Part 102

"And you expect me to say--before him--that----"

"He's said the same, already. Or, at least, he agreed while I said it."

"Oh! Well, I don't see how I'm to go through with it. But for Lady MacNairne's sake, I'll--do it. Come, let's get it over."

"Wait a minute," I urged, restraining her impatience. "I must explain a little more, first. After Sir Alec has talked with you, he'll want to come below to the cabins, and everywhere, searching for his wife; for he won't believe, till he's made sure with his own eyes, that she's not on board. If you're willing that he should, I am; but don't tell him that a person named Lady MacNairne's really with us, or I can't answer for the consequences."

"If he comes below, he'll see her."

"That doesn't matter, as they've never met; so long as he doesn't know her name."

"Very well, he shan't learn it from me."

"And he mustn't from Miss Rivers. Will you warn your stepsister, not under any provocation whatever, to speak the name of Lady MacNairne?"

"I will. But why couldn't you have said Phil was engaged to Jonkheer Brederode?"

"Robert van Buren wouldn't have stood it."

"I see. But what about him? It's no use my telling him anything; he would go and do the opposite. He's sitting in the outer cabin, alone, where Lady MacNairne asked him to stay and keep guard over her, while Phyllis and I stopped beside her in the inner room.

"Dear Aunt Fay," I murmured. "If you'll just warn Miss Rivers, and tell my aunt that she'd better be asleep when Sir Alec MacNairne peeps in, I'll tackle your cousin."

"Come, then," said Nell.

And I followed her into that tasteful little cabin which, in the dim past, I decorated for my own use.

Luckily, it is a far more difficult task to persuade Robert van Buren to say something than not to say anything at all; and though he was puzzled, and not too pleased at being plunged into a mystery, I extorted from him a promise to glare as much as he liked at the intruder but not on any account to speak.

"He won't know you understand English," I said, determining to strengthen in Sir Alec's mind, by every means in my power, the impression of Robert's Dutchness.

I had just arranged matters when Nell came back with the strained air of a martyr who hears the lions. We went up on deck together, and a glance showed Sir Alec that no introduction was needed.

"What! This is Miss Van Buren, the young lady who is engaged to marry Jonkheer Brederode!" he exclaimed.

Nell bowed, thankful no doubt that his way of putting it relieved her of the necessity for words.

"You said in Leeuwarden that you didn't know the two young ladies in Dutch costumes," my uncle-in-law flung at me.

"You may have gathered that impression. I certainly never said so," I answered promptly--and truthfully too. "Perhaps I thought, at the time, that the less attention bestowed on the ladies the better they would be pleased," I added.

"You were right," remarked Nell, bravely.

"Oh, very well," said Sir Alec. Then, abruptly, "How's the dog?"

"He's as nice as ever," replied the girl.

Silence for an instant. MacNairne was visibly reflecting. The sight of Miss Van Buren, and her tacit confirmation of my statement, was cooling him down. He is a gentleman, and a good fellow when not in one of his jealous rages; and evidently he did not wish to distress her, or shake her faith in a man she was going to marry.

"I expected to find my wife on board this boat," he said at last abruptly. "Is she here?"

"No," said Nell, "she is not, and never has been."

"It's your boat--not Brederode's?"