Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/274

266 tell you. Ay, and we have fought against England in our time. As late as 1672, Adrian Van der Knoope commanded a ship under De Ruyter when he outgeneralled the English in Southwold Bay. But since 1688 our swords have been at the service of our adopted country; and she has used them, sir."

I am afraid I was not listening. My chair faced the window, and as I glanced at the letter in my hands enough light filtered through the transparent "foreign" paper to throw up the watermark, and it bore the name of an English firm.

This small discovery, quite unwillingly made, gave me a sudden sense of shame, as though I had been playing some dishonourable trick. I was hastily folding up the paper, to return it, when the door opened and Wilhelmina came in, with her uncle Melchior.

She seemed to divine in an instant what had happened; threw a swift glance at the blind Admiral, and almost as swiftly took the letter from my hand and restored it to the packet. The next moment, with perfect coolness she was introducing me to her uncle Melchior.

Melchior Van der Knoope was perhaps ten years younger than his brother, and carried his tall figure buttoned up tightly in an old-fashioned frockcoat: a mummy of a man, with a fixed air of mild bewilderment and a trick of running his left hand through his white hair—due, no doubt, to everlasting difficulty with the family accounts. He shook hands as ceremoniously as his brother.