"Sounds as if she were a parlormaid——"

"Not at all. I'm sure a proper Scotch aunt would wear a cap."

"Mine's a proper Scotch aunt, and she doesn't. She's about forty, but she looks twenty-five. Nobody would believe she was anybody's aunt."

"But you want everybody to believe I'm yours?"

"Oh, have a cap by all means."

"It should be real lace."

"Buy it."

"And another to change with."

"Buy that too. Get a dozen if you like."

"Thanks, I will. I believe you just said the engagement dates from to-day?"

"Rather. I was going to tell you, I must have an aunt by this evening. She arrives from Scotland, you know."

"With her dog. That's easy."

"I hope the girls like dogs."

"They do if they're nice girls."

"They're enchanting girls, one English, one American. I adore both: that's why I'm a desperate man where an aunt's concerned. To produce an aunt is my one hope of enjoying their society on the motor-boat trip I wrote you about. I wouldn't do this thing if I weren't desperate, and even desperate as I am, I wouldn't do it if I couldn't have got an all-right kind of aunt, an aunt that—that——"

"That an unimpeachable American Consul could vouch for. I assure you, Nephew, you ought to think of a woman like me as of—of a ram caught in the bushes."

"I'm willing to think of you in that way, if it's not offensive. The Consul didn't go into particulars——"

"That was unnecessary."

"Perhaps. Everything's settled, then. I'll count you out five hundred dollars in gulden. Buy what you choose—so long as it's aunt-like. I'll meet your train at—we'll say seven, the Beurs Station."

"I understand. I'll be there with Tibe and our luggage. But you haven't told me your name yet. I signed my letter to you, Mary Milton. You cautiously——"

"Ronald L. Starr is your nephew's name. Lady MacNairne is my aunt's."

I came very near choking myself with a cherry-stone. Long before this I'd been sure of his name, but I hadn't expected to hear Lady MacNairne's.

"Forty, and looks twenty-five."

Yes, that was a fair description of Lady MacNairne, as far as it went; but much more might be said by her admirers, of whom I openly declared myself one, before a good-sized audience at a country house in Scotland, not quite a year ago.

It was merely a little flirtation, to pass the time, on both our parts. A woman of forty who is a beauty and a flirt has no time to waste, and Lady MacNairne is not wasteful. She was the handsomest woman at Kinloch Towers, my cousin Dave Norman's place, and a Dutchman was a novelty to her; so we amused ourselves for ten days, and I should have kept the pleasantest memory of the episode if Sir Alec had not taken it into his head to be jealous.

Poor Fleda MacNairne was whisked away before the breaking-up of the house-party, and that is the last I have seen of her, but not the last I've heard. Once in a while I get a letter, amusing, erratic, like herself; and in such communications she doesn't scruple to chronicle other flirtations which have followed hard on mine. Only a short time before the making of this plot in a Rotterdam garden, a letter from her gave startling news: consequently I am now in possession of knowledge apparently denied to the nephew.

A few minutes more and the pair in the next arbor separated, the woman departing to purchase the fittings of aunthood, the man remaining to pay the bill. But before he had time to beckon the waiter I got up and walked into his lair.

"Mr. Starr," I said, "I'm going to stop your game."

"The devil you are! And who are you?" answered he, first staring, then flushing.

"My name's Rudolph Brederode," said I.

"You're a d—d eavesdropper," said he.

"You are the same kind of a fool, for thinking because your neighbor spoke Dutch he couldn't know English. I sat still and let you go on, because I don't mean to allow any of the persons concerned to be imposed upon by you."

He glared at me across the table as if he could have killed me, and I glared back at him; yet all the while I was conscious of a sneaking kindness for the fellow, he looked so stricken—rather like an endearing scamp of an Eton boy who has got into a horrid scrape, and is being hauled over the coals by the Head.

"What business is it of yours?" he wanted to know.

"Lady MacNairne's a friend of mine."

"Indeed! But what of that? She's my aunt."

"And Robert van Buren is another friend, an intimate one. He has told me about his cousin's motor-boat. He doesn't approve of the tour, as it is. When he hears from me——"

"Oh, hang it all, why do you want to be such a spoilsport?" demanded the poor wretch in torture. "Did you never fall in love with a girl, and feel you'd do anything to get her?"

This sudden change, this throwing himself upon my mercy, took me somewhat aback. In threatening to tear the mote from his eye, what about a certain obstruction in mine?

