Certainly Chloe's drawing-room was a battlefield of conflicting emotions this evening. Just for a moment she had been shaken out of her usual poise, had spoken warmly, as a normal woman might have done; yet both Iris who loved her, and Anstice who had studied her, knew that this warmer manner, this apparent freedom of speech, was in reality the outward sign of some inward disturbance; and both guessed, vaguely, that the meeting with her brother, who had not been in England for several years, was the cause of her unusual animation.
Fortunately as she finished speaking the gong which summoned them to dinner began to sound; and a moment later Bruce offered his arm to Iris and led her into the dining-room, followed by Anstice and his hostess.
Not appearing to notice his proffered arm, Chloe walked beside him in a sudden pensive silence which Anstice found oddly appealing after her impetuous speech; and for a moment he forgot his own equivocal position in a desire to help her through what he guessed to be a trying moment.
Once seated at the pretty round table things became easier. The room was softly lit by innumerable candles--a fancy of Chloe's--and in their tender light both women looked their best. As usual Mrs. Carstairs wore white, the fittest setting, Anstice thought, for her pale and tragic grace; but to-night she had thrown a wonderful Chinese scarf round her shoulders, and the deep blue ground, embroidered with black and green birds and flowers, gave an unusually distinctive note to her elusive personality. Opposite to her Iris, in her filmy grey-green frock, a big bunch of violets at her breast, wore the look of a nymph, some woodland creature whose fragrant charm and youthful freshness were in striking contrast to Chloe's more finished beauty.
The conversation, once started, ran easily enough. Although he never mentioned India, Cheniston was ready enough to talk of Egypt, where for some years he had made his home; and Iris, to whose young imagination 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 same tone.
"Yes. And engineering in the land of the Pharaohs is no joke. You must remember that we, as engineers, are only now where 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."