I shall fail miserably if I ever do play your father in
the final. There are days when I play golf as badly as I play tennis.
You'll hardly believe me."

She smiled reminiscently.

"Tom is much too good at tennis. His service is perfectly dreadful."

"It's a little terrifying on first acquaintance."

"But you're better at golf than at tennis, Mr. Garnet. I wish you were
not."

"This is special pleading," I said. "It isn't fair to appeal to my
better feelings, Miss Derrick."

"I didn't know golfers had any where golf was concerned. Do you really
have your off-days?"

"Nearly always. There are days when I slice with my driver as if it
were a bread-knife."

"Really?"

"And when I couldn't putt to hit a haystack."

"Then I hope it will be on one of those days that you play father."

"I hope so, too," I said.

"You hope so?"

"Yes."

"But don't you want to win?"

"I should prefer to please you."

"Really, how very unselfish of you, Mr. Garnet," she replied, with a
laugh. "I had no idea that such chivalry existed. I thought a golfer
would sacrifice anything to win a game."

"Most things."

"And trample on the feelings of anybody."

"Not everybody," I said.

At this point the professor joined us.

CHAPTER XV

THE ARRIVAL OF NEMESIS

Some people do not believe in presentiments. They attribute that
curious feeling that something unpleasant is going to happen to such
mundane causes as liver, or a chill, or the weather. For my own part, I
think there is more in the matter than the casual observer might
imagine.

I awoke three days after my meeting with the professor at the
club-house, filled with a dull foreboding. Somehow I seemed to know
that that day was going to turn out badly for me. It may have been
liver or a chill, but it was certainly not the weather. The morning was
perfect,--the most glorious of a glorious summer. There was a haze over
the valley and out to sea which suggested a warm noon, when the sun
should have begun the serious duties of the day. The birds were singing
in the trees and breakfasting on the lawn, while Edwin, seated on one
of the flower-beds, watched them with the eye of a connoisseur.
Occasionally, when a sparrow hopped in his direction, he would make a
sudden spring, and the bird would fly away to the other side of the
lawn. I had never seen Edwin catch a sparrow. I believe they looked on
him as a bit of a crank, and humoured him by coming within springing
dis