“Slander!” she gasped. “Oh, a horrible slander!”
“What?” Henry cried again. “When everybody knows the things you can do with a golf ball if you care to? When that professional trick-player gave his exhibition here, knocking five balls into five hats in a row, and all that, how many of his shots didn’t you duplicate after you’d practised them? And some of the girls talked to the caddy McArdle had with him when it happened, and the boy said he didn’t think you were over forty yards away when you hit him. Lily, there isn’t a soul that knows you who’ll ever believe you didn’t do exactly what you planned to do. I don’t mean they think you could do it every time, or that they’re all certain you aimed at his head; but they all believe you tried to hit him—and succeeded!”
“And you do?” she said. “You believe it?”
He laughed bitterly. “Lily, it’s clear as daylight, and I knew it when I looked up and saw you with him to-day. I knew you’d won what you were after. It was in his face.”
Lily gulped and smiled a wry smile. “I see,” she said. “It all works out, and nobody’ll ever believe I didn’t plan it. Yes, I think he proposed to me on the way home this afternoon.”
“Let me wish you happiness,” Henry said, and seemed disposed to repeat his satiric bow, but thought better of it. “Is the engagement to be a long one?” he inquired, lightly, instead; and this seemed to be as effective as the bow, for Lily sprang up, as if she would strike him.
“I could murder you!” she cried. “And, oh, how I’d like to! I’m not sure Mr. McArdle proposed to me; I only think he did. I told him I couldn’t listen because I was too angry.”
“Too angry with whom?” Henry asked, frowning.
“With you!” Lily shouted fiercely.
At that, it was his turn to utter a loud cry. “Lily, is it true? Did you hate me so that you couldn’t even listen to him? Is it true?”