A white-skirted player had given a leap, a whang was to be heard even from our vantage-point, and another patter of applause. I thought the Irishman looked satisfied.
“I approve of the excellence of women in games,” he said.
We reclined at our ease and had a good view of Miss Lebetwood and her partner grinding down their opponents. Cosgrove, it developed, had never played tennis, nor did he any other game—now. In his “youth,” he told us, he had been a good Rugger player, I think he called himself a “dangerous partisan”; “murderous” I thought might be the fitter word while I gazed at his countenance full of heavy seriousness and wondered when this young man considered his “youth” to have ended.
He swept his arm toward the enclosure where the players darted and skipped. “As for this juvenile pastime, my part in it has been confined to holding the fish-net.”
I gave an astonished “Fish-net!”
“Yes, on the stream bank.”
Crofts Pendleton rolled over so that he might address me. “We lose a good few balls here.”
“Well, these tangled strawberry trees might swallow any number.”
“There’s more in it than that. It seems almost uncanny sometimes how many are never recovered.”
Cosgrove said, “The number of missing balls is extraordinary.”