a Paris hat, carrying a Trouville parasol, and
most exquisitely gloved and booted, made every one gasp.

"Oh, Robert dear, how _could_ you? I actually didn't know you!"

Thus Iris, bewitchingly attired, and gazing now with provoking
admiration at Robert, who certainly offered almost as great a contrast
to his former state as did the girl herself. He returned her look with
interest.

"Would any man believe," he laughed, "that clothes would do so much for
a woman?"

"What a left-handed compliment! But come, dearest, Captain Fitzroy and
Lord Ventnor have come ashore with father and me. They want us to show
them everything! You will excuse him, won't you?" she added, with a
seraphic smile to the others.

They walked off together.

"Jimmy!" gasped the fat midshipman to a lanky youth. "She's got on your
togs!"

Meaning that Iris had ransacked the _Orient's_ theatrical
wardrobe, and pounced on the swell outfit of the principal female
impersonator in the ship's company.

Lieutenant Playdon bit the chin strap of his pith helmet, for the
landing party wore the regulation uniform for service ashore in the
tropics. He muttered to his chief--

"Damme if I've got the hang of this business yet."

"Neither have I. Anstruther looks a decent sort of fellow, and the girl
is a stunner. Yet, d'ye know, Playdon, right through the cruise I've
always understood that she was the fiancee of that cad, Ventnor."

"Anstruther appears to have arranged matters differently. Wonder what
pa will say when that Johnnie owns up about the court-martial."

"Give it up, which is more than the girl will do, or I'm much mistaken.
Funny thing, you know, but I've a sort of hazy recollection of
Anstruther's name being mixed up with that of a Colonel's wife at Hong
Kong. Fancy Ventnor was in it too, as a witness. Stand by, and we'll
see something before we unload at Singapore."

CHAPTER XVI

BARGAINS, GREAT AND SMALL

Lord Ventnor was no fool. Whilst Iris was transforming herself from a
semi-savage condition into a semblance of an ultra _chic_
Parisienne--the _Orient's_ dramatic costumier went in for strong
stage effects in feminine attire--Sir Arthur Deane told the Earl
something of the state of affairs on the island.

His lordship--a handsome, saturnine man, cool, insolently polite, and
plentifully endowed with the judgmatical daring that is the necessary
equipment of a society libertine--counseled patience, toleration, even
silent