Part 36

With this danger ahead, I redoubled my attentions to Tiberius; but it was fortunate for me that the doubts he entertained of the man in the arbor were chased away by gratitude for the man on the boat. If it had not been so, such is the primitive sincerity of dog kind--especially bulldog kind--no bribe in my power to offer could have induced him to dissimulate. I knew this, and trembled; but Tibe, being an animal of parts, was not long in comprehending that the hand on his collar meant well by him. He deigned to fawn, and meeting his glance at close quarters, I read his dog-soul through the brook-brown depths of the clear eyes. After that moment, in which we came to a full understanding one of the other, once and for all, I knew that Tibe's wrinkled mask, his terrible mouth, and the ferocious tusks standing up like two stalagmites in the black, protruding under jaw, disguised a nature almost too amiable and confiding for a world of hypocrites. Tragic fate, to seem in the shallow eyes of strangers a monster of evil from whom to flee, while your warm heart, bursting with love and kindness, sends you chasing those who avoid you, eager to demonstrate affection! Such a fate is destined to be Tibe's, so long as he may live; but in this first instant of our real acquaintance he felt that I at least saw through his disguise; and under the nose and spectacles of his mistress he sealed our friendship with a wet kiss on my sleeve.

"Good boy!" said I, and meant it. He had given me a character, and had placed me upon a sound footing with one who would be, I foresaw, a Power on "Lorelei."

"Thank you so much!" said she, with the promised burr-r so pronounced in her accent that she must, I thought, have spent the night in practising it. She then carefully selected the best chair, and took from another a blue silk cushion which matched her yachting-cap and veil.

As she sat down, making a footstool of Tibe, and displaying two exquisitely shod feet in brand new suede shoes, Miss Rivers appeared, pale and interesting.

"I do hope you're better, my poor child," purred the Chaperon.

"Oh, thank you, dear Lady MacNairne, I shall be quite right now we've started."

This interchange of civilities told that the Mariner's "Aunt Fay" had already contrived to ingratiate herself with her charges.

Miss Rivers sank into the nearest chair, closing her eyes, while I stood aloof and turned the wheel; but presently the languid lashes lifted, and she became conscious of me. Then her eyes grew big. She remembered me from the day at the Prinzenhof, or the Horse Show, perhaps. Evidently Starr had not named me yet, nor had Miss Van Buren, in descending after our brief encounter, put any questions. Whether this boded ill or well, I could not decide, but longed to get suspense over; and I was not kept waiting.

I heard Starr's voice below urging Miss Van Buren on deck. "Don't bother about putting everything away," he said. "Do it later. You must say good-by to Rotterdam. Who knows what will have happened to us before we get back?"

It would not be my fault if two of the party were not engaged, I was thinking hopefully, as Miss Van Buren's eyes--rising from below like stars above a dark horizon--met mine. There was no recognition in them. To all appearance oblivious of ever having seen my insignificant features on land or sea, she came smiling up, on the friendliest terms with Starr.

The vacant chair, most conveniently placed for her, was close to the wheel, and I hoped that she would take it. But rather than be thus trapped, she stepped over Tibe and pushed past her stepsister with an "I beg your pardon, dear."

The Mariner gave no glance at me, but there was a catch in his voice which betokened a twinkle of the eye, as he said----

"Aunt Fay, Miss Van Buren and Miss Rivers, I must introduce the friend I told you about: our skipper, Jonkheer Brederode."

Miss Rivers smiled delightfully, with just such a flush of ingenuous surprise as I should have liked to see on another face.

"Why, how curious," she exclaimed, "that you should be a friend of Mr. Starr's! I think we have almost met Jonkheer Brederode before, haven't we, Nell?"

"Have we?" sweetly inquired Miss Van Buren. "I'm a little near-sighted, and I've such a wretched memory for faces. Unless I notice people particularly, I have to be introduced at least twice before it occurs to me to bow."

"Oh, but, Nell," protested Miss Rivers. "Surely you know we saw Mr.--no, Jonkheer Brederode--with your cousin at the Museum in Delft, and then afterwards you----"

"People's clothes make so much difference," remarked Miss Van Buren.

"Oh, but I wasn't thinking of your sea adventure, so much as when Jonkheer Brederode rode in the contest----"

"I'm afraid I was looking at the horses," cut in her stepsister.

If Robert had been on board at this juncture he would probably have wished to box his cousin's ears, but I had no such desire, though mine were tingling. In fact, I should have enjoyed boxing Robert's; for I saw that, with the best intentions in the world (and intentions are dangerous weapons!), my too-loyal friend had in some way contrived to make me appear insufferable. Perhaps he'd given the impression that I had boasted an intention to meet her within a given time, and she took this for my brutal way of carrying out the boast.

"What is a Jonkheer?" the pseudo Lady MacNairne demanded of Starr.

"I don't know exactly," he admitted.

"Don't you? But, nephew dear, how can you help knowing, when you have an old friend who is one?"

(Was there a spice of malice in this question?)

"You see, almost ever since I've known him, I've thought of him as Alb," Starr explained hastily. "Alb is a kind of--er--pet name."

"I suppose it means something nice in Dutch," said Miss Rivers, in the soft, pretty way she has, which would fain make every one around her happy. "But I think Mr. van Buren told us that 'Jonkheer' was like our baronet; Jonkheer instead of 'Sir,' isn't it?"

"Something of the sort," I answered.