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 dogleg 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 backswing. 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 teatime 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
