Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1920-06-26


bering girlhood. there came a tender
curve to her mouth so different to
her practiced society smile that it
made her look young again-as young
as any bud, heart swelling, lips heavy
with dew and breathing the fragrance
OF untainted youth, that ever swayed.
half without, half across, the portal
Of life.
And yet-youth dies so quickly; Is
ground so small in the mill Of genera
lions. lives SO bitterly long in memory!
Two tears welled out of Andrea's eyes
and crawled down her cheeks slow
~ as though they were accompanying
her thoughts along her curse to
womanhood. Like a mountain stream
that leaps the first barrier Of its rocky
chains and from fronded shadows
stripped valleys and still lower levels
until at last it strikes the wide, un-
broken fats and dies with it's own
music, she saw herself as she had
been during her first season, avid.
then eager, then only curious. in con-
slant diminuendo.
During that first season offers had
come to her; not the measured ad-
Ivances of buyers in the marriage mar
ding maidenhood as had been hers
there hangs a guardian. halo that
blinds the eyes of ~sane-aged men, but
the o'er-leaping onslaughts Of youth
maddened hearts.
Names. half-forgotten. came to her
mind readily tonight. names of mex
pert but impetuous lovers: Jack
Cheyne, three times a younger son;
Harold F. l.. Blunt, fondly known as
twenty for an escapade that cost his
father twenty thousand pounds:
young Lord Turnbill, whose slight and
graceful shoulders carried debts that
would have done honor t o a sovereign
state: Donald Bright, of mysteA ious
wealth and equally mysterious par
entage-all young, each af1ame for his
appointed time with the Divine Fire
but all hopelessly ineligible.
So we'll had she been drilled as to
the sine qua o of lineage face to
face with matrimony that she accept
ed the recurring verdict of ineligibility
without a protest beyond a sigh
thrice repeated, each time from older,
wiser and deeper depths. And so had
come her second season. her third.
her fourth. For each year that her
own age increased. that of the aspir-
ants to her hand advanced by decades.
Chances came and chances went but
not the chance. She was like some
stock held against a rise by optimistic
brokers.
1t was in her fifth season that the
.arbiters Of her fate raised the shears
OF destiny and clicked them. He who
fell to her lot was a man of humble
origin who had reached the ripe age
of ffty-eight without ever having had
time to marry. His life, with a diff
ference. had been just as narrow.
hidebound and conventional as had
hers. The difference was hat he had
travelled the stereotyped Dick Whit
tington trial to high finance rather
than the social highway. He had
started out in Africa with a pack of
cheap jewelry, an open mind and an
easy conscience and had emerged aft
err twenty-five years as one of the few
Gentiles in the combine that controls
the worlds diamond output. His
wealth was SO great that an ultimate
peerage was almost a matter of
course. But, as usual, an ~aristocratic
marriage had to come first.
The contract was as cold-blooded as
any ever perpetrated by a royal
house. Allowances, carefully graded,
were stipulated to be paid at liked
times to Andrea's parents and to 'ach
of her five brothers. She herself, for
a change, was not forgotten. She came
in for a large and inalienable mar
cured in such details as to where the
town residence was to be located as
we'll as to the number and nature of
the country places which were to be
maintained.
When. the document was finally
completed it was casually submitted
to Andrea for approval. Nobody
dreamed that she would doubt for q
moment that those in family authority
were most able to decide what was
best for her and nobody was right.
against the great flood Of tacit UNDER
standing which carries the well-born
of Britain on it's silent tide; she mere-
ly swimmed through the typewriter
pages of the pre-nuptial agreement,
satisfied herself hat a a sun of
money was destined to the upkeep OF
Pellor. and dreamy-eyed with sudden
memories, nodded her adorable head
in consent.
All doubtless would have taken its
curse had not the Euro
Wal put in its nightly discon-
finger. Surprising things nap
pened in South Africa. Andrea's af-
sailed on twenty-four hours
The diamond mines closed
down., took a short nap, and then sud
denly awakened to the fact that
alone was demanding as
much of their. product as had the
whole world before 1t turned its entire
to making munitions and
for them. More than that, GER
tain ladies in Old England who eve
in the memory of the newborn had
wont to push q barrow and cry
their scaly and bivalved wares
the streets of London.
dropped sea shells for brass and very
acquired simultaneously bank
rolls and a taste for 1.-THE real thing
in sinners"
To. be brief. the diamond market
entered q COMMUNICATIONS stage that
required close watching Of its meas
ured sources and Andrea's betrothed
found himself harnessed to his job,
possibly for the duration Of the war.
Az a result 1t was decided in family
that it was incumbent upon
Andrea to take advantage of d pro-
detail Of two Of her Broth
err on the Nyassaland Expeditiona-v
Force and accompany them. surren-
dering st. Georges chapel for a quiet
marriage in the Colonies.
1t was a blow, but the fact that the
entire set Of tapered allowances would
not start until the sacrifcial ceremony
had taken place moro than Offset the
loss in pomp. Andrea started for
escorted not only by the afore-
brothers but by old Aunty
hale and hearty at seventy In