But the man did not know. Certain of himself, he held no certainty of her. Even his self-certainty seemed evanescent in her presence. Surely he had not dared to let himself adore this radiant, perfect creature! Surely, even daring to adore, he would never dare tell her of his adoration! She was like the goddesses, utterly removed from the touch of a man, utterly aloof from him. Then, fleetingly, he knew her no goddess, but a wife--Hector Brunton's wife. And all the scruples of his code made the knowledge bitter in his mouth. "Cavendish hasn't got a word to say for himself," thought Mollie. "Jimmy's ever so much better-looking--though Jimmy's tennis _is_ rotten. I sha'n't let Jimmy play in this set." And she insisted, following the high-handed method of the modern young, on playing with Spillcroft against Cavendish and her sister. Ronnie's patters proved somewhat less out of practice than he had imagined. "Thank you, partner," smiled Aliette, after the last stroke of the third, and decisive, set. "Your volleying saved, the day." "Oh, I didn't have much to do with it," he smiled back. Since the beginning of the match, except for the necessities of the strokes, they had hardly spoken to one another. But, for each, the forty minutes of partnership, the mutual will to win, the clean struggle on clean grass, the open air and the exercise had been one long delight. Scruples, uncertainties, consciousness of danger, consciousness of fear--these and all the inevitable soul-searchings of a love such as theirs took wings and departed from them. Surrendering their bodies and their minds to one another for the winning of a game; concentrating on the vagaries of a white ball, a net, and a few square feet of turf; they forgot their immediate selves, forgot that they were "Mr. Cavendish" and "Mrs. Brunton"--two poor human beings poised at the edge of emotional disaster, separated by law, by the church, by "honor," united only by the "sentimental impulse," and became, for the forgetful moment, one mind and one body. But now, once more, they were twain. Now forgetfulness was over. Now emotion poured back full-tide, submerging both their minds and their bodies. James Wilberforce lounged down from the clubhouse; drew Mollie away from her partner, and began whispering. Mollie called across the court: "I say, Alie, Mr. Wilberforce wants to drive me back in his car. You won't mind coming home by yourself, will you? I don't think I ought to play any more." "No, dear, I sha'n't mind," called back Aliette; and her eyes as she watched the two figures making towards the waiting cars; as she heard the chug of Wilberforce's engine, and saw his two-seater swing through the gates up the road toward Baron's Court, betrayed the truth of the remark. But when she turned once more to the flanneled man at her side, those eyes had regained their composure. "Can't we find a fourth?" remarked Aliette.