Anna the Adventuress

Nigel Ennison walked towards his club the most puzzled man in London.

There could not, he decided, possibly be two girls so much alike.

Besides, she had admitted her identity. And yet--he thought of the

supper party where he had met Annabel Pellissier, the stories about

her, his own few minutes' whispered love-making! He was a

self-contained young man, but his cheeks grew hot at the thought of

the things which it had seemed quite natural to say to her then, but

which he knew very well would have been instantly resented by the girl

whom he had just left. He went over her features one by one in his

mind. They were the same. He could not doubt it. There was the same

airy grace of movement, the same deep brown hair and alabaster skin.

He found himself thinking up all the psychology which he had ever

read. Was this the result of some strange experiment? It was the

person of Annabel Pellissier--the soul of a very different order of

being.

He spent the remainder of the afternoon looking for a friend whom he

found at last in the billiard room of one of the smaller clubs to

which he belonged. After the usual laconic greetings, he drew him on

one side.

"Fred," he said, "do you remember taking me to dinner at the

'Ambassador's,' one evening last September, to meet a girl who was

singing there? Hamilton and Drummond and his lot were with us."

"Of course," his friend answered. "_La belle_ 'Alcide,' wasn't it?

Annabel Pellissier was her real name. Jolly nice girl, too."

Ennison nodded.

"I thought I saw her in town to-day," he said. "Do you happen to know

whether she is supposed to be here?"

"Very likely indeed," Captain Fred Meddoes answered, lighting a

cigarette. "I heard that she had chucked her show at the French places

and gone in for a reform all round. Sister's got married to that

bounder Ferringhall."

Ennison took an easy chair.

"What a little brick!" he murmured. "She must have character. It's no

half reform either. What do you know about her, Fred? I am

interested."

Meddoes turned round from the table on which he was practising shots

and shrugged his shoulders.

"Not much," he answered, "and yet about all there is to be known, I

fancy. There were two sisters, you know. Old Jersey and Hampshire

family, the Pellissiers, and a capital stock, too, I believe."

"Any one could see that the girls were ladies," Ennison murmured.

"No doubt about that," Meddoes continued. "The father was in the army,

and got a half-pay job at St. Heliers. Died short, I suppose, and the

girls had to shift for themselves. One went in for painting, kept

straight and married old Ferringhall a week or so ago--the Lord help

her. The other kicked over the traces a bit, made rather a hit with

her singing at some of those French places, and went the pace in a

mild, ladylike sort of way. Cheveney was looking after her, I think,

then. If she's over, he probably knows all about it."