I knew I looked haggard, and hoped I looked interesting, when I appeared in the big hall of the hotel after breakfast in the morning, ten minutes before the time at which we were to start for Rotterdam.

There were the twins, talking to Nell. There was Brederode, studying a map of the waterways; there was the L.C.P. teaching Tibe a trick which for days he had been mildly declining to learn; there were Phyllis and the Viking wrapt in each other in the seclusion of a corner. But where was Freule Menela?

I asked the question aloud, and self-consciously.

"She's gone," announced the lady who is not my aunt.

"Gone?" I echoed.

"Yes, home to The Hague. She had a telegram, and was obliged to leave at once, by the first train, instead of waiting to travel slowly with us."

"Oh!" said I; adding, hypocritically, "What a pity!"

The small and rather pretty mouth of the L.C.P. arched upward, so I suppose she smiled.

"Yes, isn't it?" said she.

Nobody else spoke, but I felt that the silence of Robert and the twins was more eloquent than words.

When I had overcome the first giddy rapture of returning life, and was sure that I was steady on my feet, I dared to dally with the subject. I asked if bad news had come for Freule Menela, expressed devout relief that it had not, and piped regret at being deprived of a farewell.

"She left a message," explained the L.C.P. "I saw her off—as was my duty, since she did not care to disturb dear Nell, so early in the morning. You see, I alone was in her confidence. I knew, last night, after you had all gone to bed, that the telegram might come, and I promised if it did, to go with her to the station. Remind me to give you the message—when we've started."

As she said this, I felt instinctively that I should have seen deep meaning in her eyes, were they not hidden by their blue glasses; and curiosity to know the worst battled with reluctance to hear it. Perhaps it was well that at this moment Alb gathered us for a start, and that there was no chance for private conversation in the carriage, which took Nell, one of the twins, and the Chaperon with me to the Rowing and Yachting Club, where "Mascotte" and "Waterspin" awaited us. This respite gave me time to get on my armor, and fasten up several, if not all the buckles—some of which I realized were lamentably weak.

On board, there was the usual business of putting our belongings to rights after an absence on shore; and when I came on to "Mascotte" from "Waterspin," already Amsterdam—with its smoke cloud and widespreading mass of buildings, like gray bubbles against the clear sky—was sinking out of sight. We were teuf-teufing comfortably along a modest canal, leading us southward, and Alb was explaining to the L.C.P. and the van Buren girls that, to reach Rotterdam by the shortest way, he meant to avoid the places we had seen: Aalsmeer, with its menagerie of little tree-animals, and the great Haarlemmer-meer Polder. Suddenly, as the motor's speed increased, after taking me on, Phyllis left Robert and Nell, to come to my side. A look from her beautiful eyes warned me that something interesting was due, and by one accord, we moved as far as possible from our friends.

"Best of brothers," she whispered; "I've been dying to thank you. At last my chance has come. You are wonderful! You said you would, you know, and that I was to trust you; but I never thought you could. How did you do it?"

"With my little hatchet," I answered dreamily.

Her eyes opened wide. "Your—what?"

"It needed a sharp instrument," said I. "But how did you know it was mine?"

"You were with her so much, and had so many private talks. I felt you had a plan. But I could only hope, not expect. Do tell me everything."

"Suppose you tell me everything," I bargained. "We may be playing at cross purposes. What has happened to you?"

"I'm engaged," said Phyllis. "Isn't it glorious?"

"I don't know that I should go so far as to say that," I replied, wondering why my heart was not aching harder.

"Perhaps, then, you've never been in love?" she suggested.

"Oh, haven't I? I've been in nothing else lately—except hot water."

"You do say such odd things. But I bless you, if I can't understand you. You've made me so happy."

"You didn't tell me you were in love with Robert."

"Of course not—then. It would have been too bold, even to tell myself, when—he was engaged to some one else. But pity's akin to love, isn't it? And there was no harm in pitying him because he was bound to a—a creature, who could never deserve his love."

"Even if he hadn't given it to you."

"That was fate, wasn't it? But if it hadn't been for my clever brother, we could never have belonged to each other."

"Some men are born brothers, some achieve brotherhood, others have it thrust upon them," I muttered. "You and he had better take advantage of the lull to be married," I said aloud.

"The lull?"

"In Freule Menela. She'll be hailing and thundering and lightning soon."

"Oh, do you think she'll try to get Robert back again?" gasped Phyllis.

"Unless another and riper fruit drops into her mouth."

