he must have had reason to hope that he might get news of
Lady MacNairne and my (supposed) motor-boat here. Doubtless he will
sooner or later come upon a clue. If he turns up at the Amstel to
prosecute his inquiries, he may hear of Tibe, and of the two beautiful
young ladies. Then he will put two and two together, and will be after
us--as Starr's favorite expression is--"before we can say knife."

At present I have all the sensations of being a villain, with none of
the advantages.

XIX

It seemed homelike to be on board "Lorelei" again, in my place at the
wheel, with the two girls and the Chaperon in their deck-chairs close
by. Starr had been meaning to make a sketch of the group under the
awning, but the dread apparition of his aunt's husband had twisted his
nerves like wires struck by lightning, and he could do nothing. His is
essentially the artistic temperament, and he is a creature of moods,
impish in some, poetic in others; an extraordinary fellow, like no one I
ever saw, yet curiously fascinating, and I find myself growing oddly
fond of him, in an elder-brotherly, protecting sort of way.

Even I have my moods sometimes, though I can hide them better than he
can; and this morning I was in the wrong key for the idyllic peace and
prim prettiness of Broek-in-Waterland. I should have liked better to be
out on a meer in Friesland, in a stiff breeze; but since it had to be
Broek, I made the best of it.

The canal leading to that sleepy little village, which seems to float on
the water like a half-closed lily, is one of the prettiest in the
Netherlands. Almost at once, after parting from Amsterdam, we turned out
of the North Sea Canal; and the smoke and bustle of the port were left
behind like a troubled dream. We lifted a veil of sunbright mist, and
found ourselves in the country--a friendly country of wide spaces such
as we passed through in motoring between Amersfoort and Spaakenberg; of
mossy farmhouses and hayfields, grazing cows, and swallows skimming low
over little side-canals carpeted with vegetation like a netting of green
beads. But here the hay was not protected by the elevated roofs of
thatch we had seen yesterday. It lay in loose heaps of yellowing grass,
shining in the sun like giant birds' nests of woven gold; and all the
low-lying landscape shimmered pale golden and filmy green, too sweet and
fresh for the green of any other country save mine, in mid-July. Here
and there a peasant in some s