Thaxton Vail’s face lost all its habitual easy-going aspect. He took a forward step, his muscles tensing. But before he could set in whizzing action the fist he had clenched, a slender little figure stepped, as though by chance, between the two men.
The interloper was a girl; wondrous graceful and dainty in her white sport suit. Her face was bronzed, beneath its crown of gold-red hair. Her brown eyes were as level and honest as a boy’s.
“Aren’t you almost ready, Thax?” she asked. “I’ve been waiting, down at the courts, ever so long while you sat up here and gossiped. Good morning, Oz. Won’t you scurry around and find some one to make it ‘doubles’? Thax and I always quarrel when we play ‘singles.’ Avert strife, won’t you, by finding Greta Swalm, or some one, and joining us? Please do, Oz. We—”
Osmun Creede made a sound such as might well be expected to emanate from a turkey whose tail feathers are pulled just as it starts to gobble. Glowering afresh at Vail, but without further effort at articulate speech, he turned and stumped away.
Doris Lane watched him until his lean form was lost to view around the corner of the veranda. Then, wheeling on Thaxton, with a striking change from her light manner, she asked:
“What was the matter? Just as I came out of the door I heard him tell you something or other was a lie. And I saw you start for him. I thought it was time to interrupt. It would be a matter for the Board of Governors, you know, here on the veranda, with every one looking on. What was the matter?”
“Oh, he thought I blackballed him, for the Hunt Club,” explained Thaxton. “When, as a matter of fact, I seem to be about the only member who didn’t. I told him so, and he said I lied. I’m—I’m mighty glad you horned in when you did. It’s always a dread of mine that some day I’ll have to thrash that chap. And you’ve saved me from doing it—this time. It’d be a hideous bore. And then there’d be good old Clive to be made blue by it, you know. And besides, Uncle Oz and his dad were—”
“I know,” she soothed. “I know. You won’t carry it any further, will you? Please don’t.”
“I suppose not,” he answered. “But, really, after a man calls another a liar and—”
“Oh, I suppose that means there’ll be one more neighborhood squabble,” she sighed, puckering her low forehead in annoyance. “And two more people who won’t see each other when they meet. Isn’t it queer? We come out to the country for a good time. And we spend half that time starting feuds or stopping them. People can live next door to each other in a big city for a lifetime, and never squabble. Then the moment they get to the country—”