"Oh, don't be horrid!" she almost sobbed. "I cuc--cuc--can't help it."

"I have given some thought to the problem myself," he said, for, in
truth, he was beginning to be alarmed by her tenacity, though
determined not to let her perceive his changed mood. "Curiously
enough, I was thinking more of your dilemma than of the signals when we
were overhauled by the _Sao Geronimo_ this morning. Odd, isn't it, how
things pop into one's mind at the most unexpected moments? While I was
coding our explanation that we were putting into Pernambuco for
repairs, and that no steam yacht had been sighted between here and the
River Plate, I was really trying to imagine what the cruiser's people
would have said if I had told them the actual truth."

His apparent gravity drew the girl's thoughts for an instant from
contemplating her own unhappiness.

"How could you have done that?" she asked. "We are going there to suit
Senhor De Sylva's ends. We have suffered so much already for his sake
that we could hardly betray him now."

Hozier spread wide his hands with a fine affectation of amazement.

"I wasn't talking about De Sylva," he cried. "My remarks were strictly
confined to the question of your marriage. I know you far too well,
Iris, to permit you to go back to Bootle to be lectured and browbeaten
by your uncle. I have never seen him, but, from all accounts, he is a
rather remarkable person. He likes to have his own way, irrespective
of other folks' feelings. I am a good guesser, Iris. I have a pretty
fair notion why Coke meant to leave our poor ship's bones on a South
American reef. I appreciate exactly how well it would serve Mr. David
Verity's interests if his niece married a wealthy old party like
Bulmer. By the way how old is Bulmer?"

"Nearly seventy."

Even Iris herself smiled then, though her tremulous mirth threatened to
dissolve in tears.

"Ah, that's a pity," said Hozier.

"It is very unkind of you to treat me in this manner," she protested.

"But I am trying to help you. I say it is a pity that Bulmer should be
a patriarch, because his only hope of marrying you is that I shall die
first. Even then he must be prepared to espouse my widow. By the way,
is it disrespectful to describe him as a patriarch? Isn't there some
proverb about three score years and ten?"

"Philip, if only you would appreciate my dreadful position----"

"I do. It ought to be ended. The first parson we meet shall be
commande