limb a ridge and there's the ball white and glistening on the green.
That means you've done exactly what you set out to do and that you've
got a long putt to beat Bogey. And if you ram it in!"

"Baby!" she said, laughing. "Did 'ums like 'ums bouncey ball."

At first he laughed too and told himself that naturally they couldn't
share all the same tastes. In the morning and evening he stayed with
her, neglecting his work. But gradually he came to feel that there was
something more than jocosity in her denunciation of the bouncey ball.

Soon after Easter one of Freda's colds kept her in bed for breakfast.
It was the Cartmells' last day but one and everything pointed to a
final test of strength. They went over in the morning and stayed to
lunch at the club-house. There were two great matches, of which each
side gained one. Martin had not yet lost his skill: he had dreaded the
day of torture when he would go "right off."

"Let's have another nine holes," said Viola Cartmell as they took an
early tea. "We aren't keeping Martin from his duty. And it's our last
chance and such an evening."

They agreed to play and nerved themselves for faultless execution.

An hour later Martin lay upon the steep bank at the edge of the ninth
green. Now he had grasped most certainly, what Freda would never
grasp, the mystery of Ham and Eggs. In the fine light of sunset the
moor seemed to tower inimitably above them, crowned with its eternal
tors, clear-cut as by a razor's edge against the vast blue emptiness
behind. The April breeze was whispering in the grass and timid larks
soared and plunged and hung singing in the void. Before him was the
smooth-shaven green, true as a billiard cloth but humped with testing
undulations. And there were the three other players awaiting with
tense anxiety the future of the match. Godfrey was kneeling to take
the line of his putt: the ball would end its journey along the side of
a veritable mountain, a glorious stroke to achieve! Farther back were
Margaret and Viola. Suddenly the breeze caught them, snatched at a
stray wisp of hair, played with their skirts, and gave a last caress to
cheeks already kissed to flame. There were grace and strength knit
perfectly: to Martin they seemed, after the slight form of Freda,
tremendous. Yet why shouldn't women be strong? He wanted them to be
strong, to walk with him, to fear neither wind nor weather. And
Freda...

His thoughts returned swiftly t