larity of vision which rarely failed him, that Cheniston,
rather than he, was a fit suitor for Iris Wayne.

On several occasions during those weeks of May he saw the two together;
and each time this happened he felt as though the sun had vanished from
the sky, as though the soft breezes of early summer were turned to the
cold and hopeless blast of an icy north-easter.

Cheniston had a motor-bicycle on which he intended to explore the
district; and on finding a kindred spirit in Miss Wayne he had
inaugurated a series of expeditions in which she was his companion;
while Chloe Carstairs and Cherry would motor forth in the same direction
and share a picnic lunch at some wayside hostelry--an arrangement which
afforded unbounded pleasure to some members, at least, of the quartette.

That Cheniston was strongly attracted by Iris, Anstice did not doubt. On
one unlucky Sunday he had received an invitation from Greengates, which,
delivered as it was in person by Sir Richard himself, could not have
been refused without discourtesy; and in the middle of the evening
Cheniston had dropped in casually with a message from his sister, and
had stayed on with an easy certainty of welcome which betokened a rapid
growth in favour with both father and daughter.

What Iris' feelings towards the new-comer might be Anstice had no means
of discovering. Her manner towards him was delightfully girlish and
simple, and it was plain to see that she was fascinated by his accounts
of life in the wonderful Egypt which holds always so strong an
attraction for the romantic temperament; but with all her young
_insouciance_ Iris Wayne was not one to wear her heart upon her sleeve;
and her friendliness never lost that touch of reticence, of unconscious
dignity which constituted, to Anstice, one of her greatest charms.

Towards himself, as an older man and one whose life naturally ran on
contrasting lines, her manner was a little less assured, as though she
were not quite certain of her right to treat him as one on a level with
herself; but the tinge of girlish deference to which, as he guessed, his
profession entitled him in her eyes, was now and then coloured with
something else, with a hint of gentleness, not unlike compassion, which
was oddly, dangerously sweet to his sore and lonely heart.

Somehow the idea of marriage had never previously entered his head.
Before the day which had, so to speak, cut his life in two, with a line
of cleavage dividing