A Book o' Nine Tales Part 15

"Fifteen; love."

A fault, and then another swift ball, which skimmed like a swallow over the net and struck the ground only to cling to it in a swift roll.

"Thirty; love."

The next ball was beaten back and forth until Granton dashed it to the ground at Betty's very feet.

"Thirty; fifteen."

The excitement was at its height. Even those who did not appreciate the finer points of the play caught the interest and somehow understood pretty accurately how matters stood, and were as earnest as the rest.

Small-talk was forgotten, heads were craned forward, and all eyes were fixed upon the players. Betty grasped her racquet by the extreme end of its handle, and held the ball as high above her head as she could reach.

"Play!"

She struck it with all her force.

"Forty; fifteen," was the scorer's call; and Nat Granton understood that only one stroke lay between him and defeat by a love set.

George Snow deliberately turned away his face.

"I never supposed I could be such a consummate fool," he said afterward, "but I positively could not look at your last service, Bet. I felt as if the whole universe were at stake."

As for the player, she was fairly pale with excitement; but her head was clear and her hand steady. She paused an instant, poising her racquet.

She observed that Granton stood near the middle of his court. With a quick step she moved to the very outer corner of her own and sent a swift ball sharply under her opponent's left hand.

"Game; love set," called the scorer. "Sets two to one in favor of Miss Mork."

And, amid what for Maugus was a really astonishing round of applause, Betty, flushed but triumphant, walked to the net to shake hands with her vanquished lover.

V.

It was astonishing how humble and forgiving her victory made Mistress Betty. She was troubled with the fear that she had been unmaidenly, that she had hurt Granton's feelings and alienated his friendship forever, with a dozen more scruples quite as absurd and irrational.

She escaped as quickly as possible from her friends and their congratulations, and hurried to her room on the pretext of dressing for supper. There she cooled her hot cheeks, burning with exercise and excitement, and looking ruefully at her image in the mirror, shook her head reproachfully at the counterfeit presentment as at one who had beguiled her into misdoing.

After supper she was sitting rather gloomily in a retired corner of the piazza, when the defeated Granton approached. The reaction from the afternoon's excitement had rendered the young lady's spirit rather subdued, but she rallied at sight of the new-comer.

"Good-evening," he said. "Were you enjoying the sweets of victory?"

"I was enjoying the sweets of solitude," she returned, a little pointedly.

Granton laughed.

"I suppose," he remarked, taking a vacant chair near her, "that I need not apologize for my ill-judged remarks some time since about girls and tennis. My afternoon's punishment ought to pa.s.s as a sufficient expiation."

"Expiation is always a matter of feeling."

"Oh, as to that, I felt I had enough, I a.s.sure you," he laughed. "It may not be gallant to say so, but it was really horrible to be beaten out of my boots by a lady in broad daylight, in face of all Maugus a.s.sembled."

Betty was silent. The remorseful feeling rose again in her breast.

Granton spoke lightly enough, but she wondered if she had not humiliated him terribly. She played nervously with her fan, hardly knowing how to phrase it, yet longing to offer something in the way of apology.

"I hope," she began, "I hope--"

Nat regarded her closely in the fading light as she hesitated, and by some happy inspiration divined her softened mood. He noted the downcast eyes and troubled face. Without fully comprehending her mental state, he yet found courage to move a trifle nearer.

"Yes?" he queried, laying his fingers upon the arm of her chair.

Betty looked at the hand which had approached so near, and a sudden trepidation thrilled her. She opened and closed her fan nervously, but made no attempt to finish her broken sentence.

"Betty," her lover said, leaning forward, "now I am in the dust at your feet, you must at least let me speak. You've kept out of my way so for the last two or three weeks that I was afraid you disliked me; but now I understand where you have been. You know how much I care for you."

Still she did not raise her eyes.

"Don't you care for me?" he pleaded. "I've been in love with you all summer. You must have known it."

He paused again, yet she did not answer, though a great tide of joy thrilled her whole being. Her lover seized both her hands and bent down until his cheek almost touched hers.

"Will you marry me, Betty?"

All her wilfulness and sauciness flashed in her eyes as she lifted her glance at last to his and answered.

"I wouldn't if I hadn't beaten this afternoon."

With which implied consent he seemed perfectly satisfied.

Interlude Third.

MRS. FRUFFLES IS AT HOME.

MRS. FRUFFLES IS AT HOME.

In answer to the announcement that Mrs. Stephen Morgan Fruffles will, on the afternoon of January 27, be at home from four to seven, all the world--with the exception of her husband, who keeps significantly out of the house, and at his club finds such solace as is possible under the circ.u.mstances--has a.s.sembled to celebrate that rare and exciting event.

The parlors are thronged almost to suffocation; the air is warm, and laden with a hundred odors, which combine to make it well-nigh unbreathable; the constant babble of conversation goes on with the steady click-clack of a mill-wheel, and several hundred people persistently talk without saying anything whatever.

Mrs. Chumley Jones is there, in a most effective, costume of garnet plush, adorned with some sort of long-haired black fur. She is conscious of being perfectly well dressed, of being the best-known woman in the parlors, and most of all is she now, as always, conscious of being the one and only Mrs. Chumley Jones. Soothed and sustained by an unfaltering trust in all these good things, she moves slowly through the rooms, or stands at some convenient coign of vantage, dropping a word to this one and to that, with just the right differences of manner fitted to the degrees of the people whom she addresses.

"My dear Mrs. Fruffles," she remarks to the hostess, "you do always have such enchanting receptions!"