Part 82

"After all, I'm not quite sure what I do see, when I come to ask myself, like that, in so many words," said Phyllis. "I do wish you'd advise me. Will you, dear?"

"Of course, if I can," came the answer, a little shortly.

"Well, supposing you cared more than you thought you ought, for a man it couldn't be right to care for at all, because he belonged to some one else, what would you do?"

"Try to stop caring for him," said Nell.

"That's what I think, too; only it might be hard, mightn't it? Do you suppose it would be easier if a girl did her best to learn to love another man, who was free to care for her, and did seem to care for her, so as to take her mind off the--the forbidden man?"

No answer. (I realized that they could not have heard the falling match-box, and I was at my window-door now, going in. But the door is a Dutch door, which means that it is cleaned and varnished every day; and the varnish stuck.)

"You might tell me what you think, Nell. You have had so much experience, in serials."

"Oh!" exclaimed Nell. "I--I hate you, Phil!"

Their door evidently did not stick, for suddenly it slammed, and I guessed that Nell had rushed in and banged it shut behind her.

* * * * * *

Now, it is the next day but one after this episode, and we are at Utrecht, after having visited an old "kastel" or two more in the neighborhood of Arnhem, and then following the Rhine where it winds among fields like a wide, twisted ribbon of silver worked into a fabric of green brocade. Its high waves, roughened by huge side-wheel steamers, spilt us into the Lek; and so, past queer little ferries and a great crowded lock or two, where Alb used his Club flag, we came straight to the fine old city of which one hears and knows more, somehow, than of any other in Holland.

I planned to do a little painting here; but, after all, I don't seem to take as much interest in composing pictures as in trying to puzzle out the meanings of several things.

I suppose a man never can hope to understand women; but even a woman sometimes fails to understand another woman. For instance, goaded by unsatisfied curiosity to know, not only my own fate, but everybody else's fate, all round, I was tempted to take advantage of nephewhood, and put the case, as I saw it, to the L.C.P.

I ventured to tell her what I overheard between the girls on their balcony.

"Now, you must know," I said, "that I'm in love with Phyllis."

"I thought it was Nell," said she.

"So did I, for a while; but I've discovered that it's Phyllis. And I shall be very much obliged to you if you can tell me something. In fact, if you can, your dear nephew Ronny will present his aunt with a diamond ring."

"You mean if I tell you what you want to hear."

"No. It must be what you honestly think."

"I don't want a diamond ring," said she, which surprised me extremely. It was the first time anything worth having has been mentioned which she did not want, and, usually, ask for.

"A pearl one, then," I suggested in my astonishment.

"I don't want a pearl one--or any other one, so you can save yourself the trouble of working through a long list," replied the lady who is engaged to be my obliging relative. "But go on, and ask what you were going to ask. Anything I can do for you, as an aunt, I will. I am paid for it."

This grew "curioser and curioser," as Alice had occasion to remark in her adventures. But having embarked upon my narrative, I went on----

"Whom do you think Phyllis meant when she spoke of trying to learn to love a man who seemed to love her? Was it Alb, or----"

"Mr. Robert van Buren, perhaps you were going to say," cut in the L.C.P.

"No, I don't mean him," I answered hurriedly. "Modesty forbids me to mention the name in my mind."

"But it was given to you by your sponsors in baptism. Will it make you very unhappy if I say I don't think that was the name in her mind?"

"I shall have to bear it," I said. "But, of course, I shall be unhappy."