“Look here, Grace,” said I, “I merely require your promise that you’ll play me to-morrow on these conditions, and then you are at liberty to go.”
“You’ve got my promise,” said she, with an off-hand haste that was by no means reassuring.
Thereupon I opened the door for the hot, angry, and impatient Grace, and she slipped past me in a flash, fearing no doubt that I should repent, and close the door once more upon her.
“Dimmy,” said she, as we repaired together to the boys, “I shall give you a most awful licking to-morrow, you know. By Jove, Dimmy, I wouldn’t be in your shoes! I will give you beans; I will take it out of you for this.”
“Per-haps,” said I saucily. “But, Grace, I shall go all the time, I can promise you. I mayn’t be a county man, but I’m not in the habit of letting girls walk over me with impunity.”
“Oh, I daresay,” said Grace cuttingly. “I should judge that girls are just about your weight. If you played your best, you might play very well indeed against girls. But there’s one thing, Dimmy, that I happen to know of your cricket. You can’t bowl for nuts. And I can let daylight into downright rubbish. Why, Toddles is actually better than you at bowling, and I hit him most horribly. Toddles funks me now. Oh, I shall enjoy myself to-morrow. I’ll pay you out for to-night’s disgusting behaviour. If I can’t knock the cover off your stuff, Dimmy, I’ll never touch a bat again, so there!”
Alas! that my miserable bowling should deserve every word she said about it. My heart sank.
CHAPTER XVII
A Few of its Consequences
I REGRET to state that when Grace and I came to “the boys” in the dining-room, we discovered seven gentlemen seated round the dining-room table, engaged in a game called baccarat. It was reassuring to find, however, that they were playing for nominal stakes, and that it was being conducted under evident difficulties.
“Didn’t father say he positively wouldn’t have it!” cried Miss Grace. “Oh, there will be a row if he catches you at it. Do drop it, there’s good men.”