A Woman is only a Woman


On a fine day in the spring, summer, or early autumn, there are few
spots more delightful than the terrace in front of our Golf Club. It is
a vantage-point peculiarly fitted to the man of philosophic mind: for
from it may be seen that varied, never-ending pageant, which men call
Golf, in a number of its aspects. To your right, on the first tee,
stand the cheery optimists who are about to make their opening drive,
happily conscious that even a topped shot will trickle a measurable
distance down the steep hill. Away in the valley, directly in front of
you, is the lake hole, where these same optimists will be converted to
pessimism by the wet splash of a new ball. At your side is the ninth
green, with its sinuous undulations which have so often wrecked the
returning traveller in sight of home. And at various points within your
line of vision are the third tee, the sixth tee, and the sinister
bunkers about the eighth green--none of them lacking in food for the
reflective mind.

It is on this terrace that the Oldest Member sits, watching the younger
generation knocking at the divot. His gaze wanders from Jimmy
Fothergill's two-hundred-and-twenty-yard drive down the hill to the
silver drops that flash up in the sun, as young Freddie Woosley's
mashie-shot drops weakly into the waters of the lake. Returning, it
rests upon Peter Willard, large and tall, and James Todd, small and
slender, as they struggle up the fair-way of the ninth.

* * * * *

Love (says the Oldest Member) is an emotion which your true golfer
should always treat with suspicion. Do not misunderstand me. I am not
saying that love is a bad thing, only that it is an unknown quantity. I
have known cases where marriage improved a man's game, and other cases
where it seemed to put him right off his stroke. There seems to be no
fixed rule. But what I do say is that a golfer should be cautious. He
should not be led away by the first pretty face. I will tell you a
story that illustrates the point. It is the story of those two men who
have just got on to the ninth green--Peter Willard and James Todd.

There is about great friendships between man and man (said the Oldest
Member) a certain inevitability that can only be compared with the
age-old association of ham and eggs. No one can say when it was that
these two wholesome and palatable food-stuffs first came together, nor
what was the mutual magnetism that brought their deathless partnership
about. One simply feels that it is one of the things that must be so.
Similarly with men. Who can trace to its first beginnings the love of
Damon for Pythias, of David for Jonathan, of Swan for Edgar? Who can
explain what it was about Crosse that first attracted Blackwell? We
simply say, "These men are friends," and leave it at that.

In the case of Peter Willard and James Todd, one may hazard the guess
that the first link in the chain that bound them together was the fact
that they took up golf within a few days of each other, and contrived,
as time went on, to develop such equal form at the game that the most
expert critics are still baffled in their efforts to decide which is
the worse player. I have heard the point argued a hundred times without
any conclusion being reached. Supporters of Peter claim that his
driving off the tee entitles him to an unchallenged pre-eminence among
the world's most hopeless foozlers--only to be discomfited later when
the advocates of James show, by means of diagrams, that no one has ever
surpassed their man in absolute incompetence with the spoon. It is one
of those problems where debate is futile.

Few things draw two men together more surely than a mutual inability to
master golf, coupled with an intense and ever-increasing love for the
game. At the end of the first few months, when a series of costly
experiments had convinced both Peter and James that there was not a
tottering grey-beard nor a toddling infant in the neighbourhood whose
downfall they could encompass, the two became inseparable. It was
pleasanter, they found, to play together, and go neck and neck round
the eighteen holes, than to take on some lissome youngster who could
spatter them all over the course with one old ball and a cut-down cleek
stolen from his father; or some spavined elder who not only rubbed it
into them, but was apt, between strokes, to bore them with personal
reminiscences of the Crimean War. So they began to play together early
and late. In the small hours before breakfast, long ere the first faint
piping of the waking caddie made itself heard from the caddie-shed,
they were half-way through their opening round. And at close of day,
when bats wheeled against the steely sky and the "pro's" had stolen
home to rest, you might see them in the deepening dusk, going through
the concluding exercises of their final spasm. After dark, they visited
each other's houses and read golf books.

