Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1929-04-11
by special arrangement with The
Chicaeo Tribune Syudicatel
IN TWO PARTS-PART TWO
The Story SO Far

Inc STORY 80 far
Robert Forder. residing in a small vii
lage in Cornwall. becomes acquainted with
the Crevil family, out from the city for a
vacation. He is especially interested in Nan.
the youngest Girl. but is jealous Of Felix.
her brother. who has been badly spoiled
by the rest OF the family but MANAGES to
do cyerything wen and is very much liked
by all Nan and Robert declare their love
Tor each other one night at their favorite
trysting place. 4 rock called the Sleeping
Lady. The next day Robert takes his moth
er to Penzance and when he returns the
Greyils have gone. having heard that Eng
land has declared war on Germany. Robert
fears he has lost Nan. as she left no address.
NOON he was lost like all his world,
y in the anXieties of the war. In a
~ few months he was in training. and
before he was nineteen he knew a
weary lot about the trenches in
France. The pain of that last summer
OF his boyhood grew easy. of course,
and his thoughts Of Nan dimmed, as
they had TO. Adventures and worries
and interests crowded on him. the war
dominating everything. Quickly it
changed the perhaps too grave young
Ster into a grave and deep hearted
But it showed him, too, by fits
and starts. a way of gayety and reck-
lesSneSS. and taught him to be spend
thrift of those emotions that had first
been given to Nan. And as the hurry
ing years blurred her memory. it was
only in moments of strong feeling that
her face returned to him clearly.
When it came he could always hear
her saying, Perhaps you're right, per-
haps there never will be anything like
this" And his spirit would call out to
her eagerly that SO far, indeed, there
had not been.
Oddly enough in those years of
strange chances he never met either of
her brothers, or Felix. They all seemed
to be in France-he often heard Of
them, and was sometimes surprised to
notice that their could still
disturb him. When he learned that
John had been killed, he was wrung
with distress. He could not bear to
think of Mans grief. He wanted to
write to her, but there seemed no way
Of finding an address. He vas in the
front line then, and preoccupied.
The armistice set him free when he
was nearly twenty-five, to return to
personal ambitions. Family tradition
had destined him from his birth for the
diplomatic service, and his belated
years at oxford were very full and
promising. He was happy at this time,
in spite Of the griefs and gaps the war
had made, and in spite OF the gravity
it had imposed on him. He made
many new friends, but he did not meet
the Gevils. He had thought that per-
hapS one or other of them might turn
up at Oxford, but shortly after he left
the army he heard with a weary pang
that Dicky, the youngest Of them all,
had been killed flying over the German
lines two days before the armistice.
And later he learned that Felix, who
was making the army his career, was
in the east with his regiment.
About Nan he never inquired and
never heard anything. He was not
sure that he wanted to meet her now.
He could still look back with a stirring
of pain to that first love. Nan had
been right. So far he had found moth
ing like it. He was afraid of what a
casual meeting might do to its shell
tered memory. Now and then, when
women's beauty pleased and lured him,
he was brought up sharp, to wonder,
in some dismay, if that ghostly voice
and face were always going to intrude,
and spoil things, to the end. He learned
to laugh at this anxiety, but it per-
sisted.
He spent all his vacations abroad at
this time, acquiring foreign tongues,
when he came down from oxford and
entered the service, he was sent al
most at once to Constantinople.
Cutting the pages Of a monthly n
lazy afternoon when he had been about
q year abroad, he came upon a short
story signed Nan Grevil." He read
it at once eagerly, then laid the paper
on his knee and stared out dreamily
over the Bosphorus. His f-astidiOusness
found nothing to vino. at in the story,
and everything to praise.
$50 she's going to write" he said,
for all the marks Of promise were on
this bit OF work.
The finding of the story gave him
great pleasure. The authentic Nan
shown out from it. Her quicknesS, her
shyness, her restraint, her love of other
people we're all there, firmly knit into
this sophisticated and balanced writ
ing. 1t was this sophistication that
made him realize with a shock, that
Nan, like him, was twenty-seven now,
and, from her Writinc seemed even
older, just as he, in his ways Of thought,
must seem older.
Soon he was moved to Japan. While
out there he saw an advertisement of
Mans first novel. He sent for it at
once, and was amazed by its power and
beauty.
In his thirtieth year he was sum
moned to London, and there was a
rumor in the air that this meant start
ling advancement. AS his taxi bore
him, excited after years of exile
through drenched London streets, he
caught himself wondering where Nan
lived. He bit his lip in evaporation.
Three nights after his return he was
dining at his club with Charles Red
land, whom he had known in France
and who was now a novelist.
What are you doing tonight, For
der?"
Haven't thought about it."
Like to come round to Nan Grevils
flat with me? She told me once tina
you knew each other when you were
children"
I'D like to call on her with you, if
I, may" said Robert. He lifted his vim
glass, and noticed that his hand wa
shaking ever so little. Redland wa
already talking Of other things.
Felix was dining with Nan in he
flat. Family ties and a great affec
ton had kept these two in close toucl
through the years. Their grief TO
John and Dicky had made them still
more important in each others eyes.
y Felix was almost better looking nov
than he had been as a boy.
S To Nan, though he was Twenty-Five
only a year younger than she, he woult
: always be young Felix" some one t.