Book 1 Chapter 12

"All right." Bruce gave up the contest. "I'm staying on--quietly--to dinner; but I'll bring her down for half an hour afterwards."

"Very well." Chloe rose from the breakfast-table as she spoke, and sauntered to the window, from whence she looked over the pretty garden with appreciative eyes. "It is lucky the weather is so beautiful--Greengates will look at its best on a day like this."

And Bruce agreed heartily as he stepped on to the lawn to enjoy his after-breakfast pipe.

* * * * *

True to his promise Bruce motored his fiancée over to Cherry Orchard in the gloaming of the September evening, after a somewhat protracted argument with Lady Laura, whose sense of propriety was, so she averred, outraged by the project.

Sir Richard, however, to whom the loss of his only daughter was a deep though hidden grief, gave his consent readily enough when he saw that Iris really wished to bid her friend good-bye; and making Bruce promise to bring her back in good time he himself went to the door to pack them safely into the motor.

"Take care of her, Bruce--she is very precious to me!" He laid his hand on the young man's arm, and his voice held an appeal which Bruce involuntarily answered.

"Trust me, sir!" There was a note of rather unusual feeling in his tone. "She can't be more precious to you than she is to me!"