r the
experience!--and no more army and no more church--at least, as far
as I am concerned!"

And she threw back hers with its thick, glossy curls and laughed,
looking up at him out of her virginal brown eyes of a child.

"I'm sorry I cut my hair," she added presently. "I look like a
Bolshevik."

"It's growing very fast," he said encouragingly.

"Oh, yes, it grows fast," she nodded indifferently. "Shall we return
to the table? I am rather thirsty."

Ilse and Brisson were engaged in an animated conversation when they
reseated themselves. The waiter arrived about that time with another
course of poor food.

Palla, disregarding Estridge's advice, permitted the waiter to refill
her glass.

"I can't eat that unappetising entree," she insisted, "and champagne,
they say, is nourishing and I'm still hungry."

"As you please," said Brisson; "but you've had two glasses already."

"I don't care," she retorted childishly; "I mean to live to the utmost
in future. For the first time in my silly existence I intend to be
natural. I wonder what it feels like to become a little intoxicated?"

"It feels rotten," remarked Estridge.

"Really? _How_ rotten?" She laughed again, laid her hand on the
goblet's stem and glanced across at him defiantly, mischievously.
However, she seemed to reconsider the matter, for she picked up a
cigarette and lighted it at a candle.

"Bah!" she exclaimed with a wry face. "It stings!"

But she ventured another puff or two before placing it upon a saucer
among its defunct fellows.

"Ugh!" she complained again with a gay little shiver, and bit into a
pear as though to wash out the contamination of unaccustomed
nicotine.

"Where are you going when we all say good-bye?" inquired Estridge.

"I? Oh, I'm certainly going home on the first Danish boat--home to
Shadow Hill, where I told you I lived."

"And you have nobody but your aunt?"

"Only that one old lady."

"You won't remain long at Shadow Hill," he predicted.

"It's very pretty there. Why don't you think I am likely to remain?"

"You won't remain," he repeated. "You've slipped your cable. You're
hoisting sail. And it worries me a little."

The girl laughed. "It's a pretty place, Shadow Hill, but it's dull.
Everybody in the town is dull, stupid, and perfectly satisfied:
everybody owns at least that acre which Ilse demands; there's no
discontent at Shadow Hill, and no reason for it. I really couldn't
bear it," she added gaily; "I want