An hour later both courts on the vicarage tennis lawn were occupied with players, most of whom wielded their racquets in such a way as to indicate considerable practice in the health-giving pastime upon which they were now engaged. The two brothers Worthington, sons of a local landed proprietor, were worthy partners of the Misses Smythe, and Mr. Graham, the doctor’s assistant—whose aider and abettor in all social functions at which they could both be present was Mr. Wix, our curate—was so evidently smitten by May’s charms that I caught myself wondering whether he would be able to supplant the fascinating actor. Mrs. Marshall had offered to let me play in her stead, but a reaction from my previous excitement had set in, and I craved quiet and repose. Leaving her, therefore, to a game which I knew she would enjoy, I strolled further away from the house, and presently sat down on the forked arm of an apple-tree which grew just behind the hut that had been erected for the accommodation of those who preferred to watch the game rather than take an active part in it. The branch of the tree hung so low that I had no difficulty in fixing myself comfortably upon it, and I soon found the repose of my situation so conducive to drowsiness that I think I must have gone to sleep for a little while.
At any rate I was roused by the sound of voices which I could not localize for a few moments, as I had not noticed the approach of the speakers, who were evidently now sitting in the hut close to me. My own name fell on my ears with somewhat startling distinctness.
“Miss Dora Courtney,” said a voice which I recognized as that of Lady Smythe, the wife of an ex-wine merchant who had chanced to be the mayor of a neighboring town on the occasion of the Queen’s Jubilee, and had consequently dropped into a knighthood. “Miss Dora Courtney surprises me by her behavior.”
“In what way, Lady Smythe? And who is the young lady, that she should evoke interest in you?” asked another voice, which was strange to me, but which had such a liberal allowance of flattering unction in it, and which laid such emphasis on the second person singular that I set its owner down for a toady of the first water at once.
“My dear Miss Grindle,” was the reply, “I am certainly exclusive. But I am able to take interest in many people whose position in society scarcely warrants notice from me. Otherwise you would hardly find me mixing indiscriminately with people at parties like this. It pleases commoners to be noticed by persons of title, and I pride myself upon being looked upon as more condescending than the rest of the nobility hereabouts.”
“Oh, you’re just an angel! If only the Mountmerlyns were like you.”
“Ah, yes! poor things! I feel sorry for them. What’s the use of their asthmatic old earldom, without money to keep it up? Such a struggle as they must have! And, between you and me, they’re dying to know Sir Robert and myself, but are overawed by a sense of the great difference in our position.”
“You mean—Lady Smythe?”
“We are so rich, and they are so poor. No wonder they are afraid of intruding upon us.”
“And this Miss Courtney?—”