And if I omit to report the remainder of his speech it is not merely because it contained expressions with which I am reluctant to sully my lips, but because, omitting these expletives, what he said was almost word for word what you were saying to me just now about Nathaniel Frisby. It was, it seemed, Wallace Chesney’s manner, his arrogance, his attitude of belonging to some superior order of being that had so wounded Raymond Gandle. Wallace Chesney had, it appeared, criticised Gandle’s mashie-play in no friendly spirit; had hung up the game on the fourteenth tee in order to show him how to place his feet; and on the way back to the club-house had said that the beauty of golf was that the best player could enjoy a round even with a dud, because, though there might be no interest in the match, he could always amuse himself by playing for his medal score. I was profoundly shaken. “Wallace Chesney!” I exclaimed. “Was it really Wallace Chesney who behaved in the manner you describe?” “Unless he’s got a twin brother of the same name, it was.” “Wallace Chesney a victim to swelled head! I can hardly credit it.” “Well, you needn’t take my word for it unless you want to. Ask anybody. It isn’t often he can get any one to play with him now.” “You horrify me!” Raymond Gandle smoked awhile in brooding silence. “You’ve heard about his engagement?” he said at length. “I have heard nothing, nothing. What about his engagement?” “Charlotte Dix has broken it off.” “No!” “Yes. Couldn’t stand him any longer.” I got rid of Gandle as soon as I could. I made my way as quickly as possible to the house where Charlotte lived with her aunt. I was determined to sift this matter to the bottom and to do all that lay in my power to heal the breach between two young people for whom I had a great affection. “I have just heard the news,” I said, when the aunt had retired to some secret lair, as aunts do, and Charlotte and I were alone. “What news?” said Charlotte, dully. I thought she looked pale and ill, and she had certainly grown thinner. “This dreadful news about your engagement to Wallace Chesney. Tell me, why did you do this thing? Is there no hope of a reconciliation?” “Not unless Wally becomes his old self again.” “But I had always regarded you two as ideally suited to one another.” “Wally has completely changed in the last few weeks. Haven’t you heard?” “Only sketchily, from Raymond Gandle.” “I refuse,” said Charlotte, proudly, all the woman in her leaping to her eyes, “to marry a man who treats me as if I were a kronen at the present rate of exchange, merely because I slice an occasional tee-shot. The afternoon I broke off the engagement”--her voice shook, and I could see that her indifference was but a mask--“the afternoon I broke off the en-gug-gug-gage-ment, he t-told me I ought to use an iron off the tee instead of a dud-dud-driver.”