If she followed the beaten track on her long run to the River Plate--as sailors will persist in miscalling that wondrous Rio de la Plata--she might be signaled from Madeira or the Cape Verde Islands. But shipmasters often prefer to set a course clear of the land till they pick up the coast of South America. If she were not spoken by some passing steamer, there was every possibility that the sturdy old vessel would not be heard of again before reaching her destination.
* * * * * *
But David Verity heard of her much sooner, and no thunderbolt that ever rent the heavens could have startled him more than the manner of that hearing.
Resolving to clinch matters with regard to Iris and her elderly suitor, he invited "Owd Dickey" to supper on Sunday evening. The girl endured the man's presence with a placid dignity that amazed her uncle. On the plea of a headache, she retired at an early hour, leaving Bulmer to gloat over his prospective happiness, and primed to the point of dementia.
He was quite willing to accompany Verity to the bank next morning; a pleasant-spoken manager sighed his relief when the visitors were gone, and he was free to look at the item "bills discounted" on Verity's page in the ledger. More than that, a lawyer was instructed to draw up a partnership deed, and the representatives of various ship-building firms were asked to supply estimates for two new vessels.
Altogether Dickey was complaisant, and David enjoyed a busy and successful day. He dined in town, came home at a late hour, and merely grinned when a servant told him that Mr. Bulmer had called twice but Miss Iris happened to be out on both occasions.
Nevertheless, at breakfast on Tuesday, he warned his niece not to keep her admirer dangling at arm's length.
"E's a queer owd codger," explained the philosopher. "Play up to 'im a bit, an' you'll be able to twist 'im round your little finger. I b'lieve he's goin' dotty, an' you can trust me to see that the marriage settlement is O. K."
"Will you be home to dinner?" was her response.
"No. Now that the firm is in smooth water again I must show myself a bit. It's all thanks to you, lass, an' I'll not forget it. Good-by!"
Iris smiled, and Verity was vastly pleased.
"I am sure you will not forget," she said. "Good-by."
"There's no understandin' wimmin," mused David, as his victoria swept through the gates of Linden House. "Sunday afternoon Dickey might ha' bin a dose of rat poison; now she's ready to swaller 'im as if 'e was a chocolate drop."
Again he returned some few minutes after midnight; again the servant announced Mr. Bulmer's visits, three of them; and again Miss Iris had been absent--in fact, she had not yet come home.
"Not 'ome!" cried David furiously. "W'y it's gone twelve. W'ere the--w'ere is she?"
No one knew. She had quitted the house soon after Verity himself, and had not been seen since. Storm and rage as he might, and did, David could not discover his niece's whereabouts. He spent a wearying and tortured night, a harassed and miserable day, devoted to frantic inquiries in every possible direction with interludes of specious lying to the infatuated Bulmer. But enlightment came on Thursday morning. A letter arrived by the first post. It was from Iris.
"MY DEAR UNCLE," she wrote: "Neither you nor Mr. Bulmer should have any objection to my passing the few remaining weeks of my liberty in the manner best pleasing to myself. On Sunday evening, in your presence, Mr. Bulmer urged me to fix an early date for our marriage. Tell him that I shall marry him when the Andromeda returns to England from South America. You will remember that you promised last year to take me to Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Ayres this summer; I have been learning Spanish so as to help our sight-seeing. Unfortunately, business prevents you from keeping that promise, but there is no reason why I should not go. I am on board the Andromeda, and will probably be able to explain matters satisfactorily to Captain Coke. The vessel is due back at the end of September, I believe, so Mr. Bulmer will not have long to wait. It is more than likely that Captain Coke will not know I am aboard until Thursday, and I have arranged with a friend that this letter shall reach you about the same time. Please convey my apologies to Mr. Bulmer, and accept my regret for any anxiety you may have felt owing to my unaccountable absence.
"Your affectionate niece,
"IRIS YORKE."
David narrowly escaped an apoplectic seizure. When he recovered his senses he looked ten years older. The instinct of self-preservation alone saved him in his frenzy from blurting forth the tidings
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