ad been gladdened by the vision of
her child grown into this priceless, this wonderful youth, which held a
hint of a yet more gracious, yet more desirable womanhood....

And then the second verse stole softly on the quiet air....

"Now I teach my children
Each melodious measure...."

Again did one, at least, of Iris' hearers lose the remaining lines. For
to Anstice these words brought another vision--a vision in which Iris,
this fair-haired girl who looked so adorably young and sweet, bent over
a little child whose rose-leaf face was a baby replica of her own....

And suddenly Anstice knew, knew irrevocably, beyond shadow of doubt,
that he wanted Iris Wayne for himself, that she was the one woman in all
the world he desired to make his wife....

With a wild throb of his heart he looked up--to find Bruce Cheniston's
eyes fixed upon his face with a half-mocking smile in their blue depths,
of whose hostile meaning there could be no question.

* * * * *

An hour or so later, when the guests had departed, and Cheniston had
finished a solitary pipe downstairs, he went up, yawning, to bed.
Passing his sister's open door he heard her call him, and after a
second's indecision he answered the summons, wondering why she were not
already asleep.

Chloe was sitting by the open window, wearing a thin grey wrapper which
made her look curiously pale and ethereal. Her thick hair hung in two
heavy plaits over her shoulders, and in the dim light her face showed
indistinctly in its silky black frame.

"Chloe, why aren't you in bed?" Bruce paused half-way across the room.

"I'm not sleepy," she said indifferently. "I often sit here half the
night. Bruce"--her voice grew more alert--"have you and Dr. Anstice met
before?"

"Yes," he said, "we have. But why do you ask?"

"I thought there was something rather curious about your meeting," she
answered slowly. "At first I could not understand it, and then it dawned
upon me that you had met--and distrusted one another--before."

"Distrusted?" He stared at her. "That isn't the right word, Chloe. We
_have_ met before--in India. I almost wonder you yourself didn't realize
that fact, but I suppose you were not sufficiently interested----"

She interrupted him without ceremony.

"I? But how should I realize ... unless"--suddenly her intuition serving
her as it serves so many women, she grasped the truth with a quickness
which surprised even her b