II
There are many kinds of golfer, and there are many kinds of girl, but there are only two kinds of girl with whom it is possible to play golf. One is the beginner and the other is the expert.
The beginner is wholly irresponsible. Let us imagine that she is taken out in a "mixed" foursome. She refers to her clubs as "sticks," or even "poles." She declines the services of a caddie, with a little scream of apprehension at the very idea of such publicity. For the same reason she refuses to drive her ball from the tee if any one is "looking." Indeed, she has been known to implore her partner to turn even his sympathetic back during that performance. This excessive shyness is maintained all the way to the first hole, and, unless carefully watched, she will arrive at the green, ball in hand, having been unable to endure the critical gaze of two men at least a hundred and fifty yards away, who she feels convinced are laughing at her.
Presently she feels more comfortable. A long drive by her partner elicits a little shriek of astonished admiration, which flatters his manly vanity, and goes far to mitigate the handicap of her assistance. She at once begins to imitate his stance and swing, straddles well over the ball, shuts both eyes, gives a mighty swipe, and usually falls down, the necessity of "tackety shoon" being as yet unrevealed to her. On she goes, perfectly at her ease now, though a little hot and flustered, babbling incessantly during the stroke, regardless of the sinister frowns of the man who is endeavouring to play it. Should she miss the ball altogether, she is moved to unnecessary mirth; should she by any chance hit it out of sight, say over a sand-hill, she scampers up the slope after it at a run, and announces its discovery at the top of her voice, upsetting the nerves of all the old gentlemen within earshot. On the green her actions are as characteristic as ever. In running the ball up to the hole she either hits the ground behind it and sends it six inches, or plays a shot which necessitates the departure of her long-suffering partner, niblick in hand and scarlet in the face, to an adjacent bunker. Short putts she invariably holes out by an ingenious and unblushing push-stroke, which no one has the heart to question or the courage to criticise. So the game proceeds. It is not golf, but then you never expected it to be. It is another game, even older, and even better.
After a few such rounds as this the dread seriousness of the game descends upon her, and she loses some of her charm. She never speaks, for she knows now that there is a rule on the subject. Her irresponsible gaiety is gone; she is actually nervous; and after missing an easy stroke (which she does quite as frequently as before), she looks piteously at her partner, and even sighs enviously as the lady on the other side, whom she has hitherto regarded as a mere example of how clothes should not be worn, plays a perfect approach out of a bad lie. In short, she has reverted to the status of the ordinary duffer, and as such she ceases to be anything but a common nuisance—unless, of course, sir, you take a special interest in her, in which case you will find her quite as attractive, and infinitely less exhausting, over a quiet game of croquet or spilikins.
But when—or rather if—she attains to the degree of a real golfer; if she can drive off before a crowd without giggling or blushing, and can be trusted not to shut her eyes when taking a full swing,—then she is indeed a pearl of price, for she is now a congenial companion, from the golfing as well as the other point of view. She is neither childishly frivolous nor grimly determined. She looks upon golf neither as a glorified form of croquet nor as woman's one mission in life. Behold her as she walks across the links to begin her morning round. She calls up her favourite caddie with a little nod of her head, and gives you a cheery good-morning when she finds you waiting at the first tee. (A pretty girl-golfer is about as nearly perfect as a woman can be, but even that cannot make her punctual.) She is neatly turned out: she has abandoned kid boots with high heels, and wears trim shoes with plenty of nails in them. Her head is usually bare, or perhaps she wears a motor-veil tied under her chin; at any rate, the unstable edifice of former days no longer flaps in the breeze and obscures her vision. She is independent too. She does not take the first club the caddie offers: she chooses her own, and rates the boy for not having cleaned it better. No longer does she put her ball in her pocket for fear of keeping back the green; on the contrary, she drives repeatedly (and I am afraid purposely) into a steady-going foursome in front. It is useless to remind her of a by-law which says that ladies must invariably give way to gentlemen and allow them to pass.
"Real gentlemen," she remarks, "would invariably give way to ladies and allow them to pass." And her iron-shot bumps past the head of an octogenarian who is trying to hole out a long putt on the distant green.
To look at her now you would never guess that she was once a shrinking débutante, a hewer of turf, and a drawer of water from the eyes of the green-keeper. Her putting is still erratic, and she is rather helpless in heavy sand; but, given a clean lie and a fair stance, she will handle her light clubs to some purpose, and her swing is a "sicht for sair een." If you are at all off your game she will beat you; therefore it is advisable to offer her points before beginning the match, not so much because she needs them as to preserve your masculine self-respect in the event of a "regrettable incident."
Miss Elsie Innes combined all the virtues of the girl-golfer in her own graceful young body. Though she had "filled out" considerably since we last saw her, she was anything but a hobnailed, masculine woman. She was neither heavily built nor muscular; she looked almost too fragile to play at all. But she handled her light clubs with a suppleness and dexterity usually given only to a schoolboy of fourteen, and the length of her drive was amazing. She was always graceful, always cool, and, as Pip once noted to himself, "never got either hot or hairy."
After their first meeting at Raven's cottage Pip and Elsie saw each other constantly. They played a round of golf every day, usually between tea and dinner, the hour when the ardent male golfer relaxes from his noonday strenuousness and turns to thoughts of mixed foursomes. Usually Pip and Elsie played Mr. and Mrs. Raven. Raven was a far better golfer than Pip, but then Elsie was very much the superior of Mrs. Raven, which made matters even. Many were the battles that raged between the two couples. At first victory favoured the married pair. Raven, besides being a scratch golfer, was a good general, and his unruffled coolness and unerring advice made the most of his wife's limited powers. Pip and Elsie, on the other hand, did not "combine" well. Elsie, who (strictly between ourselves) fancied her golf not a little, insisted on dictating the line of action to be followed on each occasion, and more than once told Pip what club to use. Pip, though relatively her inferior, declined at first to be trampled upon by a female, even a high-spirited goddess with fair hair and a swing like an archangel. But few men in Pip's condition argue the point long: after a brief struggle to assert the predominance of man he subsided completely, and, as he thought, rather diplomatically. There he was wrong. The sage of antiquity who composed the uncomplimentary proverb about "a woman, a dog, and a walnut tree" knew something of life, and the course of Pip's true love might have run a good deal smoother if he had put down his masculine foot a little more frequently. However, there is no doubt that after his capitulation their golfing efforts reached a higher level than before. After a series of matches extending over a week, each side stood with three games to its credit, Pip and Elsie just managing to draw level by winning a match on the last green on Saturday evening.
