“Louis—­I’m terribly disappointed in you—­”

“I’m disappointed, too.  Until you spoke to me so plainly a few minutes ago I never clearly understood that I couldn’t marry Stephanie.  When I thought of it at all it seemed a vague and shadowy something, too far away to be really impending—­threatening—­like death—­”

[Illustration:  “’Come on, Alice, if you’re going to scrub before luncheon.’”]

“Oh!” cried his sister in revolt.  “I shall make it my business to see that Stephanie understands you thoroughly before this goes any farther—­”

“I wish to heaven you would,” he said, so heartily that his sister, exasperated, turned her back and marched away to the nursery.

When he went out to the tennis court he found Stephanie idly batting the balls across the net with Cameron, who, being dummy, had strolled down to gibe at her—­a pastime both enjoyed: 

“Here comes your Alonzo, fair lady—­lightly skipping o’er the green—­yes, yes—­wearing the panties of his brother-in-law!” He fell into an admiring attitude and contemplated Neville with a simper, his ruddy, prematurely bald head cocked on one side: 

“Oh, girls! Ain’t he just grand!” he exclaimed.  “Honest, Stephanie, your young man has me in the ditch with two blow-outs and the gas afire!”

“Get out of this court,” said Neville, hurling a ball at him.

“Isn’t he the jealous old thing!” cried Cameron, flouncing away with an affectation of feminine indignation.  And presently the tennis balls began to fly, and the little jets of white dust floated away on the June breeze.

They were very evenly matched; they always had been, never asking odds or offering handicaps in anything.  It had always been so; at the traps she could break as many clay birds as he could; she rode as well, drove as well; their averages usually balanced.  From the beginning—­even as children—­it had been always give and take and no favour.

And so it was now; sets were even; it was a matter of service.

Luncheon interrupted a drawn game; Stephanie, flushed, smiling, came around to his side of the net to join him on the way to the house: 

“How do you keep up your game, Louis?  Or do I never improve?  It’s curious, isn’t it, that we are always deadlocked.”

Bare-armed, bright hair in charming disorder, she swung along beside him with that quick, buoyant step so characteristic of a spirit ever undaunted, saluting the others on the terrace with high-lifted racquet.

“Nobody won,” she said.  “Come on, Alice, if you’re going to scrub before luncheon.  Thank you, Louis; I’ve had a splendid game—­” She stretched out a frank hand to him, going, and the tips of her fingers just brushed his.

His sister gave him a tragic look, which he ignored, and a little later luncheon was on and Cameron garrulous, and Querida his own gentle, expressive, fascinating self, devotedly receptive to any woman who was inclined to talk to him or to listen.