"Pip—" began Elsie rather unsteadily.
Pip turned quickly, and beheld her standing on the step, framed by the open doorway. The setting sun glinted on her hair, and there was a curious and unfamiliar note in her voice as she addressed him.
"Pip," she said, "I don't like the idea of this match. It's—it's contrary to Nature, somehow. Golf wasn't intended to settle such questions."
Pip made no reply, but gazed upon her. In matters of this kind he was not very "quick in the uptake," as they say in Scotland. Elsie made a curious little grimace to herself, and continued—
"Pip, supposing you wanted, very much, to get something that lay across a stream which looked rather deep, would you make a jump and risk a ducking, or would you walk miles on the off-chance of finding a bridge?"
They looked at each other steadily for a minute, while Pip worked out the answer to this conundrum.
"I should probably jump," he replied,—"that is, if—"
And then at last light seemed to break upon him. The blood surged to his brain, and he stepped forward impetuously.
"Elsie!" he cried.
But the door was shut.