"As if it would! You frighten me. Robert did beg last night that I'd marry him almost at once, and not go back to England—unless—on our honeymoon. I told him I wouldn't think of such a thing. But—perhaps—oh, we couldn't lose each other now. I do believe we were made for one another."

"I begin to believe so, too," said I.

And as that belief increased, so decreased the pain of my loss. Phyllis still is, and ever will be, a Burne-Jones Angel; and when, with her sleeves rolled up, she makes cake in the six-foot-by-six kitchen of "Waterspin," among the blue china and brasses, she is enough to melt the heart of Diogenes. Nevertheless, I cannot break mine at losing a girl who was born for a Robert van Buren. After all, Nell is more bewilderingly beautiful, and has twice Phyllis's magnetism. She has too fine a sense of humor to fall in love with a man's inches and muscles. That one speech of Phyllis's taught me resignation, and showed me in a flash that, despite her charms, she is somewhat early Victorian.

I glanced toward Nell, on whose brilliant face indifference to her good-looking cousin was expressed, as she stood talking to him—probably about himself—and wondered how, for a little while, my worship could have strayed from her to Phyllis. A girl born for Robert van Buren!—A sense of calm, beatific brotherliness stole through my veins. Nell had never been so lovely or so lovable, and I resolved to find out from my sister if she still thought there might be hope for me in that direction.

"I shouldn't keep Robert waiting," I went on, without a pang. "There's no telling what Freule Menela mightn't do. She's clever—as well as spiteful."

"And poor Robert is so honorable," sighed Phyllis. "If he'd known that you were working to—to free him, he might have felt it was a plot, and have refused to accept his release. You don't think I ought to tell him, do you?"

"Certainly not," said I. "That's our secret."

"How good you are! Well, I'll take your advice. Yet it does seem so strange—to be married, and live in Holland, when I never thought that anything could be really nice out of England. But Robert seems to me exactly like an Englishman: that's why I love him so dreadfully."

"And I suppose you seem to him exactly like a Dutch girl: and that's why he loves you so dreadfully," was the answer in my mind; but I kept it there. It might have dashed Phyllis's happiness to realize this truth.

"If I let Robert make arrangements for our marriage almost at once, Freule Menela couldn't get him back, could she, for he would be more bound to me than he ever was to her," said my sister.

"In that line alone lies safety," I replied. "Have you told Miss Van Buren—your stepsister, I mean?"

"Oh yes, as soon as it happened, of course. Nell and I never have secrets from each other—at least, we haven't till lately. I thought she would have guessed, but do you know, she didn't? She fancied, from things I'd said, that I was making up my mind to—that is, to try and learn to care for another person. She disapproved of my doing that, it seems, which is the reason she's been so odd. Not that she didn't consider us suited to each other—the other one and I—but she thought, with all his faults, he was so much of a man that it wasn't fair for a girl to accept his love if she had to try and learn to care for him simply because he happened to be there. I see now, in the light of this new happiness, that she was quite right. But I didn't dream then, that the one man I could really care for, could ever be more to me than a dear friend. And a girl feels so humiliated to be thinking of a man who's engaged to some one else. She gets the idea that the best thing would be to occupy her mind with another man, if there's anybody who likes her very much. And Lady MacNairne has always been hinting this last fortnight—but, oh no, I'm not thinking what I'm saying! Even though you are my brother, I've no right to tell you that."

"Sister, I insist that you shall tell me," I said, with all my native fierceness. And Phyllis is not a girl to rebel, if a male person commands.

"Well, then—but she is perhaps mistaken. I hope now that she is."

"In thinking what?"

"That—that Jonkheer Brederode cares more for me than for Nell."

"I wonder," said I.

"Oh course," went on Phyllis modestly, "Nell's a hundred times prettier and more interesting than I am (though, thank goodness, Robert doesn't think so), but she snubbed the Jonkheer so dreadfully at first, and then, after she'd changed and been nice to him for a day or two, she got worse than ever. At least, she hardly ever speaks to him at all. She just keeps out of his way, and leaves him to—others. So his self-respect may have been hurt (I can't say vanity as I might with some men, because Jonkheer Brederode isn't a bit vain, though he has a right to be) and he may have turned his thoughts toward one who sympathized with him. Several little things lately have looked as if it were so; but I do pray it's not, now that I'm so happy. It would be too hard if he were to bear a double disappointment, after the trouble he has taken, and the sacrifices he has made—leaving his beautiful home and all its luxuries, and the friends who appreciate him as a splendid fellow and a grand sportsman, to be skipper week after week on this little boat."