He was quick to see his advantage and follow it up.

"You say you heard everything. Then you must see why I thought of this plan. I hoped at first Aunt Fleda might be prevailed on to come. When I lost that hope I just couldn't give up the trip. I had to get an aunt to chaperon those blessed girls, or it was good-by to them, for me. What harm am I doing? The woman's respectable; the Consul has written me a letter about her. If you know Aunt Fay—that's my name for her—you know she would call this the best kind of a lark. I'll confess to her some day. I'd have my head cut off sooner than injure Miss Rivers or Miss Van Buren. Afterwards, when we've got to be great friends, they shall hear the whole story, I promise; but of course, you can ruin me if you tell them, or let your friend tell them, at this stage. Do you think it's fair to take advantage of what you overheard by accident, and spoil the chance of my life? Oh, say now, what can I do to make you keep still?"

"Well, I'm—hanged!" was all I could answer. And a good deal to my own surprise, I heard myself suddenly burst into sardonic laughter.

Then he laughed, too, and we roared together. If any one noticed us, they must have thought us friends of a lifetime; yet five minutes ago we had been like dogs ready to fly at each other's throats, and there was no earthly reason why we should not be of the same mind still.

"You are going to let me alone, aren't you?" he continued to plead, when he was calmer. "You are going to do unto me as you'd be done by, and give my true love a chance to run smooth? If you refuse, I could wish that fearful Flower back that I might set him at you."

My lips twitched. "I'm not sure," said I, "whether you ought to be in a gaol or in the school-room."

"I ought to be on a motor-boat tour with the two most charming girls in the world; and if I'm not to be there, I might as well be in my grave. Do ask people about me. Ask my aunt. I'm not a villain. I'm one of the nicest fellows you ever met, and I've no bad intentions. I've got too much money to be an adventurer. Why, look here! I'm supposed to be quite a good match. Either of the girls can have me and my millions. Both are at the feet of either. At present I've no choice. Don't drive me to drink. I should hate to die of Schnapps; and there's nothing else liquid I could well die of in Holland."

As he talked, I had been thinking hard and fast. I should have to spare him. I saw that. But—I saw something else too.

"I'll keep your ridiculous secret, Mr. Starr, on one condition," I said.

"You've only to name it."

"Invite me to go with you on the trip."

"My dear fellow, for heaven's sake don't ask me the one thing I can't do. It's cruelty to animals. It isn't my trip. I'm a guest. Perhaps you don't understand——"

"Yes, I do. Van Buren told me. He mentioned that you hadn't been able to get a skipper to take the motor-boat through the canals."

"That's true. But we shan't be delayed. We have our choice between two chaps with fair references; not ideal men, perhaps; but you don't need an admiral to get you through a herring-pond——"

"Each canal is different from every other. You must have a first-rate man, who knows every inch of the way, whatever route you choose, or you'll get into serious trouble. Now, as you've been praising yourself, I'll follow your example. You couldn't find a skipper who knows more about 'botoring' and Dutch waterways than I do, and I volunteer for the job. I go if you go; there's the offer."

"Are you serious?" All his nonsense was suddenly forgotten.

"Absolutely."

"Why do you want to go? You must have a reason."

"I have. It's much the same as yours."

"I'm blowed! Then you've met—Them."

"I've seen them. Apparently that's about all you've done."

"You mean, if I won't get you on board as skipper you'll give me away?"

I was silent. I did not now mean anything of the kind, for it would be impossible to betray the engaging wretch. But I was willing that he should think my silence gave consent.

"They would know you weren't a common hired skipper. How could I explain you?"

"Why, say you've a Dutch friend who has—kindly offered to go, as you can't find any one else who's competent for the job. You'd better not mention your friend's name at first, if you can avoid it. As the ladies have been anxious about the skipper, and asked van Buren to get one, they'll probably be thankful it's all right, and only too glad to accept a friend of yours in the place."

"Poor, deceived angels! What's to prevent your snatching one of them from under my very nose?"

"You must run the risk of that. Besides, you needn't worry about it till you make up your mind which angel you want."

"I should naturally want whichever one you did. We are made like that."

"If you don't agree, and they go 'botoring' without you, you can't get either."

"That's true. Most disagreeable things are. And there's just a chance, if you get dangerous, that Tibe might polish you off. I saw the way he looked at you. Well, needs must when somebody drives. It's a bargain then. I'll tell the girls what a kind, generous Dutch friend I have. We'll be villains together."

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