He began telling her about the two world famous men who were to play, about their good points and their weak ones, and to give a scientific treatise on certain kinds of services and returns, and she gave strict attention and asked intelligent questions, and was getting on very well, keeping her own private thoughts utterly in the background, when suddenly he said:
“Do you see that lady in white just directly opposite us? White with scarlet trimmings. I wish you would look at her a moment. Here, take the field glasses. Sometime I am going to tell you about her.”
Cornelia tried to steady her hand as she adjusted the glasses to her eyes, and to steady her lips for a question:
“Is she—a—friend?”
“I hardly think you’d call it that—any more!” he answered in a curiously hard tone. But Cornelia was too preoccupied to notice.
“Shall we—meet her?” she asked after studying the exquisite doll face across the distance, and wondering if it really were as wonderfully perfect close at hand. Wondering too why she seemed to suddenly feel disappointed in the man beside her if this was his choice of a wife.
“I think not,” he said decidedly, and then as a sudden clapping arose, growing, like a swift moving shower, “There, there they are! The players. That’s the Englishman, that big chap, and this man, this is our man. See how supple he is. He has a great reach. Watch him now.”
After that there was no more opportunity to talk personalities and Cornelia was glad that she could just sit still and watch, although with her preoccupied mind she might as well have been at home cooking dinner for all she knew about that tournament. The players came and went like little puppets in a show, the ball flew back and forth, and games and sets were played, but she knew no more about it than if she had not been there. Now and then her eyes furtively stole a glance across the way at the scarlet line on the white.
Maxwell had glanced at her curiously several times. Her attitude was one of deep attention. She smiled just as pleasantly when he spoke, but somehow her voice had lost the spring out of it and he could not help thinking she was weary.
“Let’s get out of here before the crowd begins to push,” he whispered, as the last set was finished and the antagonists shook hands under fire of the heavy rounds of applause.