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

andre Pellor stood on the edge OIL
the Cliff at the back Of the Indian
Ocean hotel and gazed out across
twenty-five miles of moonlit bay. Be
meath her slippered feet was the
padded red clay OF the terrace; above
her head a vast trellis of matted Bou-
sainvillea in full magenta bloom. Ex-
cept for herself, the terrace was va
cant, for the music Of a third extra
was in full swing and everybody else
was dancing. 1t was not for lack of A
partner that she stood alone. She had
promised lis YER, extra to four in
slstent men but had excused herself to
one after another OF them, Just for a
moment. Just while 1 powder my
nose"
They had all seen her run up the
stairs in the main hallway: they had
not seen her travel steadily on
through the length of the hotel and
come down the ladder-like exit into
the garden. Why had she done it?
That was a question that she herself
could not AVE answered out that did
not occur to her as a matter for so
luton. SC often had a similar impulse
snatched her momentarily away from
a too crowded world.
The name Of her going presents a
slight index as to her composition and
an analyst might draw from it even
more-some indication of her prece-
dents. perhaps of her age and at least
Of her training. A tyro at evasion
would have sneaked away like a fox
breaking cover and would have had
ITO lock herSelf in the bathroom. for
the duration Of the chase out Andrea
had been too clever for that. t,y a
word n a backward glance she had
left her pursuers held like SO many
cats at a rat-hole, ignorant of the
fact that. they were the victims IF a
+, past-mistress in social subterfuge.
AS a matter OF record. she was no
novice; n Continental and four Lon
don seasons stretched back for her
into a disnlally long past. She was
twenty-five ears dc and tonight she
looked her full age as she stood, tirNa
and unmasked. in the white moon
light n gazed wanly. almost deeper-
ately. back through all those seasons
toms and set sets.
A woman, like a country, is of
feminine gender. but the comparison
goes no further for the one is said to
be happy only while without a history
and the other never rests until she
gets one. or what she things is one.
Andrea had a past but very little his
tory. She vas the only daughter Of
Lord Pellor OF Pellor. a land-rocr
baron who could distribute five titles
among his five IONS but very little
cash. AS a result Andrea had lived
the life. il life you can call It. of
tabulated impoverished English gen
tlewoman:. Everything that the traf-
fic will bear for the men of the fam
lily and for the girl just enough frocks
at her coming-out to dissemble The
bait that clothes the hook that catch
es the man with millions.
! Looking back on her girlhood from
twenty-five years old and a perch on
a cliff on the moonlit coast of Africa,
Andrea saw hat she a once been
happy. In the days. the brief sum-
mer days at Pellor, comprising those
seasons before she had come. out.
ed, feet-footed and healthily hungry
she had roamed the woods, waded the
streams and lain eye to y with the
sun in the bracken Of the ancestral
demesne: in those days when fire.
quently though incidentally she had
frightened half out of their wits the
wardens who guarded the game
ing: in those far-off days when she
had been a willing sacrifice to her
harunl-scarum brothers in many a
scheme to shock old Aunty Gwen out
of a years growth-in those days
verify she had been happy.
She hadn't realized it then but she
saw it now as she looked back upon
the girl that she had been. Was it
possible that she had already reached
that bourne from which the tighten
ing heart remembers youth? Oh. no!
it couldn't be. To any one else, to
her girl friends, twenty-five years
were necessarily a quarter of a CEN
fury. but herself who had seer so
much yet lived so little. revolted from
that cold measure of time. Reme:n-