“At your convenience,” said Selwyn, smiling.

“Not at all!  Yours is the first account to be squared; then Neergard—­”

“Do you owe him, Gerald?”

“Do I?  Oh, Lord!  But he’s a patient soul—­really, Philip, I wish you didn’t dislike him so thoroughly, because he’s good company and besides that he’s a very able man. . . .  Well, we won’t talk about him, then.  Come on; I’ll lick the very life out of you over the net!”

A few moments later the white balls were flying over the white net, and active white-flannelled figures were moving swiftly over the velvet turf.

Drina, aloft on the umpire’s perch, calmly scored and decided each point impartially, though her little heart was beating fast in desire for her idol’s supremacy; and it was all her official composure could endure to see how Eileen at the net beat down his defence, driving him with her volleys to the service line.

Selwyn’s game proved to be steady, old-fashioned, but logical; Eileen, sleeves at her elbows, red-gold hair in splendid disorder, carried the game through Boots straight at her brother—­and the contest was really a brilliant duel between them, Lansing and Selwyn assisting when a rare chance came their way.  The pace was too fast for them, however; they were in a different class and they knew it; and after two terrific sets had gone against Gerald and Boots, the latter, signalling Selwyn, dropped out and climbed up beside Drina to watch a furious single between Eileen and Gerald.

“Oh, Boots, Boots!” said Drina, “why didn’t you stay forward and kill her drives and make her lob?  I just know you could do it if you had only thought to play forward!  What on earth was the matter?”

“Age,” said Mr. Lansing serenely—­“decrepitude, Drina.  I am a Was, sweetheart, but Eileen still remains an Is.”

“I won’t let you say it!  You are not a Was!” said the child fiercely.  “After luncheon you can take me on for practice.  Then you can just give it to her!”

“It would gratify me to hand a few swift ones to somebody,” he said.  “Look at that demon girl, yonder!  She’s hammering Gerald to the service line!  Oh, my, oh, me!  I’m only fit for hat-ball with Billy or cat’s-cradle with Kit-Ki.  Drina, do you realise that I am nearly thirty?”

“Pooh!  I’m past thirteen.  In five years I’ll be eighteen.  I expect to marry you at eighteen.  You promised.”

“Sure thing,” admitted Boots; “I’ve bought the house, you know.”

“I know it,” said the child gravely.

Boots looked down at her; she smiled and laid her head, with its clustering curls, against his shoulder, watching the game below with the quiet composure of possession.

Their relations, hers and Lansing’s, afforded infinite amusement to the Gerards.  It had been a desperate case from the very first; and the child took it so seriously, and considered her claim on Boots so absolute, that neither that young man nor anybody else dared make a jest of the affair within her hearing.