o had also done his
best, was no mean opponent, even for a player of her skill. Indeed the
fight had been quite earnest, for each party knew that it was but a
prelude to another and more serious fight, and looked upon the result as
in some sense an omen.

"I am conquered," he said in a voice in which vexation struggled with a
laugh, "and by a woman over whom I had an advantage. It is humiliating,
for I confess I do not like being beaten."

"Don't you think that women generally win if they mean to?" asked
Barbara. "I believe that when they fail, which is often enough, it
is because they don't care, or can't make up their minds. A woman in
earnest is a dangerous antagonist."

"Yes," he answered, "or the best of allies." Then he gave the clubs and
half-a-crown to the caddies, and when they were out of hearing, added,
"Miss Champers, I have been wondering for some time whether it is
possible that you would become such an ally to me."

"I know nothing of business, Sir Robert; my tastes do not lie that way."

"You know well that I was not speaking of business, Miss Champers. I was
speaking of another kind of partnership, that which Nature has ordained
between men and women--marriage. Will you accept me as a husband?"

She opened her lips to speak, but he lifted his hand and went on.
"Listen before you give that ready answer which it is so hard to recall,
or smooth away. I know all my disadvantages, my years, which to you may
seem many; my modest origin; my trade, which, not altogether without
reason, you despise and dislike. Well, the first two cannot be changed
except for the worse; the second can be, and already is, buried beneath
the gold and ermine of wealth and titles. What does it matter if I am
the son of a City clerk who never earned more than L2 a week and was
born in a tenement at Battersea, when I am one of the rich men of this
rich land and shall die a peer in a palace, leaving millions and honours
to my children? As for the third, my occupation, I am prepared to give
it up. It has served my turn, and after next week I shall have earned
the amount that years ago I determined to earn. Thenceforth, set above
the accidents of fortune, I propose to devote myself to higher aims,
those of legitimate ambition. So far as my time would allow I have
already taken some share in politics as a worker; I intend to continue
in them as a ruler which I still have the health and ability to do. I
mean to be one of the first me