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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?"
"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.
"Young ladies are a little exacting when they are engaged, I suppose," said the poor fellow. "They feel they have more right than others to a man's society." Then it was that I asked why he didn't bring Freule Menela, chaperoned by the twins, to Utrecht instead of waiting until we had got as far as Zeeland, which the fiancée might think too long a journey with such an object in view.
"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."
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."
"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.
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.
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.
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.
I dreamed all night that I was pursued by Robert's escaped fiancée, 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.
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