The Chauffeur and the Chaperon Part 52

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 un.o.btrusively 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.

x.x.xI

When a man sacrifices himself for a woman, he naturally likes to have the satisfaction of knowing that he has made a success; and I felt that a melancholy pleasure would be mine should I learn that Phyllis had profited by my kindness. It would have been flattering to my self-esteem, also, though perhaps disastrous to my ribs, if Robert van Buren had thrown himself upon my bosom, thanking me for his deliverance from bondage. I had to remind myself that he could not possibly know what he owed me, or I should have been unjust enough to accuse him of ingrat.i.tude.

A heavy shower came on while we were driving in open cabs through Amsterdam, therefore the moment we arrived at the well-remembered hotel of our last visit, the various members of the band had to skurry off to their rooms and change their drenched garments. As no plan of campaign had been arranged for the rest of the day--it was then past five--we did not meet again, as a party, until dinner-time, when we all came together with the exception of Brederode, who absented himself to dine with a friend.

It was the first time that he had been away, and to my surprise I discovered that, when a Mariner has carried an Albatross about with him week after week, he actually misses the creature if he mislays it.

Somehow, we seemed to be at loose ends without Brederode. Lacking an organizer, n.o.body knew what to do; and if he had wished to enhance his value, he couldn't have chosen a better way. As if at a loss for any other subject of common interest, we fell to talking of the absent one--all save Nell, who listened in silence, not once joining in until Freule Menela capped an anecdote of Robert's in praise of his hero, by remarking----

"Of course Rudolph's brave enough; but that's no particular credit to him. All Brederodes have been brave, since the days of the Water Beggar.

But I'm afraid he's quite aware of that, and all his other perfections.

He _is_ rather conceited, and as for obstinacy----"

Then at last Nell had something to say for herself. "Doesn't it strike you," she asked with elaborate sweetness, "that a person may have self-respect and firmness without being either obstinate or conceited?"

"Well!" exclaimed Robert, in the pause which followed, "that's the first time I've ever heard you defend Rudolph, Cousin Helen."

"He has proved himself such a faithful skipper that it's my duty, as the owner of the boat, to defend the good qualities which have served us best," replied Nell, looking so brilliantly pretty, with her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, that I felt there might still be consolations in life for me, if only I could attain them.

The situation was now becoming strained on all sides. Not that it was made so by the conversation I have just set down, but by the peculiar relations of several persons in the party.

The original plan of the Robert-Menela-Twins visit was that, having arrived at Utrecht, they should be taken on by us to Rotterdam, before "Mascotte" and "Waterspin" bore us northward again to Zeeland. This roundabout way of journeying was the penalty of our beautiful day on the Vecht; because, to see the Vecht after Utrecht, we were obliged to land at Amsterdam; and as there was no nearer way of reaching Zeeland than by pa.s.sing Rotterdam, we were not going out of our way in landing the van Buren party so near home. But to go by ca.n.a.l from Amsterdam to Rotterdam would take us one long day; and as we had a pair of severed lovers among us, that long day's a.s.sociation, on a small boat, would be awkward.

The obvious thing was for Robert to invent a pretext and vanish. But Robert, no doubt, had his own reasons for wishing to stay, and besides, he had the excuse that he could not go without taking his sisters. If his sisters went, they could not well leave the friend they had brought with them; neither did it seem practicable for her to depart in their company as she had just jilted their brother, who would have to act as escort for all three. This difficulty must have presented itself to Freule Menela, for she gave no indication of a desire to leave us.

Perhaps she thought it better to endure the ills she knew than fly to others she knew not; and by way of accustoming herself to those ills, she kept unremittingly near me, when, after dinner, we a.s.sembled in "Aunt Fay's" inevitable sitting-room.

If I were a woman I should have been on the verge of hysterics, but being handicapped by manhood, I merely yearned to bash some one on the head as a relief to my feelings; and lest that some one should be Freule Menela, at last I got to my feet and announced my intention of taking a walk in the rain.

"What wouldn't I give to go with you!" exclaimed the young lady. "It's so close here, and I've had no exercise to-day. I am fond of walking in the rain."

"I will chaperon you," said the L.C.P.

"Oh, we need not trouble you, Lady MacNairne," protested Menela. "It might give you rheumatism; and girls in Holland are allowed to be very independent."

My heart sank. How could even the ever resourceful L.C.P. get round that sharp corner?

She was equal to it. "You are very considerate," she replied, "but I am old-fashioned and used to _Scotch_ ways; and in Scotland even _elderly_ persons like myself are used also to walking in the rain, otherwise we should seldom walk at all. Indeed, we rather like rain, in pleasant company."

With this, she got up briskly, and it was as a trio that we had our wet walk through the streets of Amsterdam.

The shops were still bright, however, and I stopped my two companions under their dripping umbrellas, in front of a window blazing with a display of jewelry.

"Now, what should you say was the most beautiful thing of the lot?" I asked.

"That ring," promptly answered Menela, pointing to a pigeon-blood cabuchon ruby, of heart shape, set with clear white diamonds.

It was a ring for a lover to offer to his lady.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _It was a ring for a lover to offer to his lady_]

"You are right," agreed the L.C.P. "There's nothing else in the window to touch that."

"Let's go in and buy it, then," I said. "I have a friend to whom I should like to make a little present."

"Little present!" echoed Menela. "It will cost you three thousand gulden at the least."

"That is not too costly, considering everything," said I, mysteriously.

And I was bubbling with malicious joy, as, by right of purchase, the ring became mine. "Each one of them considers it as good as hers," I said to myself. "To-morrow evening, at Rotterdam, if I am safely spared from Freule Menela, and she is gone out of my life forever, that ring may change hands; but it won't go to The Hague."

I dreamed all night that I was pursued by Robert's escaped fiancee, and dodging her, ran into the arms of Sir Alec MacNairne, who denounced me fiercely as a murderer. Nor was there much relief in awaking; for I knew that in her room, divided from me only by a friendly wall or two, Freule Menela lay planning how to trap me.

"If I am to be saved," I said to myself, "I'm afraid it won't be by my own courage or resource. I must look to my aunt. She fought for me n.o.bly all day; but there are still twelve hours of danger. With her and Menela it's a case of Greek meeting Greek. Will she be clever enough to pull me through?"

x.x.xII

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.

n.o.body 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.