"We'll want you, Theodore, to look after the balls in the potatoes," said Mr. Pope lest that ingenuous mind should be corrupted behind his back.... Mrs. Pope found herself left to entertain a slightly disgruntled Trafford. Rom and Syd hovered on the off chance of notice, at the corner of the croquet lawn nearest the tea things. Mrs. Pope had already determined to make certain little matters clearer than they appeared to be to this agreeable but superfluous person, and she was greatly assisted by his opening upon the subject of her daughters. "Jolly tennis looks," he said. "Don't they?" said Mrs. Pope. "I think it is such a graceful game for a girl." Mr. Trafford glanced at Mrs. Pope's face, but her expression was impenetrable. "They both like it and play it so well," she said. "Their father is so skillful and interested in games. Marjorie tells me you were her examiner a year or so ago." "Yes. She struck my memory--her work stood out." "Of course she is clever," said Mrs. Pope. "Or we shouldn't have sent her to Oxbridge. There she's doing quite well--quite well. Everyone says so. I don't know, of course, if Mr. Magnet will let her finish there." "Mr. Magnet?" "She's just engaged to him. Of course she's frightfully excited about it, and naturally he wants her to come away and marry. There's very little excuse for a long engagement. No." Her voice died in a musical little note, and she seemed to be scrutinizing the tennis with an absorbed interest. "They've got new balls," she said, as if to herself. Trafford had rolled over, and she fancied she detected a change in his voice when it came. "Isn't it rather a waste not to finish a university career?" he said. "Oh, it wouldn't be wasted. Of course a girl like that will be hand and glove with her husband. She'll be able to help him with the scientific side of his jokes and all that. I sometimes wish it had been Daffy who had gone to college though. I sometimes think we've sacrificed Daffy a little. She's not the bright quickness of Marjorie, but there's something quietly solid about her mind--something _stable_. Perhaps I didn't want her to go away from me.... Mr. Magnet is doing wonders at the net. He's just begun to play--to please Marjorie. Don't you think he's a dreadfully amusing man, Mr. Trafford? He says such _quiet_ things." § 9