to his fate and comply with her request for a lesson in the
science of "screws" and "potting." He had been priding himself on his
wisdom and self-control in retiring from tennis and the society of the
ladies, and had not reckoned on the perseverance of the one lady he
wished to avoid.

They played till others arrived; Jack was oddly moved by the sight of
her slender hand, exquisitely feminine and appealing, as it poised the
cue or lay on the green cloth of the table. Little intimacies were
inevitable as he was further called upon to instruct her in the
formation of a "bridge," or the handling of a cue; and he soon forgot
his desire to escape, in the involuntary thrills her contact gave him.

Eventually, she gracefully resigned in favour of a couple of members who
looked their anxiety to play, and carried Jack off to escort her home.

"You are quite sure you do not mind?" she asked softly.

"Why should I mind?" he fenced awkwardly.

"Because you have behaved lately as though you did not--not--like
me...."

"Have I?" he asked, flushing red in the darkness. "That isn't true."

"I thought, perhaps, it was not true. That is why I was determined to
have this opportunity for a talk."

She did most of the talking while he barely listened, being conscious
only of the thumping of his capitulating heart. But neither made any
allusion to the tender episode on the verandah, from which Jack dated
his undoing.

In a quiet lane where the shadows lay deepest, he was asked to strike a
match. Convicted of lack of courtesy, Jack hurriedly produced his
cigarette case and offered it to her with confused apologies.

"No thanks. Only a lighted match. I want to show you something," she
said plaintively. And while he struck a light she rolled back her silk
sleeve and displayed for his benefit a purple bruise on her shoulder
where it curved down to the arm; an ugly, evil-looking thing staining
the marble purity of the flesh.

"How did that happen?" he asked greatly shocked and very sympathetic.

"Can't you guess?"

"Good God!--is it possible? Is he such a cad as all that?" What else was
Jack to think?

"Perhaps I had better say no more about it, only I thought you had
better know." Only the inference was possible, and Jack stood
stock-still burning with indignant fury that a woman should be subjected
to such brutality at the hands of a man. The match burned down to his
finger-tips and fell to the ground leaving the two in the sh