“It is, indeed. I have a feeling that once it becomes a matter of match-play you will be irresistible.”
“I do hope so. It would be lovely to win with Rodney looking on.”
“Will he be looking on?”
“Yes. He’s going to walk round with me. Isn’t it sweet of him?”
Her fiancé’s name having slid into the conversation again, she seemed inclined to become eloquent about him. I left her, however, before she could begin. To one so strongly pro-William as myself, eulogistic prattle about Rodney Spelvin was repugnant. I disapproved entirely of this infatuation of hers. I am not a narrow-minded man; I quite appreciate the fact that non-golfers are entitled to marry; but I could not countenance their marrying potential winners of the Ladies’ Invitation Tournament at Mossy Heath.
The Greens Committee, as greens committees are so apt to do in order to justify their existence, have altered the Mossy Heath course considerably since the time of which I am speaking, but they have left the three most poisonous holes untouched. I refer to the fourth, the seventh, and the fifteenth. Even a soulless Greens Committee seems to have realized that golfers, long-suffering though they are, can be pushed too far, and that the addition of even a single extra bunker to any of these dreadful places would probably lead to armed riots in the clubhouse.
Jane Packard had done well on the first three holes, but as she stood on the fourth tee she was conscious, despite the fact that this seemed to be one of her good days, of a certain nervousness; and oddly enough, great as was her love for Rodney Spelvin, it was not his presence that gave her courage, but the sight of William Bates’s large, friendly face and the sound of his pleasant voice urging her to keep her bean down and refrain from pressing.
As a matter of fact, to be perfectly truthful, there was beginning already to germinate within her by this time a faint but definite regret that Rodney Spelvin had decided to accompany her on this qualifying round. It was sweet of him to bother to come, no doubt, but still there was something about Rodney that did not seem to blend with the holy atmosphere of a championship course. He was the one romance of her life and their souls were bound together for all eternity, but the fact remained that he did not appear to be able to keep still while she was making her shots, and his light humming, musical though it was, militated against accuracy on the green. He was humming now as she addressed her ball, and for an instant a spasm of irritation shot through her. She fought it down bravely and concentrated on her drive, and when the ball soared over the cross-bunker she forgot her annoyance. There is nothing so mellowing, so conducive to sweet and genial thoughts, as a real juicy one straight down the middle, and this was a pipterino.
“Nice work,” said William Bates, approvingly.
Jane gave him a grateful smile and turned to Rodney. It was his appreciation that she wanted. He was not a golfer, but even he must be able to see that her drive had been something out of the common.
Rodney Spelvin was standing with his back turned, gazing out over the rolling prospect, one hand shading his eyes.
“That vista there,” said Rodney. “That calm, wooded hollow bathed in the golden sunshine. It reminds me of the island valley of Avilion—”
“Did you see my drive, Rodney?”
“—where falls not rain nor hail nor any snow, nor ever wind blows loudly. Eh? Your drive? No, I didn’t.”
Again Jane Packard was aware of that faint, wistful regret. But this was swept away a few moments later in the ecstasy of a perfect iron-shot which plunked her ball nicely on to the green. The last time she had played this hole she had taken seven, for all round the plateau green are sinister sand-bunkers, each beckoning the ball into its hideous depths; and now she was on in two and life was very sweet. Putting was her strong point, so that there was no reason why she should not get a snappy four on one of the nastiest holes on the course. She glowed with a strange emotion as she took her putter, and as she bent over her ball the air seemed filled with soft music.
It was only when she started to concentrate on the line of her putt that this soft music began to bother her. Then, listening, she became aware that it proceeded from Rodney Spelvin. He was standing immediately behind her, humming an old French love-song. It was the sort of old French love-song to which she could have listened for hours in some scented garden under the young May moon, but on the green of the fourth at Mossy Heath it got right in amongst her nerve-centres.
“Rodney, please!”
“Eh?”
Jane found herself wishing that Rodney Spelvin would not say “Eh?” whenever she spoke to him.
“Do you mind not humming?” said Jane. “I want to putt.”
“Putt on, child, putt on,” said Rodney Spelvin, indulgently. “I don’t know what you mean, but, if it makes you happy to putt, putt to your heart’s content.”
Jane bent over her ball again. She had got the line now. She brought back her putter with infinite care.
“My God!” exclaimed Rodney Spelvin, going off like a bomb.
Jane’s ball, sharply jabbed, shot past the hole and rolled on about three yards. She spun round in anguish. Rodney Spelvin was pointing at the horizon.
“What a bit of colour!” he cried. “Did you ever see such a bit of colour?”
“Oh, Rodney!” moaned Jane.
“Eh?”
Jane gulped and walked to her ball. Her fourth putt trickled into the hole.
“Did you win?” said Rodney Spelvin, amiably.
Jane walked to the fifth tee in silence.
The fifth and sixth holes at Mossy Heath are long, but they
