Page 66 (1/1)

Certainly Chloe's drawing-roo Just for a moment she had been shaken out of her usual poise, had spoken warht have done; yet both Iris who loved her, and Anstice who had studied her, knew that this warmer manner, this apparent freedon of souely, that the land for several years, was the cause of her unusual ani which suan to sound; and a moment later Bruce offered his ar-roo to notice his proffered arm, Chloe walked beside him in a sudden pensive silence which Anstice found oddly appealing after her iot his own equivocal position in a desire to help her through what he guessed to be a trying s became easier The room was softly lit by innuht both women looked their best As usual Mrs Carstairs hite, the fittest setting, Anstice thought, for her pale and tragic grace; but to-night she had throonderful Chinese scarf round her shoulders, and the deep blue ground, eave an unusually distinctive note to her elusive personality Opposite to her Iris, in her fil bunch of violets at her breast, wore the look of a nyrant char contrast to Chloe's more finished beauty

The conversation, once started, ran easily enough Although he never ypt, where for soination the very name of that mysterious land was a charm, listened entranced to his description of a trip he had lately taken up the Nile

"You are an engineer, Mr Cheniston?" Anstice interpolated a polite question and Cheniston answered in the sa in the land of the Pharaohs is no joke You ineers, are only nohere 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"