“I’m taking up golf again. Won’t it be nice? We’ll be able to play together every day.” Bradbury Fisher shuddered strongly. It was many years since he had played with his wife, but, like an old wound, the memory of it still troubled him occasionally. “It was Vosper’s idea.” “Vosper!” A sudden seething fury gripped Bradbury. This pestilent butler was an absolute home-wrecker. He toyed with the idea of poisoning Vosper’s port. Surely, if he were to do so, a capable lawyer could smooth things over and get him off with, at the worst, a nominal fine. “Vosper says I need exercise. He says he does not like my wheezing.” “Your what?” “My wheezing. I do wheeze, you know.” “Well, so does he.” “Yes, but a good butler is expected to wheeze. A wheezing woman is quite a different thing. My wheezing would never have done for the Duke, Vosper says.” Bradbury Fisher breathed tensely. “Ha!” he said. “I think it’s so nice of him, Bradbury. It shows he has our interests at heart, just like a faithful old retainer. He says wheezing is an indication of heightened blood-pressure and can be remedied by gentle exercise. So we’ll have our first round to-morrow morning, shall we?” “Just as you say,” said Bradbury dully. “I had a sort of date to make one of a foursome with three men at the club, but--” “Oh, you don’t want to play with those silly men any more. It will be much nicer, just you and I playing together.” * * * * * It has always seemed to me a strange and unaccountable thing that nowadays, when gloom is at such a premium in the world’s literature and all around us stern young pessimists are bringing home the bacon with their studies in the greyly grim, no writer has thought of turning his pen to a realistic portrayal of the golfing wife. No subject could be more poignant, and yet it has been completely neglected. One can only suppose that even modern novelists feel that the line should be drawn somewhere. Bradbury Fisher’s emotions, as he stood by the first tee watching his wife prepare to drive off, were far beyond my poor power to describe. Compared with him at that moment, the hero of a novel of the Middle West would have seemed almost offensively chirpy. This was the woman he loved, and she was behaving in a manner that made the iron sink deep into his soul.