T
sorry, Laurie," Joan said, using the dramatic inflexión popular among talkie stars. can't marry you.”
With that soulful utterance, she stretched her long, slim length on the sand, in a pose that was meant to-and did-further enchant the young man long- ing at her feet
Bat if she expected Laurie to be moved by this heavy drama she was mistaken. Rather than that, he seemed amused by it Admittedly, his smile was slow and whimsical; nevertheless, it was a smile. ・・
She sat up quickly, dropping like a cloak her pose of indolence.
"So you think it funny, do. you?" she demanded, bridling.
Laurie's smile deepened. "You're such a kid, Joan, such a fanny kid....Of course, you're going to marry me.”
As everyone who understands
CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT
by Patricia-
The Way of a Sailor Tomon
that odd complex called woman knows, this was certainly the wrong attitude for him to adopt.- If he had greeted her words in soulful silence, Joan' would, pro- bably, have melted in a moment. For she loved Laurie, had loved him from their first meeting, and would have admitted it before this but for one thing Laurie was a sailor. A sailor is, of course, as good as the next man -but not in Joan's critical eyes.
She was umutterably tired of the seafaring folk of Long Shore, of the Sne white sand that whirl- ed in little gusts through their cottage, and the inevitable table talk of sea anecdotes.
Her father, his father before him, and her two brothers all followed the sea in some capacity, and long before she met Laurie she had determined that she would marry no sailor. or any man from Long Shore, for that matter. It proved difficult, how-
ever It was the recognised thing for the local lads to follow the sea, as their fathers had done before them; consequently, she did not get the chance to meet men other than sailors.
She had become a litle dis- mayed by the absence of suitors when her brother had brought home a fellow officer, Laurie South. When he walked into the tiny sitting-room, making i seem smaller with his tall frame resplendent in shining buttons and peaked cap, Joan had lost her heart to him. But never would she admit it. In the back.
of her mind she intended to in a vague "someday." but, for the -present, kept to her determîng- tion that she wouldn't have a sailor at any price. She had told him this emphatically, time
and again. The madderling part of it was that he would not take her seriously. And the nerve of him, the colossal nerve of him. saying that "of course. you're going to marry_me!”
She stood up quickly, every fibre of her young body in re-
та
->
"We'll see," she said darkly, and, before he was aware, she had darted away, racing along the beach like a wild thing. She made her way through the maze of gurse and stiff "underbrush that lined the precipitous cliff path, up the weedy garden of the cottage on the cliff bluff, and, panting, she reached the kitchen.
The door was open: the doors were always open at the Marcey cottage. At her whirlwind en- trance, the people seated about the table having their evening · meal looked up in mild surprise. Then, seeing that it was Joan, their eyes automatically turned towards their plates again
Joan A further indignity! writhed. Her family never treated her seriously.. They did not regard her moods as tem- but, like Laurie, perament,”
Was ** merely said that she funny kid.
She threw down her wooly cap sulkily, took out her dinner, warming in the oven, and, in dis- dainful silence, commenced eat-
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ing, conscious) of the smiling ber glances passing between brothers.
"Had a tiff with Lazzie,” Don inquired.
"And the last" she said em- phatically.
"But every quarrel-you have with him is the last," Don be- gan, when Mrs. Marcey inter- rupted mildly: "Now then, leave' your sister alone
think that's Laurie's step I hear.”
She bustled about, setting his place at the table, for he was. a great favourite of hers.
Laurie entered breezily, and immediately engaged himself in conversation with everybody but Joan.
Before this, Laurie's married sister had invited them both to Joan had a party that night. been excited by the idea, for she loved visiting the luxurious home of his sister but, for the mo- ment, the quarrel had blotted out the thought. Now, however, she remembered as Laurie recalled it, at the same time letting drop, what was in her eyes, a bomb- shell.
"This morning," he said, ad- dressing himself to Don, but in- tending, as everyone knew, to im- press Joan, "Clare said some- thing about Paul Christian com- ing down for the week-end............
He stopped short as Joan in- terrupted breathlessly:
"Do you mean Paul Christian, here last the actor, who was Easter?"
Laurie nodded casually..
(Continued on Page 22.).
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