The applause was really quite tremendous. [125] [125] “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[126] 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:— [126] “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.”
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