Sunday golf is not encouraged in Scotland. Consequently next morning Elsie accompanied her relatives to one of the numerous places of worship in Port Allan, which ancient township possessed its full complement of Auld Licht, Established, United, and Wee Free kirks, and other homes of religious controversy. Pip stayed on the hotel veranda and smoked, watching them pass but lacking nerve to join them. He summoned up sufficient courage, however, to put in an appearance at Knocknaha during the afternoon. He was even more silent than usual, though he made a hearty tea.
After that meal he invited Elsie to come for a walk with him. She consented, and they set off together, followed by the amused glances of Mr. and Mrs. Raven.
It was a glorious August afternoon. The North Sea, blue and placid, lapped gently against the red cliffs, or ran with a slow hiss up the slope of yellow sand which bordered the Links of Eric. There was hardly any wind—just enough, in fact, to keep the air clear; and Pip and Elsie, as they lounged luxuriously in a hollow at the top of a sand-hill,—their walk had been strictly limited to a Sabbath day's journey,—could see the smoke of a steam-trawler on the horizon though they could not see the ship herself.
"This is nice," murmured Elsie luxuriantly, as she arranged her holland skirt to cover up as much of her tan boots as possible—her Sunday frock had found its way back to her wardrobe soon after church. "Sunday really does feel like a day of rest if one plays golf all the week."
"Talking of golf," said Pip, "you haven't played me yet."
"I've played with you all the week," replied Elsie.
"With me, not against me," said Pip.
"Oh, I see. All right; I'll play with Raven to-morrow against you and Ethel. We shall beat you horribly, though."
Elsie was in a very perverse mood.
"Yes, but I want a single—a match," explained Pip.
"Oh!" said Elsie.
There was a pause. Pip lit his pipe, which had somehow gone out, and continued,—
"Shall we say to-morrow morning?"
"Afraid not," said Elsie. "I rather think I promised to play one of the men in the hotel."
This was not strictly true, but Elsie was in a curious frame of mind that evening. There was no reason why she should not have played Pip his match, nor was she particularly averse to doing so. But some flash of feminine intuition, infallible as ever, was unconsciously keeping her in the defensive attitude natural to women in such cases.
"Is it Anstruther?" inquired Pip.
"Yes," said Elsie rashly.
"In that case your match is off, for he has had a wire, and must go to-morrow morning."
"It's not Mr. Anstruther," said Elsie. "I had forgotten he was going away." (This was strictly true.)
"Is it Gaythorne?" asked Pip.
Elsie regarded him covertly, through conveniently long lashes. She suspected another trap.
"No," she said at last.
"That's queer," remarked Pip meditatively. "He was saying only last night that he expected to play you to-morrow morning."
Elsie, who had fallen into the not uncommon error of underrating her adversary, was for the moment quite flabbergasted by this bold stroke. Then, quickly noting the joint in her opponent's harness, she interposed swiftly,—
"Why did you ask me to play with you, then?"
"I didn't think you ought to play with him," said Pip coolly. "He's an utter outsider."
"I shall play with whom I like," said Elsie hotly.
"All right," said Pip; "I'll tell him. What time do you want him to be down at the tee?"
Elsie, though not inexperienced in the management of young men, fairly gasped for breath. This slow-speaking, serious youth would, unless she could speedily extricate herself, either compel her to acknowledge herself defeated or else force her into an unpremeditated golf-match with a comparative stranger.
"I—I tell you I don't want to play with Mr. Gaythorne," she said.
"Oh, sorry!" replied Pip; "I thought you said you did. Very well, I'll tell him not to come, and you can play me instead."
Now, it is obviously unwise to continue to assert to a second party that you have a previous engagement with a third party when you have not, especially when your knowledge is shared by the second party. So Elsie did the only possible thing, and laughed.
"All right, Pip," she said; "I'll play you. Be down at the tee early and we'll get off before the rush begins. As it is, I shall be driven into all the time, playing with a duffer!"
Pip, quite unmoved, parried this insult with another.
"Right-o," he said. "What shall I give you—a half?"
Elsie smiled indulgently.
"As a favour," she replied, "and to preserve your masculine pride, I will play you level. Otherwise——"
Pip interrupted. He was not looking quite so serene as usual, and he puffed almost nervously at his pipe.
"What shall we play for?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"In a match," he explained, "it is usual to play for some small stake—a ball, or a bottle of——"
"Nonsense!" said Elsie decidedly.
"Not a bit; it's often done," said Pip. "What shall we play for?"
"We shall play for love."
"Love? Right!"
There was an awkward pause. Technical terms lead one into such pitfalls. Elsie felt herself beginning to turn pink. Pip, who might have smoothed the situation over, made it worse by saying,—
"So it's to be a love-match?"
There was no mistaking Elsie's colour now. A blush ran flaming over her face in a great scarlet wave. But Pip proceeded quite calmly,—
"That's just what I want it to be. I'm glad you said that, though of course you didn't mean it in that way. You are a good golfer. On your day you can get round in, say, ninety. I am a rotter. I have only twice got round under a hundred. If I play you level to-morrow and beat you, will you—marry me?"
"Pip!"
Elsie was sincere enough now. She was genuinely astounded. She knew Pip for a man of blunt speech and direct methods, but she had hardly been prepared for this. She merely turned from red to white, and repeated her astonished cry,—
"Pip!"
Pip continued, quite coolly now,—
"Yes, I mean it. I have been in love with you from the first moment I saw you, the afternoon that I took you to the Blanes' garden-party. You remember?" The girl nodded gravely. "I was bowled over then, and I've worshipped you ever since. I suppose you knew that? Women are always said to know these things. Did you know?"
This was a long speech for Pip, but it drew no answer from Elsie.
"Did you know?" he repeated gently.
Elsie plucked a few bents from the sand around her and began to plait them with great care.
"Did you know?" asked Pip for the third time.
Elsie answered, without raising her eyes—
"Yes—at least, lately. But you never gave yourself away, Pip."
"I know that. I rather prided myself on it. I should have asked you long ago, only after the Governor's death I had to—work for a living. It's only recently I have become a man with money. Besides, I think these things ought to be kept sacred, just between—between the two, you know. I haven't a very high opinion of myself, but I do think I can keep a secret. I wasn't going to have you talked about, even by friends. However"—he brought his gaze back from the distant horizon with an effort—"we are wandering from the point. Will you play me a match, Elsie,—a love-match?"
Elsie raised her eyes for the first time.
"Pip, don't be absurd!"
"Absurd? Not a bit. I think it's a jolly sensible notion. I simply can't talk the sort of rot that men in love are supposed to talk—it isn't in me. All I can do is to make you a fair offer like this—a sort of challenge to single combat, you know. If I win, you give in to me; if you win, well, I shall have to chuck it, that's all."