If you have gathered from what I have said that Peter Willard and James
Todd were fond of golf, I am satisfied. That is the impression I
intended to convey. They were real golfers, for real golf is a thing of
the spirit, not of mere mechanical excellence of stroke.

It must not be thought, however, that they devoted too much of their
time and their thoughts to golf--assuming, indeed, that such a thing is
possible. Each was connected with a business in the metropolis; and
often, before he left for the links, Peter would go to the trouble and
expense of ringing up the office to say he would not be coming in that
day; while I myself have heard James--and this not once, but
frequently--say, while lunching in the club-house, that he had half a
mind to get Gracechurch Street on the 'phone and ask how things were
going. They were, in fact, the type of men of whom England is
proudest--the back-bone of a great country, toilers in the mart,
untired businessmen, keen red-blooded men of affairs. If they played a
little golf besides, who shall blame them?

So they went on, day by day, happy and contented. And then the Woman
came into their lives, like the Serpent in the Links of Eden, and
perhaps for the first time they realized that they were not one
entity--not one single, indivisible Something that made for topped
drives and short putts--but two individuals, in whose breasts Nature
had implanted other desires than the simple ambition some day to do the
dog-leg hole on the second nine in under double figures. My friends
tell me that, when I am relating a story, my language is inclined at
times a little to obscure my meaning; but, if you understand from what
I have been saying that James Todd and Peter Willard both fell in love
with the same woman--all right, let us carry on. That is precisely what
I was driving at.

I have not the pleasure of an intimate acquaintance with Grace
Forrester. I have seen her in the distance, watering the flowers in her
garden, and on these occasions her stance struck me as graceful. And
once, at a picnic, I observed her killing wasps with a teaspoon, and
was impressed by the freedom of the wrist-action of her back-swing.
Beyond this, I can say little. But she must have been attractive, for
there can be no doubt of the earnestness with which both Peter and
James fell in love with her. I doubt if either slept a wink the night
of the dance at which it was their privilege first to meet her.

The next afternoon, happening to encounter Peter in the bunker near the
eleventh green, James said:

"That was a nice girl, that Miss What's-her-name."

And Peter, pausing for a moment from his trench-digging, replied:

"Yes."

And then James, with a pang, knew that he had a rival, for he had not
mentioned Miss Forrester's name, and yet Peter had divined that it was
to her that he had referred.

Love is a fever which, so to speak, drives off without wasting time on
the address. On the very next morning after the conversation which I
have related, James Todd rang Peter Willard up on the 'phone and
cancelled their golf engagements for the day, on the plea of a sprained
wrist. Peter, acknowledging the cancellation, stated that he himself
had been on the point of ringing James up to say that he would be
unable to play owing to a slight headache. They met at tea-time at Miss
Forrester's house. James asked how Peter's headache was, and Peter said
it was a little better. Peter inquired after James's sprained wrist,
and was told it seemed on the mend. Miss Forrester dispensed tea and
conversation to both impartially.

They walked home together. After an awkward silence of twenty minutes,
James said:

"There is something about the atmosphere--the aura, shall I say?--that
emanates from a good woman that makes a man feel that life has a new, a
different meaning."

Peter replied:

"Yes."

When they reached James's door, James said:

"I won't ask you in tonight, old man. You want to go home and rest and
cure that headache."

"Yes," said Peter.

There was another silence. Peter was thinking that, only a couple of
days before, James had told him that he had a copy of Sandy MacBean's
"How to Become a Scratch Man Your First Season by Studying Photographs"
coming by parcel-post from town, and they had arranged to read it aloud
together. By now, thought Peter, it must be lying on his friend's
table. The thought saddened him. And James, guessing what was in
Peter's mind, was saddened too. But he did not waver. He was in no mood
to read MacBean's masterpiece that night. In the twenty minutes of
silence after leaving Miss Forrester he had realized that "Grace"
rhymes with "face", and he wanted to sit alone in his study and write
poetry. The two men parted with a distant nod. I beg your pardon? Yes,
you are right. Two distant nods. It was always a failing of mine to
count the score erroneously.

