"That's an outrage!" I declared.
"Oh, I don't know," he returned. "They can hack around over there and do no great damage. Between you and me, Smith, I think women are more or less of a nuisance on a course frequented by good players."
I recalled that I once held the same opinion, and in looking back to the opening pages of this diary I find that I expressed it even more brutally than did Mr. Harding. But I was in no mood to argue the matter with him.
"I presume Mrs. and Miss Harding are at the hotel?" I carelessly remarked. "I should like to pay my respects to them."
"They're about the hotel, I reckon," he said, taking his stance for a brassie shot. He made a very good one.
"How's that, Smith?" he exclaimed. "My boy, I'm getting this game down fine! Old Tom has put me onto some new wrinkles. See that old cock line out that ball! Isn't he a wonder?"
"I think I will go and call on them," I said.
"Call on who? Oh, yes!" he said, as I started away.
"By the way, you won't find Grace there, come to think of it. Let's see; where did she say she was going? She's painting the ruins, and has finished the old cathedral and the monastery. What's that other famous wreck around here? Oh, yes; the castle! I remember now that she said she was going to paint the castle to-day. Somebody ought to paint it. I understand it hasn't been painted for more than eight hundred years."
His roar of laughter sounded like old Woodvale days.