shame to the cheek of modesty; nevertheless, she felt vaguely that
Ramsden Waters had exceeded the limits. She had been prepared for a
gurgling Ramsden Waters, a Ramsden Waters who fell over his large feet
and perspired; but here was a Ramsden Waters who addressed her not
merely as an equal, but with more than a touch of superiority. She eyed
him coldly, but he had turned to speak to little Wilberforce, who was
to accompany them on the round.
'And you, my lad,' said Ramsden curtly, 'you kindly remember that this
is a competition, and keep your merry flow of conversation as much as
possible to yourself. You've got a bad habit of breaking into small
talk when a man's addressing the ball.'
'If you think that my brother will be in the way----' began Eunice
coldly.
'Oh, I don't mind him coming round,' said Ramsden, 'if he keeps quiet.'
Eunice gasped. She had not played enough golf to understand how that
noblest of games changes a man's whole nature when on the links. She
was thinking of something crushing to say to him, when he advanced to
the tee to drive off.
He drove a perfect ball, hard and low with a lot of roll. Even Eunice
was impressed.
'Good shot, partner!' she said.
Ramsden was apparently unaware that she had spoken. He was gazing down
the fairway with his club over his left shoulder in an attitude almost
identical with that of Sandy McBean in the plate labelled 'The
Drive--Correct Finish', to face page twenty-four of his monumental
work, 'How to Become a Scratch Player Your First Season by Studying
Photographs'. Eunice bit her lip. She was piqued. She felt as if she
had patted the head of a pet lamb, and the lamb had turned and bitten
her in the finger.
'I said, 'Good shot, partner!'' she repeated coldly.
'Yes,' said Ramsden, 'but don't talk. It prevents one concentrating.'
He turned to Wilberforce. 'And don't let me have to tell you that
again!' he said.
'Wilberforce has been like a mouse!'
'That is what I complain of,' said Ramsden. 'Mice make a beastly
scratching sound, and that's what he was doing when I drove that ball.'
'He was only playing with the sand in the tee box.'
'Well, if he does it again, I shall be reluctantly compelled to take
steps.'
They walked in silence to where the ball had stopped. It was nicely
perched up on the grass, and to have plunked it on to the green with an
iron should have been for any reasonable golfer the work of a moment.
Eunice, however, only succeeded in slicing it feebly into the rough.
Ramsden reached for his niblick and plunged into the bushes. And,
presently, as if it had been shot up by some convulsion of nature, the
ball, accompanied on the early stages of its journey by about a pound
of mixed mud, grass, and pebbles, soared through the air and fell on
the green. But the mischief had been done. Miss Bingley, putting
forcefully, put the opposition ball down for a four and won the hole.