It is not my purpose to weary you by a minute recital of the happenings
of each day that went by. On the surface, the lives of these two men
seemed unchanged. They still played golf together, and during the round
achieved towards each other a manner that, superficially, retained all
its ancient cheeriness and affection. If--I should say--when, James
topped his drive, Peter never failed to say "Hard luck!" And when--or,
rather, if Peter managed not to top his, James invariably said "Great!"
But things were not the same, and they knew it.

It so happened, as it sometimes will on these occasions, for Fate is a
dramatist who gets his best effects with a small cast, that Peter
Willard and James Todd were the only visible aspirants for the hand of
Miss Forrester. Right at the beginning young Freddie Woosley had seemed
attracted by the girl, and had called once or twice with flowers and
chocolates, but Freddie's affections never centred themselves on one
object for more than a few days, and he had dropped out after the first
week. From that time on it became clear to all of us that, if Grace
Forrester intended to marry anyone in the place, it would be either
James or Peter; and a good deal of interest was taken in the matter by
the local sportsmen. So little was known of the form of the two men,
neither having figured as principal in a love-affair before, that even
money was the best you could get, and the market was sluggish. I think
my own flutter of twelve golf-balls, taken up by Percival Brown, was
the most substantial of any of the wagers. I selected James as the
winner. Why, I can hardly say, unless that he had an aunt who
contributed occasional stories to the "Woman's Sphere". These things
sometimes weigh with a girl. On the other hand, George Lucas, who had
half-a-dozen of ginger-ale on Peter, based his calculations on the fact
that James wore knickerbockers on the links, and that no girl could
possibly love a man with calves like that. In short, you see, we really
had nothing to go on.

Nor had James and Peter. The girl seemed to like them both equally.
They never saw her except in each other's company. And it was not until
one day when Grace Forrester was knitting a sweater that there seemed a
chance of getting a clue to her hidden feelings.

When the news began to spread through the place that Grace was knitting
this sweater there was a big sensation. The thing seemed to us
practically to amount to a declaration.

That was the view that James Todd and Peter Willard took of it, and
they used to call on Grace, watch her knitting, and come away with
their heads full of complicated calculations. The whole thing hung on
one point--to wit, what size the sweater was going to be. If it was
large, then it must be for Peter; if small, then James was the lucky
man. Neither dared to make open inquiries, but it began to seem almost
impossible to find out the truth without them. No masculine eye can
reckon up purls and plains and estimate the size of chest which the
garment is destined to cover. Moreover, with amateur knitters there
must always be allowed a margin for involuntary error. There were many
cases during the war where our girls sent sweaters to their sweethearts
which would have induced strangulation in their young brothers. The
amateur sweater of those days was, in fact, practically tantamount to
German propaganda.

Peter and James were accordingly baffled. One evening the sweater would
look small, and James would come away jubilant; the next it would have
swollen over a vast area, and Peter would walk home singing. The
suspense of the two men can readily be imagined. On the one hand, they
wanted to know their fate; on the other, they fully realized that
whoever the sweater was for would have to wear it. And, as it was a
vivid pink and would probably not fit by a mile, their hearts quailed
at the prospect.

In all affairs of human tension there must come a breaking point. It
came one night as the two men were walking home.

"Peter," said James, stopping in mid-stride. He mopped his forehead.
His manner had been feverish all the evening.

"Yes?" said Peter.

"I can't stand this any longer. I haven't had a good night's rest for
weeks. We must find out definitely which of us is to have that
sweater."

"Let's go back and ask her," said Peter.

So they turned back and rang the bell and went into the house and
presented themselves before Miss Forrester.

