The coal of the man's cigar glowed intermittently. She could see nothing else.
Aeneid—Enid.
CHAPTER XVI
Thomas slammed the ball with a force which carried it far over the wire backstop.
"You must not drive them so hard, Mr. Webb; at least, not up. Drive them down. Try it again."
Tennis looked so easy from the sidelines that Thomas believed all he had to do was to hit the ball whenever he saw it within reach; but after a few experiments he accepted the fact that every game required a certain talent, quite as distinct as that needed to sell green neckties (old stock) when the prevailing fashion was polka-dot blue. How he loathed Thomas Webb. How he loathed the impulse which had catapulted him into this mad whirligig! Why had not fate left him in peace; if not satisfied with his lot, at least resigned? And now must come this confrontation, the inevitable! No poor rat in a trap could have felt more harassed. Mentally, he went round and round in circles, but he could find no exit. There is no file to saw the bars of circumstance.
That the lithe young figure on the other side of the net, here, there, backward and forward, alert, accurate, bubbling with energy… Once, a mad rollicking impulse seized and urged him to vault the net and take her in his arms and hold her still for a moment. But he knew. She was using him as an athlete uses a trainer before a real contest.
There was something more behind his stroke than mere awkwardness. It was downright savagery. Generally when a man is in anger or despair he longs to smash things; and these inoffensive tennis-balls were to Thomas a gift of the gods. Each time one sailed away over the backstop, it was like the pop of a safety-valve; it averted an explosion.
"That will be enough!" cried Kitty, as the last of a dozen balls sailed toward the distant stables.