“Let me wish you happiness,” Henry said, and seemed disposed to repeat his satiric bow, but thought better of it. “Is the engagement to be a long one?” he inquired, lightly, instead; and this seemed to be as effective as the bow, for Lily sprang up, as if she would strike him. “I could murder you!” she cried. “And, oh, how I’d like to! I’m not _sure_ Mr. McArdle proposed to me; I only _think_ he did. I told him I couldn’t listen because I was too angry.” “Too angry with whom?” Henry asked, frowning. “With _you_!” Lily shouted fiercely. At that, it was his turn to utter a loud cry. “Lily, is it true? Did you hate me so that you couldn’t even listen to him? Is it true?” “A thousand times true!” she said, and, in her helpless rage, began to weep. “But I hate you worse than that!” “And you sent me away because I couldn’t make you _feel_ anything!” he cried. “Lily, when will you marry me?” “Do you think I’d ever be engaged to you again,” she sobbed, “when you believed I’d do a brutal thing like that on purpose?” “Lily,” he said again, “when will you marry me?” “Never,” she answered. “I’ll never marry anybody.” But even as she spoke, the fortunate young man’s shoulder was becoming damper with her tears. XXIX MRS. CROMWELL’S OLDEST DAUGHTER ALL OF the players except three had returned to the clubhouse before the close of the fine April afternoon, and, after an interval in the locker rooms, had departed either in their cars or strolling away on foot, homeward bound to the pleasant groups of suburban houses east of the country club. Westward lay the links, between ploughed fields and groves of beech and ash and maple, a spacious park of rolling meadows with a far boundary of woodland, and, beyond that, nothing but a smoky sunset. All was quiet; there were no sounds from within the clubhouse, nor came any from the links; and although no kine wound slowly o’er the lea and no ploughman plodded his weary way, the impending twilight in such a peace might well have stirred a poetic observer to murmurous quotation from the Elegy. Nevertheless, in this sweet evening silence, emotion was present and not peaceful. There was emotion far out upon the links, and there was more upon the western veranda of the clubhouse where two ladies sat, not speaking, but gazing intently toward where the dim and hazy great sun was immersing itself in the smoke of the horizon. These two emotional ladies were sisters; that was obvious, for they shared a type of young matronly fairness so decidedly that a photograph of one might have been mistaken, at first glance, for that of the other.