answered.

"Dear girl, you were quite right," said Lady MacNairne. Then she
laughed. "He hoped to make our Phil jealous, I suppose, for his _real_
thought seems to have been for _her_, doesn't it?"

Neither of us answered. I quite fancied last night that she had been
wrong about those surmises of hers; but now, when she put it in this
way, I wasn't so sure, after all.

XXIV

Nell has been very strange for the last few days, but singularly lovable
to everybody except Jonkheer Brederode; and to him she has never been
the same for ten consecutive minutes. Perhaps it is a mercy if Lady
MacNairne is right, and he was never in love with her, though it would
be sad if he thought of me in that way. I should be sorry to have any
one as unhappy as I now am. It's a good thing for me that we were
traveling, for if we were at home I should hardly be able to go through
it without letting Nell or others suspect the change. As it is, there is
always something new to keep my thoughts away from myself and other
people, of whom it may be still more unwise to think.

Nell avoided Jonkheer Brederode as much as she could the morning after
the storm. She said that, as he took no interest in her, it could not
matter what she did so far as he was concerned. She was quite meek and
subdued when she answered any question of his, until they differed about
something. It was about Urk, a little island she had discovered on the
map, exactly in the middle of the Zuider Zee.

When she heard that "Lorelei-Mascotte's" motor had been injured
slightly, and we could not go on, she suggested that while we were
waiting we might take steamer to the island, stop all night, and come
back to Enkhuisen next day. By that time Hendrik, our chauffeur, would
have repaired the damage.

"Urk isn't worth seeing," said our skipper.

Nell asked if he had ever been there.

"No," he replied; but he had heard that it was a dull little hole, and
it would be far better to stop at Enkhuisen till next morning, when we
could get away, if the weather changed, to Stavoren.

"There's nothing to do in Enkhuisen," said Nell.

"No," said he; "but there'll be less in Urk. I strongly advise you not
to go."

"That decides it," said Mr. van Buren, who was stopping on for a day or
two.

At once Nell fired up. "Not at all," said she. "No one who doesn't want
to, need go; but those who do, will. All favorably inclined hold up
their hands."

Up went Mr. Starr's, and La