“If he had he wouldn’t worry as he’s doing. Most likely some pal of his put a shilling on him and told him. But his backer would do well to hedge. That’s deuce. Glenny will take all the rest.” But this prediction, like the many prophecies of critics, was not realized. The play on both sides was quick, firm and commonplace, and Glenister got his vantage. By two more services Wingfield got deuce and vantage; Glenister returned the third ball, and Wingfield sent it back in a tight place; but Glenister managed to get under it; he did the same with Wingfield’s return, only he placed the ball. Wingfield got at it, however, with his left, and when the other man was returning it to the bottom of the court far over his head, Wingfield jumped for it, and just managed to touch it over. His antagonist never even ran for it. “Luck!” remarked one of the critics. “That was a lucky win for Wingfield. It might have gone anywhere.” Score 4--2. From that moment Glenister seemed to go all to pieces. The next game realized “game--love,” and the next “game--fifteen,” and Wingfield walked out, examining with extraordinary attention what he seemed to think was a defect in the stringing of his racket. He went straight past Priscilla without seeing her. She meant to say “Well played!” as he was passing, but when the moment came she found herself speechless. She could scarcely rise from her chair. She had no notion that her excitement could have such an effect upon her; and what was strangest of all to her was the tears in her eyes. Why on earth had the tears come to her eyes the moment after he had gone past her? This was incomprehensible to her. There seemed to her to be no sense in it. She did not take any exception to the feeling of pride of which she was conscious, or to the whisper that sounded in her ears: “You did it--it was you--you--you who made him win, and you have now linked yourself to his success in life, and you will have to stand by him.” That was all right; she had no idea of making any attempt to evade her responsibility. She had the instincts of a mother; was she one who would set a child on its feet in the middle of the roadway and then run away? She had talked to him so that his success in that match which he had just played had become something like the ordeal of drawing lots in the days when the Powers took care that there was no tomfoolery in the business; she had taken on her the _rôle_ of the prophetess and had in effect said to him, “Lo! this shall be a sign unto thee”--and he had accepted the hazard which she suggested to him, and had won, though the odds, as he knew, were against him. Well, the thing having worked out so, would he not follow up the dictation of the sign? Would he not allow himself to be subjugated by the logic of the lot and hasten to work out his own emancipation with a firm hand and in a confident spirit? Of course he would. And what then?