“You know Spelvin?”
I said I knew Spelvin.
“Well, Jane’s gone and got engaged to him,” said William, aggrieved.
“What?”
“It’s a fact.”
“Already?”
“Absolutely. She told me this morning. And what I want to know,” said the stricken boy, sitting down thoroughly unnerved on a basket of strawberries, “is, where do I get off?”
My heart bled for him, but I could not help reminding him that I had anticipated this.
“You should not have left them so much alone together,” I said. “You must have known that there is nothing more conducive to love than the moon in June. Why, songs have been written about it. In fact, I cannot at the moment recall a song that has not been written about it.”
“Yes, but how was I to guess that anything like this would happen?” cried William, rising and scraping strawberries off his person. “Who would ever have supposed Jane Packard would leap off the dock with a fellow who doesn’t play golf?”
“Certainly, as you say, it seems almost incredible. You are sure you heard her correctly? When she told you about the engagement, I mean. There was no chance that you could have misunderstood?”
“Not a bit of it. As a matter of fact, what led up to the thing, if you know what I mean, was me proposing to her myself. I’d been thinking a lot during the last ten days over what you said to me about that, and the more I thought of it the more of a sound egg the notion seemed. So I got her alone up at the clubhouse and said, ‘I say, old girl, what about it?’ and she said, ‘What about what?’ and I said, ‘What about marrying me? Don’t if you don’t want to, of course,’ I said, ‘but I’m bound to say it looks pretty good to me.’ And then she said she loved another—this bloke Spelvin, to wit. A nasty jar, I can tell you, it was. I was just starting off on a round, and it made me hook my putts on every green.”
“But did she say specifically that she was engaged to Spelvin?”
“She said she loved him.”
“There may be hope. If she is not irrevocably engaged the fancy may pass. I think I will go and see Jane and make tactful inquiries.”
“I wish you would,” said William. “And, I say, you haven’t any stuff that’ll take strawberry-juice off a fellow’s trousers, have you?”
My interview with Jane that evening served only to confirm the bad news. Yes, she was definitely engaged to the man Spelvin. In a burst of girlish confidence she told me some of the details of the affair.
“The moon was shining and a soft breeze played in the trees,” she said. “And suddenly he took me in his arms, gazed deep into my eyes, and cried, ‘I love you! I worship you! I adore you! You are the tree on which the fruit of my life hangs; my mate; my woman; predestined to me since the first star shone up in yonder sky!’ ”
“Nothing,” I agreed, “could be fairer than that. And then?” I said, thinking how different it all must have been from William Bates’s miserable, limping proposal.
“Then we fixed it up that we would get married in September.”
“You are sure you are doing wisely?” I ventured.
Her eyes opened.
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, you know, whatever his other merits—and no doubt they are numerous—Rodney Spelvin does not play golf.”
“No, but he’s very broad-minded about it.”
I shuddered. Women say these things so lightly.
“Broad-minded?”
“Yes. He has no objection to my going on playing. He says he likes my pretty enthusiasms.”
There seemed nothing more to say on that subject.
“Well,” I said, “I am sure I wish you every happiness. I had hoped, of course—but never mind that.”
“What?”
“I had hoped, as you insist on my saying it, that you and William Bates—”
A shadow passed over her face. Her eyes grew sad.
“Poor William! I’m awfully sorry about that. He’s a dear.”
“A splendid fellow,” I agreed.
“He has been so wonderful about the whole thing. So many men would have gone off and shot grizzly bears or something. But William just said ‘Right-o!’ in a quiet voice, and he’s going to caddy for me at Mossy Heath next week.”
“There is good stuff in the boy.”
“Yes.” She sighed. “If it wasn’t for Rodney—Oh, well!”
I thought it would be tactful to change the subject.
“So you have decided to go to Mossy Heath again?”
“Yes. And I’m really going to qualify this year.”
The annual Invitation Tournament at Mossy Heath was one of the most important fixtures of our local female golfing year. As is usual with these affairs, it began with a medal-play qualifying round, the thirty-two players with the lowest net scores then proceeding to fight it out during the remainder of the week by match-play. It gratified me to hear Jane speak so confidently of her chances, for this was the fourth year she had entered, and each time, though she had started out with the brightest prospects, she had failed to survive the qualifying round. Like so many golfers, she was fifty percent better at match-play than at medal-play. Mossy Heath, being a championship course, is full of nasty pitfalls, and on each of the three occasions on which she had tackled it one very bad hole had undone all her steady work on the other seventeen and ruined her card. I was delighted to find her so undismayed by failure.
“I am sure you will,” I said. “Just play your usual careful game.”
“It doesn’t matter what sort of a game I play this time,” said Jane, jubilantly. “I’ve just heard that there are only thirty-two entries this year, so that everybody who finishes is bound to qualify. I have simply got to get round somehow, and there I am.”
“It would seem somewhat superfluous in these circumstances to play a qualifying round at all.”
“Oh, but they must. You see, there are prizes for the best three scores, so they have to play it. But isn’t it a relief to
