"And today?" asked Stephanie, bewildered beyond measure and scarce knowing what she asked.
"Of the island at which your yacht has sought harbor."
CHAPTER XXX
REVELATIONS AND WITHHOLDINGS
The only acknowledgment Miss Truda Van Rooy vouchsafed to this amazing introduction was to sink to her knees by the side of Beekman and press her pretty lips to his hand. The introduction and the action startled Stephanie almost beyond the power of expression, but her surprise was instantly lost in another consideration.
Miss Truda Van Rooy on her native heath, clad only in a Polynesian petticoat and her native modesty, was entirely unexceptionably clothed, and no one would give a second thought to any possible deficiency in her raiment; but Miss Truda Van Rooy in the luxurious and very up-to-date cabin of the yacht, her delicate figure clearly discernible through French lingerie, was an entirely different proposition. Everyone, even Beekman, was acutely conscious of the situation except the girl herself. If she thought about it at all, it would be with a sense of discomfort begot by unusual draperies. For the rest, she made a lovely picture.
She had rebraided her hair, and Celeste's deft fingers had given a civilized touch to the twisted locks so gloriously crowning her lovely head. Celeste, herself, more scandalized or at least less restrained in her horror, stood in the doorway of the cabin, a picture of nervous dismay. Stephanie, realizing the situation at last, was quicker to act. She drew Truda to her feet, interposed her own person between the girl and the others, and sought gently to force her back to the room whence she had come; but Truda opposed this urging with a sudden fierce vigor, despite her smaller stature and slighter build, against which the American girl was more or less helpless. An unseemly struggle was only prevented by a word from Beekman.
"Go with her; I am in no danger," he said.
"And who, may I ask, is she?" asked Mr. Maynard as the three women disappeared in the cabin.
"She is the last descendant of a shipload of Dutch soldiers, sailors, and traders who were cast away on this island two hundred and fifty years ago, together with some Polynesians they had picked up and who had lived here ever since; 'the world forgetting--by the world forgot,'" he added, the quotation being so exquisitely apt, although he was not in a poetic mood.