She escaped as quickly as possible from her friends and their congratulations, and hurried to her room on the pretext of dressing for supper. There she cooled her hot cheeks, burning with exercise and excitement, and looking ruefully at her image in the mirror, shook her head reproachfully at the counterfeit presentment as at one who had beguiled her into misdoing.

After supper she was sitting rather gloomily in a retired corner of the piazza, when the defeated Granton approached. The reaction from the afternoon’s excitement had rendered the young lady’s spirit rather subdued, but she rallied at sight of the new-comer.

“Good-evening,” he said. “Were you enjoying the sweets of victory?”

“I was enjoying the sweets of solitude,” she returned, a little pointedly.

[129]

[129]

Granton laughed.

“I suppose,” he remarked, taking a vacant chair near her, “that I need not apologize for my ill-judged remarks some time since about girls and tennis. My afternoon’s punishment ought to pass as a sufficient expiation.”

“Expiation is always a matter of feeling.”

“Oh, as to that, I felt I had enough, I assure you,” he laughed. “It may not be gallant to say so, but it was really horrible to be beaten out of my boots by a lady in broad daylight, in face of all Maugus assembled.”

Betty was silent. The remorseful feeling rose again in her breast. Granton spoke lightly enough, but she wondered if she had not humiliated him terribly. She played nervously with her fan, hardly knowing how to phrase it, yet longing to offer something in the way of apology.

“I hope,” she began, “I hope—”

Nat regarded her closely in the fading light as she hesitated, and by some happy inspiration divined her softened mood. He noted the downcast eyes and troubled face. Without fully comprehending her mental state, he yet found courage to move a trifle nearer.

“Yes?” he queried, laying his fingers upon the arm of her chair.

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