shmen. He does not know when he is beaten."

"We will endeavour," Erlito said, taking up his racquet, "to impress
it upon him. There are cigarettes by your side, Reist."

The girl went to her place at the end of the court.

"This must be the deciding game," she declared, "for the light is
going, and dad is smoking his last cigar. Ready! Serve!"

The game recommenced. Reist sat upon an overturned box by the side of
Mr. Van Decht smoking a cigarette and watching gravely the flying
figures. It was the girl who absorbed most of his attention. To him
she was an utterly new type. She was as beautiful in her way as his
own sister, but her frank energy and the easy terms of intimacy which
obviously existed between her male companions and herself was wholly
inexplicable to him. He watched her with fascinated gaze. All the
beautiful women whom he had ever known had numbered amongst their
characteristics a certain restraint, almost an aloofness, which he had
come to look upon as their inevitable attribute. Their smiles were
rare and precious marks of favour, an undisturbed serenity of
deportment was almost an inherent part of their education. Here was a
woman of the new world, no less to be respected, he was sure, than her
sisters of Theos, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, yet viewing life from a
wholly different standpoint. From the first there was something
curiously fascinating to Reist in the perfect naturalness and
self-assurance of the girl whose every thought and energy seemed
centred just then upon that flying cork. Her lips were slightly
parted, her eyes were bright, her face was full of colour and
vivacity. She sprang backwards and forwards, jumped and stooped with
the delightful freedom of perfect health and strength. She even joined
in the chaff which flashed backwards and forwards across the net,
good-humoured always, and gay, but always personal and indicating a
more than common intimacy between the little party. Reist would have
been quite content to have sat and watched her until the game was
over, but for a sudden, and to him amazing, incident. At a critical
moment Erlito missed a difficult stroke--the younger and slighter of
his two opponents threw his racquet into the air with a curious little
cry of triumph.

"Ho-e-la! Ho-e-la!"

Reist started almost to his feet, and the blood surged hotly in his
veins. Where had he heard that cry before? He looked the man over with
a swift and eager scrutiny. Olive-cheeked,