The Chauffeur and the Chaperon | Page 8

of characteristic thing left

which we haven't met with. I'm sure I could go home now and talk
intelligently about Holland."
We couldn't help being interested in everything, though we were seeing
it against our wills; yet it was a relief to our feelings when the Back
unbent to the extent of stopping before an old-fashioned, low-built
hotel, close to a park. So far as we could judge, it was miles from
anywhere, and had no connection with anything else; but we were too
thankful for the privilege of stopping, to be critical. The house had an
air of quiet rectitude which appealed to Phil, and without a word she
allowed our luggage to be taken off the cab.
When we came to pay, it appeared that our driver hadn't made us
acquainted with every secret of Rotterdam, purely in a spirit of
generosity. We were called upon to part with almost all the gulden we
had got in exchange for shillings on board the boat, and Phil looked
volumes as it dawned on her intelligence that each one of these coins
(with the head of an incredibly mild and whiskered old gentleman upon
it) was worth one and eightpence.
[Illustration: We were called upon to part with almost all the gulden]
"At this rate we shall soon be in the poorhouse," she said.
"If it comes to that, we can stop the motor-boat at villages and solicit
alms," I suggested.
After all, the Back had had some method in its madness, for on
showing the caretaker's address to a giant hall-porter, it appeared that
the place was within ten minutes' walk of the hotel. We refused to
decide upon rooms until our future plans had shaped themselves; and
our luggage reposed in the hall while we had cups of tea and a Dutch
conception of toast in a garden, whose charms we shared with a rakish
wandering Jew of a tortoise.
Many times since I induced Phyllis to join me in becoming an
adventuress, have we vaguely arranged what we would do on arriving
at Rotterdam. The program seemed simple enough from a distance--just

to go and pick up our boat (so to speak) and motor away with it; but
when we actually started off, pioneered by a small boy from the hotel,
to take possession of our property, I had a horrid sinking of the heart,
which I wouldn't for many heads of whiskered old gentlemen on gulden
have confessed to Phil. I felt that "something was going to happen."
The "ten minutes'" walk prolonged itself into twenty, and then there
was a ferry over a wide, brown, swift-flowing stream. This brought us
to a little basin opening from the river, where one or two small yachts
and other craft nestled together.
"Look!" I exclaimed, with a sudden throb of excitement, which bubbled
up like a geyser through the cold crust of my depression. "There she
is!"
"Who?" cried Phyllis, starting. "Any one we know?"
"Our boat, silly. 'Lorelei.' I suppose you think she ought to be called
'White Elephant'?"
Yes, there she was, with "Lorelei" in gold letters on her bows, this fair
siren who had lured us across the North Sea; and instead of being
covered up and shabby to look at after her long winter of retirement and
neglect, she had the air of being ready to start off at a moment's notice
to begin a cruise.
Every detail of her smart white dress looked new. There was no fear of
delay for painting and patching. Clean cocoa-nut matting was spread
upon the floor of the little decks fore and aft; the brass rails dazzled our
eyes with their brilliance; the windows of the roofed cabin were
brighter than the Ko-hi-nur, the day I went to see it in the Tower of
London; basket-chairs, with pink and blue and primrose silk cushions,
stood on deck, their arms open in a welcoming gesture. There was a
little table, too, which looked born and bred for a tea-table. It really was
extraordinary.
"Oh, Nell, it is a pretty boat!" The words were torn from Phil in
reluctant admiration. "Of course it's most awfully reckless of us to have

come, and I don't see what's going to happen in the end; but--but it does
seem as if we might enjoy ourselves. Fancy having tea on our own deck!
Why, it's almost a yacht! I wonder what Lady Hutchinson would say if
she could see us sitting in those chairs! She'd be polite to me for a
whole month."
Lady Hutchinson is Phil's one titled client. Long ago her husband was a
grocer. She writes sentimental poetry, and her idea of dignity is to snub
her type-writer. But I couldn't concentrate my mind on the pleasure of
astonishing Lady Hutchinson. I was