oungest and prettiest of its daughters.
For all her youth and high spirits, Iris seemed to fit into the place as
one born to it; and when she tossed aside her cap and sat down behind
the massive silver tea-tray, her gold-brown curls shone against the oak
panelling of the walls as the wild daffodils gleam golden against the
massive brown trunks of the trees in whose shade they grow.

Lady Wayne had been dead for many years; and although Anstice gathered,
from casual conversation between father and daughter, that a certain
Aunt Laura made her home with them as a rule, it appeared that she was
at present travelling in Switzerland, leaving Iris mistress of
Greengates in her absence.

"I confess Iris and I rather enjoy a week or two to ourselves!" Sir
Richard's eyes twinkled. "My sister is a thoroughly good sort, but she
loves to manage people; and Iris and I are both of us constitutionally
averse to being managed!"

"I manage Daddy without him knowing it," said Iris loftily; and Anstice
could not refrain from an impulse to tease her a little.

"That is very clever of you, Miss Wayne," he said gravely, "and I'm sure
your management must be most tactful. But--if you'll excuse me
suggesting it--wouldn't it be cleverer still of you if you refrained
from hinting as much to your father?"

"You mean the really clever women never let the men know they're doing
it?" Her grey eyes laughed into his. "You are quite right, of
course--but then I don't pretend to be clever. I don't think clever
people--clever women, anyway--are ever happy."

"Don't you?" Somehow Anstice felt extraordinarily interested in the
views of this very youthful woman. "May I be allowed to know what has
driven you to that conclusion?"

"Oh, it's not exactly my own." Iris' eyes were honest as well as gay.
"It was something Mrs. Carstairs said to me one day. _She_ is clever,
you know--but her life has been made very unhappy."

Anstice, who had already wondered how much of Chloe Carstairs' history
was known to the Waynes, glanced involuntarily at Sir Richard as Iris
spoke the last words; and in the elder man's eyes he thought he saw a
hint of trouble.

"I should judge Mrs. Carstairs to be a well-read woman," he said,
endeavouring to change the subject while ostensibly pursuing it. "She
has a good many books about her, though of course nothing like your
collection here."

He glanced at the walls as he spoke, and Sir Richard took up the new
topic easily.