“Hamper him! No. She might as well have been off the court altogether.”
“Her service is good,” Rose insisted.
“Yes—for a girl.” He chuckled. “She leaves him to make all the running.”
“Well, they won anyhow.”
“He won,” he corrected. “Shouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t win all along the line. He has only a bundle of letters to compete against. My money is on the man on the spot all the time.”
“Hush!” Rose said warningly. “Here they come.”
She hailed the winners with smiling congratulations, and complimented Sinclair on his play.
“We pulled it off all right, Mrs Bainbridge,” he said, laughing, looking hot and young and immeasurably contented with life. “Esmé funked right to the finish, but she played up like a good ’un. Whew! I’m hot. Come on, partner; let’s go and have a lemon squash.”
The girl, flushed and tired and less elated with success than he was, followed him to the back of the pavilion, and stood drinking lemonade, and talking to a little knot of competitors who were there for a similar purpose. Some of the players she knew, but a number of them were visitors down for the tournament. A dance that night at the Town Hall was to celebrate the finish of the festivities. A group of flannel-clad young men and white-frocked young women were discussing the ball and booking dances in advance. Some one came up to Esmé and asked her for a dance, which she promised willingly. In a very short while she had given a number of dances away. Sinclair touched her arm.
“I want some,” he said. “I want quite a lot.”