"You can't reach the green anyway," said he, "so take an iron and keep on the course."

There was a warning flash in Mary's eye which a wiser man would not have ignored.

"Remember you've got a partner," urged Russell. "Take an iron, there's a good girl."

"Oh, Russell! Do be still; you fuss me so!"

"But, my dear! I'm only trying to help----"

The swish of the bra.s.sy cut his explanation neatly in two, and the ball went sailing straight for the distant flag--a very pretty shot for any one to make.

"Oh, a peach!" cried Bill. "A peach!"

"And you," said Mary, turning accusingly to Russell, "you wanted me to take an iron!"

"Because you can keep straighter with an iron," argued Davidson.

"Wasn't that ball straight enough to please you?" asked Mary with just a touch of malice.

"You had luck," was the ungracious response, "but it doesn't follow that all your wooden-club shots will turn out as well. The theory of the mixed foursome is to leave your partner with a chance to hit the ball."

"Oh, dear!" sighed Beth. "Now you're making me feel like a criminal!"

"Lady," said Bill, "if I don't mind, why should you?"

"I think you're an angel!" gushed Beth.

"Yep," replied Bill, "I am; but don't tell anybody."

While Mary and Russell were discussing the theory of the mixed foursome old Bill made a terrific mashie shot out of the gra.s.s, and the ball reached the edge of the green. Beth applauded wildly, Mary chimed in, but Davidson did not open his mouth. He was irritated, and made no secret of it, but his irritation did not keep him from dropping the next shot on the putting green.

Bill didn't even blink when Beth took her putter and overran the hole by ten feet. Beth said she knew he'd never, never speak to her again in this world, and she couldn't blame him if he didn't.

"Well," said Bill cheerfully, "you gave the ball a chance, anyhow.

That's the main thing. It's better to be over than short."

"You're a perfect dear!" said Beth. "I'll do better--see if I don't."

Mary then prepared to putt, Russell's approach having left her twelve feet short of the hole. "And be sure to get it there," cautioned her partner. "It's uphill, you know. Allow for it."

Mary bit her lip and hit the gra.s.s an inch behind the ball. It rolled something less than four feet.

"Hit the ball! Hit the ball!" snapped Russell angrily. "What's the matter with you to-day?"

Mary apologised profusely--probably to keep Russell quiet; and she laughed too--a dry, hard little laugh that didn't have any fun in it.

Bill glared at Davidson for an instant, and his mouth opened, but he swallowed whatever impulse was troubling him, and carefully laid his ball on the lip of the cup for a two-inch putt that not even Beth could have missed. Russell then holed his long one, which seemed to put him in a better humour, and the men started for the second tee. In mixed foursomes the drive alternates.

Mary and Beth took the short cut used by the caddies, and I followed them at a discreet distance. Mary babbled incessantly about everything in the world but golf, which was her way of conveying the impression that nothing unusual had happened; and Beth, womanlike, helped her out by pretending to be deeply interested in what Mary was saying. And yet they tell you that if women could learn to bluff they would make good poker players!

As I waited for the men to drive I thought of the Mary Brooke I used to know--the leggy little girl with her hair in pigtails--and I remembered that in those days she would stand just so much teasing from the boys, and then somebody would be slapped--hard. Had she changed so much, I wondered?

On the third hole Russell began nagging again, and Bill's face was a study. For two cents I think he would have choked him. Mary tried to carry it off with a smile, but it was a weak effort. Nothing but absolute obedience and recognition of his right to give orders would satisfy Russell.

"It's no use your telling me now that you're sorry," he scolded after Mary had butchered a spoon shot on Number Three. "You won't take advice when it's offered. I told you not to try that confounded spoon. A spoon is no club for a beginner."

Mary gasped.

"But--I'm not a beginner! I've been playing ever and ever so long! And I like that spoon."

"I don't care what you like. If we win this thing you must do as I say."

"Oh! So that's it--because you want to win?"

"What do you think I entered for--exercise? Nothing to beat but a lot of dubs--and you're not even trying!"

"Bill is no dub." Mary flared up a bit in defence of her old friend.

"Ho!" sneered Russell. "So you call him Bill, do you?"

I lost the thread of the conversation there because Mary lowered her voice, but she must have told the young man something for the good of his soul. Anyway he was in a savage frame of mind when he stepped on the fourth tee. He wanted to quarrel with some one, but it wouldn't have been healthy to pick on old Bill, and Russell probably realised it. Bill hadn't spoken to him since the first hole, and to be thus calmly ignored was fresh fuel on a smouldering fire.

There was another explosion on Number Four--such a loud one that everybody heard it.

"There you go again!" snarled Russell. "I give you a perfect drive--I leave you in a position where all you have to do is pop a little mashie over a bunker to the green--and see what a mess you've made of it! I'm sorry I ever entered this fool tournament!"

"I'm sorry too," said Mary quietly, and walked away from him leaving him fuming.

It must have been an uncomfortable situation for Beth and Bill. They kept just as far away from the other pair as they could--an exhibition of delicacy which I am sure Mary appreciated--and pretended not to hear the nasty things Russell said, though there were times when Bill had to hide his clenched fists in his coat pockets. He wanted to hit something, and hit it hard, so he took it out on the ball, with excellent results. And no matter what Beth did or did not do Bill never had anything for her but a cheery grin and words of encouragement. They got quite chummy, those two, and once or twice I thought I surprised resentment in Mary's eye. I may have been mistaken.

Russell grew more rabid as the round proceeded, possibly because Mary's manner was changing. After the seventh hole, where Russell said it was a waste of time to try to teach a woman anything about the use of a wooden club, Mary made not the slightest attempt to placate him. She deliberately ignored his advice, and did it smilingly. She became very gay, and laughed a great deal--too much, in fact--and of course her att.i.tude did not help matters to any appreciable extent. A bully likes to have a victim who cringes under the lash.

The last nine was painful, even to a spectator, and if Russell Davidson had been blessed with the intelligence which G.o.d gives a goose he would have kept his mouth shut; but no, he seemed determined to force Mary to take some notice of his remarks. The strangest thing about it was that some fairly good golf was played by all hands. Even fuzzy-headed little Beth pulled off some pretty shots, whereupon Bill cheered uproariously.

I think he found relief in making a noise.

While they were on the seventeenth green I spied old Waddles against the skyline, cutting off the entire sunset, and I climbed the hill to tell him the news. You may believe it or not, but up to that moment I had overlooked Waddles entirely. I had been stupid enough to think that the show I had been witnessing was an impromptu affair--a thing of pure chance, lacking a stage manager. Just as I reached the top of the hill, enlightenment came to me--came in company with Mary's laugh, rippling up from below. At a distance it sounded genuine. A shade of disappointment crossed Waddles' wide and genial countenance.

"So it didn't work," said he. "It didn't work--and I'm sixteen dollars to the bad. Hey! Quit pounding me on the back! Anybody but a born a.s.s would have known the whole thing was cooked up for Mary's benefit--and you've just tumbled, eh? Now then, what has he done?"

Briefly, and in words of one syllable, I sketched Russell's activities.

Waddles wagged his head soberly.

"Treated her just the same as if he was already married to her, eh? A mixed foursome is no-o-o place for a mean man; give him rope enough and he'll hang himself. How do they stand?"

I had not been keeping the score, so we walked down the hill to the eighteenth tee.

"Pretty soft for you folks," said Waddles with a disarming grin.

"Pretty soft. You've only got to beat a net 98."