That state of mind lasted up to the night when we arrived at the deadest of all Dead Cities of the Zuider Zee, Enkhuisen. There it broke upon me out of a clear sky that my Burne-Jones angel, Phyllis Rivers, loved and was loved by, another; that other, a graven image of a Viking, who could never appreciate her as she deserved.
Until the blow fell, I had always, half unconsciously, felt that she was there; that if I lost the incomparable Nell, the exquisite Phyllis was on the spot to console me; and she is at her best as a consoler. But suddenly, at a moment when I was soaked with rain, snubbed by Nell, as well as foolishly concerned about the fate of that white man's burden, my Albatross, and altogether ill-fitted to bear further misfortunes, I learnt that Phyllis regarded me as a brother.
I hid my chagrin in sympathy for hers, but Phyllis in tears proved distracting. She is the one girl I have ever seen who can cry without a deplorable redness of the nose. Tears rolled like pearls over her lower lashes, which are almost as long as the fringe of the upper lids, and I wondered how I could ever have thought another girl more desirable. Too late for my comfort did she assure me that, in her opinion, my case was not hopeless with her stepsister. It was Phyllis, not Nell, whom I now wished to snatch from the arms of a hated rival (not that she was in them yet, but she might be at any minute unless I secured her) and it was painful that at such a crisis she should throw her once unattainable stepsister at my head.
Next day, to be sure, when Alb brought the motor-boat to our rescue at Urk, the way Nell's big hazel eyes lit up at sight of him, set my heart vibrating again like a pendulum, and I found myself much in the same condition I had been in at first; unable to decide which, after all, was the more indispensable of the two girls. But this return to chaos did not make for peace of mind, because, though I could not bear to lose either, I should be lucky if I contrived to keep one. Besides, there was the worry about Sir Alec MacNairne, and the danger that he might pounce down upon us to destroy the fabric I had so carefully woven.
Altogether, the features of Friesland were not cut with the same cameo-clearness upon my perception that other parts of Holland had taken a few weeks or even days ago, when I was young and happy.
As I remarked early in our black partnership, even an Albatross can have its uses. Perhaps, if the truth were known, the Ancient Mariner occasionally fell down and would have broken a bone if the Albatross, tied round his neck, had not acted as a kind of cushion for his protection. At Amsterdam, in a moment of peril for our plot, Alb acted somewhat in this capacity for me, showing himself to be possessed of all that shrewd adroitness which should furnish the equipment of every well-regulated villain. At Leeuwarden, therefore, it was for me to do something desperate when desperate need arose.
I shall never cease to applaud my own presence of mind in the matter of turning the enemy's flank. My wrists were lame for days after that famous handshake with Aunt Fay's husband which, in his surprise, spun the big fellow round like a teetotum, and gave Alb a chance to vanish with the girls.
If Aunt Fay had indeed been on board "Lorelei," re-named "Mascotte"; if the "M.," late "L.," had been Brederode's boat, and he had really been flirting with my aunt through the waterways of Holland, according to Sir Alec's wild impression, I couldn't have been more anxious to save her from his jealous wrath by giving him the slip.
Alb had never spoken of a flirtation, and though, at the time it was first sprung upon me by Sir Alec, I was angry with the Albatross for his close-mouthedness, my inconvenient sense of justice forced me to admit afterwards that it wasn't exactly the kind of thing he could have confided to me of all others.
When that peppery Scotsman opened his heart, and poured forth the true story of Aunt Fay's mysterious disappearance from the scene, for a minute or two any feather floating in my direction could have knocked me down; but I hung on to my captive uncle all the same, while I rearranged my ideas of the universe at large, and my corner of it in particular.