“Oh, Rodney, look!” cried Jane. “Eh?” said Rodney Spelvin. His remark was drowned in a passionate squeal of agony from his betrothed. The most poignant of all tragedies had occurred. The ball, touching the green, leaped like a young lamb, scuttled past the pin, and took a running dive over the cliff. There was a silence. Jane’s partner, who was seated on the bench by the sand-box reading a pocket edition in limp leather of Vardon’s _What every Young Golfer Should Know_, with which she had been refreshing herself at odd moments all through the round, had not observed the incident. William Bates, with the tact of a true golfer, refrained from comment. Jane was herself swallowing painfully. It was left to Rodney Spelvin to break the silence. “Good!” he said. Jane Packard turned like a stepped-on worm. “What do you mean, good?” “You hit your ball farther than she did.” “I sent it into the river,” said Jane, in a low, toneless voice. “Capital!” said Rodney Spelvin, delicately masking a yawn with two fingers of his shapely right hand. “Capital! Capital!” Her face contorted with pain, Jane put down another ball. “Playing three,” she said. The student of Vardon marked the place in her book with her thumb, looked up, nodded, and resumed her reading. “Nice w--” began William Bates, as the ball soared off the tee, and checked himself abruptly. Already he could see that the unfortunate girl had put too little beef into it. The ball was falling, falling. It fell. A crystal fountain flashed up towards the sun. The ball lay floating on the bosom of the stream, only some few feet short of the island. But, as has been well pointed out, that little less and how far away! “Playing five!” said Jane, between her teeth. “What,” inquired Rodney Spelvin, chattily, lighting a cigarette, “is the record break?” “Playing _five_,” said Jane, with a dreadful calm, and gripped her mashie. “Half a second,” said William Bates, suddenly. “I say, I believe you could play that last one from where it floats. A good crisp slosh with a niblick would put you on, and you’d be there in four, with a chance for a five. Worth trying, what? I mean, no sense in dropping strokes unless you have to.” Jane’s eyes were gleaming. She threw William a look of infinite gratitude. “Why, I believe I could!” “Worth having a dash.” “There’s a boat down there!” “I could row,” said William. “I could stand in the middle and slosh,” cried Jane. “And what’s-his-name--_that_,” said William, jerking his head in the direction of Rodney Spelvin, who was strolling up and down behind the tee, humming a gay Venetian barcarolle, “could steer.” “William,” said Jane, fervently, “you’re a darling.” “Oh, I don’t know,” said William, modestly. “There’s no one like you in the world. Rodney!” “Eh?” said Rodney Spelvin. “We’re going out in that boat. I want you to steer.”