He looked in his bag for another club, played his shot, and made a fairly good one, and then appeared to recall for the first time that he had not recently seen me.

“Hello, Smith; when did you strike town?” he said, a welcoming smile on his face as he offered his hand.

“About an hour ago,” I said.

“Well, well!  I’m glad to see you!  Why didn’t you wire you were coming?  We’d have come for you in our new machine.  Bought a new one since we came over here and have been travelling around in it.  It’s more comfortable than these confounded English trains.  They’re the limit, aren’t they?  Well, how are you?  Seems to me you look a bit peaked?”

“I’m all right,” I insisted.  “How is—­how is Mrs. Harding?”

“Never better in her life!”

“And how is—­how is Miss Harding?”

We were on the edge of the green, and Harding had played his ball so that we passed near the old gentleman who was Harding’s opponent.

“Smith,” said that gentleman, “I want you to know Old Tom Morris!  Of course, you have heard of him—­every golfer has—­and all that I ask is that I may be able to play as good a game and be as good a fellow when I am eighty-five years old.  Mr. Morris, this is my young friend, John Henry Smith, of America.”

I greeted this famous character with some commonplace remarks, and remained silent while they putted out.  I made no further attempt in the conversational line until they had driven the next tee.

“How is your daughter, Mr. Harding?” I asked.

“Grace?  The Kid?” he hesitated.  “She’s pretty well, but this climate don’t seem exactly to agree with her.  We must get her started on golf again.  She hasn’t played a game since she has been here.”

My heart gave a bound when he said that little word “we.”  Surely he knew nothing of the trouble which had come between us.  If she were married, he surely would have said something about it, and up to that minute I had a lingering fear that I might have lost her to some suitor other than Carter.

“And she has never played the course?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.

“Not once,” he declared.  “As a matter of fact, Smith, women are not very popular around here.  They herd them off on a third course which is set aside for them.  I looked it over, and it’s a scrubby sort of a place.”

“That’s an outrage!” I declared.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he returned.  “They can hack around over there and do no great damage.  Between you and me, Smith, I think women are more or less of a nuisance on a course frequented by good players.”

I recalled that I once held the same opinion, and in looking back to the opening pages of this diary I find that I expressed it even more brutally than did Mr. Harding.  But I was in no mood to argue the matter with him.

“I presume Mrs. and Miss Harding are at the hotel?” I carelessly remarked.  “I should like to pay my respects to them.”