he left; the ball was hit out by Mr. Raeburn
and thrown in by a young Britling; lost by the forwards and rescued by
the padded lady. Forward again! This time will do it!

Cecily away to the left had worked round Mr. Raeburn once more. Teddy,
realising that things were serious, was tearing back to attack her.

Mr. Direck supported with silent intentness. "Centre!" cried Mr.
Britling. "Cen-tre!"

"Mr. Direck!" came her voice, full of confidence. (Of such moments is
the heroic life.) The ball shot behind the hurtling Teddy. Mr. Direck
stopped it with his foot, a trick he had just learnt from the eldest
Britling son. He was neither slow nor hasty. He was in the half-circle,
and the way to the goal was barred only by the dust-cloak lady and Mr.
Lawrence Carmine. He made as if to shoot to Mr. Carmine's left and then
smacked the ball, with the swiftness of a serpent's stroke, to his
right.

He'd done it! Mr. Carmine's stick and feet were a yard away.

Then hard on this wild triumph came a flash of horror. One can't see
everything. His eye following the ball's trajectory....

Directly in its line of flight was the perambulator.

The ball missed the legs of the lady with the noble nose by a kind of
miracle, hit and glanced off the wheel of the perambulator, and went
spinning into a border of antirrhinums.

"Good!" cried Cecily. "Splendid shot!"

He'd shot a goal. He'd done it well. The perambulator it seemed didn't
matter. Though apparently the impact had awakened the baby. In the
margin of his consciousness was the figure of Mr. Britling remarking:
"Aunty. You really mustn't wheel the perambulator--_just_ there."

"I thought," said the aunt, indicating the goal posts by a facial
movement, "that those two sticks would be a sort of protection.... Aah!
_Did_ they then?"

Never mind that.

"That's _game!_" said one of the junior Britlings to Mr. Direck with a
note of high appreciation, and the whole party, relaxing and crumpling
like a lowered flag, moved towards the house and tea.

Section 5

"We'll play some more after tea," said Cecily. "It will be cooler then."

"My word, I'm beginning to like it," said Mr. Direck.

"You're going to play very well," she said.

And such is the magic of a game that Mr. Direck was humbly proud and
grateful for her praise, and trotted along by the side of this creature
who had revealed herself so swift and resolute and decisive, full to
overflowing of the mere pleasure of jus