Hawley soon learned that Señora Felix’s departure from the United States was no secret. He had brought an evening newspaper on board, and on an inside page he came across the following heading, so inconspicuously displayed that it had first escaped his notice:
“Fugitive President’s Wife Goes Back.—Victoria Felix, ‘Grass Widow’ of Baracoa’s Missing Chief Executive, Sails To-day for Her Native Land After Two Years’ Exile in Washington.—Serious Illness of Her Father Given as Cause of Trip.”
From the quarter of a column of smaller type which appeared beneath this heading he learned that Señora Felix’s father was Doctor Emilio Hernandez, a prominent physician of San Cristobal, the capital of Baracoa. He had been seized with a paralytic stroke, and his daughter had been hurriedly summoned.
It was not until the vessel was well out at sea that the Camera Chap saw the señora again. She did not appear in the dining saloon for the evening meal, nor did she show herself on deck during the first day of the voyage. He inquired of one of the stewards, and learned that she was indisposed. But on the second day he saw her reclining in a steamer chair on the promenade deck, apparently absorbed in the pages of a French novel. He stood with his back against the starboard rail at a sufficient distance from her chair to avoid making his attention too marked, and covertly studied her.
She was slender, dark-eyed, about forty, and of aristocratic bearing. She was still beautiful, although suffering had imprinted deep lines on her olive skin. The set of her chin and the shape of her delicate mouth denoted character; in that respect the young man who was so intently watching her felt that he had never seen a face which impressed him more favorably. He recalled what Bates had said about the probability of her knowing the whereabouts of her fugitive husband, and he decided that the Washington correspondent must be wrong about that.
“If Felix isn’t the martyr I believe him to be—if his disappearance was voluntary, that woman was not a party to it, either before or afterward,” he told himself confidently. “A woman with a face like hers wouldn’t shield a crook, even if he was her husband. I take her to be the kind that would go through fire for a man worthy of her love, but a woman who wouldn’t have a particle of use for a moral weakling.”
As he was thus soliloquizing, the subject of his thoughts looked up from her book, and their eyes met. A faint tinge of pink made itself visible beneath her dark skin, as though she were embarrassed by his scrutiny. She frowned slightly; then resumed her reading.
Feeling that he owed her an apology for his seeming rudeness, Hawley was debating in his mind whether it would be discreet to take her into his confidence as to his mission to Baracoa, when an incident occurred which diverted his attention. Two men strolling along the promenade deck suddenly halted a short distance from where the señora was sitting, and stood leaning with their elbows resting on the rail. Hawley recognized both of these men. One of them, in fact, occupied the stateroom opposite his own. He was a clean-shaven, swarthy man of middle age, who was down on the passenger list as Señor José Lopez. The first time he had seen him on the boat it had struck Hawley that there was something familiar about the fellow’s face, but so far he had cudgeled his brain in an effort to recall when and where he had seen him before.
The other man was of striking appearance. He was tall, and of soldierly carriage. His dark, curly hair was gray at the temples, but, apart from this evidence of years, his handsome face was so youthful looking that he could easily have passed for a man in the early thirties. His complexion was ruddy, his dark eyes were sparkling. His well-waxed mustache, the ends of which were as sharp as stiletto points, gave his countenance a decidedly foreign aspect, otherwise he might have been taken for an American. The Camera Chap had learned that his name was Juan Cipriani, that he was a native of Argentine, and on his way back to that country.
The pair had been engaged in conversation as they approached, and now, as they leaned against the rail, they continued talking. They spoke in Spanish, and it seemed to Hawley that their voices were pitched above their normal register.