"You forget that he has had the privilege of my society," I reminded her.

"Oh yes, I know you must be great chums, or he wouldn't have come. But Robert says——"

"What does Robert say?"

"Nothing. Only that he and Jonkheer Brederode have known each other so long, he thinks it odd never to have heard him mention your name as his friend."

"Alb is singularly reserved," I remarked.

"So I said to Robert, and he admitted it. But it was rather a coincidence that he wanted to know us, wasn't it? However, I suppose your friendship must have made up to him for everything he's suffered. I did dread his learning about Robert and me, for fear it might hurt him, and Robert did too, a little; for Robert is so adorably foolish, he thinks every one must care for me. But he told him this morning."

"What did Alb say?" I asked.

"He congratulated Robert as sweetly as possible; but Robert said his face changed when he heard the news. I didn't dare to look up when the Jonkheer came and made me nice wishes, for fear he might be looking sad; and there was a heavy sound in his voice, I thought. Oh dear, life's very complicated, isn't it?"

"Yes," I admitted. "Even in Holland."

Perhaps these women are right. Perhaps Alb's heart has been caught in the rebound; but, lest it hasn't, and he undertakes to cut me out with Nell, it is necessary that I lose no time in using my best wiles with her.

While Phyllis was hanging in the balance, she was as desirable as a rosy apple just out of reach; but now that she is smugly satisfied to be in the hands of another her ethereal charm is fled.

"I must congratulate van Buren," I said, "or he will believe I'm jealous."

So I shook hands with the Viking, having blessed the pair, and was in the act of annexing Nell when the alleged Lady MacNairne found it convenient to give me Freule Menela's message.

"You wanted to hear it, didn't you?" she asked, when Nell had drifted away to the twins, whose society, though not enlivening, she apparently preferred to poor Alb's.

"I've waited so long, that I could have waited a little longer," I said, following the copper-gold head with wistful eyes.

"This is your gratitude!" exclaimed the L.C.P. "You don't seem to realize that I've saved you."

I looked at her, only to be baffled as usual by the blue barrier of glass.

"You don't deserve all the trouble I've taken," she went on. "Or that I should tell you anything about it. Come, Tibe, let's go below. Darling doggie, you've spoiled me for everybody else. You are always appreciative. Nobody else is."

"You think that, because he happens to have a tail to wag, and others haven't," said I. "I consider myself as good as Tibe, any day, though handicapped in some ways. I'll soon show you that I'm not ungrateful, when you've let me know exactly what cause I have for gratitude. Have you murdered the late fiancÉe, and thrown her out of your hotel window into the canal?"

"I've got rid of her just as effectively," returned the L.C.P. "I went and talked to her in her room last night, when she was undressing. Ugh! but she was plain in her wrapper. It was a pink flannellet one. Imagine it, with her skin."

"I'd rather not," said I.

"If it weren't for me, probably you'd often have had to see her in it. Well, I made an excuse that she'd looked tired, and complained of the noise under her windows preventing her sleeping. I offered her some trional, and then—I just lingered. She thought it wise to be nice to—your aunt, and I turned the conversation to you. She said you were charming. I said you would be, if you hadn't such a terrible temper. I said you were almost mad with it sometimes, when you were a little boy. Yes, I did, really—you ought to thank me. I dare say you were a horrid little boy. But she didn't seem to mind that much. She told me that she got along splendidly with bad-tempered people: they were always nice to her. That discouraged me a tiny bit, but I hadn't played any really high trumps yet. I went on to say you were very delicate, but she seemed quite pleased at that, although, if she only knew it, she'd be hideous in black. She said she thought delicate men were the most interesting, so that drove me to desperation, and after I'd praised you a little, just enough to be realistic for an aunt, I said what a shame it was about that will of your father's. She pricked up her ears then, and wanted to know what I meant. 'Hasn't he told you?' I asked. And I was shocked to hear you hadn't, because, I said, it would be more honest to let people know how one stood, the position being so peculiar. Your father had left every red cent away from you, I said, in case you married a foreigner; and it was such a blow that she didn't even notice that I'd committed an Americanism. She couldn't speak for a whole minute, and then she asked if you hadn't tried to dispute the will. That would have been no use, said I. It wasn't the kind you could dispute. You often fell in love with girls, not Americans, but you were bound to marry a compatriot in the end, unless you could find a foreigner with enough money to support you. Even after all that she held on to you by the ragged edge. Couldn't you make a lot of money, she asked, with your pictures, which are so famous? They weren't popular, I said, and though the critics always praise them, you could hardly ever sell. 'Besides,' said I, 'he's so lazy, he doesn't paint a decent-sized picture once in three years.'"

