"Why, how silly!" roused Daphne. "Why, it would take weeks and weeks!"
"And in this impetuous climate," deprecated her father, "how 129 dispiriting to arrive at last only to find that the recreant bride groom had already taken unto himself another bride."
"Your levity is quite uncalled for," frowned the lady. "When I think of the anxiety I have caused my party the commotion there will be on board the yacht as soon as my absence is discovered, the——"
"Oh, of course we could advertise," suggested Jaffrey Bretton cheerfully, "stating the latitude and longitude, and the more explicit directions that it's the island that almost always has eleven pelicans sitting on the sand bar. And we could train our butler, I suppose, to swim out from time to time to the passing yachts and houseboats with a placard in his mouth saying, Found: 'A Brown Khaki Lady'. But unless we have a little more definite identification—" he turned and addressed the lady with some incisiveness.
In spite of herself and quite inexplainably the lady began to smile. Simultaneously with the smile she unwound the brown veil from her brown hat, and snatching off the hat itself bared her bright head to the breeze.
"Just mention that I have red hair," she said. "Names are 130 altogether too easily assumed to be practical for identification purposes."
"Yet more ladies, I suppose," murmured Jaffrey Bretton, "travel under assumed hair than under assumed names."
"Why, Old-Dad!" protested Daphne. In a sudden flare of interest her whole attention focused on the lady. "My! but your hair is red!" she cried. "And such heaps of it! Why, goodness!" she stammered, "you're almost as young as I am!"
"It's delightful of you to think so," smiled the lady. "But even you, I'm afraid, will never rate me as young as this—this—your father, was it, you said?"
"I don't quite understand what you mean?" sobered Daphne.