"Lovely evening," said James, to break the ice.

"Superb," said Peter.

"Delightful," said Miss Forrester, looking a little surprised at
finding the troupe playing a return date without having booked it in
advance.

"To settle a bet," said James, "will you please tell us who--I should
say, whom--you are knitting that sweater for?"

"It is not a sweater," replied Miss Forrester, with a womanly candour
that well became her. "It is a sock. And it is for my cousin Juliet's
youngest son, Willie."

"Good night," said James.

"Good night," said Peter.

"Good night," said Grace Forrester.

It was during the long hours of the night, when ideas so often come to
wakeful men, that James was struck by an admirable solution of his and
Peter's difficulty. It seemed to him that, were one or the other to
leave Woodhaven, the survivor would find himself in a position to
conduct his wooing as wooing should be conducted. Hitherto, as I have
indicated, neither had allowed the other to be more than a few minutes
alone with the girl. They watched each other like hawks. When James
called, Peter called. When Peter dropped in, James invariably popped
round. The thing had resolved itself into a stalemate.

The idea which now came to James was that he and Peter should settle
their rivalry by an eighteen-hole match on the links. He thought very
highly of the idea before he finally went to sleep, and in the morning
the scheme looked just as good to him as it had done overnight.

James was breakfasting next morning, preparatory to going round to
disclose his plan to Peter, when Peter walked in, looking happier than
he had done for days.

"'Morning," said James.

"'Morning," said Peter.

Peter sat down and toyed absently with a slice of bacon.

"I've got an idea," he said.

"One isn't many," said James, bringing his knife down with a jerk-shot
on a fried egg. "What is your idea?"

"Got it last night as I was lying awake. It struck me that, if either
of us was to clear out of this place, the other would have a fair
chance. You know what I mean--with Her. At present we've got each other
stymied. Now, how would it be," said Peter, abstractedly spreading
marmalade on his bacon, "if we were to play an eighteen-hole match, the
loser to leg out of the neighbourhood and stay away long enough to give
the winner the chance to find out exactly how things stood?"

James started so violently that he struck himself in the left eye with
his fork.

"That's exactly the idea I got last night, too."

"Then it's a go?"

"It's the only thing to do."

There was silence for a moment. Both men were thinking. Remember, they
were friends. For years they had shared each other's sorrows, joys, and
golf-balls, and sliced into the same bunkers.

Presently Peter said:

"I shall miss you."

"What do you mean, miss me?"

"When you're gone. Woodhaven won't seem the same place. But of course
you'll soon be able to come back. I sha'n't waste any time proposing."

"Leave me your address," said James, "and I'll send you a wire when you
can return. You won't be offended if I don't ask you to be best man at
the wedding? In the circumstances it might be painful to you."

Peter sighed dreamily.

"We'll have the sitting-room done in blue. Her eyes are blue."

"Remember," said James, "there will always be a knife and fork for you
at our little nest. Grace is not the woman to want me to drop my
bachelor friends."

"Touching this match," said Peter. "Strict Royal and Ancient rules, of
course?"

"Certainly."

"I mean to say--no offence, old man--but no grounding niblicks in
bunkers."

"Precisely. And, without hinting at anything personal, the ball shall
be considered holed-out only when it is in the hole, not when it stops
on the edge."

"Undoubtedly. And--you know I don't want to hurt your feelings--missing
the ball counts as a stroke, not as a practice-swing."

"Exactly. And--you'll forgive me if I mention it--a player whose ball
has fallen in the rough, may not pull up all the bushes within a radius
of three feet."

"In fact, strict rules."

"Strict rules."

They shook hands without more words. And presently Peter walked out,
and James, with a guilty look over his shoulder, took down Sandy
MacBean's great work from the bookshelf and began to study the
photograph of the short approach-shot showing Mr. MacBean swinging from
Point A, through dotted line B-C, to Point D, his head the while
remaining rigid at the spot marked with a cross. He felt a little
guiltily that he had stolen a march on his friend, and that the contest
was as good as over.

