“Impertinence,” he supplied, gravely. “It looks that way, I know, but it isn't. I can't stand on conventions—I've too much at stake. I don't mean to lose you—as you lost your letter!”
She thought she was furious. “You knew it was my letter!” she accused.
They had paused just within the gate, in the shade of a great mulberry-tree that stood sentinel.
“Forgive me,” he said. “Not at first—but I guessed it. My name,” he added, “is Christopher, too.”
He took a crumpled sheet, that had been smoothed and folded carefully, from his pocket. “Do you remember what you wrote?” he asked, in a low voice.
Her face was crimson.
“It blew to me. Such things don't happen every day.” He had taken off his hat, and, bareheaded, he bent and looked questioningly into her eyes. “My name is Christopher,” he repeated. “I can't—it isn't possible—that I can let another Christopher have that letter.”
Her eyes fell before his.
“I”—he paused—“I play tennis very well, you said. I play to win! What I give to the interest of a game—”
“Is nothing to what you give to the interests of Christopher!”