"Fore!" With the full force of his distinctly powerful lungs, Hugh Ralton's shout of warning echoed over the golf links, and Ruth Seaton, who was walking slowly over the seventh green, looked up quickly. The next moment a ball whizzed past her, and disappeared into a big sand-bunker guarding the hole.
Approaching her rapidly was a man, and she frowned slightly. He was evidently going to speak to her, and apologize, and she didn't want to speak to anybody. Certainly not a man.... Moreover, the best people do not play the seventh hole from the tenth tee on well-regulated links, and the girl's frown deepened. Incidentally the ball had passed her rather too closely and rather too rapidly for her to see any vast amount of humour in the performance.
The man was still some fifty yards away when she recognized him as being at the hotel.
"I am so sorry." His voice came to her through the still air, and the frown relaxed somewhat—Hugh Ralton's voice was a very pleasant one. "I'd no idea there was anyone about."
With his cap in his hand he came up to her.
"Do you generally play a course of your own?" she demanded. "Most of us find the proper one good enough."
Ralton laughed, displaying two rows of white even teeth. "I abase myself," he murmured. "The shot that caused me such a heart spasm, and missed you by——"
"About the distance of a putt you'd have to give even to your most hated rival," interrupted the girl.
"That shot," he continued, firmly, "was intended for the tenth green."
The girl's lips began to twitch. "I was under the impression," she remarked, meditatively, "that the tenth green lay over there." She waved a vague hand. "About a mile away.... I don't think you can be playing very well, somehow."