"I beg your pardon, Miss Harford," he said, hastily; he was a fair, good-looking man, and almost gentlemanly in manner. "I was watching the game. You have a capital tennis-court."
"So every one says. Miss Greenwell is our best player."
"She plays splendidly. I never saw such strokes;" and all through the brief interview Althea noticed how his eyes were following the girl's graceful movements.
"If Nora and Minnie had not been playing, I think I should have invited him to have a game," she said afterwards to Doreen; "but I thought of Gardiner père, and was afraid I might shock his sense of propriety."
"It would not have been good taste," returned Doreen, sensibly. "You may depend upon it that Robert Gardiner has very little to do with the young ladies of the establishment." And then they both laughed.
"By the bye, Althea," observed Mr. Chaytor, when they had finished the subject of Nora Greenwell, "I am so glad you have taken your friends' advice, and have engaged a reader. I am sure Miss Ward will be a comfort to you."
"I think so, too. She is very bright and intelligent, and she talks in the most amusing way. She is so natural and unsophisticated."
"So I should imagine. Where did you pick her up?"
"Doreen applied to an agency in Harley Street. But Thorold," and here her voice changed, "what singular coincidences there are in life! Is it not strange that she should be Everard Ward's daughter?"
Mr. Chaytor was now sitting beside her, and as she said this he turned round and looked at her. He was evidently very much surprised.