"But Pip," said Elsie, "supposing I...."
Then she checked herself suddenly, leaving Pip to wonder what she had meant to say. He himself could see no flaw in the scheme. His own natural modesty prevented him from believing that Elsie, glorious creature, could ever desire to take him of her own free will, and consequently his simple mind had reverted to the primitive notion, inherent in most men, of marriage by conquest. His challenge to a golf-match struck him as an eminently sporting offer.
"I figured it out this way," he went on after a pause. "I said to myself, 'She will never marry me simply for the asking, of course'; so—what did you say?"
"Nothing." Elsie had suddenly ceased plaiting and parted her lips.
"So," continued Pip, "I said, 'The only way to make her give in will be to get the better of her in something—to show superiority over her in some way. It will be no use my trying to persuade her by arguments. I'm slow of speech, especially with women, and Elsie would simply talk me downstairs and into the street in about two minutes. A girl like her won't surrender without a struggle. Quite right too. I shall have to try something else. It mustn't be too one-sided either way, for if it's in her favour I shall lose, and if it's in mine she won't accept. It must be a fair match.'"
And so he continued, simply, honestly, laying bare to her all the mighty scheme whereby he proposed to overcome her stubborn resistance. He had first thought, he told her, of a single-wicket cricket-match, but had abandoned the project as being too greatly in his favour. "You keep a very straight bat for a girl," he said, "but you can never resist my slow curly one, that looks as if it were going to pitch outside the off stump, and doesn't. I know your weaknesses, you see," he added with a friendly smile.
"Yes, Pip," said Elsie, in a rather subdued tone, "some of them."
Pip then proceeded to enumerate the other tests of skill that had occurred to him. "I thought of croquet," he said, "but really croquet is such d—Well, anyhow, I don't think croquet would have done. Billiards is too fluky. Chess is piffle. There are lots of other games, but you are so—so weak!" (Elsie's slight frame stiffened indignantly at this.) "Then I thought of the golf-match, and I saw at once that that was the ticket. So I packed up my bag and wired for rooms at the hotel here, and have been waiting for you to arrive ever since the first of August."
There was a pause—a long pause. Elsie was thinking—of what, she hardly knew. Pip was watching her, anxious to see how she received his great idea. Presently he continued,—
"Of course the golf-match is all in your favour. The chances are about three to one on your winning."
Suddenly Elsie flared up with a curious little spirit of anger. Her mind, highly trained though it was in these matters, could not quite appreciate Pip's Quixotic consideration for an opponent.
"Pip," she said, "I don't believe you want to win! The whole thing is simply a joke on your part—your idea of a joke. I don't think it's a very nice one: you know you can't beat me. If you really want to marry me you wouldn't—"
"I shall beat you all right," said Pip simply.
"Why?"
"I know I shall, that's all."
"Why?"
"Because I know."
A new idea occurred to Elsie.
"You dare to insinuate," she said, "that I would—would purposely let you—"
"Should I want to marry a girl of that sort?" asked Pip gravely.
Elsie softened again at this genuine compliment, but she still felt rather doubtful as to whether this extraordinary young man really and truly believed that she was to be won, and won only, by being beaten in a golf-match. In any case the situation was becoming difficult. She began to dust the sand from her skirt and to make other preparations for departure. Pip regarded her with some concern.
"You're not going yet, are you?" he said.
"Yes. It's getting late."
"Well, will you play me?"
"On those terms?"
"Yes."
"Of course not, Pip. You're not serious."
Pip leaned forward, and put his hand on her arm. She had half risen, but she now found herself sitting down again, rather astonished and rebellious, listening to what he was saying.
"Elsie, what is the date to-morrow?"
"I don't know," petulantly. "Girls never know dates."
"I forgot that. Well, it is the fourteenth of August. Do you know what is going to happen at Old Trafford to-morrow?"
"Why—the Australians! Fancy forgetting a Test Match! That comes of playing golf all day. But, Pip,"—she stared at him in dismayed surprise,—"why aren't you there? Surely you were chosen?"
"Yes, I was chosen."
"Then, why aren't you there?"
"Because I'm here."
"But, Pip, you ought to be playing cricket."
"I prefer to play golf."
"But it's a Test Match."
"I'm going to play in a Test Match of my own—here."
Elsie was silent again, and gazed at him, open-eyed. Pip saw that he had struck the right note.
"I gave up the cricket-match to play with you," he said. "Will you play with me?"
Elsie was defenceless against this appeal. She knew, better than most girls, perhaps, what it must cost a man to decline an invitation to play for England.
"All right, Pip," she said gently, getting up and shaking her skirt, "I'll play you. Nine o'clock to-morrow morning. I shall beat you, though," she added.
Pip said nothing. It is always politic to make a virtue of necessity. That is why one allows a woman the last word.
They were very silent as they walked home in the twilight. Pip, having achieved the object with which he had set out, had no further remarks to make. Elsie seemed less at ease, and kept shooting half-amused, half-angry glances at the obtuse young man beside her. She objected to being treated as something between a Prehistoric Peep and a Scratch Medal.
Presently they came to Raven Innes's cottage.
"Are you coming in, Pip?" inquired Elsie as she stood at the door.
"No, thanks. Raven would keep me up all hours, and I'm going to bed very early. Good-night."
"Pip—" began Elsie rather unsteadily.
Pip turned quickly, and beheld her standing on the step, framed by the open doorway. The setting sun glinted on her hair, and there was a curious and unfamiliar note in her voice as she addressed him.
"Pip," she said, "I don't like the idea of this match. It's—it's contrary to Nature, somehow. Golf wasn't intended to settle such questions."
Pip made no reply, but gazed upon her. In matters of this kind he was not very "quick in the uptake," as they say in Scotland. Elsie made a curious little grimace to herself, and continued—
"Pip, supposing you wanted, very much, to get something that lay across a stream which looked rather deep, would you make a jump and risk a ducking, or would you walk miles on the off-chance of finding a bridge?"
They looked at each other steadily for a minute, while Pip worked out the answer to this conundrum.
"I should probably jump," he replied,—"that is, if—"
And then at last light seemed to break upon him. The blood surged to his brain, and he stepped forward impetuously.
"Elsie!" he cried.
But the door was shut.
"Serve him right, too!" you say. Well, perhaps; but lack of presumption is a rare and not unmanly virtue.
CHAPTER XI
"NATURAM FURCA EXPELLAS ..."
Alas!
When Pip slipped out of bed at six o'clock next morning the window-panes were blurred and wet, and the Links of Eric were shrouded in driving sheets of rain.
