These four—­the father and daughter and the rivals—­had been playing tennis that Saturday afternoon.  Mr Bostock, though touching on fifty, retained a youthful athleticism; he looked and talked younger than his years, and he loved the society of young people.  If he wandered solitary and moody about the tennis-court now, it was because he had a great deal on his mind besides business.  He had his daughter’s future on his mind.

A servant with apron-strings waving like flags in the breeze came from the house with a large loaded tea-tray, and deposited it on a wicker table on the small lawn at the end of the ash court.  The rivals were reclining in deck chairs close to the table; the Object of Desire, all in starched white, stood over the table and with quick delicious movements dropped sugar and poured milk into tinkling porcelain.

“Now, father,” she called briefly, without looking up, as she seized the teapot.

He approached, gazing thoughtfully at the group.  Yes, he was worried.  And everyone was secretly worried.  The situation was exceedingly delicate, fragile, breakable.  Mr Bostock looked uneasily first at Adam Tellwright, tall, spick and span, self-confident, clever, shining, with his indubitable virtues mainly on the outside.  If ever any man of thirty-two in all this world was eligible, Adam Tellwright was.  Decidedly he had a reputation for preternaturally keen smartness in trade, but in trade that cannot be called a defect; on the contrary, if a man has virtues, you cannot precisely quarrel with him because they happen to be on the outside; the principal thing is to have virtues.  And then Mr Bostock looked uneasily at Ralph Martin, heavy, short, dark, lowering, untidy, often incomprehensible, and more often rude; with virtues concealed as if they were secret shames.  Ralph was capricious.  At moments he showed extraordinary talent as an engineer; at others he behaved like a nincompoop.  He would be rich one day; but he had a formidable temper.  The principal thing in favour of Ralph Martin was that he and Florence had always been “something to each other.”  Indeed of late years it had been begun to be understood that the match was “as good as arranged.”  It was taken for granted.  Then Adam Tellwright had dropped like a bomb into the Bostock circle.  He had fallen heavily and disastrously in love with the slight Florence (whom he could have crushed and eaten).  At the start his case was regarded as hopeless, and Ralph Martin had scorned him.  But Adam Tellwright soon caused gossip to sing a different tune, and Ralph Martin soon ceased to scorn him.  Adam undoubtedly made a profound impression on Florence Bostock.  He began by dazzling her, and then, as her eyes grew accustomed to the glare, he gradually showed her his good qualities.  Everything that skill and tact could do Tellwright did.  The same could not be said of Ralph Martin.  Most people had a vague feeling that Ralph had not been treated fairly.  Mr Bostock had this feeling.  Yet why?  Nothing had been settled.  Florence’s heart was evidently still open to competition, and Adam Tellwright had a perfect right to compete.  Still, most people sympathized with Ralph.  But Florence did not.  Young girls are like that.