"I will. But why couldn't you have said Phil was engaged to Jonkheer Brederode?"
"Robert van Buren wouldn't have stood it."
"I see. But what about him? It's no use my telling him anything; he would go and do the opposite. He's sitting in the outer cabin, alone, where Lady MacNairne asked him to stay and keep guard over her, while Phyllis and I stopped beside her in the inner room.
"Dear Aunt Fay," I murmured. "If you'll just warn Miss Rivers, and tell my aunt that she'd better be asleep when Sir Alec MacNairne peeps in, I'll tackle your cousin."
"Come, then," said Nell.
And I followed her into that tasteful little cabin which, in the dim past, I decorated for my own use.
Luckily, it is a far more difficult task to persuade Robert van Buren to say something than not to say anything at all; and though he was puzzled, and not too pleased at being plunged into a mystery, I extorted from him a promise to glare as much as he liked at the intruder but not on any account to speak.
"He won't know you understand English," I said, determining to strengthen in Sir Alec's mind, by every means in my power, the impression of Robert's Dutchness.
I had just arranged matters when Nell came back with the strained air of a martyr who hears the lions. We went up on deck together, and a glance showed Sir Alec that no introduction was needed.
"What! This is Miss Van Buren, the young lady who is engaged to marry Jonkheer Brederode!" he exclaimed.