To versatile human kind, it is given to make love in many and diverse manners uncomprehended of the bird species. Not the least ingenious of his species, Mr. Jeremy Robson had marked out as his first step the establishment of a systematic association with Miss Marcia Ames, through golf; and until that association could be trusted to walk alone, as it were, he purposed to confine his attention strictly to the matter in hand. Her desire to make the college team was a very genuine one, and he guessed her to be a young lady of no small determination. Therefore, he was well satisfied to observe that, on this their first experiment as teacher and pupil, she was playing rather poorly. This meant longer and more arduous practice. At the end of the first round, during which he had devoted close attention but scant suggestion to her performance, he was four up and her card showed a painful total.
“Fifty-twos will never land you anywhere,” was the conclusion which he derived from the addition.
“What is to be done?” she asked in her precise English. “I grow worse.”
“Do you read Ibsen?” he inquired.
“I have read him a great deal. But not upon golf,” said Miss Ames with raised eyebrows.
“Does your playing suggest any particular character of his?”
“You are being absurd. Or is it one of your riddles, at which I am not clever?”
“I’m giving you a test in self-analysis. ‘The Ibsen character whom you suggest, particularly when you play your iron shots, is Little Eyolf. The l silent, as in ’Hades.’”
“I do not think that a very funny joke,” she said scornfully.
“It’s been turned down by three comic papers, though,” he defended.