come under her notice. There was scarcely a hint in any of them of the present-day triangular love theme, though there were plenty of sweet love stories woven into their fascinating pages. There was murder, mystery, and crime in some proportion, but it did not constitute the main theme of any of these books. Pride, hatred, selfishness, impurity, unscrupulousness were there but not exalted or victorious. Love and fineness and chivalry were stressed as she had never heard them stressed by anyone except her father.
As Saturday drew near, she found herself anticipating the coming of Murray MacRae. She found herself most eager to ask him questions and determined to open the way at once for him to give that explanation he had promised.
But of course, her common sense told her it would turn out to be some mystic thing connected with religion and nothing she would be able to comprehend, nothing from which to get any real help in her trouble. There wasn’t any help for such trouble as hers. Her life was just blasted, that was all.
Yet after all her resolves, when Saturday afternoon came and he came over after her, wearing a white sweater that made his eyes look young and blue, and escorted her over to the tennis court, she grew suddenly shy before him, shy about asking questions such as she wanted to ask. She kept thinking of him as almost a minister and dreading to bring out her crude thoughts that only had reference to her own personal troubles. She shrank from having his keen, knowing eyes look deep into hers and read her life. She found she didn’t want him to suspect that the man she had been going to marry had been a man who frequented nightclubs and had been shot by a chorus girl’s lover. So she walked beside him across the road and around to the tennis court talking of most indifferent matters, what a lovely day it was and how the spring was getting almost as advanced here as it had been in her home when she came away.
Yet there was something exhilarating in it, just to be walking beside a pleasant young person, acting like a carefree girl again, forgetting the dark cloud on her life.
The air was crisp and clear, the sunshine bright, the court in the pink of perfection, for Murray had been working on it all the morning, and they played like two old hands who had been playing together for years. Gloria wondered why it was so pleasant to be playing with this stranger of whom she had been just the least little bit afraid when she was walking across the street with him.
They had played two sets and were well on into the third when John Hastings came around the corner of the house and signaled for their attention.
“Sorry to have to take the lady away,” he said with a grin, “but she has callers over at the house.”
Gloria’s face went blank. Calling on her? There must be a mistake. Who would call on her way up here? It couldn’t be that some of her friends from home had hunted her out and mistakenly come to see her! She shuddered at the thought, and the sunlight went out of her eyes as if a cloud had suddenly passed across them.
“Perhaps they won’t stay long and we can finish this afterward. It’s three all, and the last was a love game, remember?”
Her eyes lit up.
“Here’s hoping!” he said with another grin that seemed to make him her comrade and friend.
So she hurried across the street ahead of John Hastings, who had lingered to talk to Murray about his garden. She forgot that she had carried the racket with her, forgot that it was not her own, and remembered too late, as she came within recognition of her callers, realizing that a racket was the wrong thing for her to be carrying. She felt their disapproval by the very set of their shoulders as they sat in Emily Hastings’s porch rockers awaiting her. It was her aunt Miranda and her cousin Joan! Of all people the least expected! And they would think a game of tennis a waste of time. She was sure they would. If she had only left that racket
As Saturday drew near, she found herself anticipating the coming of Murray MacRae. She found herself most eager to ask him questions and determined to open the way at once for him to give that explanation he had promised.
But of course, her common sense told her it would turn out to be some mystic thing connected with religion and nothing she would be able to comprehend, nothing from which to get any real help in her trouble. There wasn’t any help for such trouble as hers. Her life was just blasted, that was all.
Yet after all her resolves, when Saturday afternoon came and he came over after her, wearing a white sweater that made his eyes look young and blue, and escorted her over to the tennis court, she grew suddenly shy before him, shy about asking questions such as she wanted to ask. She kept thinking of him as almost a minister and dreading to bring out her crude thoughts that only had reference to her own personal troubles. She shrank from having his keen, knowing eyes look deep into hers and read her life. She found she didn’t want him to suspect that the man she had been going to marry had been a man who frequented nightclubs and had been shot by a chorus girl’s lover. So she walked beside him across the road and around to the tennis court talking of most indifferent matters, what a lovely day it was and how the spring was getting almost as advanced here as it had been in her home when she came away.
Yet there was something exhilarating in it, just to be walking beside a pleasant young person, acting like a carefree girl again, forgetting the dark cloud on her life.
The air was crisp and clear, the sunshine bright, the court in the pink of perfection, for Murray had been working on it all the morning, and they played like two old hands who had been playing together for years. Gloria wondered why it was so pleasant to be playing with this stranger of whom she had been just the least little bit afraid when she was walking across the street with him.
They had played two sets and were well on into the third when John Hastings came around the corner of the house and signaled for their attention.
“Sorry to have to take the lady away,” he said with a grin, “but she has callers over at the house.”
Gloria’s face went blank. Calling on her? There must be a mistake. Who would call on her way up here? It couldn’t be that some of her friends from home had hunted her out and mistakenly come to see her! She shuddered at the thought, and the sunlight went out of her eyes as if a cloud had suddenly passed across them.
“Perhaps they won’t stay long and we can finish this afterward. It’s three all, and the last was a love game, remember?”
Her eyes lit up.
“Here’s hoping!” he said with another grin that seemed to make him her comrade and friend.
So she hurried across the street ahead of John Hastings, who had lingered to talk to Murray about his garden. She forgot that she had carried the racket with her, forgot that it was not her own, and remembered too late, as she came within recognition of her callers, realizing that a racket was the wrong thing for her to be carrying. She felt their disapproval by the very set of their shoulders as they sat in Emily Hastings’s porch rockers awaiting her. It was her aunt Miranda and her cousin Joan! Of all people the least expected! And they would think a game of tennis a waste of time. She was sure they would. If she had only left that racket
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