XVI
"By Jove, here's a lark!" exclaimed Starr, at the breakfast table, looking up from the Paris Herald.
It was at the Amstel Hotel, on our fourth morning, and he and I were taking coffee together, as an Ancient Mariner and his Albatross should. The ladies had not yet appeared, for they were breakfasting in their rooms.
"What's up?" I asked.
"It's under the latest news of your Queen's doings," said he, and began to read aloud: "'Jonkheer Brederode, who is equally popular in English and Dutch society and sporting circles, has taken for the season a large motor-boat, in which he is touring the waterways of Holland, with a party of invited friends, among whom is Lady MacNairne. It was her portrait, as everybody knows, painted by the clever American artist, Mr. R. L. Starr, which was so much admired at the Paris Salon this spring.' Funny, how they strung that story together, isn't it? But it's a bore—er—in the circumstances, their having got hold of my aunt's name."
"People who weave tangled webs mustn't be surprised if they get caught in them sometimes," said I.
"I wonder how Miss Van Buren will like this? She's sure to see it," Starr went on, reflectively.
How she liked it mattered more to me than to anybody else, because if she disliked it, I was the person upon whom her vexation would be visited. But there was a still more important point which apparently hadn't come under the Mariner's consideration. How would Lady MacNairne's husband like it?
Evidently Starr doesn't know that there has been an upset of some sort between Sir Alec and the charming Fleda; and as Fleda is his aunt, but has not confided in her nephew (while she has in me) no matter what trouble the newspaper paragraph may cause for the entire party, it would be a breach of confidence for me to enlighten him.