When he contrived to be alone he protracted the experience as far as he was able; and to-day, having escaped from a welcoming committee and the mayor of the suburb that was to be his home for a year, he drove alone to the country club, which had already elected him to membership. Here he was delighted to find that the late hour and nipping air had divested the links of every player, and, attended by a lingering caddy who was unaware of his client’s identity, James Herbert set forth upon a round of the course with a leisureliness unmatched by the most elderly member of the club. It was a leisureliness so extreme indeed that it annoyed a player who arrived in full equipment a quarter of an hour after young Mr. McArdle had made his first drive on that course. Her equipment was too complete to please her, as it happened, for he had taken the last caddy, which was another item in her list of indignations;—Lily had found time to acquire such a list since finishing her letter. Most of the items concerned that unfortunate Henry, mentioned as having been dismissed on the previous evening. Henry had called; had been turned away at the door with “Not at home”; and then, by an unworthy pretext—though his lamentable state of mind might have offered some excuse—he had secured her presence at the telephone, where merely what he said to her was furniture enough for any ordinary list of indignations. She decided to cool her temper by a solitary but vigorous round of the golf course. Lily was one of those favoured creatures who have a genius for this most inviting yet most baffling of all the pastimes of mankind; and persistence had added so much to her native gift that a long shelf at home was needed to support the tournament prizes she had won. Various “ladies’ championships” were hers, too; and she was known among all the country clubs for miles around on account of a special talent, well practised, for marvellous little precisions of accuracy. Moreover, Lily was what players have been heard to call “conscientious” about her game. She wished ever to excel herself, to play excellently even when she played alone, and she was never quite at her best when she had no caddy; therefore she was annoyed with the gentleman ahead of her on that account, as well as because of his leisure.