His pithy and apposite comments on the situation were, had he only known it, being reproduced (in an expurgated form) by a damsel in a kimono at a bedroom window not far down the road. Elsie surveyed the rain-washed links reflectively, and sighed.
"What a pity!" she said to herself. "I would have given him such a lesson! Now I suppose we shall both waste a day."
With which enigmatical conclusion she crept into bed again.
Pip arrived at Knocknaha after breakfast, but Elsie flatly refused to stir outside until the rain had ceased. This was no more than her swain had expected, and he returned resignedly to the hotel, where he passed an exceedingly unprofitable morning smoking and playing billiards.
After luncheon an ancient mariner in a blue jersey and a high-crowned bowler hat approached him on the hotel veranda and intimated that the day was a good one for deep-sea fishing. It was certainly no day for courting, and Pip, weary in spirit, was fain to accept the implied invitation.
They walked to the beach together, and began to haul down the old man's boat. This done, the oars and tackle were put in, and the expedition was on the point of departure when Pip suddenly realised that it had stopped raining.
"Hallo!" he said. "Rain over?"
"Aye," remarked the old man; "it will be a grand afternoon yet."
Pip turned upon him suddenly.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Aye."
"Certain?"
"'Deed aye," replied the old gentleman rather testily. "When the top of yon ben is uncovered like so, and the wind—"
"In that case," remarked his employer suddenly, "I can't come fishing, I'm afraid. I must go and—do something else. Another day, perhaps."
And handing the scandalised mariner half-a-crown, he departed over the sand-hills at a rate which would certainly have brought about his disqualification in any decently conducted walking-race.
An hour later two players approached the first tee. They were Elsie and Pip.
Now the nerves of both these young people, although neither of them would have admitted it, were tightly strung up by reason of the present situation. Each side (as they say in the election reports) was confident of success, but their reasons for confidence were widely dissimilar. Pip meant to win, because in his opinion the only way to gain a woman's affection is to show yourself her master at something. If he had moved in another class of society he would have subdued his beloved with a poker or a boot, and she on the whole would have respected him for it: being a sportsman, he preferred to use a golf-club.
Elsie meant to win for a different reason. To begin with, her spirit rebelled against the idea of becoming the captive of Pip's bow and spear. She might or she might not intend to marry him,—that was her own secret,—but she had not the slightest intention of marrying him because he beat her at golf. Obviously, the first thing to do was to beat him; then the situation would be in her hands and she could dictate her own terms. What those terms were to be she had not quite settled. All she knew was that Pip, if he were to have her at all, should have her as a favour and not as a right.
Consequently the lust of battle was upon them both; and it was with undisguised chagrin that they found three couples awaiting their turn at the first tee. To be kept back through the green is irritating enough under any circumstances, but when you are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the matrimonial stakes, absolute freedom of action is essential.
Instinctively Pip and Elsie turned and looked at each other in dismay. Then Pip said—
"Let's tramp out to the turn, and we'll play the last nine holes first. It will come to the same thing in the end."
Elsie agreed, and they set off together across the links in the direction of the ninth hole. They had no caddies, for each felt that on this occasion witnesses were impossible.
Pip, indeed, offered to carry Elsie's clubs as well as his own, but he was met with a very curt refusal.
"Nonsense! You would always be hammering your own ball a hundred yards away in a bunker, while I was waiting for my mashie."
The rain had ceased, and a watery sun shone down upon them. There was no wind, and the conditions for golf were almost perfect. The greens had become a trifle fiery during the recent drought, and the morning's rain had stiffened them finely.
Presently they found themselves on the tenth tee.
"You drive first," said Pip.
Elsie began to tee her ball.
"It's the last time you'll have the chance," he continued.
Elsie picked up her ball.
"For that," she remarked, "you shall drive first. I am not going to take any favours from a duffer."
Pip rose from the tee-box on which he was sitting and took her ball from her hand. Then he stooped down and teed it carefully.
"Ladies first," he remarked briefly.
Elsie, feeling curiously weak, said no more, but obeyed him. She made a pretty drive, the ball keeping low, but towering suddenly before it dropped. It lay, clean and white, in a good lie a hundred and fifty yards away.
"Good beat!" said Pip appreciatively, and began to address his own ball. His rigid stance and curious lifting swing were the exact opposite of Elsie's supple movements, but for all that he outdrove her by nearly a hundred yards. It was a Cyclopean effort, and the Haskell ball, as it bounded over the hard ground, which had been little affected by the rain, looked as if it would never stop.
"Lovely drive!" cried Elsie involuntarily.
"Yes, it was a hefty swipe," admitted Pip. "I get about two of those each round. The rest average five yards."
The hole was a simple one. A good drive usually left the ball in a nice lie, whence the green, which was guarded by a bunker, could be reached with an iron. Pip's ball was lying well up, and only a chip with his mashie was required to lay him dead. Elsie found herself faced by that difficulty which confronts all females who essay masculine golf-courses. Her ball, though well and truly struck, was farther from the hole than her iron could carry it. A brassie-shot would get her over the bunker, but would probably overrun the green, which lay immediately beyond; while anything in the shape of a run-up ball would be trapped. She decided to risk an iron shot. She did her best, but the distance was too great for her. The ball dropped into the bunker with a soft thud; she required two more to get out; and Pip, who had succeeded in clearing the bunker with his second and running down a long putt, won the hole in an unnecessarily perfect three.
"One down," said Elsie. "Too good a start, Pip. You'll lose now."
"Well begun is half done," retorted Pip sententiously, but he knew in his heart that she spoke with some truth.
The next hole was over four hundred yards long, and as such should have been a moral certainty for Pip. However, his tee-shot travelled exactly two feet, and his second, played perforce with an iron, not much farther. Elsie reached the green in three strokes and a pitch, and won the hole in six.
At the next hole Pip sliced his drive, the ball flying an immense distance and curling away out of sight to their left. (You must remember that he was a left-handed player.) Elsie, as usual, drove a picture of a ball, but just failed to reach the green with her second. Meanwhile Pip, tramping at large amid the whin-bushes, found his ball in a fairly good lie, and with a perfectly preposterous cleek-shot, which seemed to Elsie to travel about a quarter of a mile, lay on the edge of the green. He holed out in two putts, and won the hole in four to her five.
They were warming to their work, and each was playing a characteristic game. The next two holes were short ones, across a high ridge of sand and back again. In each case the green could be reached from the tee. Pip, who had the honour, buried his ball in the face of the sand-hill, and as Elsie cleared the summit and lay on the green, he gave up the hole. Driving back again, Elsie carried the hill. Pip took his cleek this time, and his ball followed hers straight over the guide-post. When they reached the green they found the balls lying side by side ten yards or so from the pin. Pip putted first, and lay dead, six inches from the hole.
