CHAPTER XIX

Patricia stood in the hallway a moment looking at the note to Aurora, which she held in her fingers. Then she went to the desk so recently vacated by her guest and wrote steadily for an hour. Her thesis was the international marriage, and she called it Crabb vs. DeLaunay, enclosing two papers, DeLaunay's note and the newspaper clippings from her adorable printers. Slips of paper were pinned to them, upon one of which she had written "Exhibit A," and on the other "Exhibit B." She sealed them all in a long envelope addressed to Miss North and handed it to Aurora's maid with instructions that it should be given to her mistress when she had gone up to her room.

From her own bed Patricia heard the motor arrive and her husband fuming in the hallway below, the sound of Aurora's door closing and of Mortimer's heavy footsteps in his own quarters; then after awhile, silence. She lay on her bed in the dark thinking, listening intently. It was long before she was rewarded. Then her door opened quietly, and in the aperture the night-lamp showed a pale, tear-stained face and a slender, girlish figure swathed in a pale blue dressing gown.

"Patricia!" the girl half sobbed, half whispered, "Patty!"

Patricia rose in her bed and took the slender figure into her sheltering arms. "Aurora--darling. I've been waiting for you. Can you forgive me?"

"Yes--yes," sobbed the girl. "I understand."

"You were too good for him, Aurora, dear. He wasn't worthy of you." And then, as an afterthought. "But then, I don't know a man who is."

Patricia breathed a sigh of relief. She had thought it was going to be more difficult. She made room for the girl in the bed beside her and soothed and petted her until she fell asleep.

"Poor Aurora," she murmured softly to herself. "You were never destined for a life like that, child. The man you marry is to be an American, a fine, young, healthy animal like yourself. I will not tell you his name because if I did, you'd probably refuse him, and of course that would never do. It must be managed some way. He's poor, you know, dear, but then that won't matter because you will have enough for both."

It did not take Aurora a great while to recover from the shock of disillusion and before long she was out on the golf links again, with her usual happy following. Aurora had many virtues as well as accomplishments, and Patricia was very fond of her. During the winter in the city, she had given a dinner for her to which Stephen Ventnor was invited. Patricia's plan had succeeded admirably, for Ventnor, after several years of indomitable faithfulness to the ashes of the mourned Patricia, had suddenly come to life. He liked Aurora so much that he didn't even take the trouble to hide his new emotion from Patricia. Patricia sighed, for even now renunciation was difficult to her, but when she moved into the country for the summer, she held out the latch-string to him for the week ends so that he could come out every week and play golf with Aurora, which showed that after all marriage had taught Patricia something.

Patricia had decided that Aurora North was to marry Steve Ventnor, and this resolution made she left no stone unturned to bring the happy event to a consummation. The skilful maker of opportunities she remembered sometimes trusted to opportunity to make itself. Propinquity, she knew, was her first lieutenant and the unobtrusive way in which these two young people were continually thrown together must have been a surprise even to themselves. Ventnor took his two weeks of vacation in July and spent them at the Crabbs'. Patricia had thought that those two weeks would have brought the happy business to a conclusion--for Aurora was just ready to be caught on the rebound, and Ventnor was now very much in love. But when Steve's vacation was over and he had packed his trunk to go mournfully back to town, Patricia knew that something had happened to change her well-laid plans.

She had never given Jimmy McLemore a thought. She had seen the three many times during the summer from her bedroom windows, Aurora, Steve and McLemore, but the thought of Aurora having a tenderness for the golfing automaton had never for a moment entered her mind. She watched Mr. Ventnor's departing back with mingled feelings.

"You'll be out on Saturday as usual, won't you, Steve?" she asked.

"Oh, yes, thank you, Patty," he replied, "I'll be out, if you'll have me. But there isn't much use, you know."

"Don't be so meek, Steve!" she cried. "You're impossible when you're that way. What earthly use did you make of all of my training?"

Ventnor smiled mournfully.

"You didn't begin soon enough, Patty," he said.

That pleased Patricia and she made a mental resolution that marry Aurora, Steve should, if it lay in her power to accomplish it.

