PACIFIC ADDRESS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 135, 5 December 1930, Page 3

PACIFIC ADDRESS

As soon, as his new "hermit" sail* boat is completed Alain Gerbault will leave Prance for "permanent resi» dence" in the South Pacific. According' to their friends this is because Suzanne Lenglen has given him the answer for which he has had to wait five years—a decisive "No." Gerbaulfc was a rising tennis player* arid Suzanne was evulviiig tonu.<j» . tn» zenith of her career, when "Uinours linked them in an engagement (say 3 the "Daily Chronicle"), Then ono day without warning Gerbault sailed, from Cannes alone in a small yacht on a, mad trip to New York that nearly, cost him his life. The reason, it was later suggested, was that Suzanne had asked five years to think over his proposal of marriage. He stopped on Long Island to build the Fireerest, a 10-ton ketch. He then set out alone on a leisurely, tour of the Seven Seas, making a prolonged call at the South Sea islands, which ho has now selected for a life of voluntary exile. His tiny, craft weather heavy seas and hurricanes. Just a year ago he guided her into Havre, the end of- a world tour, and prepared to hear Suzanne's answer.' To-day Suzanne appears to bo absorbed only in her new business as designer of sports garments. Gerbault's determination to leave civilisation is taken as an admission of Suzanne's ro» fusal. He, too, is in Paris fondly sur» veying his "second love," a lie's*! edition of the round-the-world Firecrcst. She is of slightly less tonnage than the first Krecrcst, but, he. believes, sturdy enough to carry him. alone to a land where balmy breezes and soft twilight conjure- forgetfulness. I ■ ■