ONLY a small gallery followed the tennis tournament. Although there were some splendid outside entries and the match took on the flavor of a semi-official eastern championship, the newspapers—according to Diccon—had not yet made tennis a sport. A magnificent cup, with some good names already on it, was the trophy; and the finals in singles, between Morris and Clarke, would decide the year’s holder.
While Mac was engineering a good spot for the carriage, Gorgas scanned the players’ quarters for signs of Morris. Soon a white figure—“ducks,” white cap, open-throated shirt—waved in the distance and began to make toward them.
“Allen Blynn,” Gorgas spoke quietly, “don’t you back-pedal for one minute on that Holden job.” It was the day of the bicycle. “You’ve won it according to the rules. You’ve just got to go. I’m mighty glad you’re thinking sensibly about it. Now, that’s all the time I can give you—the rest of the day belongs to Edwin Morris. Wish it were baseball, so we could root for him. Hello, boy, how are you feeling?”
“Never better,” said the boy.
Morris tossed back a lock of hair as he came up smiling. Lithe, clean-looking suppleness he showed; shy almost; lounging; giving no sign of superior physical power; that unique creature, a new species, the American college-athlete.
“You’re going to win, of course,” Gorgas searched his face admiringly.
“The trouble is,” he drawled, “Clarke says he feels fit, too. We’ve agreed to let loose and give you a show for your penny.”
Blynn inquired, “Forgive me, Edwin, for not knowing who Clarke is. He’s your friend, the enemy; is he not?”
“Fancy not knowing Clarke, Hudson Clarke!” Gorgas looked at him in wonderment. “He’s the foxiest tenniser outside of dear old Lun’non. We’d be lucky to get his scalp, I tell you.”
Her loyalty was immense. She filled Morris with the glow of success, keyed him up with little whispers of faith, and gave him something to fight for.