"Won't you stand up to the net and kill their returns?"
No, I would not stand up to the net and kill their returns. I did not know what she meant, but I knew that I would not do it. And I did not. She herself played as if she had been doing nothing else all her life but play lawn-tennis. She was all over the place at once. I was only in her way, and she treated me as if I was only in her way. I had to dodge when I saw her coming, or she would have sent me flying--more than once she nearly did. It was a painful fiasco, so far as I was concerned; I have a dim suspicion that we scored nothing. When the game was finished she looked me up and down.
"Bit off your game, aren't you?"
"I'm afraid I am," I muttered.
I was too cast down to do anything else but mutter. There was a look in her eyes which, unless I was mistaken, meant temper. And she was such a very stalwart person that I had a horrible feeling that, unless I was very careful, she might make nothing of shaking me.
"Perhaps you're stronger in singles; I should like to play you a single; will you?"
"Thank you, some--some other time."
"Shall we say to-morrow?"
We did not say to-morrow. I would not have said to-morrow for a good deal. Margaret came to my rescue.
"You play Bertha. Molly and I'll look on."