Gomez smiled.
"The señorita Cliffe is artless and has made a mistake. Her note covers only half the paper and leaves room for something to be added underneath."
"Ah!" The clerk was a skillful penman and had once or twice successfully imitated the signatures of hostile politicians.
"You understand!" said Gomez. "The writing must not look different and you must use the same kind of pencil. Now give me some paper."
He smoked a cigarette before he began to write, for the space at the foot of Evelyn's note was limited. Grahame probably knew the girl's hand, but would be deceived by a clever imitation of it in the form of a postscript under her signature. The note was dated at Rio Frio and left it to be understood that Evelyn expected him there, but the postscript directed him to land on the beach near Valverde, where a guide would look out for him for several nights.
"There are two words we had better alter; the Americans do not often use them," said the clerk cautiously, and Gomez agreed to the change.
"You will have it sent off and make arrangements for the Englishman to be met," he added with a smile. "And now I must start for Villa Paz to tell the President."
Half an hour later he mounted in the patio, and Evelyn, hearing the clatter of hoofs, looked out through the half-opened lattice and watched him ride away. As he had an armed escort and a spare mule, she imagined he meant to make a long journey, and Grahame might arrive before he returned.
Soon after the party had gone, the señora Garcia came in and stood looking at the girl as if she had something to say. Her air of sullen dislike was less marked than usual, and Evelyn, remembering the sound she had heard during her interview with Gomez, suspected that she had listened at the door. Now the woman looked anxious and embarrassed, and while she hesitated Evelyn studied her. The señora must have possessed unusual beauty and was handsome yet, although she was getting stout and losing her freshness, as women of Spanish blood do at an early age in hot climates. Her skin had been spoiled by cosmetics and her face was clumsily touched with paint and powder. Evelyn felt a half contemptuous pity; there was something pathetic in her crude attempts to preserve her vanishing charm.
The señora made signs which Evelyn supposed to mean that Gomez had gone away, and then she took out some silver and paper currency. Putting it into the girl's hand, she pointed to the door.