Lydia laughed, really supposing the suggestion to be humorously intended.
“What are you cackling about? You’re such an extraordinary kid; you always seem to laugh with your mouth shut. I suppose they taught you that at this precious school of yours, where you don’t even play hockey. Well, what about to-morrow? We can take some sort of fodder with us, but I’ve got to be back at the Common at ten sharp for a hockey practice.”
Lydia was obliged to resign her pretensions. She hadn’t understood quite what Beatrice meant by a “good walker.”
“Anything up to twenty-five miles is my mark,” said Beatrice complacently.
She and Olive were both good-humouredly contemptuous of Lydia’s incapabilities, and Bob was even ready to show her how to serve at tennis, and how to throw a ball straight. Lydia was willing to be taught, and was sufficiently conscious that her tennis was improving rapidly, to submit to a good deal of shouting and slangy, good-humoured abuse.
She did not like it, but was philosophically aware that her stay at Wimbledon was drawing to a close, and that she would reap the benefit of improved tennis for ever afterwards.
“I suppose, being a duffer at games, that you’re a regular Smart Aleck at lessons, aren’t you?” Olive amiably asked her.
An assent would certainly be regarded as “bucking,” but, on the other hand, Lydia had no mind to let her claims to distinction be passed over.
“I’ve just been in for an examination,” she said boldly. “I might hear the result any day now.”
“Get on! I thought you’d been ill.”