"Don't seem too anxious," said I, airily. "And don't tell her you want
her to be better acquainted with your cousin and step-cousin. Just
remark that it will be a jolly excursion, eh? And you might add that
Brederode and I--particularly I--are awfully keen on seeing her."

"Very well, I will give that message," said he. And I think he probably
did give it, or something like it; for Nell had a telegram from him,
while we were still doddering about in Friesland, asking if he might
bring the ladies on a visit to Utrecht.

Now, it is "up to me" to carry out that plan made on the impulse of an
unselfish moment.

Moral: do not have unselfish moments.

XXIX

I believe that, in the dark ages, I was rather a good little boy. I used
often to tell the truth, and the whole truth, even when most
inconvenient to my pastors and masters. I gave pennies to the poor,
unless I very much wanted them myself; I said "Now--I--Lay--Me," every
night, and also in the morning till advised that it was inappropriate;
and I sang in a boy's choir, so beautifully and with such a soulful
expression in my eyes, that people used to pat my curls, and fear that I
was destined to die young.

In those days, or even until a few weeks ago no one who looked at me
would have believed me capable of plotting against young and innocent
girls, annexing aunts on the hire system, or deluding uncles-in-law with
misleading statements. Yet these things I have done, and worse; for I
have kept my word to Phyllis Rivers.

If I must commit a crime, my artistic sense bids me do it well; and
then, of course, when one has started in a certain direction, one is
often carried along a little farther than one intended to go at first.

That was what happened to me, in the affair of Robert van Buren and his
fiancee.

I was pledged to Phyllis and myself to free the Viking somehow--anyhow.
It was rash of me to give this pledge, also it was quixotic; and many
hours did not pass after making it, before I was seized with regret, and
convictions that I had been an ass.

Exactly how I was going to do the deed did not occur to me at the time,
but I had an idea which fitted in with my other villainies so well,
that it seemed really a pity not to add it to the richly colored
pattern.

It was for this reason that I dreaded returning to the Hotel du Pays Bas
from a walk about Utrecht, knowing as I did that the van Buren party
would have arrived.

I stayed out, sketchin