I crawled after my guide without a word, inwardly reflecting that I was sorry I had spoken, and heartily cursing (though without pronouncing it aloud) the very name of that eminent Physician, Dr. CRICHTON BROWNE. She took me first of all to a field where a bevy of maidens were engaged in a game of hockey.
"We are keen on hockey," said my guide, and, as she spoke, a girl, flushed and radiant, caught me across the most sensitive part of the shin with a hockey-stick. No need to ask her if she felt well. I limped away, and, in another part of the field, saw a comely and robust maiden practising drop-kicks, utterly regardless of the fact that I was looking on. I received the football in the pit of my stomach, and the name of CRICHTON BROWNE died on my lips.
My guide smiled as she saw that I had taken in the scene that was being enacted under my very nose.
"Do you play cricket?" she asked, with something like pity in her eyes. I did not—but I was by this time in such condign fear of this young Amazon that I was really afraid to admit my total ignorance of the sport. She made me wicket-keep for her, without pads, for an entire hour, at the end of which I readily assented to an invitation for further exploration.
We went through endless passages to an endless gymnasium, and every now and then I came across an Indian club or a dumb-bell, wielded by energetic female athletes. I should have liked to ask them whether they felt well, but I realised—only just in time—that the question would have been an impertinence.
"Are you getting satisfied?" said my unwearied guide, with another of her smiles, "or, do you still think we are a puny misshapen race?"
"Quite satisfied!" I replied, faintly, as I endeavoured to unclose a rapidly discolouring eye, "in fact, I begin to discredit that alarmist cry—"
Before I could complete the sentence, I found myself executing an involuntary parabola over some adjacent parallel bars. My young friend's brows had contracted into a frown, although she waited politely for me to pick myself up.
"I thought we agreed not to mention that name!" she said, coldly.
I felt that any attempt to explain my innocence would be received with quiet scorn. "I—I should like to ask you just one thing more," I said, desperately, as I lay on my back, "I am really entirely converted—quite ashamed. I do hope you won't think me—er—inquisitive—but I have been so often told—it has been so constantly asserted—" I found myself bungling horribly in my desire not to offend.