It was my first game with her since the day she won the touring car from her father, on which occasion she made Woodvale in 116. This was so marked an improvement over her former exhibition that I was at a loss to account for it. Since then Miss Harding had confined her golf to the practising of approach shots and putting, following the instructions given by Wallace. I have been so busy with Wall Street and other affairs that I have paid little attention to golf, and smiled at her enthusiasm. "How shall we play?" I asked. "You have improved so much and are so confident that I dare not offer you more than a stroke a hole." "I shall beat you at those odds," she said. "This is a short course, you know." "You will have to make it in a hundred to beat me," I replied. "Fore!" she called, and drove a beautiful ball with a true swing which was the perfection of grace. I made one which did not beat it enough to give me any advantage, and we started down the field together. "Mr. Wallace must be a wonderfully clever teacher," I said, "or else he has a most remarkably apt pupil. I wish I could improve that rapidly." Miss Harding smiled but declined to commit herself. Her second shot was a three-quarter midiron to the green and she made it like a veteran. She played the stroke--and it is one of the most difficult--in perfect form, and I was so astounded that I cut under a short approach shot and had to play the odd. She came within inches of going down in three, and I then missed a long putt and lost the hole outright, she not needing the stroke handicap. "One up, Jacques Henri!" she laughed. She drove another perfect ball on the next hole, but the green was three hundred and fifty yards away and I reached it in two against her three. My work on the green was abominable and we both were down in fives. "Two up, Jacques Henri!" she exclaimed, her eyes dancing with excitement. "Really, now, don't you think I've improved?" "Improved!" I gasped. "That's not the word for it! You have been translated into a golf magician! I cannot understand it!" I don't suppose I played my best game, but even if I had I could not have won at the odds stipulated. I never lose interest in a golf game, but I must confess that I paid far more attention to her play than to my own. It was not the first time that I had witnessed a fine exhibition of golf by a woman, but it was the first time I had been privileged to see a strikingly pretty girl execute shots as they should be made. All former experiences had led me to the belief that feminine beauty and proficiency in golf run in adverse ratio. But here was a superb creature who combined beauty with a skill which was surpassing.