Page 169 (1/1)

"The car? No, I walked--wanted exercise," said Anstice rather vaguely; and Sir Richard nodded

"Then we'll have out the little car, and you shall drive us over if you will And if you'll excuse o and order it round"

He waited for no reply, but bustled out of the rooh in sudden haste; and left to hiraphs he held and studied theer eyes

Four of thehtfully natural poses In one she was standing bare-headed beneath a tall date-pal for someone across the expanse of sunny sand before her In another she stood by the edge of the Nile, in converse with a native woman who bore a balass on her head; and even the tiny picture was sufficiently large to bring out the contrast between the sliown and Panayptian, whose dark skin and closely-swathed robes gave her the look of some Old Testas of reed-fringed river and pluraph Iris was on horseback; but it was the fourth and last which brought the blood to Anstice's brow, ht, regret, wild happiness and over-ht for the predo ht out every separate charirl before the reedy eyes

She was looking straight out frohing, half-wistful tenderness which Anstice kneell Her lips were ever so slightly parted; and in her whole expression was soh soht by the camera and imprisoned for ever in the picture It was Iris as Anstice knew--and loved--her best: youth personified, yet with a woracious femininity, which seemed to promise a more than commonly attractive maturity

And as he looked at the little picture, the presentic of the sun, Anstice felt the full bitterness of his hopeless love surge over his soul in a flood whose onrush no philosophy could stem To him Iris would always be the one desired woman in the world No other woman, be she a hundred times more beautiful, could ever fill the place held in his heart by this grey-eyed girl With her, life would have been a perpetual feast, a lingering sacrament Her companionship would have been sufficient to turn the dull fare of ordinary life into the mysterious Bread and Wine which only lovers know; and with her beside hiht not have attained, no splendour of achieveht not have been reached before the closing cadence which is death had ended, irrevocably, the symphony of life