'Why not? What are you doing?'
'Just playing golf!'
'I'm tired of being neglected like this!' cried Betty, stamping her
foot. Poor girl, I saw her point of view. It was bad enough for her
being engaged to the wrong man, without having him treat her as a mere
acquaintance. Her conscience fighting with her love for Eddie Denton
had kept her true to Mortimer, and Mortimer accepted the sacrifice with
an absent-minded carelessness which would have been galling to any
girl. 'We might just as well not be engaged at all. You never take me
anywhere.'
'I asked you to come with me to watch the Open Championship.'
'Why don't you ever take me to dances?'
'I can't dance.'
'You could learn.'
'But I'm not sure if dancing is a good thing for a fellow's game. You
never hear of any first-class pro. dancing. James Braid doesn't dance.'
'Well, my mind's made up. Mortimer, you must choose between golf and
me.'
'But, darling, I went round in a hundred and one yesterday. You can't
expect a fellow to give up golf when he's at the top of his game.'
'Very well. I have nothing more to say. Our engagement is at an end.'
'Don't throw me over, Betty,' pleaded Mortimer, and there was that in
his voice which cut me to the heart. 'You'll make me so miserable. And,
when I'm miserable, I always slice my approach shots.'
Betty Weston drew herself up. Her face was hard.
'Here is your ring!' she said, and swept from the room.
* * * * *
For a moment after she had gone Mortimer remained very still, looking
at the glistening circle in his hand. I stole across the room and
patted his shoulder.
'Bear up, my boy, bear up!' I said.
He looked at me piteously.
'Stymied!' he muttered.
'Be brave!'
He went on, speaking as if to himself.
'I had pictured--ah, how often I had pictured!--our little home! Hers
and mine. She sewing in her arm-chair, I practising putts on the
hearth-rug----' He choked. 'While in the corner, little Harry Vardon
Sturgis played with little J. H. Taylor Sturgis. And round the
room--reading, busy with their childish tasks--little George Duncan
Sturgis, Abe Mitchell Sturgis, Harold Hilton Sturgis, Edward Ray
Sturgis, Horace Hutchinson Sturgis, and little James Braid Sturgis.'
'My boy! My boy!' I cried.
'What's the matter?'
'Weren't you giving yourself rather a large family?'
He shook his head moodily.
'Was I?' he said, dully. 'I don't know. What's bogey?'
There was a silence.
'And yet----' he said, at last, in a low voice. He paused. An odd,
