Part 85

"It isn't at all decided that I shall marry such a man," she answered sharply.

"Not decided?" I repeated anxiously. "Look here, you know, I don't think it's fair to other men that it should be taken for granted you're engaged, if you're not really."

"Why should it matter to other men?" asked the lady.

"Oh, well, it might, you see. There might--er--be some man who met you for the first time after he'd heard of your engagement, and who for his own peace of mind didn't dare let himself admire your brilliant talents as much as he would like to."

Now, I had got as far as I intended to go. Some dim idea of rescuing the Viking from the girl he doesn't love, to give him to the girl he does (and I do), had been floating in my mind ever since that stormy night at Enkhuisen. I had thought that Freule Menela was the sort of girl who might drop the meat for the sake of the shadow; but having indicated the presence of a floating, ghostly shadow--which might belong to any one or no one--I had no idea of advancing further, even to bestow happiness on Phyllis.

I had argued with my conscience, "If she's a woman who's ready to throw over the man she's engaged to, just because he isn't very rich or particularly eligible in her eyes, and because some other vague person looming on the horizon has more money than Number One, why, it's a sure sign that she accepted Number One because she couldn't get any one else, therefore she doesn't deserve to keep him, and she does deserve not only to see him slip away, but to see the shadow go with him."

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. "And, of course, he's very fond of me, though you might not think it from his manner. He often appears to feel more interest in women for whom he cares nothing, than in me, to whom he is devoted. That is a characteristic of men who have his reserved nature."

"I'm afraid I don't understand reserved natures," said I. "If I care for any one, I can't help showing it."

"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. Then you could leave him the choice. Rotterdam, without you; the more lively place, with you. Oh! don't you think, for your sake and his, you ought to do this at once?"

"And a little for the sake of--the other man?" she asked, archly.

I dared not inquire, stonily, "What other man?" lest the work I had accomplished should be destroyed in a single stroke. So I said----

"Yes, and for the sake of the other man."

"You believe it would really matter to him?"

She looked up so anxiously as she put this question that, quite apart from the interests of Phyllis Rivers, I could not have dashed hers, or any other woman's hopes, by giving an unchivalrous answer. Let come what might, I could not deliberately bring the pallor of humiliation to a female face, especially after words of mine had once caused it to glow with pleasure.

"How could I believe otherwise?" I demanded; and my tone sounded almost too sincere in my own ears.

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?"

"That is often so," I hurried to assure her, with the idea of establishing the commonplaceness of such an experience.

"You feel it, too?" Her eyes were fixed on me, and I answered "Yes," before I had time to decide whether, at this point, it would not be safer not to feel it.

"I've often been told that American men are very impulsive. But--are there many like you?" asked Freule Menela.

"Lots," I said quickly.

"Oh, then it's really true that it is quite a usual thing among your country people, for a man to tell a girl he cares for her, when he has seen her only once?"