A Book o' Nine Tales Part 14

Granton."

"Oh, Howard hasn't the ghost of a chance," George responded rea.s.suringly. "You are all right, Bet, if you don't get nervous."

But Betty did get nervous. The color came and went in her cheeks almost as swiftly as the flying b.a.l.l.s were thrown, whose skilful service and returns soon proved Snow to be right in a.s.serting that Howard had no chance against his antagonist.

"Oh, George," she whispered, in an agony of apprehension, "can I do it?

Won't he beat me? It would be too horrible to challenge him and then fail!"

"Do it?" retorted her cousin; "of course you can do it! See that short serve. That's what's breaking Howard up: it's easy for you to return if you'll run up to it. His swift service doesn't begin to be as good as yours."

"Love set," called the scorer; and as Betty looked at the supple, muscular figure of Nat Granton while the players exchanged courts, her fears almost overcame her resolve.

"My heart is thumping against my very boot-heels, Dolly," she confided to her friend. "It's no sort of use."

"Are you going to give up?" demanded Dora curiously, and perhaps a little tauntingly.

"Give up!" cried Mistress Mork stoutly. "Do I ever give up? I'll die first! But I do wish he wouldn't get so many love games! It's dreadfully discouraging."

Granton was, in truth, having everything his own way. Howard, although a good player, had somehow lost his coolness, and was soon demoralized by a peculiar short, cutting service, of which his opponent had complete mastery, and which he was unable to return. His play became wild and uneven, and the contest was quickly decided against him.

The master of ceremonies came forward with the announcement that the prize racquet belonged to Mr. Nathaniel Granton, but that, according to the provisions of the tournament, any person had now a right to challenge the winner to play for the prize, by the best two games in three.

There was a rustle, and then a pause, as many eyes were turned toward George Snow, who had won in the Newport games the summer before. But that gentleman sat quiet in his place, a smile of amus.e.m.e.nt stealing over his comely features as Dora said, in the most tragic of whispers,--

"Oh, Betty, how can you?"

But Betty, her head thrown a trifle back, and the color flaming hotly into her face, rose with a charming mixture of dignity and shyness, and walked, before them all, straight up to the judges.

"I challenge the winner to a match," she said, steadily enough, although she confided to Dora afterward that she felt as if every word had to be dragged out by main force. "I should like five minutes to change my dress."

Granton uttered a low, sharp whistle, and doffed his cap.

"All right," the master of ceremonies returned. "Be as quick as you can."

"I'll not keep you waiting long," she a.s.sured him, and turned to beckon Dora to her.

As the two girls disappeared into the hotel, the bustle and chatter began again with renewed vigor, and swelled and buzzed in the liveliest fas.h.i.+on. Here was a genuine sensation for Maugus. Betty was too lovely and too great a favorite with the men wholly to escape the censure of the young ladies, who now had a string of pretty things to say of her boldness and presumption. But the gentlemen rallied to a man in her support, and, by the time she reappeared, public opinion, as represented by the spectators of the tournament, if not wholly in her favor, was so in outward expression.

She was dressed in a dark-blue jersey of silk, which fitted her in that perfect combination only possible with a faultless figure and an irreproachable jersey; and below that a skirt of navy-blue flannel fell in straight plaits to her ankles, where one caught, as she moved, occasional glimpses of a crimson stocking, the exact shade of her flat sash and of the close wing-tip in her trig little blue silk cap. There was nothing of the nature of tags and ends about her costume. Her hair was closely coiled, and even her ear-rings had been removed. The crimson handkerchief about her white throat was fastened into its place so securely as scarcely to be less smooth when the playing was over than when the first game began.

She was very sober,--so grave, indeed, that George went over to her just as she took her place, to say some absurd thing to make her laugh.

"Don't be nervous," he added, having succeeded in his object so far as to call a fleeting smile to her face. "And don't look as if a.s.sisting at your own obsequies. You are all right, if you'll only think so."

"Will she do it?" Dora asked anxiously, as he took his seat again.

"I'm sure I don't know," he answered. "I've told her she will, and I hope so; but it isn't going to be so easy."

They talked of that tennis tournament for many a long day in Maugus.

Opinion was divided at first as to the probable result. There was a quiet concentration in Betty's manner which soon began to awake confidence in her ultimate success, although at first she lost. Even the most envious of the girls soon found themselves applauding every lucky hit she made; and Betty, whose senses were keenly alive that day, felt the stimulating consciousness that the general sympathy was with her.

She threw her whole soul into her playing, every point she lost arousing her to new exertions.

"By Jove! Dora," George said, "Granton's bound to get a lesson. Betty's blood is getting up. I'm convinced now that she'll win, and I'll bet you the gloves that she beats him a love set before she's done."

Dora was too excited to answer him. She hoped he might be right, but just now Betty was losing. She had been beaten three games out of five, and the present one, on Granton's service, was going hard against her.

Granton was hara.s.sing her with his short cut, which fell before her racquet reached it nearly every time.

"What's got into her?" George muttered uneasily. "Ah, that was better.

Good return."

And he led the hand-clapping which greeted the difficult stroke by which Betty brought the score up to deuce. The game went against her, however, and soon after, the set.

"I'll do it, George," Betty said under her breath, as she pa.s.sed him in changing courts. "Don't be discouraged. The Mork blood is up."

"It's all on his cuts, Bet. Run up to them. Watch his service, and you can tell when they are coming. Nat could never serve a decent swift ball."

Betty nodded and went on to her place.

"Play!" called Granton.

Watching him, his opponent noticed him throw his head back, and remembered his telling her that he always betrayed his cutting. She ran toward the net as the ball came down, and returned it like a cannonball.

"She's got it!" cried Snow, with great glee, in his excitement calling so loudly that both the players heard him. "She's all right now. Oh, that's beautiful!"

Granton tried a couple of swift b.a.l.l.s and faulted them both.

"Love; thirty," called the scorer.

Another cut; again cleverly intercepted; then a fault and an easy, round-hand service.

"Love; game."

The applause was really quite tremendous.

"They are all against me," Granton observed to Betty, handing her the b.a.l.l.s over the net and laughing rather ruefully. "Public opinion would be positively outraged if you should fail."

"I've no intention of failing, thank you," she returned, with spirit; and away she swept to her position. "Play!"

Granton was himself on his mettle, yet he did not play his best.

He could not fully recover from his surprise at the style of his adversary's play. The swiftness of her service and returns was so different from what was expected of a girl that he was scarcely on his guard against it up to the very end. He felt the sympathy of the spectators, too, to be against him, and this was not without its influence. He lost the set, and with it, by an unfortunate chance, his good nature.

"Sets, one all," the scorer announced; and something in the saucy toss of Betty's lovely head, as, flushed and panting, she stood talking with George and Dora, jarred upon her lover's nerves with sudden irritation.

An unreasonable madness took possession of him. How much was wounded vanity, it might not be easy to say; but under the circ.u.mstances, with all his mates grinning at his failure, it was not at all strange that his feelings were not wholly placid. His play in the third and decisive set became rash and excited. He lost his head a little, and before he fairly knew how it happened the score was called on Betty's service:--

"Games; five, love"

"Good!" was George Snow's comment. "I told you she'd beat a love set before she was done.--Oh, keep your head, Bet!"

Betty delivered a ball swift as a bullet and just clearing the net.