Part 3

"I beg your pardon," said he, in a nice, drawling voice, which told me that he'd first seen the light in one of the Southern States of America.

"I beg yours," said I. (Somehow Phil generally waits for me to speak first in emergencies, though she's a year older.) "Are you looking for any one--the caretaker of our boat, perhaps?"

His eyes traveled from me to Phil; from Phil to the blue garment to which she still clung; from the blue garment to the pile of stiff white shirts in an open drawer.

"No--o, I wasn't exactly looking for any one," he slowly replied. "I just came on board to--er----"

"To _what_, if you please?" I demanded, beginning to stiffen. "I've a right to know, because this is our boat. If you're a newspaper reporter, or anything of that sort, please go away; but if you have business----"

"No, it was only pleasure," said the young man, his eyes like black diamonds. "I didn't know the boat was yours."

"Whose did you think it was?"

"Well, as a matter of fact, I--er--thought it was mine."

"What do you mean?" I cried, while Phil threw a wild, questioning look at the shirts, and dropped the blue silk jacket.

"That is, temporarily. But there must be some mistake."

"There must--a big mistake. Where's the caretaker? He came on board with us."

The young man's eyes twinkled even more. "Did he know it was your boat?"

"Why, of course, we told him. It was left to us in a will. We've just come to claim it."

"Oh, I think I begin to see. I shouldn't wonder if Paasma has now taken to his bed with a sudden attack of--whatever the Dutch have instead of nervous prostration. He didn't know you were coming?"

"Not till we came."

"It must have been quite a surprise. By Jove, the old fox! I suppose he hadn't got the shadow of a right, then, to let the boat to me?"

"My gracious!" breathed Phyllis, and shut up the drawer of shirts with a snap. I don't know what she did with the blue silk object, except that it suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from the floor. Perhaps she stood on it.

"What an awful thing," said I. "You're sure you're not in the wrong boat? You're sure he didn't let you some other one?"

"Sure. There is no other one in Holland exactly like this. I've been on board nearly every day for a week, ever since I began to----"

"Since you began----"

"To have her done up. Nothing to speak of, you know; but she's been lying here all winter, and--er--I had a fancy to clean house----"

"Then--all these things are--yours?"

"Some of the things----"

"The Dutch clock, the deck-chairs, the silk cushions, the curtains, and decorations in the cabin----"

"I'm afraid you think I'm an awful meddler; but, you see, I didn't know. Paasma told me he had a right to let the boat, and that I could do her up as much as I liked."

"The old wretch!" I gasped. "And you walk on board to find two strange girls rummaging among your--your----" Then I couldn't help laughing when I remembered how Phil had suggested our keeping those things for souvenirs.

"I thought I must be having a dream--a beautiful dream."

I ignored the implied compliment. "What are we going to do about it?" I asked. "It _is_ our boat. There's no doubt about that. But with these things of yours--do you want to go to law, or--or--anything?"

"Good heavens, no! I----"

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said I. "Let's get the caretaker here, and have it out with him. Perhaps he has an explanation."

"He's certain to have--several. Shall I go and fetch him?"

"Please do," urged Phil, speaking for the first time, and looking adorably pink.

The young man vanished, and we heard him running up the steep companion (if that's the right word for it) two steps at a time.

Phil and I stared at each other. "I knew something awful would happen," said she. "This is a judgment."

"He's too nice looking to be a judgment," said I. "I like his taste in everything--including shirts, don't you?"

"Don't speak of them," commanded Phil.

We shut the drawers tightly, and going into the other cabin, did the same there.

"Anyhow, I saw 'C. Noble' on the sheets and blankets," I said thankfully. "There are some things that belong to us."

"It will end in our going home at once, I suppose," said Phil.

"However else it ends, it won't end like that, I promise you," I assured her. "I must have justice."

"But he must have his things. Oh, Nell, have you really got relatives in Rotterdam, or did you make that up to frighten the caretaker?"

"No; they exist. I never spoke of them to you, because I never thought of them until we were coming here, and then I was afraid if I did you'd think it the proper thing to implore the females--if any--to chaperon us. Besides, relations so often turn out bores. All I know about mine is, that mother told me father had relations in Holland--in Rotterdam. And if she and I hadn't stopped in England to take care of you and your father, perhaps we should have come here and met them long ago."

"Well, do let's look them up and get them to help. I won't say a word about chaperons."

"Perhaps it would be a good thing. That wicked old caretaker seemed to be struck with respectful awe by the name of Van Buren."

"I never knew before that you were partly Dutch."

"You did. I've often boasted of my Knickerbocker blood."

"Yes. But----"

"Didn't you know it was the same thing? Where's your knowledge of history?"

"I never had much time to study _American_ history. There was such a lot that came before," said Phil, mildly; but the blood sprang to her cheeks at the sound of a step on the stairs. Our rival for possession of the boat had come back alone.