* * * * *

I cannot recall a lovelier summer day than that on which the great
Todd-Willard eighteen-hole match took place. It had rained during the
night, and now the sun shone down from a clear blue sky on to turf that
glistened more greenly than the young grass of early spring.
Butterflies flitted to and fro; birds sang merrily. In short, all
Nature smiled. And it is to be doubted if Nature ever had a better
excuse for smiling--or even laughing outright; for matches like that
between James Todd and Peter Willard do not occur every day.

Whether it was that love had keyed them up, or whether hours of study
of Braid's "Advanced Golf" and the Badminton Book had produced a
belated effect, I cannot say; but both started off quite reasonably
well. Our first hole, as you can see, is a bogey four, and James was
dead on the pin in seven, leaving Peter, who had twice hit the United
Kingdom with his mashie in mistake for the ball, a difficult putt for
the half. Only one thing could happen when you left Peter a difficult
putt; and James advanced to the lake hole one up, Peter, as he
followed, trying to console himself with the thought that many of the
best golfers prefer to lose the first hole and save themselves for a
strong finish.

Peter and James had played over the lake hole so often that they had
become accustomed to it, and had grown into the habit of sinking a ball
or two as a preliminary formality with much the same stoicism displayed
by those kings in ancient and superstitious times who used to fling
jewellery into the sea to propitiate it before they took a voyage. But
today, by one of those miracles without which golf would not be golf,
each of them got over with his first shot--and not only over, but dead
on the pin. Our "pro." himself could not have done better.

I think it was at this point that the two men began to go to pieces.
They were in an excited frame of mind, and this thing unmanned them.
You will no doubt recall Keats's poem about stout Cortez staring with
eagle eyes at the Pacific while all his men gazed at each other with a
wild surmise, silent upon a peak in Darien. Precisely so did Peter
Willard and James Todd stare with eagle eyes at the second lake hole,
and gaze at each other with a wild surmise, silent upon a tee in
Woodhaven. They had dreamed of such a happening so often and woke to
find the vision false, that at first they could not believe that the
thing had actually occurred.

"I got over!" whispered James, in an awed voice.

"So did I!" muttered Peter.

"In one!"

"With my very first!"

They walked in silence round the edge of the lake, and holed out. One
putt was enough for each, and they halved the hole with a two. Peter's
previous record was eight, and James had once done a seven. There are
times when strong men lose their self-control, and this was one of
them. They reached the third tee in a daze, and it was here that
mortification began to set in.

The third hole is another bogey four, up the hill and past the tree
that serves as a direction-post, the hole itself being out of sight. On
his day, James had often done it in ten and Peter in nine; but now they
were unnerved. James, who had the honour, shook visibly as he addressed
his ball. Three times he swung and only connected with the ozone; the
fourth time he topped badly. The discs had been set back a little way,
and James had the mournful distinction of breaking a record for the
course by playing his fifth shot from the tee. It was a low, raking
brassey-shot, which carried a heap of stones twenty feet to the right
and finished in a furrow. Peter, meanwhile, had popped up a lofty ball
which came to rest behind a stone.

It was now that the rigid rules governing this contest began to take
their toll. Had they been playing an ordinary friendly round, each
would have teed up on some convenient hillock and probably been past
the tree with their second, for James would, in ordinary circumstances,
have taken his drive back and regarded the strokes he had made as a
little preliminary practice to get him into midseason form. But today
it was war to the niblick, and neither man asked nor expected quarter.
Peter's seventh shot dislodged the stone, leaving him a clear field,
and James, with his eleventh, extricated himself from the furrow. Fifty
feet from the tree James was eighteen, Peter twelve; but then the
latter, as every golfer does at times, suddenly went right off his
game. He hit the tree four times, then hooked into the sand-bunkers to
the left of the hole. James, who had been playing a game that was
steady without being brilliant, was on the green in twenty-six, Peter
taking twenty-seven. Poor putting lost James the hole. Peter was down
in thirty-three, but the pace was too hot for James. He missed a
two-foot putt for the half, and they went to the fourth tee all square.

