“Bored?” she echoed. “Do I look bored? I’m perfectly happy. It is dear of you to keep me on.” Sir Geoffrey took the honour, and drove his ball well down the course. Lionel fluffed his shot. The Squire chuckled. At golf the mistakes of our nearest and dearest are not altogether displeasing to us. “We shall down em,” he predicted. They did at first. Lionel happened to be badly off his game. Joyce played well and steadily. The young man’s mortification deepened as he hit ball after ball into the rough, which, of course, made Joyce’s following stroke all the more difficult. A couple of balls were lost in the heather and whins. On each occasion Lady Margot left the Squire to help her opponents to find their ball. Lionel’s ever-increasing depression amused and pleased her. She liked men to be “keen”—up to a point. That point must not be a “vanishing point.” For instance, the keenness of clever novelists kept them locked up, inaccessible, invisible. She rallied Lionel gaily: “What does it matter?” He answered irritably: “Nothing to you, Margot. But I’m wrecking Joyce’s game, spoiling her morning, confound it!” Joyce looked at him. Lady Margot’s eyes twinkled. What she had confidently expected came to pass. The parson’s daughter “gave herself away.” Her fleeting glance at a worried and apologetic partner was unmistakable. It flashed its message upon the ambient air, and was gone! Her voice, however, remained under control. “You are not wrecking my game, Lionel. I like difficult shots.” “Do you?” murmured Margot. “And perhaps you regard golf as a sort of epitome of life?” Joyce flashed another glance at her. “I suppose I do.” “If you found yourself ‘bunkered,’ you would not lose heart?” At last Joyce had a glimpse of claws, but she answered quietly: “I should take my niblick and try to get out.” Lionel’s voice interrupted them. “Here’s the beastly ball, and quite unplayable.” “What will you do?” asked Margot of Joyce. “Play it out.” Her caddy presented a niblick. Joyce concentrated her attention upon the ball, deeply imbedded in heather. The ball was _almost_ unplayable. The Squire sauntered up, slightly impatient of the delay, thinking of his luncheon. “Chuck this hole,” he suggested. “We’ll walk to the next tee.” “Shall we chuck the game?” said Lionel to his partner. “This is not my day out.” “We’re four up and six to go,” added the Squire. “Chuck the game?” repeated Joyce. “Never!” Lionel pulled himself together. All trace of irritation vanished. He laughed, squaring his shoulders, sticking out his chin. “Joyce is a stayer and so am I. Father, I’ll take four to one in half-crowns?” “Done!” said the Squire. “I’ll give the same odds,” remarked Margot. “Right,” replied Lionel. “Go it, Joyce! Smite and spare not! Get on to the fairway, if you can.” “Get on to the green,” exclaimed the Squire derisively.