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277 The girl could easily have dispensed with this new apparition—so many had crossed her path that day. Bizarrely clad in a diaphanous skirt of tango red, a sheer light waist of some kindred shade, and a hat of yellow, like a newly-minted coin, tilted on her sleek black hair, she walked across the open in languorous, hip-swaying fashion, a little daring and not at all ungraceful.

And all she said by way of greeting when she met Sally's stare was this:

"Where's the camera-man, girlie?"

The costume indeed seemed quite Spanish, but even to Sally's untravelled eyes it had a touch of extreme smartness that the tropics never knew. And the newcomer spoke in a lingo as unintelligible sometimes as any native dialect, yet with a nasal echo of the big cities back home.

However, she was a perfect picture in that setting. If only she could have hushed that voice!

Was this the woman of the yacht? Sally turned towards her sharply. She was in no mood for banter from a stranger. But was that face entirely strange? Where—no, she couldn't place it.

"Who are you?"

Again the harsh voice from the carmined lips.

"Oh-ah I'm Lady Geraldine taking a cruise in my youngest steam yacht. They are such a boah, my dear, don't you think?"

Carrying out the momentary rôle with the perfect ennui of a show-girl in a Palm beach scene, she crooked her arm affectedly, feathered her hair with the tips of her fingers, and