"That old rascal has, with extraordinary suddenness and opportuneness, forgotten every word of English," he announced, "and pretends not to understand German. I can't speak Dutch; can you?"

"No," said I. "Not a syllable. But he spoke English quite respectably an hour ago."

"That was before he was found out. He can now do nothing but shake his head and say '_niets verstaen_,' or something that sounds like that. I thought of killing him, but concluded it would be better to wait until I'd asked you how you'd like it done."

"It ought to be something lingering," said I. "We'll talk it over. But first, perhaps, we'd better decide what's to be done with _ourselves_. You see, we've come to Holland to have a cruise on our new boat; otherwise, if you liked, _we_, as the real owners, might let her to you, and all would be well. Still, it does seem a shame that you should be disappointed when you took 'Lorelei' in good faith, and made her so pretty. Of course, you must let us know what you've paid----"

"A few gulden," said the young man, evasively.

"Never mind. You must tell how many. Unfortunately that won't mend your disappointment. But--what can we do?"

"I suppose there isn't the slightest hope that you could--er--take me as a passenger?"

"Oh, we couldn't possibly do that," hastily exclaimed Phil. "We're alone. Though my stepsister, Miss Van Buren, has cousins in Rotterdam, we've come from England without a chaperon, and--for the present----"

The young man's eyes were more brilliant than ever, though the rest of his face looked sad.

"Oh, don't say any more," he implored. "I see how it is. I oughtn't to have made such a suggestion. My only excuse is, I was thinking--of my poor aunt. She'll be horribly disappointed. I care most for her, and what she'll feel at giving up the cruise."

"Oh, was your aunt coming?" I asked.

"Yes, my Scotch aunt. Such a charming woman. I'm an American, you know. Clever of me to have a Scotch aunt, but I have. I've been visiting her lately, near Edinburgh. You would like Lady MacNairne, I think."

Phil's face changed. She is the last girl in the world to be a snob; but hearing that this young man had a Scotch aunt, with a title, was almost as good as a proper introduction. And there really is something singularly winning about my countryman. I suppose it is that he has "a way with him," as the Irish say. Besides, it seemed nice of so young a man to care so much about a mere aunt. Many young men despise aunts as companions; but evidently he isn't one of those, as he beautified "Lorelei" simply to give his aunt pleasure.

"It really _does_ seem hard," I said. "Now, if only Phyllis hadn't so many rules of propriety--" But, to my surprise, the very thought in my mind, which I hadn't dared breathe, was spoken out next minute by Phil herself.

"Maybe we might come to some kind of arrangement--as you have an aunt," she faltered.

"Yes, as you have an aunt," I repeated.

"She'd make an ideal chaperon for young ladies," hastily went on the Southerner. "I should like you to meet her."

"Is Lady MacNairne in Rotterdam?" asked Phil.

"Not exactly; but she's coming--almost at once."

"We don't know your name yet," said Phyllis. "I'm Miss Rivers; my stepsister is Miss Van Buren. Perhaps you'd better introduce yourself."

"I shall be glad to," returned my countryman. "My name is Ronald Lester Starr----"

"Why, the initials are just right--R. L. S." I murmured.

"I know what you mean," he said, with a nice smile. "They say I look like him. I'm very proud. You'll think I ought to be a writer; but I'm not. I paint a little--just enough to call myself an artist----"

"Oh, I remember," I broke in. "I thought the name sounded familiar. You had a picture in the Salon this spring."

He looked anxious. "Did you see it?"

"No--not even a copy. What was the subject? Horrid of me to ask; but, you see, it's July now, and one forgets."

"One does," he admitted, as if he were pleased. "Oh, it was only a portrait of my aunt."

"Your Scotch aunt?"

"Yes. But if you'd seen it, and then should see her, you mightn't even recognize her. I--er--didn't try to make a striking likeness."

"I wish I'd seen the picture," said I. And I thought Mr. Starr must be very modest, for his expression suggested that he didn't echo my wish.

"Do you think you could let my aunt and me join you?" he asked. "I don't mean to crowd up your boat; that would never do, for you might want to sleep on it sometimes. But I might get a barge, and you could tow it. I'd thought of that very thing; indeed, I've practically engaged a barge. My friend and I, who were to have chummed together, if he hadn't been called away--oh, you know, that was a plan before my aunt promised to come, quite another idea. But what I mean to say is, I got an idea for hiring a barge, and having it towed by the motor-boat. I could have had a studio in that way, for I wanted to do some painting. I'd just come back from seeing rather a jolly barge that's to let, when I--er--stumbled on you."

"Had you engaged any one to work 'Lorelei'?"

"A chauffeur," said Mr. Ronald; "but no skipper for certain yet. I've been negotiating."

