sm when
Anthony came home.

Frances prided herself on her power of foreseeing things. She foresaw
that Anthony would come home early for his game. She foresaw the funny,
nervous agony of his face when he appeared on the terrace and caught
sight of Grannie and the three Aunties, and the elaborate and exquisite
politeness with which he would conceal from them his emotion. She
foresaw that she would say to Annie, "When the master comes tell him
we're having tea in the garden, under the tree of--under the ash-tree"
(for after all, he was the master, and discipline must be maintained).
She foresaw the very gestures of his entrance, the ironically solemn bow
that he would make to her, far-off, from the terrace; she even foresaw
the kind of joke that, for the life of him, he would not be able to
help making. She was so made that she could live happily in this world
of small, foreseen things.

III

And it all happened as she had foreseen.

Anthony came home early, because it was a fine afternoon. He made the
kind of joke that calamity always forced from him, by some perversion of
his instincts.

"When is an ash-tree not an ash-tree? When it's a tree of Heaven."

He was exquisitely polite to Grannie and the Aunties, and his manner to
Frances, which she openly complained of, was, he said, what a woman
brought on herself when she reserved her passion for her children, her
sentiment for trees of Heaven, and her mockery for her devoted husband.

"I suppose we can have some tennis _now_," said Auntie Louie.

"Certainly," said Anthony, "we can, and we shall." He tried not to look
at Frances.

And Auntie Edie became automatically animated.

"I can't serve for nuts, but I can run. Who's going to play with _me_?"

"I am," said Anthony. He was perfect.

The game of tennis had an unholy and terrible attraction for Auntie
Louie and Auntie Edie. Neither of them could play. But, whereas Auntie
Louie thought that she could play and took tennis seriously, Auntie Edie
knew that she couldn't and took it as a joke.

Auntie Louie stood tall and rigid and immovable. She planted herself,
like a man, close up to the net, where Anthony wanted to be, and where
he should have been; but Auntie Louie said she was no good if you put
her to play back; she couldn't be expected to take every ball he missed.

When Auntie Louie called out "Play!" she meant to send a nervous shudder
through her opponents, shattering their morale. She went thr