The Clicking of Cuthbert

looked on it as an act of God. It seemed to him to draw them close

together, to set up a sort of spiritual affinity. In a word, it acted

on the poor fellow like a tonic, and that very night he went around to

her house, and having, after a long and extremely interesting

conversation with her aunt, contrived to get her alone, coughed eleven

times in a strangled sort of way, and suggested that the wedding bells

should ring out.

Eunice was more startled than angry.

"Of course, I'm tremendously complimented, Mr.----" She had to pause to

recall the name. "Mr.----"

"Waters," said Ramsden, humbly.

"Of course, yes. Mr. Waters. As I say, it's a great compliment----"

"Not at all!"

"A great compliment----"

"No, no!" murmured Ramsden obsequiously.

"I wish you wouldn't interrupt!" snapped Eunice with irritation. No

girl likes to have to keep going back and trying over her speeches.

"It's a great compliment, but it is quite impossible."

"Just as you say, of course," agreed Ramsden.

"What," demanded Eunice, "have you to offer me? I don't mean money. I

mean something more spiritual. What is there in you, Mr. Walter----"

"Waters."

"Mr. Waters. What is there in you that would repay a girl for giving up

the priceless boon of freedom?"

"I know a lot about dried seaweed," suggested Ramsden hopefully.

Eunice shook her head.

"No," she said, "it is quite impossible. You have paid me the greatest

compliment a man can pay a woman, Mr. Waterson----"

"Waters," said Ramsden. "I'll write it down for you."

"Please don't trouble. I am afraid we shall never meet again----"

"But we are partners in the mixed foursomes tomorrow."

"Oh, yes, so we are!" said Eunice. "Well, mind you play up. I want to

win a cup more than anything on earth."

"Ah!" said Ramsden, "if only I could win what I want to win more than

anything else on earth! You, I mean," he added, to make his meaning

clear. "If I could win you----" His tongue tied itself in a bow knot

round his uvula, and he could say no more. He moved slowly to the door,

paused with his fingers on the handle for one last look over his

shoulder, and walked silently into the cupboard where Eunice's aunt

kept her collection of dried seaweed.

His second start was favoured with greater luck, and he found himself

out in the hall, and presently in the cool air of the night, with the

stars shining down on him. Had those silent stars ever shone down on a

more broken-hearted man? Had the cool air of the night ever fanned a

more fevered brow? Ah, yes! Or, rather, ah no!

There was not a very large entry for the mixed foursomes competition.

In my experience there seldom is. Men are as a rule idealists, and wish

to keep their illusions regarding women intact, and it is difficult for

the most broad-minded man to preserve a chivalrous veneration for the

sex after a woman has repeatedly sliced into the rough and left him a

difficult recovery. Women, too--I am not speaking of the occasional

champions, but of the average woman, the one with the handicap of 33,

who plays in high-heeled shoes--are apt to giggle when they foozle out

of a perfect lie, and this makes for misogyny. Only eight couples

assembled on the tenth tee (where our foursomes matches start) on the

morning after Ramsden Waters had proposed to Eunice. Six of these were

negligible, consisting of males of average skill and young women who

played golf because it kept them out in the fresh air. Looking over the

field, Ramsden felt that the only serious rivalry was to be feared from

Marcella Bingley and her colleague, a 16-handicap youth named George

Perkins, with whom they were paired for the opening round. George was a

pretty indifferent performer, but Marcella, a weather-beaten female

with bobbed hair and the wrists of a welterweight pugilist, had once

appeared in the women's open championship and swung a nasty iron.

Ramsden watched her drive a nice, clean shot down the middle of the

fairway, and spoke earnestly to Eunice. His heart was in this

competition, for, though the first prize in the mixed foursomes does

not perhaps entitle the winners to a place in the hall of fame, Ramsden

had the soul of the true golfer. And the true golfer wants to win

whenever he starts, whether he is playing in a friendly round or in the

open championship.

"What we've got to do is to play steadily," he said. "Don't try any

fancy shots. Go for safety. Miss Bingley is a tough proposition, but

George Perkins is sure to foozle a few, and if we play safe we've got

'em cold. The others don't count."

You notice something odd about this speech. Something in it strikes you

as curious. Precisely. It affected Eunice Bray in the same fashion. In

the first place, it contains forty-four words, some of them of two

syllables, others of even greater length. In the second place, it was

spoken crisply, almost commandingly, without any of that hesitation and

stammering which usually characterized Ramsden Waters's utterances.

Eunice was puzzled. She was also faintly resentful. True, there was not

a word in what he had said that was calculated to bring the blush of