"Dear me!" I exclaimed. "Must we have a chauffeur and a skipper too?"

"I'm afraid we must; a man who understands the waterways of Holland. A chauffeur understands only the motor, and lucky if he does that."

"Won't it be dreadfully expensive?" asked Phyllis.

"The skipper's wages won't be more than five or six dollars (a bit more than one of your sovereigns) a week, and the chauffeur less. They'll keep themselves, but I meant them to sleep on the barge. The skipper ought to be a smart chap, who can be trusted with money to pay the expenses of the boat as one goes along--bridge-money and all sorts of things. The chauffeur can buy the _essence_--petrol, you call it in England, don't you?--but the skipper had better do the rest."

"It does seem a frightful responsibility for two girls," said Phyllis.

"Of course, if you'd consent to have my aunt--and me--we'd take all the trouble off your hands, and half the expense," remarked Mr. Starr. "My poor aunt is so fond of the water, and there's so little in Scotland----"

"Little in Scotland?"

"Well, only a few lakes and rivers. It does seem hard she should be disappointed."

"She mightn't like us," said Phyllis.

"She would lo--I mean, she'd be no aunt of mine if she didn't. I'd cut her off with a penny."

"It's generally aunts who do that with their nephews," said I.

"Ah, but she's different from other aunts, and I'm different from other nephews. May I telegraph that she's to come?"

"I thought she was coming."

"I mean, may I telegraph that she's to be a chaperon? I ought to let her know. She might--er--want more dresses or bonnets, or something."

Phil and I laughed, and so did Mr. Starr. After that, of course, we couldn't be stony-hearted; besides, we didn't want to be. I could see that, even to Phil, the thought of a cruise taken in the company of our new friend and that ideal chaperon, his aunt, Lady MacNairne, had attractions which the idea of a cruise alone with her stepsister had lacked.

"Well, in the circumstances, I think we should be callous brutes not to say 'Yes,'" I replied.

"I don't want to force you into consenting from pure generosity," went on Mr. Starr. "If you'd like to consult your relations, and have them find out that I'm all right----"

I laughed again. "I know you better than I do them," said I. "I've never seen them yet. I think we can take you on faith, just as you've taken our claims to the boat. Your Scotch aunt alone would be a guarantee, if we needed one. A Scotch aunt sounds so _extra_ reliable. But perhaps my relatives may be of use in other ways, as they've lived in Rotterdam always, I fancy. They might even find us a skipper, if your negotiations fall through. Anyhow, I'll write a letter from our hotel to the head of the family, introducing myself as his long-lost cousin twice removed."

"What is your hotel, if I may ask?" inquired Mr. Starr.

I told him, and it turned out that it had been his till this very morning, when he had removed his things to "Lorelei," with the intention of living on board till he was ready to start. Now he proposed to have them taken back to the hotel, and rearranged on the barge when his aunt came. As for that sly old person, the caretaker, our new friend volunteered to straighten out everything with him, our affair as well as his own.

"When he discovers that we can't be bothered having the law of him, as he richly deserves, he will remember his English, or I'll find the way to make him," said the young man in such a joyous, confident way, that thereupon I dubbed him our "lucky Starr."

IV

"How funny if I've got relations who can't speak any language except Dutch!" I said, after I'd sent a letter by messenger to the address of the Robert van Buren found in the directory.

But half an hour later an answer came back, in English. Mine very sincerely, Robert van Buren, would give himself the pleasure of calling on his cousin immediately. When I received this news it was one o'clock, and we were finishing lunch at the hotel, in the society of Mr. Starr, who had already wired to his aunt that she was to play the part of chaperon.

I read the letter aloud, and Phil and I decided that it sounded _old_.

"Mother spoke once or twice of father's cousin, Robert van Buren; so I suppose he's about the age my father would have been if he'd lived," I said. "I hope he'll not turn out a horror."

"I hope he'll not forbid you to associate with my aunt and me," cut in Mr. Starr. "It's a stiff kind of handwriting."

"He can't make me stiff," said I. "Cousins twice removed don't count--except when they can be useful."

"A gentleman in the reading-room to see you, miss," announced the waiter, who could speak English, handing me a card on a tray. It was a foreign-looking card, and I couldn't feel in the least related to it, especially as the "van" began with a little "v."

"Come and support me, Phil," I begged, glancing regretfully at a seductive bit of Dutch cheese studded with caraway seeds, which it would be rude to stop and eat.

It's rather an ordeal to meet a new relation, even if you tell yourself that you don't care what he thinks of you. I slipped behind Phil, making her enter the reading-room first, which gave me time to peep over her shoulder and fancy we had been directed wrongly. There was a man in the room, but he could not have been a man in the days when mother was speaking of "father's cousin." His expression only was old: it might have been a hundred. The rest of him could not be more than twenty-eight, and it was all extremely good-looking. If he were to turn out a cousin I should not have to be ashamed of him. He was like a big, handsome cavalryman, with a drooping mustache that was hay-colored, in contrast with a brown skin, and a pair of the solemnest gray eyes I've ever seen--except in the face of a baby.

