"This" was an exceedingly tricky putt of about eight yards over an undulating green. She carefully examined the lie of the ground in both directions, thrust her tongue out of one corner of her mouth—an unladylike habit which intruded itself at moments of extreme tension—and played. The ball left her putter sweetly, successfully negotiated the various hills and dales of the green, and dropped into the hole.
"Grand putt!" said Pip. "I mustn't miss this of mine."
He humped his shoulders, bent his knees, and addressed the ball with all the intense elaboration usual in a player suddenly called upon to hole a ball which, under ordinary circumstances, he would knock in with the back of his putter. Whether his impossible posture or his recent unequal encounter with the whin-bush was responsible will never be known, but the fact remains that he missed the hole by inches, and so lost it by one stroke.
Elsie stifled the scream of delight that rose to her lips.
"One down, and three to play," she remarked, in a voice that would tremble a little.
She made no mistake with the next hole. For her it was a full drive over a high bunker on to the green. Pip took his cleek, failed to carry the bunker, and after one or two abortive attempts to get out of the shifty sand with his niblick, gave up the hole, Elsie's drive having laid her a few yards from the pin.
"All square," announced Elsie. "Two to play."
"My word, Elsie, this is a match!" repeated Pip.
Elsie replied by an ecstatic sigh.
Both had entirely forgotten the stake for which they were playing. For the moment they were golfers pure and simple. They were no longer human beings, much less male and female, less still lover and lass. The whole soul of each was set on defeating the other.