Anstice interpolated a polite
question and Cheniston answered in the same tone.

"Yes. And engineering in the land of the Pharaohs is no joke. You must
remember that we, as engineers, are only now where they were thousands
of years ago. I mean that our present-day feats, the Dam at Assouan,
wonderful as it is, and the rest, are mere child's play compared with
the marvels they constructed in their day."

"So I have been told before." Only Anstice knew how hard it was to sit
there conversing as though he and this man shared no tragic memory in
common. "But if Egyptologists are to be believed there is hardly any
invention, any scientific discovery--so called--which wasn't known to
the Egyptians many thousands of years before the birth of Christ."

"They even possessed aeroplanes, didn't they?" asked Iris, smiling; and
Bruce Cheniston turned to her with an involuntary softening in his
rather harsh voice.

"So it is stated, I believe," he said, with an answering smile. "And it
is generally believed that in the lost Continent of Atlantis----"

He went on talking, not monopolizing the conversation, but keeping it
going so skilfully that Iris, at least, did not recognize the fact that
both Mrs. Carstairs and Anstice were more than ordinarily silent as the
meal progressed.

When the short but perfect dinner was finished Chloe rose.

"We will have coffee in the drawing-room, Bruce," she said as she moved
slowly to the door. "If you are not too long over your cigarettes I
daresay Miss Wayne will sing for us."

"With that inducement we shall soon follow you," said Cheniston gravely;
and as Iris passed through the door which Anstice held open for her she
gave him a friendly little smile which somehow nerved him for the ordeal
which he foresaw to be at hand.

Closing the door he came back again to the table, but did not yet sit
down. Bruce had already reseated himself and was pouring out a glass of
port, an operation he interrupted with a perfunctory apology.

"Forgive me--pray help yourself." He pushed the decanter across the
table, but Anstice shook his head.

"No, thanks." He hesitated a moment, then plunged into the subject which
must surely be uppermost in both their minds. "See here, Cheniston, I
should like you to understand that when I accepted Mrs. Carstairs' kind
hospitality to-night I had no idea you were the brother I was to meet."

For a second Cheniston said nothing, his brown hand playing absently
with a