"Are you Miss Van Buren?" this giant asked Phil gravely, holding out a large brown hand.

"No," said Phil, unwilling to take the hand under false pretenses.

It fell, and so did the handsome face, if anything so solemn could have become a degree graver than before.

"I beg your pardon," said the owner of both, speaking English with a Scotch accent. "I have made a deceit."

I laughed aloud. "I'm Helen Van Buren," I said. And I put out my hand.

His swallowed it up, and though I wear only one ring I could have shrieked. Yet his expression was not flattering. There are persons who prefer my style to Phil's, but I could see that he wasn't one of them. I felt he thought me garish; which was unjust, as I can't help it if my complexion is very white and very pink, my eyes and eyelashes rather dark, and my hair decidedly chestnut. I haven't done any of it myself, yet I believe the handsome giant suspected me, and was sorry that Phil was not Miss Van Buren.

"Are you my cousin Robert Van Buren's son?" I asked.

"I am the only Robert van Buren now living," he answered.

I longed to be flippant, and say that there were probably several dotted about the globe, if we only knew them; but I dared not, under those eyes--absolutely dared not. Instead, I remarked inanely that I was sorry to hear his father was not alive.

"He died many years ago. We have got over it," he replied. And I almost laughed again; but that angel of a Phil looked quite sympathetic.

In a few minutes we settled down more comfortably, with Phil and me on a sofa together, and Cousin Robert on a chair, which kept me in fits of anxiety by creaking and looking too small to hold him.

Phil and I held hands, as girls generally do when they are at all self-conscious, if they sit within a yard of each other; and we all began to talk in the absurd way of new-found relations, or people you haven't seen for a long time.

We asked Robert things, and he answered; and when we'd encouraged him a good deal, he asked us things too, looking mostly at Phyllis. At last we arrived at the information that he had a mother and two sisters, who spent the summers at Scheveningen, in a villa. Then fell a silence, which Phil tactfully broke by saying that she had heard of Scheveningen. It must be a beautiful place, and she'd been brought up with a cup that came from there. When she was good, as a child, she was allowed to play with it.

"I should think you were always good," said Cousin Robert. Phyllis blushed, and then he blushed too, under his brown skin. "I have also a fiancee at Scheveningen," he went on, a propos of nothing--unless of the blush.

"Is she a Dutch girl?" I asked.

"Oh yes."

"I suppose she is very pretty and charming?"

"I do not know. I am used to her. We have played together when we were young. I go every Saturday to Scheveningen, when they are there, to stay till Monday."

"Oh!" said Phil.

"Oh!" said I.

Silence again. Then, "It was very good of you to come and see us so quickly after I wrote."

"It was my duty; and my pleasure too" (as second thought). "You must tell me your plans."

So we told them, and Cousin Robert did not approve. "I do not think it will do," said he, firmly.

"I'm afraid it must do," I returned, with equal firmness disguised under a smile.

Phil apologized for me as she gave me a squeeze of the hand.

"We've been very happy together, Nell and I," she explained, "but we have never had much excitement. This is our first chance, and--we shall be _well_ chaperoned by Lady MacNairne."

"Yes; but she is the aunt of the stranger young man."

"Geniuses are never strangers. He is a genius," I said. "You've no idea how his Salon picture was praised."

"But his character. What do you know of that?"

"It's his aunt's character that matters most, and the MacNairnes are irreproachable."

(I had never heard the name until this morning, but there are some things which you seem to have been born knowing; and I was in a mood to stake my life upon Lady MacNairne.)

"It is better that you see my mother," said Cousin Robert.

"It will be sweet of her to call on us."

"I do not think she can do that. She is too large; and she does not easily move from Scheveningen. But if she writes you a note, to ask you and Miss Rivers, you will go, is it not?"

"With pleasure," I said, "if it isn't too far. You see, Lady MacNairne may arrive soon, and when she does----"

"But now I will see my mother, and I will bring back the letter. I will drive with an automobile which a friend has lent me--Rudolph Brederode; and when you have read the note, you will both go in the car with me to Scheveningen to stay for all night, perhaps more."

"Oh, we couldn't think of staying all night," I exclaimed. "We'll stop here till----"

"It is not right that you stop here. I will go now, and, please, you will pack up to be ready."

"We haven't unpacked yet," I said. "But we couldn't possibly--for one thing, your mother may not find it convenient."

My cousin Robert's jaw set. "She surely will find it convenient."

"What people you Dutch are!" the words broke from me.

He looked surprised. "We are the same like others."