"Well, supposing you cared more than you thought you ought, for a man it couldn't be right to care for at all, because he belonged to some one else, what would you do?"
"Try to stop caring for him," said Nell.
"That's what I think, too; only it might be hard, mightn't it? Do you suppose it would be easier if a girl did her best to learn to love another man, who was free to care for her, and did seem to care for her, so as to take her mind off the—the forbidden man?"
No answer. (I realized that they could not have heard the falling match-box, and I was at my window-door now, going in. But the door is a Dutch door, which means that it is cleaned and varnished every day; and the varnish stuck.)
"You might tell me what you think, Nell. You have had so much experience, in serials."
"Oh!" exclaimed Nell. "I—I hate you, Phil!"
Their door evidently did not stick, for suddenly it slammed, and I guessed that Nell had rushed in and banged it shut behind her.
* * * * * *
Now, it is the next day but one after this episode, and we are at Utrecht, after having visited an old "kastel" or two more in the neighborhood of Arnhem, and then following the Rhine where it winds among fields like a wide, twisted ribbon of silver worked into a fabric of green brocade. Its high waves, roughened by huge side-wheel steamers, spilt us into the Lek; and so, past queer little ferries and a great crowded lock or two, where Alb used his Club flag, we came straight to the fine old city of which one hears and knows more, somehow, than of any other in Holland.
I planned to do a little painting here; but, after all, I don't seem to take as much interest in composing pictures as in trying to puzzle out the meanings of several things.