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 a.s.sure 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 s.n.a.t.c.h Robert back from Phyllis 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.
x.x.x
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 pa.s.sion, 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.