"This is the first half we'll have had," he said, as he stood over the hole waiting for Elsie to putt.
"Wait a little," said Elsie.
She took the line of her putt with great care, and allowing nicely for the undulations of the green, just found the hole, and again took the lead, having won the hole in two to Pip's three.
"Don't talk to me any more about flukes," remarked Pip severely as he replaced the flag.
"I won't," retorted Elsie, "if you won't talk to me about halves."
Pip made no mistake at the next two holes, the sixth and seventh. Both were long and straight, and, though Elsie drove as sturdily as ever, Pip's determined slogging brought him to the green before her each time, and at the seventh hole he stood one up.
The next hole was uneventful. The course here ran straight along the edge of the shore, with the sea on their right. Pip, unmindful of the necessity for straightness, hit out with his usual blind ferocity, and was rewarded by seeing his comparatively new Haskell fly off in a determined and ambitious effort to reach the coast of Norway.
"The sea," remarked Elsie calmly, "is out of bounds. You drop another and lose distance."
With the advantage derived from Pip's mishap, Elsie just won the hole. The next, the ninth (the eighteenth and last if they had started from the first tee), a dull and goose-greeny affair, as most home-holes are, was halved, and the match stood "all square at the turn."
They sat down for a moment on a club-house seat on their way to the first tee proper, to begin the second half of their round.
"By gum, this is a game!" said Pip, smacking his lips.
"Rather!" said Elsie as heartily.
And, at that, a little chill of silence fell upon them. In the sheer joy of battle they had almost forgotten the great issues that hung on the result. They were absolutely alone on the links. The few players who had ventured out after the rain ceased were well on their way round—somewhere near the ninth hole, probably; and the green-keeper had taken advantage of slackness in business to go home to his tea. The sky was overcast, and promised more rain.
Suddenly Elsie sprang up.
"Come on," she said briskly. "My honour, I think?"
"Yes," replied Pip.
For the tenth time that afternoon Elsie drove the ball far and sure, straight for the green. Pip's heart smote him. Who was he that his crass and brutal masculine muscle should be permitted to annul the effects of Elsie's delicate precision and indomitable pluck?
"Elsie," he said suddenly, "if you don't win this match—you deserve to!"
Elsie looked up at him. For a moment her heart softened. She felt inclined to tell him something—that she did not want to win after all, that the game was his for the asking, that she would surrender unconditionally. But, even as she wavered, Pip unconsciously settled the matter by driving his ball just about twice the distance of hers. Without another word she picked up her clubs and set off to play her second. But her brassie-shot found a bunker, and as her skill lay in avoiding difficulties rather than in getting out of them, she soon found it necessary to give up the hole.
The stars in their courses now began to fight for Pip. His ball from the next tee, badly topped, ran merrily into a bunker, hopped out, and lay on fair turf five yards beyond. Upset, perhaps, by this fluke, Elsie for the first time bungled her tee-shot, sliced her second into a bad lie, and arrived at the green to find that Pip, who had been playing a kind of glorified croquet-match against an invisible opponent, with his iron for a mallet and whin-bushes for hoops, was still a stroke to the good. She lost the hole.
Pip was now two up, with seven to play. But Elsie's cup was not yet full. Her next drive was caught most unfairly in an aggressively fresh rabbit-scrape, which lay right in the fairway to the hole. Pip offered to allow her to lift it, but she declined. Pip's good luck also continued, for though he pulled his drive over some sand-hills to the right, he found his ball lying teed up "on the only blade of grass for miles," as he explained on reappearing. He reached the green in two, Elsie taking three, and won the hole.
Three down, and six to play!
There was no question of giving in in Elsie's heart now. She had hesitated, and was lost, or at any rate committed to a life-and-death struggle. There can be no graceful concessions when one is three down. Under such circumstances a virtue is apt to be misconstrued into a necessity.
The next hole was the longest in the course, and Elsie felt that it was a gift for Pip. That erratic warrior, however, failed to carry the burn, distant about fifteen yards from the tee, and was ignominiously compelled to fish his ball out, drop, and lose a stroke. This gave Elsie some much-needed encouragement. Her tee-shot took her well on her way, and the ball lay so clean for her second that she was enabled to take her driver to it. One more slashing stroke, with her brassie this time, delivered with all the vigour and elasticity of which her lithe young body was capable, and she lay only ten yards from the green. Pip, despite some absolutely heroic work with his beloved cleek, was unable to overcome the handicap of the burn, and reached the green a stroke behind her. However, his luck stood by him once more, for he accomplished a five-yard putt, and halved the hole.
"Good putt!" said Elsie bravely.
"All putts of over three feet," remarked Pip, sententiously quoting one of his favourite golfing maxims, "are flukes."
Fluke or no fluke, Elsie was three down, with only five to play. Another hole lost, and Pip would be "dormy." Fortunately the next three holes were of the short and tricky variety, presenting difficulties more easily to be overcome by a real golfer than a human battering-ram. Elsie rose to the occasion. She set her small white teeth, squared her slim shoulders, and applied herself to the task of reducing Pip's lead. And she succeeded. The first hole she took in a perfect three, Pip, who had encountered a whin-bush en route, requiring thirteen!
"One thing," he remarked philosophically as he mopped his brow, "I did the job thoroughly. That whin-bush will never bother anybody again."
The next hole was a real triumph for Elsie. She was weak with her approach, and arrived on the green in three to Pip's two. Pip played the like, hit the back of the hole hard, hopped over, and lay a foot beyond—dead.
"This for a half," said Elsie.
"This" was an exceedingly tricky putt of about eight yards over an undulating green. She carefully examined the lie of the ground in both directions, thrust her tongue out of one corner of her mouth—an unladylike habit which intruded itself at moments of extreme tension—and played. The ball left her putter sweetly, successfully negotiated the various hills and dales of the green, and dropped into the hole.
"Grand putt!" said Pip. "I mustn't miss this of mine."
He humped his shoulders, bent his knees, and addressed the ball with all the intense elaboration usual in a player suddenly called upon to hole a ball which, under ordinary circumstances, he would knock in with the back of his putter. Whether his impossible posture or his recent unequal encounter with the whin-bush was responsible will never be known, but the fact remains that he missed the hole by inches, and so lost it by one stroke.
Elsie stifled the scream of delight that rose to her lips.
"One down, and three to play," she remarked, in a voice that would tremble a little.
She made no mistake with the next hole. For her it was a full drive over a high bunker on to the green. Pip took his cleek, failed to carry the bunker, and after one or two abortive attempts to get out of the shifty sand with his niblick, gave up the hole, Elsie's drive having laid her a few yards from the pin.