The fourth hole follows the curve of the road, on the other side of
which are picturesque woods. It presents no difficulties to the expert,
but it has pitfalls for the novice. The dashing player stands for a
slice, while the more cautious are satisfied if they can clear the
bunker that spans the fairway and lay their ball well out to the left,
whence an iron shot will take them to the green. Peter and James
combined the two policies. Peter aimed to the left and got a slice, and
James, also aiming to the left, topped into the bunker. Peter,
realizing from experience the futility of searching for his ball in the
woods, drove a second, which also disappeared into the jungle, as did
his third. By the time he had joined James in the bunker he had played
his sixth.

It is the glorious uncertainty of golf that makes it the game it is.
The fact that James and Peter, lying side by side in the same bunker,
had played respectively one and six shots, might have induced an
unthinking observer to fancy the chances of the former. And no doubt,
had he not taken seven strokes to extricate himself from the pit, while
his opponent, by some act of God, contrived to get out in two, James's
chances might have been extremely rosy. As it was, the two men
staggered out on to the fairway again with a score of eight apiece.
Once past the bunker and round the bend of the road, the hole becomes
simple. A judicious use of the cleek put Peter on the green in
fourteen, while James, with a Braid iron, reached it in twelve. Peter
was down in seventeen, and James contrived to halve. It was only as he
was leaving the hole that the latter discovered that he had been
putting with his niblick, which cannot have failed to exercise a
prejudicial effect on his game. These little incidents are bound to
happen when one is in a nervous and highly-strung condition.

The fifth and sixth holes produced no unusual features. Peter won the
fifth in eleven, and James the sixth in ten. The short seventh they
halved in nine. The eighth, always a tricky hole, they took no
liberties with, James, sinking a long putt with his twenty-third, just
managing to halve. A ding-dong race up the hill for the ninth found
James first at the pin, and they finished the first nine with James one
up.

As they left the green James looked a little furtively at his
companion.

"You might be strolling on to the tenth," he said. "I want to get a few
balls at the shop. And my mashie wants fixing up. I sha'n't be long."

"I'll come with you," said Peter.

"Don't bother," said James. "You go on and hold our place at the tee."

I regret to say that James was lying. His mashie was in excellent
repair, and he still had a dozen balls in his bag, it being his prudent
practice always to start out with eighteen. No! What he had said was
mere subterfuge. He wanted to go to his locker and snatch a few minutes
with Sandy MacBean's "How to Become a Scratch Man". He felt sure that
one more glance at the photograph of Mr. MacBean driving would give him
the mastery of the stroke and so enable him to win the match. In this I
think he was a little sanguine. The difficulty about Sandy MacBean's
method of tuition was that he laid great stress on the fact that the
ball should be directly in a line with a point exactly in the centre of
the back of the player's neck; and so far James's efforts to keep his
eye on the ball and on the back of his neck simultaneously had produced
no satisfactory results.

* * * * *

It seemed to James, when he joined Peter on the tenth tee, that the
latter's manner was strange. He was pale. There was a curious look in
his eye.

"James, old man," he said.

"Yes?" said James.

"While you were away I have been thinking. James, old man, do you
really love this girl?"

James stared. A spasm of pain twisted Peter's face.

"Suppose," he said in a low voice, "she were not all you--we--think she
is!"

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"Miss Forrester is an angel."

"Yes, yes. Quite so."

"I know what it is," said James, passionately. "You're trying to put me
off my stroke. You know that the least thing makes me lose my form."

"No, no!"

"You hope that you can take my mind off the game and make me go to
pieces, and then you'll win the match."

"On the contrary," said Peter. "I intend to forfeit the match."

