We looked on, while they performed prodigies. I had never before seen such playing. The idea of my associating myself with them was preposterous. As we watched, Margaret was not so loquacious as I should have desired. In her silence I seemed to read disapprobation of the exhibition of incompetence which I had given. Moreover, when she did speak, her remarks took the form of criticisms of the play, approving this stroke, condemning that, with a degree of severity which made me wince. It was impossible to sit beside her for many seconds without realising that she regarded lawn-tennis with a seriousness of which--in that connection--I had never dreamed. Obviously, with her, it was one of the serious things of life.
Suddenly she hit upon a theme which was not much more palatable to me than lawn-tennis had been, in such company.
"Let's play ping-pong, you and me?"
"Ping-pong?" My heart sank afresh. It seemed in that house, that games were in the air. "Wouldn't you rather sit here and watch them playing tennis. I like to watch them."
I would rather have watched anyone play anything than play myself. But Margaret was of a different mind.
"Oh no, what's the fun of it? One gets rusty. Let's do something. Of course ping-pong's not a game one can take really in earnest; but there's a tournament in the schoolroom on Wednesday, and I ought to keep my hand in. Come along and let's have a knock up."
We went along. She did not give me a chance to refuse to go along. She led the way.
"Of course you do play?"
"Well--I have played. But I'm quite sure that I don't play in your sense."
"Oh, everyone plays ping-pong--the merest children even. I maintain that it's nothing but a children's game."