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For two or three weeks after hiswith Mrs Carstairs' brother, Anstice avoided both Cherry Orchard and Greengates
Froe he had learned that Bruce Cheniston was prolonging his visit to his sister; and that new and totally unreasoning jealousy which had assailed Anstice as he saw Cheniston bending over Iris Wayne at the piano told hied the responsibility for this change in the young man's plans
In his cal the suitability of a friendship, at least, between the two Although he had lostfellow enough; and there was no denying the fact that he and Miss Wayne were a well-ood looks went; and yet Anstice could not visualize the pair together without a fierce, wild pang of jealousy which pierced his heart with an aluish
For he wanted Iris Wayne for hiedy; for he told hiht to ask her to couple her radiant young life with his, already overshadowed by that past happening in India
Not only that, but he was already over thirty, she but eighteen; and Sir Richard Wayne's daughter was only too well provided with this world's goods, while he, with all his training, all his toil, was even yet a coirl in exchange for the luxurious home from which he would fain take her
On every count he knew hiht he saw Bruce Cheniston, young, good-looking, distinguished in his profession, in the receipt of a large salary; and owned to himself, with that clarity of vision which rarely failed him, that Cheniston, rather than he, was a fit suitor for Iris Wayne
On several occasions during those weeks of May he saw the two together; and each tih the sun had vanished froh the soft breezes of early summer were turned to the cold and hopeless blast of an icy north-easter
Cheniston had a motor-bicycle on which he intended to explore the district; and on finding a kindred spirit in Miss Wayne he had inaugurated a series of expeditions in which she was his companion; while Chloe Carstairs and Cherry would motor forth in the same direction and share a picnic lunch at soement which afforded unbounded pleasure to some members, at least, of the quartette