“Of what, my dear Hobart?” Hobart laughed, gave him a look of friendly raillery, mixed with jocose admiration, and said: “Don’t you think I’m a good deal of a dunderhead? On your word, don’t you, old John?” Old John, beaming genially and amused by his caller’s question, but puzzled by it, laughed with him. “On my word then, no. I haven’t the slightest conception of what you mean.” “Just think of it!” Hobart chuckled. “Here we go, afternoon after afternoon, you and I, out to the links; and every single time, when we get there, I go roving round the course virtually all by myself, while you put in the time with Julietta! You and she keep together and play the same ball—and what do I play? It seems to me I play the Lone Fisherman! Honestly, do you think it’s fair?” “Fair?” Old John had become grave, and the other was surprised and interested to observe that a tinge of red was slowly mounting in his cheeks. “Let me understand you, Hobart,” he said. “You mean that I’ve been monopolizing Julietta?” “Rather!” Hobart continued his rallying jocosity, though inwardly he was disturbed by the spreading of that tinge of red over his brother-in-law’s face. “Don’t you think it’s about time I had a share of feminine camaraderie in our outdoor sports?” “You mean, Hobart, that this afternoon you’d prefer to play the same ball with Julietta and have me play against you?” This was not the question Hobart had desired to evoke; and his jocosity departed from him suddenly. “Well——” he said. Then, as his shrewd eyes took note again of old John’s rosy face and of his gravity—already troubled as by some forthcoming disappointment—the Napoleonic Hobart came to one of those swift and clear resolutions, the capacity for which had made possible his prodigious business career during what was still almost his youth. Old John was indeed in danger, although old John was “too innocent” to know it, himself. And in the very instant of this realization, Hobart decided that he had found the opportunity to take up his wife’s challenge and atone in full for his fault to her sister. “Why—why, yes,” he said, slowly. “Don’t you think it’s about time? You wouldn’t mind very much, would you?”