James reeled.

"What!"

"I give up."

"But--but----" James shook with emotion. His voice quavered. "Ah!" he
cried. "I see now: I understand! You are doing this for me because I am
your pal. Peter, this is noble! This is the sort of thing you read
about in books. I've seen it in the movies. But I can't accept the
sacrifice."

"You must!"

"No, no!"

"I insist!"

"Do you mean this?"

"I give her up, James, old man. I--I hope you will be happy."

"But I don't know what to say. How can I thank you?"

"Don't thank me."

"But, Peter, do you fully realize what you are doing? True, I am one
up, but there are nine holes to go, and I am not right on my game
today. You might easily beat me. Have you forgotten that I once took
forty-seven at the dog-leg hole? This may be one of my bad days. Do you
understand that if you insist on giving up I shall go to Miss Forrester
tonight and propose to her?"

"I understand."

"And yet you stick to it that you are through?"

"I do. And, but the way, there's no need for you to wait till tonight.
I saw Miss Forrester just now outside the tennis court. She's alone."

James turned crimson.

"Then I think perhaps----"

"You'd better go to her at once."

"I will." James extended his hand. "Peter, old man, I shall never
forget this."

"That's all right."

"What are you going to do?"

"Now, do you mean? Oh, I shall potter round the second nine. If you
want me, you'll find me somewhere about."

"You'll come to the wedding, Peter?" said James, wistfully.

"Of course," said Peter. "Good luck."

He spoke cheerily, but, when the other had turned to go, he stood
looking after him thoughtfully. Then he sighed a heavy sigh.

* * * * *

James approached Miss Forrester with a beating heart. She made a
charming picture as she stood there in the sunlight, one hand on her
hip, the other swaying a tennis racket.

"How do you do?" said James.

"How are you, Mr. Todd? Have you been playing golf?"

"Yes."

"With Mr. Willard?"

"Yes. We were having a match."

"Golf," said Grace Forrester, "seems to make men very rude. Mr. Willard
left me without a word in the middle of our conversation."

James was astonished.

"Were you talking to Peter?"

"Yes. Just now. I can't understand what was the matter with him. He
just turned on his heel and swung off."

"You oughtn't to turn on your heel when you swing," said James; "only
on the ball of the foot."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Nothing, nothing. I wasn't thinking. The fact is, I've something on my
mind. So has Peter. You mustn't think too hardly of him. We have been
playing an important match, and it must have got on his nerves. You
didn't happen by any chance to be watching us?"

"No."

"Ah! I wish you had seen me at the lake-hole. I did it one under par."

"Was your father playing?"

"You don't understand. I mean I did it in one better than even the
finest player is supposed to do it. It's a mashie-shot, you know. You
mustn't play too light, or you fall in the lake; and you mustn't play
it too hard, or you go past the hole into the woods. It requires the
nicest delicacy and judgment, such as I gave it. You might have to wait
a year before seeing anyone do it in two again. I doubt if the 'pro.'
often does it in two. Now, directly we came to this hole today, I made
up my mind that there was going to be no mistake. The great secret of
any shot at golf is ease, elegance, and the ability to relax. The
majority of men, you will find, think it important that their address
should be good."

"How snobbish! What does it matter where a man lives?"

"You don't absolutely follow me. I refer to the waggle and the stance
before you make the stroke. Most players seem to fix in their minds the
appearance of the angles which are presented by the position of the
arms, legs, and club shaft, and it is largely the desire to retain
these angles which results in their moving their heads and stiffening
their muscles so that there is no freedom in the swing. There is only
one point which vitally affects the stroke, and the only reason why
that should be kept constant is that you are enabled to see your ball
clearly. That is the pivotal point marked at the base of the neck, and
a line drawn from this point to the ball should be at right angles to
the line of flight."

James paused for a moment for air, and as he paused Miss Forrester
spoke.

"This is all gibberish to me," she said.