"All square," announced Elsie. "Two to play."
"My word, Elsie, this is a match!" repeated Pip.
Elsie replied by an ecstatic sigh.
Both had entirely forgotten the stake for which they were playing. For the moment they were golfers pure and simple. They were no longer human beings, much less male and female, less still lover and lass. The whole soul of each was set on defeating the other.
But there are deeper passions than golf.
"Naturam furca expellas, tamen usque recurret!"
—which, being interpreted, means roughly that if a man and a maid set out to dislodge Human Nature from their systems with, say, a niblick, Human Nature will inevitably come home to roost. All of which is cold truth, as the event proved.
Both gave an exceedingly moderate exhibition at the seventeenth tee, Pip because he not infrequently did so, and Elsie because her nerve was going. Their second shots were better, though Pip as usual got farther with his cleek than Elsie with her brassie. Elsie therefore had to play the odd in approaching the green. This time she did herself justice. It was a perfect shot. The ball rose quickly, fell plump upon the green, checked itself with a little back-spin, and staggered uncertainly towards the hole. Finally it stopped, eighteen inches beyond the pin.
Elsie heaved a sigh of the most profound relief. In all human probability she was sure of a "half" now, and unless Pip laid his approach dead she would win the hole outright, and so make the match safe, safe, safe! She involuntarily clasped her hands together over her beating heart.
Pip, impassive as ever, said nothing, but took his mashie and succeeded in reaching the green. Since his ball lay a good ten yards short, his chances of a half looked meagre, but he grasped his putter with determination and "went for" the hole. The ball rolled smoothly over the green, but suddenly turned off a little and just rolled past the lip of the hole.
"Bad luck!" said Elsie, with ready sympathy.
Bad luck indeed, but not for Pip. The ball, as she spoke, suddenly slowed down and stopped dead, midway, to a hair's-breadth, between the ball and the hole. Elsie required only a short putt to win the hole and make herself "dormy," and Pip had laid her a dead stymie.
Involuntarily they looked at each other. Then Pip said quickly,—
"I'll pick up my ball while you putt. We aren't having any stymies in this match, of course."
All the sportswoman in Elsie revolted at this. "No, Pip," she said; "certainly not. We arranged nothing about stymies before we started, so stymies must stand. I must just play it."
She took her mashie, and made a gallant but unsuccessful effort to jump her ball over Pip's. Each holed the next putt, and the match remained square—with one to play. Ye gods!
They were very silent as they prepared to drive off for the last time. Absolutely alone, far out on the course, they were now approaching what was properly "the turn," more than a mile from the clubhouse.
"I shall put down a new ball here," said Pip, "just for luck."
"So shall I," said Elsie.
"We mustn't mix them on the green, then. What is yours?"
"A 'Haskell.'"
"Right. Mine's a 'Springvale Kite.'"
Elsie had the honour, and drove as good a ball as any that afternoon. Pip, determined to take as few risks as possible, used his cleek, and lay just beside her.
The ninth hole on the Links of Eric is known as "The Crater." The green lies in a curious hollow on the top of a conical hill. An average drive leaves your ball at the hill-foot in a good lie. After this only one stroke is of the slightest use. You take your farthest-laid-back mashie, commend your soul to Providence, and smite. The ball, if struck as desired, will rise up, tower, and drop into the basin at the top of the hill. Should you play too strongly you will fly over the oasis of green turf and fall into a howling wilderness of bents, sand, and whins on the far side; should you play short, your ball will bury itself in the slopes of shifting sand that guard the approach, and your doom is sealed. It is credibly reported that all four players in a four-ball match—scratch men, every one—once arrived upon the Crater green, ball in hand, each having given up the struggle under the despairing impression that no opponent could possibly have played more strokes than himself.
On paper, this was just the sort of hole that Elsie should have won from Pip. But in practice the conditions were even. Pip's Herculean wrists made it possible for him to force the ball up to the necessary height with a half-mashie-shot, but for Elsie the task involved a full swing—and to keep your ball under absolute control in such circumstances is about the most difficult shot in golf. Pip's approaching was at its worst unspeakable, but on this occasion he was at his best. The ball sailed grandly into the air and dropped in a reassuringly perpendicular fashion into the Crater. Elsie's effort was almost as good, though her ball curled slightly to the left before dropping.
They tramped up the long flight of wooden steps which facilitated the ascent to the summit with bated breath. A glance at the green would decide the match.
Elsie reached the top first. Pip heard her give a little gasp.
One ball, new, white, and glistening, lay on the green ten or twelve yards from the hole. The other was nowhere to be seen.
"Whose ball, I wonder?" said Pip calmly.
They stooped together and examined the ball as it lay on the green. So close were they that Pip was conscious of a flutter that passed through Elsie's body.
The ball was a "Springvale Kite."
Pip maintained an absolutely unmoved countenance. The ball was his, and so, unless a miracle intervened, was the hole. And the match. And—Elsie!
But that mysterious quality which, for want of a better name, we call "sportsmanship," under whose benign influence we learn to win with equanimity and lose with cheerfulness, prevented him from so much as turning an eye upon his beaten opponent. He merely remarked briskly—
"We must find your pill, Elsie. It can't be far off."
Elsie made no reply, but took her niblick and began to search rather perfunctorily for the lost ball. She could not speak: the strain of the match had told upon her. After all she was a woman, and a girl at that. Pip's iron immobility made her feel worse. She was beginning to realise that he was stronger than she was—a state of affairs which had never appeared possible to her before. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to go home. She wanted to beat Pip, and now that feat appeared to be impossible. Half an hour ago she could have abandoned the match with good grace. She might have surrendered with all the honours of war. Now she would be dragged home at the wheels of Pip's chariot.
Meanwhile her opponent, that tender-hearted and unconscious ogre, was diligently poking about among the bents and whins for the missing Haskell. He was genuinely distressed that the match should end thus. Elsie had had cruel luck. She should have won the last hole, and at any rate halved this one. He took no pleasure in his prospective victory. He had wild thoughts of offering to play the hole again, but dismissed them at once. Elsie might be only a girl, but she had the right instincts, and would very properly regard such an offer as an insult. If only her ball could be found, though, Pip flattered himself that he could go on missing putts after Elsie had reached the green until she had pulled the match out of the fire. Happy thought! he would so manipulate the game as to halve the hole and the match. Then Box and Cox would be satisfied. Beat Elsie, plucky little Elsie? Perish the thought! Pip's sentimental heart overflowed. What a game she had played!
But, sentiment or no sentiment, a lost ball is a lost hole, and unless the ball could be found Pip would be a victor malgré lui.