"There's something wrong with that girl," she mused, as she watched Aurora and "the Sphynx"--as McLemore was familiarly called--playing the fifth hole. "Anybody who can see anything marriageable in Jimmy McLemore, ought to be carefully confined behind a garden wall. Jimmy! I would as soon think of marrying a statue of Buddha."

The _Blue Wing_ was out of commission for the summer. Mortimer insisted that no sane man could maintain both a big yacht and a big country place. But Patricia was very happy and watched the development of Steve Ventnor's romance with a jealous eye. She was obliged to admit, as the summer lengthened into autumn, that after all, the whole thing was very much a matter of golf.

Aurora was golf mad, Patricia knew, and when Jimmy McLemore ran down a twenty-foot putt for a "bird" on the sixteenth hole, thereby winning "three up and two" from Steve Ventnor, the golf championship of the Country Club, Patricia detached herself from the "gallery" which had followed the players and made her way sadly to the Club House veranda. Penelope Wharton, her sister, who was fond of Ventnor, followed, the picture of dejection. In the morning round Steve had been "one up"; and the hopes of the two women had run high that their champion would be able to increase his lead during the afternoon, or at least to maintain it against his redoubtable adversary, but after the first few holes the victor had developed one of those "streaks" for which he was famous, and though poor old Steve had played a steady up-hill game, the luck went against him and he knew at the tenth hole that unless McLemore fell over in a fit, the gold cup was lost--for that year at least.

Patricia realized, too, that the famous gold cup might not be the only prize at stake.

"And now," she said wrathfully, "she'll probably marry that _person_." Mr. McLemore would have withered could he have seen the expression in Patricia's eyes, for when Patricia called any human being a "person," it meant that her thoughts were unutterable.

"I suppose so," said Penelope.

"I've no patience with Aurora North," said Patty, "she's absolutely lacking in a sense of proportion. Imagine letting one's life happiness hang on the fate of a single putt."

"And Steve is _such_ a dear."

"He is, that's the worst of it--and they're eminently fitted for each other in every way--by birth, breeding, and circumstances. As a sportsman Jimmy may be a success, but as a gentleman--as a lover--as a _husband_----"

Patricia's two brown hands were raised in protest toward Olympus. "It's odious, Pen, a case for a grand jury--or a coroner!"

"Aurora is too nice a girl," sighed Penelope.

"Nice! In everything but discrimination. That's the peril of being an 'out-of-door girl.' The more muscle, the less gray matter. That kind of thing disturbs the balance of power." Patricia sighed--"Oh, I tried it and I know. A woman with too much muscle is like an over-rigged yawl--all right in light airs, but dangerous in a blow. What's the use? Our greatest strength after all, is weakness."

"I'm sure you couldn't convince Aurora of that--nor Steve."

"I don't know," said Patricia, slowly, "but I'd like to try."

Further talk was interrupted by the arrival of the crowd from the fair-green, thirsty and controversial. Steve Ventnor, like the good loser that he was, had been the first to shake McLemore by the hand in congratulation, and if he was heavy of heart, his smiling face gave no sign of it. For the present, at least, he had abandoned the field to his conqueror who brought up the rear of the "gallery" with Aurora, accepting handshakes right and left with the changeless dignity which had gained him his sobriquet of "Sphynx." At the veranda steps Mortimer Crabb took him in tow and brought him to the table where Penelope and Patricia were mournfully absorbing lemonade.

"Too bad, Steve," said Patricia with a brightness that failed to deceive. "Nobody with mere blood in his veins can expect to compete with a hydraulic ram. He's a wonderful piece of mechanism--Jimmy is--but I'm always tortured with the fear that he may forget to wind himself up some morning. Mort, couldn't you have dropped a little sand in his bearings?"

"Oh, he's got plenty of sand," said Crabb generously.

"He's a cracking good golfer," said Steve, looking reprovingly at Patricia. "He's the better man, that's all."

He sank beside Patricia while Crabb had a steward take the orders.

"No," muttered Patricia. "Not that, not the better man, only the better golfer, Steve." And then with a sudden and mystifying change of manner, "Do you know why he always wears a crimson vest?"

"No--I've never thought," replied Steve.

"It's very--un--er--unprofessional--isn't it?"

"It isn't what a man wears that wins holes, you know, Patty."

