Chapter IV

The morning of the second day of the tournament dawned clear, and what was quite as much to the purpose, unusually cool. A little breeze from the northwest crept over the hills,--just enough to fan the heated players without disturbing the flight of the balls; while to make the weather perfect for tennis, by ten o'clock a light veil of clouds had comfortably covered the sun, cutting off all troublesome rays.

"It is a perfect day," Betty remarked to Dora, as they took their places among the spectators. "I've put my things ready so I can dress in two minutes. Here comes George."

The affair was an event in quiet Maugus. It had been talked about as the most important event could not have been discussed anywhere but in the idle hours of summer leisure, and had come to be regarded as quite the event of the season. The tennis-court was laid out near the Elm House, and was surrounded by superb old trees that in all the slow years of their growth had never over-arched a prettier sight than that afternoon showed, with its groups of nice old ladies, and charming young damsels in all the picturesque bravery of their nineteenth-century costume. The contest of the first day of the tournament had disposed of all the four-handed games but the final match, and the afternoon of the second day was left free for the single games. Granton had entered for the latter, and was looked upon as the probable victor. He won easily his first rubber, and came over to where Betty sat to wait his turn again.

"It is lucky for me, Mr. Snow," he said to George, who in the happiness of full reconciliation sat by Dora's side, "that you are not playing, or I shouldn't have the ghost of a chance."

"I'm resting on the laurels I won last year," was the light response. "It's far easier than to risk one's reputation and defend it."

"Are you so sure of winning, as it is, Mr. Granton?" asked Betty coolly.

"Sure? Of course not; but I have hopes now, which I shouldn't indulge if Mr. Snow, with the glory of his victories at Newport last year, were counted in."

"I wish you success," she said, with a certain trace of satire in her tone. "Isn't Mr. Howard playing remarkably well to-day? What a splendid volley? That gives him the game."

"Sets: two, love," called the scorer, and Mr. Howard's victory was saluted with applause, which Mistress Betty took great satisfaction in leading.

"You seem to be greatly pleased at Howard's good luck," Granton observed, remembering that when his success had been clapped, just before, Miss Mork had refrained from lending a hand.

"Why shouldn't I be?" she returned. "I've bet him a pair of gloves he wins."

"What will you bet me I lose?" demanded he, not especially pleased at any sort of understanding between the young lady before him and Howard.

"Anything you like."

"I should like nothing so much as--"

"As what?"

"No; upon reflection I don't think I dare mention it," Granton said coolly, looking at her with an expression in his big brown eyes which made her flush in spite of herself.

"Don't be impudent," she replied. "That is my province."

"Time!" called the umpire, a little later. "Howard and Granton, concluding set."

"Wish me luck," Granton murmured, bending toward Betty as he rose.

"I'm sure I do, for my own sake," she responded, with an ambiguity he afterward had reason to understand.

"What shall I do if Mr. Howard beats him?" Betty said to George and Dora, as the set began. "There'd be no fun playing him instead of Mr. Granton."

"Oh, Howard hasn't the ghost of a chance," George responded reassuringly. "You are all right, Bet, if you don't get nervous."

But Betty did get nervous. The color came and went in her cheeks almost as swiftly as the flying balls were thrown, whose skilful service and returns soon proved Snow to be right in asserting that Howard had no chance against his antagonist.

"Oh, George," she whispered, in an agony of apprehension, "can I do it? Won't he beat me? It would be too horrible to challenge him and then fail!"

"Do it?" retorted her cousin; "of course you can do it! See that short serve. That's what's breaking Howard up: it's easy for you to return if you'll run up to it. His swift service doesn't begin to be as good as yours."

"Love set," called the scorer; and as Betty looked at the supple, muscular figure of Nat Granton while the players exchanged courts, her fears almost overcame her resolve.

"My heart is thumping against my very boot-heels, Dolly," she confided to her friend. "It's no sort of use."

"Are you going to give up?" demanded Dora curiously, and perhaps a little tauntingly.

"Give up!" cried Mistress Mork stoutly. "Do I ever give up? I'll die first! But I do wish he wouldn't get so many love games! It's dreadfully discouraging."

Granton was, in truth, having everything his own way. Howard, although a good player, had somehow lost his coolness, and was soon demoralized by a peculiar short, cutting service, of which his opponent had complete mastery, and which he was unable to return. His play became wild and uneven, and the contest was quickly decided against him.

The master of ceremonies came forward with the announcement that the prize racquet belonged to Mr. Nathaniel Granton, but that, according to the provisions of the tournament, any person had now a right to challenge the winner to play for the prize, by the best two games in three.

There was a rustle, and then a pause, as many eyes were turned toward George Snow, who had won in the Newport games the summer before. But that gentleman sat quiet in his place, a smile of amusement stealing over his comely features as Dora said, in the most tragic of whispers,--

"Oh, Betty, how can you?"

But Betty, her head thrown a trifle back, and the color flaming hotly into her face, rose with a charming mixture of dignity and shyness, and walked, before them all, straight up to the judges.

"I challenge the winner to a match," she said, steadily enough, although she confided to Dora afterward that she felt as if every word had to be dragged out by main force. "I should like five minutes to change my dress."

Granton uttered a low, sharp whistle, and doffed his cap.

"All right," the master of ceremonies returned. "Be as quick as you can."

"I'll not keep you waiting long," she assured him, and turned to beckon Dora to her.

As the two girls disappeared into the hotel, the bustle and chatter began again with renewed vigor, and swelled and buzzed in the liveliest fashion. Here was a genuine sensation for Maugus. Betty was too lovely and too great a favorite with the men wholly to escape the censure of the young ladies, who now had a string of pretty things to say of her boldness and presumption. But the gentlemen rallied to a man in her support, and, by the time she reappeared, public opinion, as represented by the spectators of the tournament, if not wholly in her favor, was so in outward expression.