Coming round the face of the hill, Pip suddenly found himself a few yards from Elsie. She stood with her back to him, unaware of his presence. What was she doing? Certainly not looking for her ball. Was she—could she—really—was Elsie, the proud, the scornful, the unbending, actually cr—? Certainly that flimsy article in her hand looked like a handkerchief. Perhaps it was only a fly in her eye, or something.
No. Pip watched Elsie for a moment longer. It was not a fly in her eye. His heart, already liquescent, melted entirely. He tiptoed away back to the green.
Once there, he took three balls from his pocket and examined them. One was an old and battered "guttie," the others were "Kites," with Pip's trade-mark indelibly stamped upon their long-suffering skins. None of these were suitable for his fell purpose. Nothing daunted, the conspirator stole across to Elsie's bag, which lay on the edge of the green, and selected from the pocket a new Haskell. Carefully fastening up the pocket again, he walked to the middle of the green, and after a furtive glance all round him—dropped the ball into the hole.
Then he uplifted his voice in a full-throated yell, and hurried towards the spot where he had last seen Elsie. As he emerged from the hollow green he met her face to face, coming slowly up to the ridge. Her cheeks were rather flushed and her eyes shone, but her handkerchief was resolutely tucked away in her blouse, and she greeted Pip with a ready smile.
"Elsie," said Pip excitedly, "I've found your ball."
"My ball? Nonsense! Why, I've—"
She checked herself suddenly and followed Pip. That well-meaning but misguided philanthropist, heedless of the danger-signals in Elsie's eyes, walked to the hole, and there, rather with the air of an amateur conjurer who is not quite certain whether his audience know "how it's done" or not, picked out the ball.
"There's your ball," he said. "Good hole, in two! Congratters!"
He handed her the ball with a clumsy gesture of good-will.
Elsie regarded the unoffending Haskell in a dazed manner for a moment, turned white and then red, and finally looked Pip squarely in the face without speaking. Then she flung the ball down upon the green, turned on her heel with a passionate whirl of her skirt, and stalked off, leaving Pip staring dejectedly after her.
CHAPTER XII
"... TAMEN USQUE RECURRET"
Elsie walked on. Her face was set, and her blue-grey eyes had a steely look. In her hand she carried a golf-ball—not the one which poor Pip had "discovered" in the hole, but another, her own, the genuine article. She had spied it, lying in an absolutely unplayable position under a stone, almost immediately after Pip had left her to her handkerchief. She had picked it up, and was on her way back to the green to inform her opponent that the match was his, when she was startled by a mighty shout, and arrived in time to witness the whole of Pip's elaborate conjuring-trick. She grasped the situation at once, and all the woman in her blazed up at this monstrous piece of impertinence. Her anger caused her to overlook the fact that Pip, in his desire to save her from mortification, had deliberately sacrificed his chances and thrown away the spoils of victory. For the moment, all she realised was that he had "patronised" her, treated her like a spoiled child, and allowed her to win. Her blood boiled at the idea. She walked on quickly.
It was not until she had proceeded for a couple of hundred yards that she discovered that she was going in the wrong direction. The ninth hole was situated at the extreme end of the links, and as she had turned on her heel and swung off more with the idea of abandoning her present locality than of reaching another, she realised that, if she continued on her present course, every step would take her farther from the hotel. The discovery added to her wrath. She was making herself ridiculous now. Pip had probably noticed her mistake, and was in all likelihood still standing on the green laughing at her. Return and walk past him she would not. Only one thing remained to be done: she would turn in among the neighbouring sand-hills, make a détour, and walk home along the shore.
A friendly gap between two hillocks presented itself on her left, and she swung round and made for it. As she passed through the entrance she could not help looking back. Pip was sitting on the tee-box beside the now distant green. His chin was buried in his hands, and he was gazing out to sea, with his pipe projecting from his mouth at a reflective angle.
Elsie knew that attitude.
"He's thinking the situation over," she said to herself. "Let him: it will do him good. Oh, dear! where have I got to now?"
She walked into a tiny amphitheatre. All round her rose walls of fine, shifting, running sand. They sloped up gradually, to where they had fallen away from the surrounding summit, leaving a crumbling precipice six or seven feet high, crowned with a projecting rim of treacherous turf,—a natural bunker if ever there was one, and almost as difficult of exit for a girl as for a golf-ball.
But Elsie made the attempt. She was determined not to go back through the gap into Pip's range of vision if she could help it. She struggled up the slope of yielding sand, which sank beneath her feet and trickled into her shoes: she reached the top, laid hold of the overhanging turf, and tried to pull herself up. But, just as she placed a triumphant knee on the summit, the crumbling fabric subsided beneath her weight, and she was projected in a highly indecorous fashion to the foot of the slope.
On this occasion Elsie had some cause to feel grateful that Pip (or indeed any other gentleman) was not present. But the idea did not occur to her. In fact, things had come to a crisis. She was tired out after her hard game, disappointed at the result,—as a matter of fact, she was not very clear as to whether she had won or lost,—and thoroughly demoralised and unstrung by the strain of recent events. She had planned out the present comedy with some care, assigning to herself the superior and congenial rôle of magnanimous conqueror, and to Pip that of humbled and grateful victim. Somehow everything had gone wrong. She was angry with herself and furious with Pip, and now she had fallen down several yards of slippery sand and twisted her foot. She was not sure if the comedy had turned out a tragedy or a farce; all she realised was that it had been a dismal failure. In short, Elsie had expelled Nature with a pitchfork, and now Nature was coming home to roost.
But, in spite of the pitchfork, Nature bore no malice. On the contrary, quite aghast at the havoc that her brief absence had created, she at once took her luckless daughter in hand. Consequently Elsie, poor, distracted, overwrought Elsie, threw herself down on the scanty grass, and found immediate relief in woman's priceless and ever-to-be-envied panacea for all ills—a good cry.
How long she lay sobbing she did not know. When she at length raised her head from the turf and began to dab her eyes with a damp and entirely inadequate pocket-handkerchief, she became aware, with a curious lack of surprise, that Pip was sitting a few yards from her. His pipe was no longer in his mouth, and he was regarding her intently with serious eyes.
"You left your clubs behind you," he said. "I brought them along."
"Thank you," said Elsie.
There was a pause. Finally Elsie completed operations with the handkerchief, and looked Pip squarely in the face. Her tears seemed in some mysterious way to have washed all feelings of anger, restraint, and false sentiment out of her head. For all that, she was not absolutely comfortable. Pip must, of course, be punished for having put that ball into the hole; but the performance of this duty demanded firmness and judicial dignity, and she felt guiltily conscious that her recent tears would detract somewhat from its effectiveness.
