"Yes, and I thought I would like to play too, please," said Margaret, in shy but friendly tones. "I have finished with the children for the morning. Perhaps Hilary or one of your cousins will lend me a racquet and I will come and play on your side."
"What, in high-heeled house-shoes, and when we are in the middle of a single!" Maud exclaimed in amazement. "Here, clear out please. Take her away somebody, and let us get on with our game."
Thus summarily dismissed, and blushing crimson at the annoyance in Maud's tone, Margaret backed hurriedly off the court, and though the giggles that came from the bench whereon Hilary and the Greens sat were clearly at her expense, Margaret walked awkwardly towards them.
Neither Hilary nor Joan made any attempt to make room for her to sit down, nor to conceal their amusement at her discomfiture, but Nancy, who sat in the middle, edged closer to her sister and patted the bench invitingly.
"You evidently don't know much more about tennis than you do about billiards, do you?" said Hilary scornfully; "or you would not have strolled across the court in that fashion and interrupted the game."
"I am sorry," said Margaret miserably. Already the feeling of eager anticipation with which she had left the schoolroom to seek their society had fled, and she was heartily wishing herself back there again; "and I am afraid I have made Maud cross."
"Far too cross," said Nancy. "After all, it's nothing so terrible that you did. It wasn't as if it was a match that Maud was playing. She is only having a game with Anna."
"Fancy thinking you could play in house-shoes though," said Hilary. "Didn't the girls at Hampstead have tennis-shoes, poor things?"
"I don't know. Yes, I suppose so. I mean, Mrs. McDonald did not—there were no tennis courts," stammered Margaret, her wretchedness increasing as she met Hilary's scrutinising gaze. Surely she was not mistaken, and this time there was marked suspicion of her in Hilary's face.
"Come for a turn with me," said Nancy, who, though quite unconscious of the significance of Hilary's look and manner, was at least acute enough to perceive that her cousin was bent upon making Margaret more uncomfortable than she was already. "I haven't stirred from this seat since eleven, and unless I take some exercise I shan't be able to eat any lunch. We'll go into the kitchen garden and look for some raspberries."