Part 91

"You do say such odd things. But I bless you, if I can't understand you. You've made me so happy."

"You didn't tell me you were in love with Robert."

"Of course not--then. It would have been too bold, even to tell myself, when--he was engaged to some one else. But pity's akin to love, isn't it? And there was no harm in pitying him because he was bound to a--a creature, who could never deserve his love."

"Even if he hadn't given it to you."

"That was fate, wasn't it? But if it hadn't been for my clever brother, we could never have belonged to each other."

"Some men are born brothers, some achieve brotherhood, others have it thrust upon them," I muttered. "You and he had better take advantage of the lull to be married," I said aloud.

"The lull?"

"In Freule Menela. She'll be hailing and thundering and lightning soon."

"Oh, do you think she'll try to get Robert back again?" gasped Phyllis.

"Unless another and riper fruit drops into her mouth."

"As if it would! You frighten me. Robert did beg last night that I'd marry him almost at once, and not go back to England--unless--on our honeymoon. I told him I wouldn't think of such a thing. But--perhaps--oh, we couldn't lose each other now. I do believe we were made for one another."

"I begin to believe so, too," said I.

And as that belief increased, so decreased the pain of my loss. Phyllis still is, and ever will be, a Burne-Jones Angel; and when, with her sleeves rolled up, she makes cake in the six-foot-by-six kitchen of "Waterspin," among the blue china and brasses, she is enough to melt the heart of Diogenes. Nevertheless, I cannot break mine at losing a girl who was born for a Robert van Buren. After all, Nell is more bewilderingly beautiful, and has twice Phyllis's magnetism. She has too fine a sense of humor to fall in love with a man's inches and muscles. That one speech of Phyllis's taught me resignation, and showed me in a flash that, despite her charms, she is somewhat early Victorian.

I glanced toward Nell, on whose brilliant face indifference to her good-looking cousin was expressed, as she stood talking to him--probably about himself--and wondered how, for a little while, my worship could have strayed from her to Phyllis. A girl born for Robert van Buren!--A sense of calm, beatific brotherliness stole through my veins. Nell had never been so lovely or so lovable, and I resolved to find out from my sister if she still thought there might be hope for me in that direction.

"I shouldn't keep Robert waiting," I went on, without a pang. "There's no telling what Freule Menela mightn't do. She's clever--as well as spiteful."

"And poor Robert is so honorable," sighed Phyllis. "If he'd known that you were working to--to free him, he might have felt it was a plot, and have refused to accept his release. You don't think I ought to tell him, do you?"

"Certainly not," said I. "That's our secret."

"How good you are! Well, I'll take your advice. Yet it does seem so strange--to be married, and live in Holland, when I never thought that anything could be really nice out of England. But Robert seems to me exactly like an Englishman: that's why I love him so dreadfully."

"And I suppose you seem to him exactly like a Dutch girl: and that's why he loves you so dreadfully," was the answer in my mind; but I kept it there. 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. Nell and I never have secrets from each other--at least, we haven't till lately. I thought she would have guessed, but do you know, she didn't? She fancied, from things I'd said, that I was making up my mind to--that is, to try and learn to care for another person. She disapproved of my doing that, it seems, which is the reason she's been so odd. Not that she didn't consider us suited to each other--the other one and I--but she thought, with all his faults, he was so much of a man that it wasn't fair for a girl to accept his love if she had to try and learn to care for him simply because he happened to be there. I see now, in the light of this new happiness, that she was quite right. But I didn't dream then, that the one man I could really care for, could ever be more to me than a dear friend. And a girl feels so humiliated to be thinking of a man who's engaged to some one else. She gets the idea that the best thing would be to occupy her mind with another man, if there's anybody who likes her very much. And Lady MacNairne has always been hinting this last fortnight--but, oh no, I'm not thinking what I'm saying! Even though you are my brother, I've no right to tell you that."

"Sister, I insist that you shall tell me," I said, with all my native fierceness. And Phyllis is not a girl to rebel, if a male person commands.

"Well, then--but she is perhaps mistaken. I hope now that she is."

"In thinking what?"

"That--that Jonkheer Brederode cares more for me than for Nell."

"I wonder," said I.

"Oh course," went on Phyllis modestly, "Nell's a hundred times prettier and more interesting than I am (though, thank goodness, Robert doesn't think so), but she snubbed the Jonkheer so dreadfully at first, and then, after she'd changed and been nice to him for a day or two, she got worse than ever. At least, she hardly ever speaks to him at all. She just keeps out of his way, and leaves him to--others. So his self-respect may have been hurt (I can't say vanity as I might with some men, because Jonkheer Brederode isn't a bit vain, though he has a right to be) and he may have turned his thoughts toward one who sympathized with him. Several little things lately have looked as if it were so; but I do pray it's not, now that I'm so happy. It would be too hard if he were to bear a double disappointment, after the trouble he has taken, and the sacrifices he has made--leaving his beautiful home and all its luxuries, and the friends who appreciate him as a splendid fellow and a grand sportsman, to be skipper week after week on this little boat."