"Good afternoon, Dick."
They weren't doing anything but planning a walk, but they both started like it had been a murder.
"Oh," says Mr. Ferguson, looking blankly disconcerted, "oh, Suzanne, I didn't see you. How do you do—good afternoon."
She came to a halt and stood softly swinging her racket, looking at him with that mean, cold smile.
"I was in my room and saw you so I came down at once. It's a splendid afternoon for our game, not a breath of wind."
I saw, and she saw, and I guess any but a blind man could have seen, he'd a date to play tennis with her and had forgotten it. Of course a woman would have scrambled out, had something to offer that made a noise like an excuse; but that poor prune of a man—they're all alike when a quick lie's needed—couldn't think of a thing to say. He just stood between them, looking haunted and stammering out such gems of thought as, "Our game—of course our game—I hadn't noticed it but there is no wind."
She had him; he couldn't throw her down after he'd made the engagement, and with her there he couldn't say what he wanted to Esther Maitland. And neither of them helped him; Mrs. Price listened to his flounderings with the little smile, light and cool on her painted lips, and Miss Maitland stood by, not a word out of her. I noticed that Mrs. Price never looked at her, acted as if she wasn't there, and presently Ferguson, getting desperate, turns to her and says:
"How about taking our walk later—after Mrs. Price and I have finished our game?"
The girl got red, burning; she started to answer, but Mrs. Price cut in, for the first time addressing her:
"Oh, Miss Maitland, that reminds me—I want these letters answered, if you'll be so kind. Just follow the notes on the edges, and please do it as soon as possible—they're rather important. They must go out on the evening mail."