Was she just too successful? That was a dreadful question which suggested itself to her. Was that the proper spirit in which he should approach his task of getting one step near to the holder of the cup? Would he not have a better chance if he had gone to the court in the tranquil spirit that was usually his--the spirit of Horatio--the man that Fortune’s buffets and awards had ta’en with equal thanks? She knew that the race is not always to the swift, nor the set to the smasher. The eager man with the racket is apt to become racketty and not precise; and she had sent him from her as full of enthusiasm as a schoolboy arriving in London with a sovereign in one pocket and in the other a ticket for the pavilion at the Oval for Surrey v, Sussex, and Ranji 75 not out the previous evening. For a while she had a grave misgiving. She felt that after all she had misjudged the man. She had never believed that he would be capable of anything like this within half an hour of her beginning to speak to him. She had never believed in sudden conversions--the _tours de force_ of the brilliant evangelist; and she had fancied that it would take her several days, extending over the whole summer, to convince that man that there was something in him. And yet there he was, profane--actually profane in his enthusiasm in less than half an hour! And the worst of it was that she had been foolish enough to allow her action in this matter to suggest that she was staking her reputation as a prophetess upon the event. That was very foolish on her part. No sibil worthy of the name would have done this. The sibil made her book with wisdom and caution, a safe hedging and an ambiguous phrase being the note of her advice. Priscilla felt that by laying so much emphasis upon the necessity for his throwing his whole soul into his game of tennis she had jeopardized the success of her counsel to him in the matters that mattered. She felt angry with herself when this reflection came to her; but a few minutes later she felt far angrier at the thought that she had been angry over something that was no business of hers. What did it matter to her if Jack Wingfield made a fool of himself over his tennis or anything else or everything else? How could his success affect her one way or another?