THE GREATER GAME
Trent was annoyed next morning to learn from Hentzi that he was to accompany Pauline and the count to the links. The only redeeming thing about the expedition was that he himself could get a few strokes in the demonstration.
The count was in high good spirits and gracious to them all.
"Ah, Arlfrit," he cried, "this is my last game for two weeks. Yes, I shall be too busy playing another and a greater game. And you, too, will be busy. Tell me you know the roads to Fiume, Zengg and Agram well?"
"I could set them to music," Trent said forgetting that it was Alfred Anthony who was answering his august employer. He waited until the count drove. He saw that the autocrat broke every rule of the many which go to make a perfect drive yet sent his ball every inch of two hundred yards. Never had Count Michæl done such a thing before.
"Let us see you beat that," he said dramatically.
Trent pressed. He wanted to outdrive the other by fifty yards and ordinarily would have done so. He took too much earth and sent a rocketting ball skyward which dropped full fifty yards behind the other.
"That was very tactful of you," Pauline whispered. "His Excellency will be in a good temper the whole day."
"Do you think I tried to do that?" he asked.
"Why not?" she asked, "I only know you are of a timid disposition. I hate timid men."