"I must send a message to my uncle," she said.
Were Philip a professed spiritualist, the spectral shapes of David Verity and Dickey Bulmer could not have been more effectually "projected" into his astral plane at Maceio than they were at that instant. He had not set eyes on either of the men, but the girl's words conjured them into being, and the vision was vastly disagreeable.
San Benavides, of course, was anxious to oblige Iris in this as in every other respect. He procured the requisite form, told her the cost, which led to a condensed version of the original draft, smoothed away the slight hindrance of foreign money tendered in payment, and arranged the due delivery of a reply. Perhaps he smiled when he read what she had written. The words were comprehensible even to one who did not understand English:
"Andromeda lost. Arrived here safely. Address, Yorke, Maceio."
There was a space at the foot of the form on which it was necessary to subscribe her name and local address. So she wrote, "Iris Yorke, steamship Unser Fritz, Maceio harbor." Hozier was standing by her side as she printed the words legibly. She looked up at him with a curiously tense expression that he did not fathom immediately. They were in the busy main street again ere its meaning occurred to him. The cable committed her irrevocably. She felt that she was signing her own condemnation!
Among the four people, therefore, who entered the Hotel Grande in the Rua do Sul there were two whose feelings were the reverse of cheerful. But convention is stronger than the primal impulses—sometimes it triumphs over death itself—and convention was all-powerful now. It led Iris away captive in the train of the smiling and voluble Senhora Pondillo, and it immersed Hozier in a tangle of fearsome words which turned out to be the stock in trade of a clothier. The mere male of Maceio decks himself with gay plumage. Philip was hard put to it before he secured some garments which did not irresistibly recall the heroes of certain musical comedies popular in England.
Coke experienced worse vicissitudes. Even the variety and richness of a master mariner's vocabulary was taxed to its utmost resources when he was coaxed into "trying on" a short jacket apparently intended for a toreador. Such minor troubles, however, were overcome in time. A razor and a hot bath were by no means the least important items of the rejuvenating process, and when the two men entered the salon where Dom Corria was holding an impromptu reception they looked like a couple of coffee-planters from the Argentine. Schmidt was there already. For some reason, the new President seemed to be so fond of the Unser Fritz's commander that he refused to be parted from him. It was not until long afterward that Hozier discovered the reason of this mushroom friendship. The German consul was in the room.
The appearance of Iris caused something akin to a sensation. The Dona Pondillo could not create English clothes, nor bad copies of French, but her own daughters dressed in the height of local fashion, and Dom Corria's earnest request had made them generous. The dark-eyed, olive-complexioned women of Alagoas are often exceedingly beautiful, but few of those present had ever seen a brown-haired, brown-eyed, fair-faced Englishwoman. Iris was remarkably good-looking, even among the pretty girls of her own county of Lancashire. Her large, limpid eyes, well-molded nose, and perfectly formed mouth were the dominant features of a face that had all the charm of youth and health. Her smooth skin, brown with exposure to sun and air, glowed into a rich crimson when she found herself in the midst of so many strangers. The slightly delicate semblance induced by the hardships and loss of rest which fell to her lot since the Andromeda went to pieces on the Grand-père rock in no wise detracted from her appearance. She wore the elegant costume of a Maceio belle with ease and distinction. If she was flurried by the undisguised murmur of admiration that greeted her, she did not show it beyond the first rush of color.
Dom Corria, dragging Schmidt with him, hurried to meet her. Surprise at his gala attire helped to conquer her natural timidity, for the President was gorgeous in blue and gold.
"My good wishes are soon changed into congratulations, Senhor," she said.