I gently pressed them.

For all I cared, she might see the Paris _Herald_ now. For all I cared,
the sky might fall.

XVII

Never was man in better mood for the rush and thrill of the motor than
I, after the conquering of Miss Van Buren. It was but a shadow victory,
a tempest in a tea-pot, yet it was so good an augury of a further
triumph for which I hoped in future, that the joy of it went fizzily to
my head, and I could have shouted, if I had been alone in some desert
place with nobody by to know that it was a Dutchman who made a fool of
himself.

It was the first time I had had the car out in Amsterdam; for the city,
with its network of electric trams and tremendous traffic, is far from
ideal for motoring, and I wanted to keep the nerves of my people cool
for sight-seeing. Therefore the automobile had been eating her head off
in a garage, while we pottered about in cabs, driven by preposterously
respectable-looking old gentlemen, bearded as to their chins, and white
as to the seams of their coats.

To take "Lorelei" to all the places I meant to see to-day would have
occupied half a week, though none were at a great distance from
Amsterdam but the waterways there do not in all places connect
conveniently for a boat of "Lorelei's" size, though we might have left
"Waterspin" behind. So I proposed the car, and everybody caught at the
idea.

There was not one of the party who by this time had not studied
guide-books enough to know something of Muiden, Laren, Baarn, Hilversum,
and Amersfoort; but they might have searched Baedeker and all his rivals
from end to end without finding even the name of Spaakenberg; and little
quaint, hidden Spaakenberg was to be the _clou_ of our expedition. It
was ten o'clock when I got them all--including Tibe--into the car;
indeed, it always seems to be exactly ten o'clock when we start on any
excursion, even when it has been decided over night that we should set
off promptly at nine. But Starr, who pretends to knowledge of women's
ways, says we are lucky to get away anywhere before eleven, seeing that
at the last moment one of the ladies remembers that she must write and
post an important letter, which will take only five minutes; or she
finds she has forgotten her purse in a drawer at the hotel, and must go
back; or she thinks she will be too cool or too hot, and must make some
change in her costume; or if nothing of this sort happens, Tibe is lost
sight of for a second, and