He was in excellent humour that night, for he had had a letter from Barbara saying that she was arriving on the next day but one.
It was Ferdinand’s healthy custom of a morning to get up in good time and take a dip in the sea before breakfast. On the morning of the day of Barbara’s arrival, he arose, as usual, donned his flannels, took a good look at the cup, and started out. It was a fine, fresh morning, and he glowed both externally and internally. As he crossed the links, for the nearest route to the water was through the fairway of the seventh, he was whistling happily and rehearsing in his mind the opening sentences of his proposal. For it was his firm resolve that night after dinner to ask Barbara to marry him. He was proceeding over the smooth turf without a care in the world, when there was a sudden cry of “Fore!” and the next moment a golf ball, missing him by inches, sailed up the fairway and came to a rest fifty yards from where he stood. He looked round and observed a figure coming towards him from the tee.
The distance from the tee was fully a hundred and thirty yards. Add fifty to that, and you have a hundred and eighty yards. No such drive had been made on the Marvis Bay links since their foundation, and such is the generous spirit of the true golfer that Ferdinand’s first emotion, after the not inexcusable spasm of panic caused by the hum of the ball past his ear, was one of cordial admiration. By some kindly miracle, he supposed, one of his hotel acquaintances had been permitted for once in his life to time a drive right. It was only when the other man came up that there began to steal over him a sickening apprehension. The faces of all those who hewed divots on the hotel course were familiar to him, and the fact that this fellow was a stranger seemed to point with dreadful certainty to his being the man he had agreed to play.
“Sorry,” said the man. He was a tall, strikingly handsome youth, with brown eyes and a dark moustache.
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Ferdinand. “Er—do you always drive like that?”
“Well, I generally get a bit longer ball, but I’m off my drive this morning. It’s lucky I came out and got this practice. I’m playing a match to-morrow with a fellow named Dibble, who’s a local champion, or something.”
“Me,” said Ferdinand, humbly.
“Eh? Oh, you?” Mr. Parsloe eyed him appraisingly. “Well, may the best man win.”
As this was precisely what Ferdinand was afraid was going to happen, he nodded in a sickly manner and tottered off to his bathe. The magic had gone out of the morning. The sun still shone, but in a silly, feeble way; and a cold and depressing wind had sprung up. For Ferdinand’s inferiority complex, which had seemed cured for ever, was back again, doing business at the old stand.