Buren spoke of the two girls who were with him at
the Prinzenhof on July tenth as his "American cousin and an English
friend."

I can never fall in love with a Dutch girl now, for I have done the
thing I did not mean to do, and it can't be undone in this world. Once
and for all, that is settled, however it may go with me where the girl
is concerned. But it will go hard if I do not have her in the end, and I
shall if she is to be got; for the men of my blood soon make up their
minds when they want a thing, and they do not rest much until it's
theirs. This peculiarity has often landed them in trouble in past times,
and may land me in trouble now; but I'm ready for the risk, as they
were.

I didn't know at first which was the English girl--_my_ girl with the
chestnut hair, dark hazel eyes, and rose and white complexion; or the
other girl with brown hair, eyes of violet, and skin of cream. But when
I encountered my girl in the sea at half-past six in the morning,
unchaperoned except by a foolish runaway horse attached to a
bathing-machine, I should have guessed that she was the American, even
if there had been nothing in her pretty voice to suggest it.

I am sorry that it couldn't have been the other way round, for my
English mother's sake, since my fate isn't to be Dutch. But it can't be
helped. I have seen The One Girl, and it would be the same if she were a
Red Indian.

I was going to lead up to the subject when van Buren came to speak to me
at the Horse Show; but he began it, by thanking me, in the grave way he
has, for coming to his cousin's rescue in the morning. I shouldn't have
referred to that little business, as she might not have mentioned her
adventure; but as she had told the story, it gave me a foundation to
work on.

I said truly that what I had done was nothing, but hinted that I should
be pleased to meet the young lady again; and thereupon expected an
invitation to visit his mother's box. To my surprise, it didn't come,
and Robert's face showed that there was a reason why.

"My cousin doesn't deserve that you should take an interest in her," he
blurted out. "She is pretty, yes, and perhaps that is why she is so
spoiled, for she is vain and capricious and flippant. I wish it were
Miss Rivers who had our blood in her veins."

Queerly enough, instead of cooling me off toward the girl, Robert's
criticism of her had the opposite effect. I have liked Robert since I
took him under my wing during my last