A Book o' Nine Tales Part 13

"Then I shall not play," he said, rather crossly.

"And pray what do I care if you don't?"

"It would be polite to pretend to, at any rate."

"'The slightest approach to a false pretence Was never among my crimes;'"

she quoted, twirling her gay parasol swiftly on its handle. "Do see Tom Carruth serve. That cut is my despair."

"It is simple enough to return," Granton answered, "if you know when it is coming: you've only to run up."

"Yes, but how is one to know when it is coming?"

"One always can tell when I give it," he replied, laughing, "for I always fling my head back."

There came a wicked sparkle of intelligence into Betty's eyes as she made a mental note of this confession for future use. Then the long lashes fell demurely over her cheeks as she gathered together her belongings and rose.

"I must go over to grandmother's," she said. "Never spend the summer near your grandmother's, Mr. Granton: she may be ill and absorb all your spare time."

And away sped the deceitful damsel, on nefarious schemes intent, to play tennis with her cousin George, who had responded with celerity to her summons. She was really improving with a good deal of rapidity. She had been a sad romp in her day, and every prank of her tomboy girlhood stood her in good stead now. Every fence and tree she had climbed, to the unspeakable horror and scandal of elderly spinster aunts, every game of ball for which she had been lectured by an eminently proper governess, every stolen fis.h.i.+ng-expedition and hoydenish race whose improprieties my lady buried with overwhelming scorn in the oblivion of the past, had been a preparation for the struggle into which she now threw herself with the whole force of mind and body.

Her cousin George Snow, who was sufficiently fond of his mischievous cousin, and duly grateful for her supposed good offices in arranging the difficulties between himself and Dora, was an invaluable ally. He was taken into full confidence, and embraced the project most heartily.

Granton was a right nice fellow, he admitted, but it certainly would not hurt him to be taken down a peg. Snow had just returned from England, where he had seen some of the finest tennis-players perform.

"You play too near the net," he said. "All American players do. Play well back, and above everything, put all your force into the return."

"But I shall send the ball out of the court," Betty protested.

"You mustn't. Drive it down as hard as ever you can. Strength--or rather swiftness--tells; if your service is swift enough it is worth all the fancy cuts in the world. The Renshaws make half their points by volleying from the service-line, and the rest by swift service."

"Swiftness is the word," Betty returned gayly. "Anything more?"

"Get used to striking back-handed; don't try to turn your thumb down; make a business of an out-and-out back-handed, wrong-side-of-the-racquet stroke."

How sound all this advice was, tennis players may determine for themselves; but it certainly served its purpose well. Betty was a promising pupil. Morning, noon, and night she played, working with an a.s.siduity which nearly f.a.gged her cousin out.

"You are plucky, Betty," he declared one day. "I'm afraid for my own laurels. And by the way, am I to be allowed to be present at this great tournament in which you are to cover yourself and your s.e.x with glory?"

"Oh, yes; you are to challenge Mr. Granton if he beats me,--though he sha'n't! Anybody can challenge the winner, you know. That's a provision I had put in myself to cover my own case."

"Poor Granton!" George laughed. "Little does he dream of the awful humiliation in store for him."

Betty set her lips together and nodded her head in a determined way.

"George," she declared, with tragic earnestness, "if I get beaten I shall go straight home and die of--"

"Baffled stubbornness," interpolated her cousin.

"Thwarted vengeance," suggested Dora.

"No, of righteous indignation. Come, one set more before we drive back to Maugus. Only two days left, you know."

IV.

The morning of the second day of the tournament dawned clear, and what was quite as much to the purpose, unusually cool. A little breeze from the northwest crept over the hills,--just enough to fan the heated players without disturbing the flight of the b.a.l.l.s; while to make the weather perfect for tennis, by ten o'clock a light veil of clouds had comfortably covered the sun, cutting off all troublesome rays.

"It is a perfect day," Betty remarked to Dora, as they took their places among the spectators. "I've put my things ready so I can dress in two minutes. Here comes George."

The affair was an event in quiet Maugus. It had been talked about as the most important event could not have been discussed anywhere but in the idle hours of summer leisure, and had come to be regarded as quite the event of the season. The tennis-court was laid out near the Elm House, and was surrounded by superb old trees that in all the slow years of their growth had never over-arched a prettier sight than that afternoon showed, with its groups of nice old ladies, and charming young damsels in all the picturesque bravery of their nineteenth-century costume.

The contest of the first day of the tournament had disposed of all the four-handed games but the final match, and the afternoon of the second day was left free for the single games. Granton had entered for the latter, and was looked upon as the probable victor. He won easily his first rubber, and came over to where Betty sat to wait his turn again.

"It is lucky for me, Mr. Snow," he said to George, who in the happiness of full reconciliation sat by Dora's side, "that you are not playing, or I shouldn't have the ghost of a chance."

"I'm resting on the laurels I won last year," was the light response.

"It's far easier than to risk one's reputation and defend it."

"Are you so sure of winning, as it is, Mr. Granton?" asked Betty coolly.

"Sure? Of course not; but I have hopes now, which I shouldn't indulge if Mr. Snow, with the glory of his victories at Newport last year, were counted in."

"I wish you success," she said, with a certain trace of satire in her tone. "Isn't Mr. Howard playing remarkably well to-day? What a splendid volley? That gives him the game."

"Sets: two, love," called the scorer, and Mr. Howard's victory was saluted with applause, which Mistress Betty took great satisfaction in leading.

"You seem to be greatly pleased at Howard's good luck," Granton observed, remembering that when his success had been clapped, just before, Miss Mork had refrained from lending a hand.

"Why shouldn't I be?" she returned. "I've bet him a pair of gloves he wins."

"What will you bet me I lose?" demanded he, not especially pleased at any sort of understanding between the young lady before him and Howard.

"Anything you like."

"I should like nothing so much as--"

"As what?"

"No; upon reflection I don't think I dare mention it," Granton said coolly, looking at her with an expression in his big brown eyes which made her flush in spite of herself.

"Don't be impudent," she replied. "That is my province."

"Time!" called the umpire, a little later. "Howard and Granton, concluding set."

"Wish me luck," Granton murmured, bending toward Betty as he rose.

"I'm sure I do, for my own sake," she responded, with an ambiguity he afterward had reason to understand.

"What shall I do if Mr. Howard beats him?" Betty said to George and Dora, as the set began. "There'd be no fun playing him instead of Mr.