She was dressed in a dark-blue jersey of silk, which fitted her in that perfect combination only possible with a faultless figure and an irreproachable jersey; and below that a skirt of navy-blue flannel fell in straight plaits to her ankles, where one caught, as she moved, occasional glimpses of a crimson stocking, the exact shade of her flat sash and of the close wing-tip in her trig little blue silk cap. There was nothing of the nature of tags and ends about her costume. Her hair was closely coiled, and even her ear-rings had been removed. The crimson handkerchief about her white throat was fastened into its place so securely as scarcely to be less smooth when the playing was over than when the first game began.

She was very sober,--so grave, indeed, that George went over to her just as she took her place, to say some absurd thing to make her laugh.

"Don't be nervous," he added, having succeeded in his object so far as to call a fleeting smile to her face. "And don't look as if assisting at your own obsequies. You are all right, if you'll only think so."

"Will she do it?" Dora asked anxiously, as he took his seat again.

"I'm sure I don't know," he answered. "I've told her she will, and I hope so; but it isn't going to be so easy."

They talked of that tennis tournament for many a long day in Maugus. Opinion was divided at first as to the probable result. There was a quiet concentration in Betty's manner which soon began to awake confidence in her ultimate success, although at first she lost. Even the most envious of the girls soon found themselves applauding every lucky hit she made; and Betty, whose senses were keenly alive that day, felt the stimulating consciousness that the general sympathy was with her. She threw her whole soul into her playing, every point she lost arousing her to new exertions.

"By Jove! Dora," George said, "Granton's bound to get a lesson. Betty's blood is getting up. I'm convinced now that she'll win, and I'll bet you the gloves that she beats him a love set before she's done."

Dora was too excited to answer him. She hoped he might be right, but just now Betty was losing. She had been beaten three games out of five, and the present one, on Granton's service, was going hard against her. Granton was harassing her with his short cut, which fell before her racquet reached it nearly every time.

"What's got into her?" George muttered uneasily. "Ah, that was better. Good return."

And he led the hand-clapping which greeted the difficult stroke by which Betty brought the score up to deuce. The game went against her, however, and soon after, the set.

"I'll do it, George," Betty said under her breath, as she passed him in changing courts. "Don't be discouraged. The Mork blood is up."

"It's all on his cuts, Bet. Run up to them. Watch his service, and you can tell when they are coming. Nat could never serve a decent swift ball."

Betty nodded and went on to her place.

"Play!" called Granton.

Watching him, his opponent noticed him throw his head back, and remembered his telling her that he always betrayed his cutting. She ran toward the net as the ball came down, and returned it like a cannonball.

"She's got it!" cried Snow, with great glee, in his excitement calling so loudly that both the players heard him. "She's all right now. Oh, that's beautiful!"

Granton tried a couple of swift balls and faulted them both.

"Love; thirty," called the scorer.

Another cut; again cleverly intercepted; then a fault and an easy, round-hand service.

"Love; game."

The applause was really quite tremendous.

"They are all against me," Granton observed to Betty, handing her the balls over the net and laughing rather ruefully. "Public opinion would be positively outraged if you should fail."

"I've no intention of failing, thank you," she returned, with spirit; and away she swept to her position. "Play!"

Granton was himself on his mettle, yet he did not play his best. He could not fully recover from his surprise at the style of his adversary's play. The swiftness of her service and returns was so different from what was expected of a girl that he was scarcely on his guard against it up to the very end. He felt the sympathy of the spectators, too, to be against him, and this was not without its influence. He lost the set, and with it, by an unfortunate chance, his good nature.

"Sets, one all," the scorer announced; and something in the saucy toss of Betty's lovely head, as, flushed and panting, she stood talking with George and Dora, jarred upon her lover's nerves with sudden irritation. An unreasonable madness took possession of him. How much was wounded vanity, it might not be easy to say; but under the circumstances, with all his mates grinning at his failure, it was not at all strange that his feelings were not wholly placid. His play in the third and decisive set became rash and excited. He lost his head a little, and before he fairly knew how it happened the score was called on Betty's service:--

"Games; five, love"

"Good!" was George Snow's comment. "I told you she'd beat a love set before she was done.--Oh, keep your head, Bet!"

Betty delivered a ball swift as a bullet and just clearing the net.

"Fifteen; love."

A fault, and then another swift ball, which skimmed like a swallow over the net and struck the ground only to cling to it in a swift roll.

"Thirty; love."

The next ball was beaten back and forth until Granton dashed it to the ground at Betty's very feet.

"Thirty; fifteen."

The excitement was at its height. Even those who did not appreciate the finer points of the play caught the interest and somehow understood pretty accurately how matters stood, and were as earnest as the rest. Small-talk was forgotten, heads were craned forward, and all eyes were fixed upon the players. Betty grasped her racquet by the extreme end of its handle, and held the ball as high above her head as she could reach.

"Play!"

She struck it with all her force.

"Forty; fifteen," was the scorer's call; and Nat Granton understood that only one stroke lay between him and defeat by a love set.

George Snow deliberately turned away his face.

"I never supposed I could be such a consummate fool," he said afterward, "but I positively could not look at your last service, Bet. I felt as if the whole universe were at stake."

As for the player, she was fairly pale with excitement; but her head was clear and her hand steady. She paused an instant, poising her racquet. She observed that Granton stood near the middle of his court. With a quick step she moved to the very outer corner of her own and sent a swift ball sharply under her opponent's left hand.

"Game; love set," called the scorer. "Sets two to one in favor of Miss Mork."

And, amid what for Maugus was a really astonishing round of applause, Betty, flushed but triumphant, walked to the net to shake hands with her vanquished lover.