f
course, you have heard of him--every golfer has--and all that I ask is
that I may be able to play as good a game and be as good a fellow when I
am eighty-five years old. Mr. Morris, this is my young friend, John
Henry Smith, of America."

I greeted this famous character with some commonplace remarks, and
remained silent while they putted out. I made no further attempt in the
conversational line until they had driven the next tee.

"How is your daughter, Mr. Harding?" I asked.

"Grace? The Kid?" he hesitated. "She's pretty well, but this climate
don't seem exactly to agree with her. We must get her started on golf
again. She hasn't played a game since she has been here."

My heart gave a bound when he said that little word "we." Surely he knew
nothing of the trouble which had come between us. If she were married,
he surely would have said something about it, and up to that minute I
had a lingering fear that I might have lost her to some suitor other
than Carter.

"And she has never played the course?" I asked, not knowing what else to
say.

"Not once," he declared. "As a matter of fact, Smith, women are not very
popular around here. They herd them off on a third course which is set
aside for them. I looked it over, and it's a scrubby sort of a place."

"That's an outrage!" I declared.

"Oh, I don't know," he returned. "They can hack around over there and do
no great damage. Between you and me, Smith, I think women are more or
less of a nuisance on a course frequented by good players."

I recalled that I once held the same opinion, and in looking back to the
opening pages of this diary I find that I expressed it even more
brutally than did Mr. Harding. But I was in no mood to argue the matter
with him.

"I presume Mrs. and Miss Harding are at the hotel?" I carelessly
remarked. "I should like to pay my respects to them."

"They're about the hotel, I reckon," he said, taking his stance for a
brassie shot. He made a very good one.

"How's that, Smith?" he exclaimed. "My boy, I'm getting this game down
fine! Old Tom has put me onto some new wrinkles. See that old cock line
out that ball! Isn't he a wonder?"

"I think I will go and call on them," I said.

"Call on who? Oh, yes!" he said, as I started away.

"By the way, you won't find Grace there, come to think of it. Let's see;
where did she say she was going? She's painting the ruins, and has
finished the old cathedral and the monastery. What's that othe