By the time this plan was arranged to the satisfaction of everybody except that of the person I wished to please, Hendrik had arrived with a cab, and five minutes later I was free to carry out my scheme for the evening.
From Gouda I'd sent a wire to my cousin Jan van Hol, asking him to be at home and expecting me between four and five, so I felt sure of him. I took all the short cuts (which I know as well as I know my hat), and was soon climbing the ladder-like stairs of the old house, the top floor of which was home to me for two years.
From those windows Goldsmith looked down on the sleepy canal, when he visited a crony who was tenant of the rooms; and the door which Goldsmith's hand often touched was thrown open by the present tenant, who must have been listening for my step.
To my surprise, he was in wild deshabille, and far out of his usual phlegmatic self with excitement.
"It's my Promotie Day," he explained. "I'm just back and have got out of my swallow-tail after the final exam. I'm due at the Club for the first part of my dinner in a few minutes. Had you forgotten, or didn't you get your card?"
I told him that no doubt it was at Liliendaal, or wandering in search of me; and when I had slapped him on the back, and congratulated him as "Learned Doctor," I began to wonder what I should do, as it was clear he would have no time to help me carry out my plans. His Promotie dinner, the grandest affair of student life, and the rounding off of it, would be in three parts, with various ceremonies in between, and would last from now until two or three in the morning. However, I told him what I had wanted; to give a surprise dinner at his diggings for the party from "Lorelei," with him to arrange details while I played guide, and to take the part of host for us at eight o'clock. Could he suggest any one who would look after the thing in his place? Van Rhonda or Douw, for instance? But van Rhonda and Douw, it seemed, were the Paranymphs, or supporters of the newly-made Doctor, and their time would be fully taken up in seeing him through. All my old friends who were left would be at the Promotie dinner, but Jan was sure that my business might be safely entrusted to the landlady. She would get flowers, go to the hotel to order whatever I wished, and even superintend the waiters.
With this I had to be satisfied, for in the midst of the discussion appeared the two Paranymphs, wanting to know what kept Jan, and the hero of the day was ruthlessly carried off between them. I had to do the best I could; my old landlady had not forgotten me, and I was assured that I might depend upon her. When I had scribbled a menu, consisting of some rather odd dishes, sketched an idea for the table decoration, and given a few other hasty instructions, I dashed off to keep my appointment at the Stadhuis. On the way I consoled myself with the reflection that it's an ill wind which blows nobody good. I had been bereaved of Jan as a prop, but I might make use of him and his friends by-and-by as one of the sights of Leiden, and I would take advantage of my knowledge of the usual program on such festive nights as this for the benefit of my friends.
I arrived at the Stadhuis as the others took their first look at the oak in the Archive Room. There was just one other room in this most excellent and historic building that I wanted Miss Van Buren to see. It was a Tapestry Room, among other Tapestry Rooms, of no importance; but I remembered her fantastic desire to "live in the stained-glass country," and I recalled a certain tapestry garden in which I felt sure she would long to wander. There was a meal of some wonderful sort going on in it, and I had been conscious in other days of a desire to be a tapestry man and sit with the merry tapestry lady smiling there. All tapestry people look incredibly happy, for in tapestry etiquette it's bad form to be tragic. Even their battles are comedy battles, as you can see by the faces of the war-horses that they have a strong sense of humor; but these particular tapestry friends of mine were the gayest I ever met, and I wanted Miss Van Buren to make their acquaintance.
To reach the room, through another also representing a tapestry world, we had to perform a dreadful surgical operation on the abdomen of a Roman emperor by opening a door in the middle of it, and, as the Mariner said, the size of the next room gave the same sort of shock that Jonah must have had when he arrived in the whale.
If I had shown her that tapestry garden, Miss Van Buren would have feigned indifference; but I left her to Starr, and from a distance had the chastened pleasure of hearing her say to him the things I should have liked her to say to me.