than that of any other girl in the summer colony.  She had been well trained by her father and her gymnasium instructor, and played with an economy of effort delightful to see; but she was soon driven by her opponent’s tiger-like quickness into putting out at once her every resource.  There, in the slowly fading light of the long mountain afternoon, the two young Anglo-Saxons poured out their souls in a game with the immemorial instinct of their race, fierce, grim, intent, every capacity of body and will-power brought into play, everything else in the world forgotten....

For some time they were on almost equal terms, and then Sylvia became aware that her adversary was getting the upper hand of her.  She had, however, no idea what the effort was costing him, until after a blazing fire of impossibly rapid volleys under which she went down to defeat, she stopped, called out, “Game and set!” and added in a generous tribute, “Say, you can play!” Then she saw that his face was almost purple, his eyes bloodshot, and his breath came in short, gasping pants.  “Good gracious, what’s the matter!” she cried, running towards him in alarm.  She was deeply flushed herself, but her eyes were as clear as clear water, and she ran with her usual fawn-like swiftness.  Arnold dropped on the bench, waving her a speechless reassurance.  With his first breath he said, “Gee! but you can hit it up, for a girl!”

“What’s the matter with you?” Sylvia asked again, sitting down beside him.

“Nothing!  Nothing!” he panted.  “My wind!  It’s confoundedly short.”  He added a moment later, “It’s tobacco—­this is the sort of time the cigarettes get back at you, you know!” The twilight dropped slowly about them like a thin, clear veil.  He thrust out his feet, shapely in their well-made white shoes, surveyed them with dissatisfaction, and added with moody indifference:  “And cocktails too.  They play the dickens with a fellow’s wind.”

Sylvia said nothing for a moment, looking at him by no means admiringly.  Her life in the State University had brought her into such incessant contact with young men that the mere fact of sitting beside one in the twilight left her unmoved to a degree which Mr. Sommerville’s mother would have found impossible to imagine.  When she spoke, it was with an impatient scorn of his weakness, which might have been felt by a fellow-athlete:  “What in the world makes you do it, then?”

“Why not?” he said challengingly.

“You’ve just said why not—­it spoils your tennis.  It must spoil your polo.  Was that what spoiled your baseball in college?  You’d be twice the man if you wouldn’t.”

“Oh, what’s the use?” he said, an immense weariness in his voice.

“What’s the use of anything, if you are going to use that argument?” said Sylvia, putting him down conclusively.

He spoke with a sudden heartfelt simplicity, “Damn ’f I know, Sylvia.”  For the first time in all the afternoon, his voice lost its tonelessness, and rang out with the resonance of sincerity.