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"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.
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.
I blushed consciously. "Oh, must you?" I asked. "Somehow, I've an idea he'll think it stupid of me to have mentioned it. Besides, maybe it wasn't your friend. Perhaps it was some one who looked like him. The er dress was so different, and I had hardly seen Mr. Brederode " "Jonkheer Brederode," corrected Freule Menela, softly. I broke out laughing. "Jonkheer!
If our trip could be improved it would be by having Mr. van Buren with us; but naturally that's impossible, as he's a man of affairs, and Freule Menela van der Windt would hardly sympathize with his kind wish to take care of his cousin, if he carried it so far as to leave her for any length of time, simply on account of Nell.
"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 "
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.
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.
I don't know what was in the telegram, but he looked rather miserable as he read it, and I wondered a good deal in the night if his mother had called him back because Freule Menela van der Windt was not pleased at having him stay so long with us.
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.
I was a little excited, too, as Nell was wiring back "Yes, delighted," and adding the date on which we expected to arrive at Utrecht. I am excited still, as I write this; for I have the idea that Freule Menela was angry with Mr. van Buren for spending so much time with us, and that she wants to punish him or somebody else.
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