Pip, however, was the first to break the silence.
"I was wondering," he remarked, "why you raced off like that just now. Of course, there was one explanation,—that you wanted to lose the match, and were sick at having won it,—but I wasn't such a bounder as to think that. I smoked a pipe or two up there,"—Elsie started; she had not realised that her cry had lasted so long,—"and I thought it all over to see if I could come to a satisfactory solution of the mystery, and—"
Elsie unclosed her left hand, and displayed a golf-ball, which she tossed towards him.
"There's the solution, Pip," she said.
Pip picked up the ball and examined it. Then he took another from his pocket and compared the two.
"Ah!" he remarked. "Then you spotted me. I thought you had, but I couldn't see how. It never occurred to me that you had found your ball. I thought perhaps you had seen something wrong with the one I put—took out of the hole, but I see they are both identical. There's not a mark on either. It was a pity you found yours. If you hadn't, all would have ended happily, wouldn't it?"
"For me or for you?"
"For both of us."
"Then you wouldn't have minded losing?" This with a scornful little laugh.
"No, not in this case."
There was another silence. That Pip should not mind losing a match of which she was the prize struck Elsie as uncomplimentary, not to say rude.
But Pip was never rude to her. Obviously there was something more to come. She waited patiently. Pip gave no sign.
Presently feminine curiosity overcame pride, and she asked,—
"What do you mean by 'in this case'?"
"I mean this," said Pip. "I don't like losing matches at any time,—nobody does,—but in this case, your case, I was glad."
"Oh! Why?"
"At first it was because I couldn't bear to see you beaten after the plucky fight you made. I've often felt the same thing at cricket, when some chap is sticking in to keep the last wicket up, and I am put on to knock it down. Admiration for a gallant foe, and all that, you know. But now I am glad for quite another reason—jolly glad!" He gave the girl a look that was quite new to her.
"Why are you glad, Pip?" she asked, not unkindly.
"Well, I had a good long think just now, up on that green, and a lot of things were made plain to me that had never struck me before. First of all, I realised that you had been quite right."
"Right? About what?"
"About this golf-match being contrary to Nature. Love affairs aren't built that way. I had no right to try and force such terms on you. I see that now. I tried to drive you into a corner. It was a low-down trick, though I thought it a fair enough offer at the time. I was quite sincere."
"I know you were," said Elsie quickly.
Pip raised his eyes to hers for a moment.
"Thank you," he said; "it was decent of you to say that. Now, where I made my error was in this. I didn't think it mattered much whether I got you willing or unwilling, so long as I got you. It was you I wanted, you—Elsie—alive or dead, so to speak,—nothing else mattered. And then suddenly I saw what a fool I had been. I had forgotten that there were two sides to the question. When a man wins a race or a competition of any kind, he sticks the prize up on his mantelpiece and takes no further notice of it beyond looking at it occasionally and feeling glad he's got it. Once there, it ceases to have such an interest for him: he hasn't got to live with it or cart it about with him. I am afraid I was looking at you rather in that light. I was so taken up with the idea of winning you that I forgot about—about—"
"About having to 'cart me about with you'?" said Elsie.
"Yes, that's it. I forgot I couldn't put you on the mantelpiece and leave you there: I had to consider your point of view as well as my own. It was then I realised, all in a moment, that unless you came to me absolutely of your own free will, without terms or conditions, you couldn't come at all,—and what's more, I wouldn't want you to; and that's saying a good deal, as you know."
He paused suddenly, and darted a rather ashamed look at Elsie.
"I suppose all this seems fearfully obvious to you," he said. "Most men would have found it out for themselves from the beginning."
"Some men never find it out at all, Pip."
"Well, that's comforting. Anyhow, having reasoned it all out up there, I put my pipe in my pocket and came along here to tell you."
"To tell me what?"
"How sorry I was."
"What for?"
"For having behaved like a—"
"You don't look very sorry."
Pip's eyes gleamed.
"No, and I'm not either," he shouted. "I'm not, I'm not! I have seen something since then that has driven all my sorriness out of my head. I came along here, fearfully glum, just to say I was sorry to have forced such a caddish scheme on you, and to ask if I might carry your clubs back to the house, and suddenly I came round the corner, and there I saw you—crying."
"And that's made you glad?" said Elsie coldly.
"Glad? I should think it did!" He stood up, and continued, "Don't you see, dear, it showed me that you cared? A girl doesn't lie sobbing on the sand if she's absolutely indifferent. Oh, I know now, right enough: half an hour ago I didn't. I came upon you then hunting for your ball and dabbing your eyes with your handkerchief; but that of course was different; I knew it wasn't the real thing. You were just tired then, and sick at losing the game; but this time"—his face glowed—"this time I knew it was the real thing, and that you cared, you really cared. Yes, you cared; you had cared all the time, and I had never known it!"
He stood over her, absolutely radiant: no one had ever seen Pip like this before. Then he dropped down on to the grass beside the girl, and put his arm inside hers.
"You do care, don't you, Elsie?" he said.
Elsie turned and looked him full in the face, without a trace of affectation or fear.
"Yes, Pip, I do," she answered.
It was long after six when they emerged from their retreat. The clouds were drifting up once more from the southwest, and everything promised a wet night. There was little wind, but already rain-drops were beginning to fall, unsteadily and fitfully. Presently this period of indecision ceased, and the rain came down in earnest. The two paused, and Pip surveyed Elsie's thin blouse disapprovingly.
"Isn't there some place where we can shelter?" said Elsie.
"There's a sort of tin place over there, but you would be soaked through before you got halfway to it. Besides, this rain means business; it'll go on all night now."
"Come along then," said Elsie; "we must hurry. I can change when we get home."
"Wait a minute," said Pip.
He began to divest himself of his tweed jacket.
"Put this on," he said.
"Nonsense, Pip; you'll get soaked."
Pip sighed, gently and patiently.
"Put it on," he repeated, holding it open for her.
Elsie glanced at him, and obeyed.
"You're an obstinate old pig, sometimes, Pip," she remarked.
And so they tramped home. They said little: there seemed to be nothing left in the world worth saying. Pip carried both sets of clubs under his left arm. Occasionally he sighed, long and gently, as one who has done his day's work and is at peace with all the world. Elsie marched beside him, with her arms buried to the elbows in the deep pockets of Pip's old jacket. (They were spacious pockets: one of them was sheltering two hands.) At intervals Elsie would look up at Pip, upon whose head and shoulders the rain was descending pitilessly. Once she said,—
"Pip, you're getting awfully wet."
Pip looked down upon her for a moment. Then he looked up again, and shook his glistening head defiantly at the weeping heavens.
"Who cares?" he roared.