"I will help!" she cried, "I will—and you'll see what I'll do!"
Afterward—long afterward—he remembered her, as she was that moment—her golden hair tumbling upon her shoulders; her eyes blazing, her glorious figure erect, her white hands clenched at her sides.
So it was Crowley—Jim Crowley the penitent, yet the sceptical—who brought them together, just as it was Crowley who waited, who counted the days, who watched.
II
From the walk he saw them on the tennis courts one evening a week later.
Unobserved he watched their movements; the girl's lithe, graceful; Houston's, strong, manly. He was serving and Crowley noted the swift sweep of his white arm, bare almost to the shoulder, and was thrilled. Florence had slipped the links in her sleeves and rolled her cuffs back to dimpled elbows and her forearms were brown from much golf.
Crowley approached the players after a moment and they joined him at the end of the net. The flush on the girl's face gave her beauty a radiance that he could not recall ever having noticed before. Usually Florence was marbly calm. Houston was warm, glowing.
"Gad, you're a fine pair; I've been watching you," Crowley blurted.
The girl shot him one swift glance, then her lips parted over her strong, white, even teeth, as she laughed.
"Aren't we?" she cried gaily—"just splendid——" And made a playful lunge at him with the raquet.