Afterwards

Never again would he rise to the height of greatness to which his love for Hilda Ryder had raised him; and whatever the quality of any affection he might in future bestow upon a woman, the spark of immortality, of selflessness, which had undoubtedly inspired his first and truest love, would never again be kindled in his heart.

Yet in his way Bruce was attracted to Iris Wayne. On their last meeting she had been a little schoolgirl, a pretty creature, certainly, but not to be compared with the beautiful and gracious Hilda, to whom he was newly betrothed. Yet now, on meeting her again, he was bound to confess that Iris was wonderfully attractive; and in a strangely short period of time he came, by imperceptible degrees, to look upon her as a possible successor to the woman he had lost.

The fact that Anstice too found her desirable was stimulating. One of Cheniston's newly-acquired characteristics was a tendency to covet any object on which another had set his heart; and although in matters of business this trait was possibly excusable enough, in this instance it seemed likely to prove fatal to Anstice's happiness.

* * * * *

Which of the two men Iris herself preferred it would have taken a magician to understand.

With Bruce she was always her gayest self, plying him with eager questions concerning his life in Egypt; and she was quite evidently flattered by the pains he took to charm and interest her with his picturesque narratives of experiences in the land of the Nile. He was, moreover, at her service at all times, always ready to take her motor-cycling, or to play tennis or golf with her; and although Iris was as free from vanity as any girl could possibly be, it was not unpleasing to her youthful self-esteem to find a man like Cheniston over ready at her beck and call.

With Anstice she was quieter, shyer, more serious; yet Sir Richard, who watched the trio, as it were from afar, had a suspicion sometimes that the Iris whom Anstice knew was a more real, more genuine person than the gay and frivolous girl who laughed through the sunny hours with the younger man.

So the days passed on; and if Anstice was once more living in a fools' Paradise, this time the key which unlocked the Gate of Dreams was made of purest gold.

* * * * *

In the middle of July Iris was to celebrate the eighteenth anniversary of her birth; and rather to Anstice's dismay he found that the event was to be marked by a large and festive merry-making--nothing less, in fact, than a dinner-party, followed by a dance to be held in the rarely-used ballroom for which Greengates had been once famous.