"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What a character you gave me. It's a wonder she didn't rush to Robert van Buren's door, and cry to him that she'd reconsidered."

"I saved him, too, for Phyllis's sake. It was too late for her to go to him at that hour, or even send a note, as I saw by her eye she thought of doing. I stayed with her till after twelve, on purpose. And the last thing I said was, that I thought her decision not to accept Mr. van Buren so wise, as such an intelligent woman as she might marry any one. It showed, said I, how undeserving he was, that the minute she took herself from him, he asked another girl to be his wife. 'Has he?' she almost screamed. 'Yes,' said I. 'Didn't you know? He is now engaged to Miss Rivers, with the approval of his sisters, and a telegram has been sent to his mother, telling her all.'"

This was news worth hearing, and I forgave the L.C.P. the inopportuneness of her interruption with Nell.

"Who told you about van Buren's engagement to Phyllis?" I asked.

"No one. But I thought they ought to be engaged, if they weren't, and knew they never would be if Menela weren't got rid of.

"But about the telegram to Mrs. van Buren——"

"The minute I went to my room, I sent for a waiter, and wrote one, without signing it. I hoped she'd think it came from her son, and that, in his excitement, he'd forgotten to put his name."

"She'll be furious," said I. "Freule Menela told me—and probably it's true—that her future mother-in-law had done everything she could to bring about the match."

"Perhaps. But she's tremendously proud of Robert, so the twins say. Once she knows that Menela deliberately threw him over, she'd never want him to have anything to do with the girl again. And Phyllis Rivers isn't penniless, you know. You've paid a generous half of the expenses of this trip, for which, it seems, some money she'd had left to her was to be used. She's kept most of that; and she has about a hundred and fifty pounds sterling a year besides. She'll have enough for pocket-money, when she and Robert are married; and she comes of very good people: her great-great-grandfather was a viscount, or baron, or something. That will appeal to old lady van Buren, when she finds it out."

"And if Nell should happen to marry a rich man, he would be charmed to do something for the sweet little stepsister," I added.

The L.C.P. turned on me shrewdly. "You seem to be very sure of that. I suppose you judge him by yourself. You think Nell's husband may be a rich American?"

"I hope so," said I. "And a generous one. But talking of generosity—I promised to prove to you that I am no less grateful than Tibe, though I may not have as effective ways of showing it. Strange little stage-aunt of mine, I do thank you for saving me. I do realize that, if it weren't for you, Freule van der Windt at all events, would have secured a rich American husband, no matter what Miss Van Buren's luck may be. I do realize that, but for your fibs and fancies, I should have been a lost man, for certainly I should not have been equal to saving myself from that woman. By this one night's work alone, if by nothing else, you've more than earned your aunt-salary and extras. That ring you helped me choose last night——"

"Don't go on," she cut me short. "Didn't I tell you the other day when you were offering me a bribe, that I didn't want anything, and wouldn't have it—not a diamond ring, a pearl ring—nor even a ruby ring. I know you think me a mercenary little wretch, and that you've put up with me all this time only because you couldn't do without me; while as for you, of course you're only an episode in my life. Still, I'd like you to understand that I haven't done this thing for what I could get out of it. I've done it—for you. Please remember that, when you're counting up how much I've cost you on this trip. Count what I've saved you, too."

"By Jove, I'm not likely to forget that!" said I. "If the thing had ended by my being the fiancÉ—it doesn't bear dwelling on. But I want you to have the ring. I saw, all yesterday afternoon and evening, what you were up to on my behalf, and I bought the ring on purpose to give to you, if you pulled me through, as I half thought you would."

"It was born and bred for an engagement ring," she said. "Give it to—the girl you're going to marry."

"I haven't asked her yet."

"You mean to, I suppose."

"I suppose so. But she may not accept me. Do you think she will?"

"If I have an opinion, I'm not going to tell you. Only—keep your ring."

So I had to keep it. And all day, while again we passed flowery Boskoop (not so flowery now) quaint Gouda, and the other little towns which carried me back in mind to the beginning of our trip, I wondered and puzzled over the change in that lady of mystery, the L.C.P.