"Gibberish!" gasped James. "I am quoting verbatim from one of the best
authorities on golf."

Miss Forrester swung her tennis racket irritably.

"Golf," she said, "bores me pallid. I think it is the silliest game
ever invented!"

The trouble about telling a story is that words are so feeble a means
of depicting the supreme moments of life. That is where the artist has
the advantage over the historian. Were I an artist, I should show James
at this point falling backwards with his feet together and his eyes
shut, with a semi-circular dotted line marking the progress of his
flight and a few stars above his head to indicate moral collapse. There
are no words that can adequately describe the sheer, black horror that
froze the blood in his veins as this frightful speech smote his ears.

He had never inquired into Miss Forrester's religious views before, but
he had always assumed that they were sound. And now here she was
polluting the golden summer air with the most hideous blasphemy. It
would be incorrect to say that James's love was turned to hate. He did
not hate Grace. The repulsion he felt was deeper than mere hate. What
he felt was not altogether loathing and not wholly pity. It was a blend
of the two.

There was a tense silence. The listening world stood still. Then,
without a word, James Todd turned and tottered away.

* * * * *

Peter was working moodily in the twelfth bunker when his friend
arrived. He looked up with a start. Then, seeing that the other was
alone, he came forward hesitatingly.

"Am I to congratulate you?"

James breathed a deep breath.

"You are!" he said. "On an escape!"

"She refused you?"

"She didn't get the chance. Old man, have you ever sent one right up
the edge of that bunker in front of the seventh and just not gone in?"

"Very rarely."

"I did once. It was my second shot, from a good lie, with the light
iron, and I followed well through and thought I had gone just too far,
and, when I walked up, there was my ball on the edge of the bunker,
nicely teed up on a chunk of grass, so that I was able to lay it dead
with my mashie-niblick, holing out in six. Well, what I mean to say is,
I feel now as I felt then--as if some unseen power had withheld me in
time from some frightful disaster."

"I know just how you feel," said Peter, gravely.

"Peter, old man, that girl said golf bored her pallid. She said she
thought it was the silliest game ever invented." He paused to mark the
effect of his words. Peter merely smiled a faint, wan smile. "You don't
seem revolted," said James.

"I am revolted, but not surprised. You see, she said the same thing to
me only a few minutes before."

"She did!"

"It amounted to the same thing. I had just been telling her how I did
the lake-hole today in two, and she said that in her opinion golf was a
game for children with water on the brain who weren't athletic enough
to play Animal Grab."

The two men shivered in sympathy.

"There must be insanity in the family," said James at last.

"That," said Peter, "is the charitable explanation."

"We were fortunate to find it out in time."

"We were!"

"We mustn't run a risk like that again."

"Never again!"

"I think we had better take up golf really seriously. It will keep us
out of mischief."

"You're quite right. We ought to do our four rounds a day regularly."

"In spring, summer, and autumn. And in winter it would be rash not to
practise most of the day at one of those indoor schools."

"We ought to be safe that way."

"Peter, old man," said James, "I've been meaning to speak to you about
it for some time. I've got Sandy MacBean's new book, and I think you
ought to read it. It is full of helpful hints."

"James!"

"Peter!"

Silently the two men clasped hands. James Todd and Peter Willard were
themselves again.

* * * * *

And so (said the Oldest Member) we come back to our original
starting-point--to wit, that, while there is nothing to be said
definitely against love, your golfer should be extremely careful how he
indulges in it. It may improve his game or it may not. But, if he finds
that there is any danger that it may not--if the object of his
affections is not the kind of girl who will listen to him with cheerful
sympathy through the long evenings, while he tells her, illustrating
stance and grip and swing with the kitchen poker, each detail of the
day's round--then, I say unhesitatingly, he had better leave it alone.
Love has had a lot of press-agenting from the oldest times; but there
are higher, nobler things than love. A woman is only a woman, but a
hefty drive is a slosh.