"It worried me frightfully at the time," he said; "but it doesn't matter now."
"I rather fancy it does matter now." The tennis players came in sight, waving a salutation with their rackets.
Henry's mother apologized for a late appearance; no longer young, no longer indeed middle-aged, she found it necessary to save up strength, to use it economically. Gertie listened, content to be free from the presence of Lady Douglass, and genuinely interested in the other's conversation. Mark, the eldest son, she explained, arrived within a year after her marriage; then came two baby girls who went back to Heaven; then, after a long interval—
"It was because I had given away the rocking-horse," she declared.
—Then Henry. Mark was a good lad, but Henry had always been a dear lad. Poor Mark made the one great mistake of his life when he selected a wife, and Mrs. Douglass hoped the girl would understand why she felt anxious that Henry should not commit a similar error.
"I don't care whom he marries," declared the old lady resolutely, "providing he loves her, that she loves him, and that she is a good girl."
"That sort ought not to be hard to find."
"They are less plentiful," said the other, "than some people imagine. Now I want you to tell me something, my dear."
The girl was preparing to use caution when Jim Langham strolled up; his expectations of increased cheerfulness appeared to be realized, and his manner was almost rollicking. He suggested that Gertie should walk around with him; and the girl, to evade the threatened cross-examination, nodded an acceptance.
"You don't go in for many games, I suppose?"