t awake to the gray actualities of life.

She felt Carmela dragging her onward, irresistibly, vindictively. She
saw, as through a mist, David Verity's fiery-hued face, and heard his
harsh accents. Yes, there was no mistake. Here was Bootle transported
to Brazil, Linden House to Las Flores!

"By gum, lass," he was bellowing, with a touch of real sentiment in his
voice, "you've given us a rare dance afore we caught up wi' you. But
'ere you are, bright as a cherry, an' 'ere is Dickey an' meself come to
fetch you. Dash my wig, there's life in the old dogs yet, or we'd
never ha' bin able to ride forty mile through this God-forgotten
country. An' damme if that isn't Coke, red as a lobster. Jimmie, me
boy, put it there! Man, but you're a dashed long way from port!"

Happily, Iris was too stunned to betray herself. She extended a hand
to the sun-browned, white-haired old man standing by her uncle's side.

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Bulmer," she said simply. And, in that
hour of searing agony, she meant it, for it is easier to look back on
suffering than to await it, and she had been living in dread of this
meeting for many a weary day.

CHAPTER XV

SHOWING HOW BRAZIL CHOSE HER PRESIDENT

Two thousand five hundred years ago the prophet Jeremiah expressed
incredulity as to the power of an Ethiopian to change his skin or a
leopard his spots. The march of the centuries has fully justified the
seer's historic doubt, so it makes but slight demand on the critical
faculties to assume that two years' residence in Europe had not cooled
the hot southern blood flowing in Carmela's veins.

She had hated Iris before she set eyes on her; she hated her now that she
had seen her rare beauty; she gloated on the suffering inflicted by the
presence of the faded old man who claimed her as his bride. Though it
was of the utmost importance that she should hasten to her father, she
returned to Las Flores in her rival's company, their arms linked in
seeming friendship, and the Brazilian girl's ears alert to treasure every
word that told of Bulmer's wooing.

Therein she greatly miscalculated the true gentility of one whom his
cronies described as "a rough diamond." Bulmer realized that Iris was
overwrought. Vague but sensational items in newspapers had prepared him
in some measure for the story of her wanderings since last they met in
quiet, old-fashioned Bootle. He felt that she was altered, that their
ways in life h