Janet called out--"Play--no, I think perhaps you'll do better if you
stand a little farther back. Now--play!"
She brought down her lifted right arm, and smacked the ball into the
net.
"Double fault!" she cried, lamenting, when she had done this twice. "Oh
dear! Now you go over to the other side of the court."
Edwin would not have kept the rendezvous could he have found an excuse
satisfactory to himself for staying away. He was a beginner at tennis,
and a very awkward one, having little aptitude for games, and being now
inelastic in the muscles. He possessed no flannels, though for weeks he
had been meaning to get at least a pair of white pants. He was wearing
Jimmie Orgreave's india-rubber pumps, which admirably fitted him.
Moreover, he was aware that he looked better in his jacket than in his
shirt-sleeves. But these reasons against the rendezvous were naught.
The only genuine reason was that he had felt timid about meeting Janet.
Could he meet her without revealing by his mere guilty glance that his
aunt had half convinced him that he had only to ask nicely in order to
receive? Could he meet her without giving her the impression that he
was a conceited ass? He had met her. She was waiting for him in the
garden, and by dint of starting the conversation in loud tones from a
distance, and fumbling a few moments with the tennis balls before
approaching her, he had come through the encounter without too much
foolishness.
And now he was glad that he had not been so silly as to stay away. She
was alone; Mrs Orgreave was lying down, and all the others were out.
Alicia and her Harry were off together somewhere. She was alone in the
garden, and she was beautiful, and the shaded garden was beautiful, and
the fading afternoon. The soft short grass was delicate to his feet,
and round the oval of the lawn were glimpses of flowers, and behind her
clear-tinted frock was the yellow house laced over with green. A column
of thick smoke rose from a manufactory close behind the house, but the
trees mitigated it. He played perfunctorily, uninterested in the game,
dreaming.
She was a wondrous girl! She was the perfect girl! Nobody had ever
been able to find any fault with her. He liked her exceedingly. Had it
been necessary, he would have sacrificed his just interests in the
altercation with her father in order to avoid a coolness in which she
might have been involved. She was immensely distinguished and superior.
And she was over thirty and had never been engaged, despite the number
and variety of her acquaintances, despite her challenging readiness to
flirt, and her occasional coquetries. Ten years ago he had almost
regarded her as a madonna on a throne, so high did she seem to be above
him. His ideas had changed, but there could be no doubt that in an
alliance between an Orgreave and a Clayhanger, it would be the
Clayhanger who stood to gain the greater advantage. There she was! If
she was not waiting for him, she was waiting--for some one! Why not for
him as well as for another?