Part 42 (1/2)

But the door was shut.

”Serve him right, too!” you say. Well, perhaps; but lack of presumption is a rare and not unmanly virtue.

CHAPTER XI

”_NATURAM FURCA EXPELLAS ..._”

ALAS!

When Pip slipped out of bed at six o'clock next morning the window-panes were blurred and wet, and the Links of Eric were shrouded in driving sheets of rain.

His pithy and apposite comments on the situation were, had he only known it, being reproduced (in an expurgated form) by a damsel in a kimono at a bedroom window not far down the road. Elsie surveyed the rain-washed links reflectively, and sighed.

”What a pity!” she said to herself. ”I would have given him such a lesson! Now I suppose we shall both waste a day.”

With which enigmatical conclusion she crept into bed again.

Pip arrived at Knocknaha after breakfast, but Elsie flatly refused to stir outside until the rain had ceased. This was no more than her swain had expected, and he returned resignedly to the hotel, where he pa.s.sed an exceedingly unprofitable morning smoking and playing billiards.

After luncheon an ancient mariner in a blue jersey and a high-crowned bowler hat approached him on the hotel veranda and intimated that the day was a good one for deep-sea fis.h.i.+ng. It was certainly no day for courting, and Pip, weary in spirit, was fain to accept the implied invitation.

They walked to the beach together, and began to haul down the old man's boat. This done, the oars and tackle were put in, and the expedition was on the point of departure when Pip suddenly realised that it had stopped raining.

”Hallo!” he said. ”Rain over?”

”Aye,” remarked the old man; ”it will be a grand afternoon yet.”

Pip turned upon him suddenly.

”Are you sure?” he asked.

”Aye.”

”Certain?”

”'Deed aye,” replied the old gentleman rather testily. ”When the top of yon ben is uncovered like so, and the wind--”

”In that case,” remarked his employer suddenly, ”I can't come fis.h.i.+ng, I'm afraid. I must go and--do something else. Another day, perhaps.”

And handing the scandalised mariner half-a-crown, he departed over the sand-hills at a rate which would certainly have brought about his disqualification in any decently conducted walking-race.

An hour later two players approached the first tee. They were Elsie and Pip.

Now the nerves of both these young people, although neither of them would have admitted it, were tightly strung up by reason of the present situation. Each side (as they say in the election reports) was confident of success, but their reasons for confidence were widely dissimilar. Pip meant to win, because in his opinion the only way to gain a woman's affection is to show yourself her master at something. If he had moved in another cla.s.s of society he would have subdued his beloved with a poker or a boot, and she on the whole would have respected him for it: being a sportsman, he preferred to use a golf-club.

Elsie meant to win for a different reason. To begin with, her spirit rebelled against the idea of becoming the captive of Pip's bow and spear. She might or she might not intend to marry him,--that was her own secret,--but she had not the slightest intention of marrying him because he beat her at golf. Obviously, the first thing to do was to beat _him_; then the situation would be in her hands and she could dictate her own terms. What those terms were to be she had not quite settled. All she knew was that Pip, if he were to have her at all, should have her as a favour and not as a right.

Consequently the l.u.s.t of battle was upon them both; and it was with undisguised chagrin that they found three couples awaiting their turn at the first tee. To be kept back through the green is irritating enough under any circ.u.mstances, but when you are engaged in a life-and-death struggle for the matrimonial stakes, absolute freedom of action is essential.