orse.

Thus began, for these two people, an hour destined to be fraught with
such pregnant developments--an hour which, in its own way, vitally bore
on the great loom now weaving warp and woof of world events.

CHAPTER XI.

THE END OF TWO GAMES.

Trivial events sometimes precipitate catastrophies. It has been said
that had James MacDonald not left the farm gate open, at Hugomont,
Waterloo might have ended otherwise. So now, the rupture between
Catherine Flint and Maxim Waldron was precipitated by a single unguarded
oath.

It was at the ninth hole, down back of the Terrace Woods bunker.
Waldron, heated by exercise and the whiskey he had drunk, had already
dismissed the caddies and had undertaken to carry the clubs, himself,
hoping--man-fashion--to steal a kiss or two from Catherine, along the
edge of the close-growing oaks and maples. But all his plans went agley,
for Catherine really made good and beat him, there, by half a dozen
strokes; and as her little sphere, deftly driven by the putting-iron
gripped in her brown, firm hands, rolled precisely over the cropped turf
and fell into the tinned hole, the man ejaculated a perfectly audible
"_Hell!_"

She stood erect and faced him, with a singular expression in those level
gray eyes--eyes the look of which could allure or wither, could entice
or command.

"Wally," said she, "did you swear?"

"I--er--why, yes," he stammered, taken aback and realizing, despite his
chagrin, how very poor and unsportsmanlike a figure he was cutting.

"I don't like it," she returned. "Not a little bit, Wally. It isn't
game, and it isn't manly. You must respect me, now and always. I can't
have profanity, and I won't."

He essayed lame apologies, but a sudden, hot anger seemed to have
possessed him, in presence of this free, independent, exacting
woman--this woman who, worst of all, had just beaten him at the game of
all games he prided himself on playing well. And despite his every
effort, she saw through the veil of sheer, perfunctory courtesy; and
seeing, flushed with indignation.

"Wally," she said in a low, quiet tone, fixing a singular gaze upon him,
"Wally, I don't know what to make of you lately. The other night at Idle
Hour, you hardly looked at me. You and father spent the whole evening
discussing some business or other--"

"Most important business, my dear girl, I do assure you," protested
Waldron, trying to steady his voice. "Most vitally--"

"No matter about