"And as I was watching your action," continued the girl judicially, "I thought of something--just as you dodged round that old gentleman at the corner of Reedham Gardens." "I didn't notice him," said Pip humbly. "No? Well, he noticed you, I think, because he stopped and spoke to the policeman at the corner after he had passed us," said the girl gravely. "I seem to have been going it. But what was the thing you thought of?" "Well, you bowl left-handed." "Yes; I know." "You run up to the wicket in rather a queer way, as though you were going to bowl at point, and then you suddenly swing round the corner and let the batsman have it instead." "Quite right. But where on earth--?" "Don't interrupt! I am speaking to you for your good." The girl was genuinely in earnest now. "Well, you always bowl over the wicket, don't you?" "Yes; why not?" Elsie looked at him severely. "Don't you see what a grand chance you have been throwing away all this time?" she said. "If you bowled _round_ the wicket, you would--" "I see, I see!" roared Pip, slapping his leg. "Confound my thick head! The umpire! If I bowl over the wicket I'm in full view of the batsman all the time; but with my diagonal run, if I bowled _round_ the wicket I should pass behind the umpire just before delivering the ball, and so bother the batsman? Is that it?" "That's it. You should have thought it out for yourself years ago," said the girl reprovingly. The conversation was interrupted by their arrival at Mrs. Blane's house. Miss Innes was immediately snapped up to play tennis, and Pip drifted off in search of the lady to whom he was wont to refer with mingled pride and depression as his "best girl." They greeted each other in their usual manner, the balance of cordiality being heavily on Pip's side; and Miss Carr inquired-- "Who is your friend--the school-girl person in the white frock?" Pip, anxious to clear himself of any appearance of faithlessness, explained that Miss Innes was a friend of his sister's, and hastened on his own part to disclaim anything approaching intimacy with the lady. He then craved the favour of a game of croquet. "Not at present," said Miss Carr, who had just been introduced to a young Guardsman,--"I'll see later. But you can go and get me some strawberries and bring them over to the croquet-lawn." Pip departed as bidden; but somehow he was not conscious of the glow of heroic devotion that usually actuated him when obeying Madeline Carr's behests. He had a feeling that she might have said "Please!" and a further feeling that "other people"--no further specification--would have done so at once.