Anthony Hope - Second String

"Five all, and deuce!" cried Wellgood, who had taken on himself the function of umpire. He turned to Isobel and Vivien, who sat by in wicker armchairs, watching the game. "I never thought it would be so close. Hayes has pulled up wonderfully!"

"I think Mr. Hayes'll win now," said Vivien.

An "exhibition single" was being played, by request, before the audience above indicated. Andy Hayes had protested that, though of course he would play if they wished, he could not give Harry a game – he had not played for more than a year. At first it looked as if he were right: Harry romped away with the first four games, so securely superior that he fired friendly chaff at Andy's futile rushes across the court in pursuit of a ball skilfully placed where he least expected it. But in the fifth game the rallies became very long; Andy was playing for safety – playing deadly safe. He did not try to kill; Harry did, but often committed suicide. The fifth, the sixth, the seventh game went to Andy. A flash of brilliancy gave Harry the eighth – five, three! The ninth was his service – he should have had it, and the set. Andy's returns were steady, low, all good length, possible to return, almost impossible to kill. But Harry tried to kill. Four, five. Andy served, and found a "spot" – at least Harry's malevolent glances at a particular piece of turf implied a theory that he had. Five all! And now "Deuce"!

"He's going to lick me, see if he isn't!" cried Harry Belfield, perfectly good-natured, but not hiding his opinion that such a result would be paradoxical.

Andy felt terribly ashamed of himself – he wanted to win so much. To play Harry Belfield on equal terms and beat him, just for once! This spirit of emulation was new to his soul; it seemed rather alarming when it threatened his old-time homage in all things to Harry. Where was ambition going to stop? None the less, eye and hand had no idea of not doing their best. A slashing return down the side line and a clever lob gave him the game – six, five!

Harry Belfield was the least bit vexed – amusedly vexed. He remembered Andy's clumsy elephantine sprawlings (no other word for them) about the court when in their boyhood he had first undertaken to teach him the game. Andy must have played a lot in Canada.

"Now I'll take three off you, Andy," he cried, and served a double fault. The "gallery" laughed. "Oh, damn it!" exclaimed Harry, indecorously loud, and served another. Andy could not help laughing – the first time he had ever laughed at Harry Belfield. Given a handicap of thirty, the game was, barring extraordinary accidents, his. So it proved. He won it at forty-fifteen, with a stroke that a child ought to have returned; Harry put it into the net.

"Lost your nerve, Harry?" said the umpire.

"The beggar's such a sticker!" grumbled Harry, laughing. "You think you've got him licked – and you haven't!"

"I'm glad Mr. Hayes won." This from Vivien.

"Not only defeated, but forsaken!" Harry cried. "Andy, I'll have your blood!"

Andy Hayes laughed joyously. This victory came as an unlooked-for adornment to a day already notable. A Saturday half-holiday, down from town in time to lunch at Nutley, tennis and tea, and the prospect (not free from piquant alarm) of dinner at Halton – this was a day for Andy Hayes! With an honest vanity – a vanity based on true affection – he thought how the account of it would tickle Jack Rock. His life seemed broadening out before him, and he would like to tell dear old Jack all about it. Playing lawn-tennis at Nutley, dining at Halton – here were things just as delightful, just as enlightening, as supping at the great restaurant in the company of the Nun and pretty sardonic Miss Dutton. He owed them all to Harry – he almost wished he had lost the set. At any rate he felt that he ought to wish it.

"It was an awful fluke!" he protested apologetically.

"You'd beat him three times out of five," Wellgood asserted in that confident tone of his.

Harry looked a little vexed. He bore an occasional defeat with admirable good-nature: to be judged consistently inferior was harder schooling to his temper. Triumphing in whatever the contest might be had grown into something of a custom with him. It brooked occasional breaches: abrogation was another matter. But "Oh no!" cried both the girls together.

Harry was on his feet again in a moment. Women's praise was always sweet to him, and not the less sweet for being open to a suspicion of partiality – which is, after all, a testimony to achievement in other fields.

Such a partiality accounted for the conviction of Harry's superiority in Vivien's case at least. She had grown up in the midst of the universal Meriton adoration of him as the most accomplished, the kindest, the merriest son of that soil, the child of promise, the present pride and the future glory of his native town. Any facts or reports not to the credit of the idol or reflecting on his divinity had not reached her cloistered ears. Wellgood, like Harry's own father, had heard some, but Wellgood held common-sense views even more fully than Mr. Belfield; facts were facts, and all men had to be young for a time. Now, if signs were to be trusted, if the idol's own words, eyes, and actions meant what she could not but deem they meant (or where stood the idol's honesty?), he proposed to ask her to share his throne; he, the adored, offered adoration – an adoration on a basis of reciprocity, be it understood. She did not grumble at that. To give was so easy, so inevitable; to receive – to be asked to accept – so wonderful. It could not enter her head or her heart to question the value of the gift or to doubt the whole-heartedness with which it was bestowed. It was to her so great a thing that she held it must be as great to Harry. Really at the present moment it was as great to Harry. His courtship of her seemed a very great thing, his absolute exclusive devotion a rare flower of romance.

But she had been glad to see Andy win. Oh yes, she was compassionate. She knew so well what it was not to do things as cleverly as other people, and how oppressive it felt to be always inferior. Besides Andy had a stock of gratitude to draw on; somehow he had, by his solidity, caused Curly to appear far less terrible. With a genuine gladness she saw him pluck one leaf from Harry's wreath. It must mean so much to Mr. Hayes; it mattered nothing to Harry. Nay, rather, it was an added chance for his graces of manner to shine forth.

They did shine forth. "Very good of you, ladies, but I think he holds me safe," said Harry.

"I shouldn't if you'd only play steady," Andy observed in his reflective way. "Taking chances – that's your fault, Harry."

"Taking chances – why, it's life!" cried Harry, any shadow of vexation utterly gone and leaving not the smallest memory.

"Well, ordinary people can't look at it like that," Andy said, with no touch of sarcasm, amply acknowledging that Harry and the ordinary were things remote from one another.

Was life taking chances? To one only of the party did that seem really true. Harry had said it, but he was not the one. He was possessed by a new triumphant certainty; Wellgood by the thought of a mastery he deemed already established, and waiting only for his word to be declared; Vivien by a dream that glowed and glittered, refusing too close a touch with earth; Andy by a stout conviction that he must not think about chances, but work away at his timber (he still called it lumber in his inner mind) and his books, pausing only to thank heaven for a wonderful Saturday holiday.

But life was taking chances! Supine in her chair, silent since her one exclamation in championship of Harry Belfield, Isobel Vintry echoed the cry. Life was taking chances? Yes, any life worth having perhaps was. But what if the chances did not come one's way? Who can take what fate never offers?