"Oh, no," she said, carelessly, "I was just wondering----"

Mortimer Crabb, unofficial host of the occasion, had beckoned to Aurora and McLemore, who now joined the party. Steve Ventnor rose as the girl approached and their eyes met. Aurora's eyes were the color of lapis-lazuli, but the deep tan of her skin made them seem several shades lighter. They were handsome eyes, very clear and expressive, and at important moments like the present ones her long lashes effectually screened what might have been read in their depths.

"I'm sorry, Steve," she said gently. "You didn't have enough practice."

"Are you really?" asked Steve. He bent his head forward and said something for Aurora's ears alone, at which her lids dropped still further and the ends of her lips curved demurely. But she did not reply, and turned in evident relief when Crabb made a hospitable suggestion.

Patricia watched the by-play with interest. She had followed the romance with mingled feelings, for it was apparent that the triangle which had been equilateral in the spring was now distorted out of all semblance to its former shape, with poor Steve getting the worst of it. The reason was clear. The Sphynx was rich and so could afford to play golf with Aurora every day of the year if he wished, while Steve Ventnor, who spent his daylight hours selling bonds in the city, had to make the most of his Saturday and Sunday afternoons. It was really too bad.

But the Sphynx only smiled his unhumorous smile, and went on playing golf during the week when Ventnor was at work. Propinquity had done a damage which even Patricia, with all her worldliness, could not find available means to repair. But she joined good-humoredly in the toasts to the new club champion who was accepting his honors carelessly, keeping her eyes meanwhile on Jimmy McLemore's crimson vest. That vest was a part of Jimmy's golf, as much a part of it as his tauric glasses, his preliminary wiggle on the tee, or his maddening precision on the putting-green. It fascinated her somehow, almost to the exclusion of the gayety in which she rightfully had a part.

The gold cup was brought forth and passed from hand to hand. As it came to Patricia she looked at it inside and out, read the inscription leisurely, then handed it carelessly to her neighbor.

"Chaste and quite expensive," was her comment.

"Oh, I think it's beautiful," said Aurora, reprovingly.

"_Chaque enfant à son gou gou_, my dear," said Patricia. "You know, Aurora, I never did approve of golf prizes--especially valuable ones. After all, golf is merely a game--not a religion. It's the habit in this club to consider a golf cup with the same kind of an eye that one gives to a possible seat in Paradise."

Even Steve Ventnor thought Patricia's remarks in bad taste.

"If Jimmy plays the game of life the way he played golf to-day," he laughed, "he'll have an eighteen-karat halo, and no mistake."

"Patty!" exclaimed Miss North, reprovingly. "You know you don't believe a word you say. You love golf prizes. Why you're always giving the Bachelors' Cup, and this year you've presented the cup for the 'Affinity Foursomes.' Besides, you've won at least three prizes yourself."

"I've reformed," said Patricia, decisively. "I've lost patience with golf. I haven't any interest in a game that requires the elimination of all human attributes."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"One can't be entirely human and play a good game of golf, that's all," she announced.

"That's rough on McLemore," laughed Mortimer.

"It's human to be irritated, human to be angry, human to have nerves, human to make mistakes. I've no patience with people who can't lose their tempers."

"I'm apt to lose mine, if you keep calling me names," said the Sphynx, affably.

"You couldn't, Jimmy," said Patricia, soberly. "Anyone who can make the tenth, eleventh and twelfth in eleven playing out of two bunkers will never lose his temper in this world--or anything else," she added, _sotto voce_.

"There won't be any more Bachelors' Cups, then?"

"Not if I can help it. At least not for the Ancient and Honorable Game as we play it now. The Bachelors' Cup this fall will be played for across country." The members of the party examined her as though they believed she had suddenly been bereft of her senses--all but her husband, who knew that in being surprised at Patty, one was wasting valuable energy, but even Mortimer was mildly curious.

"Across country!" they asked.

"Exactly. I'm going to invest the game with a real sporting interest, develop the possibilities of the niblick, eliminate the merely mechanical, introduce a stronger element of chance. The course will be laid out like a 'drag.'"

"With an anise-seed bag?" queried Crabb.

Patricia withered her husband with a look. "With scraps of paper," she asserted, firmly. "The course will be four miles long over good hunting country."

"You can't mean it," said McLemore.

"I do. It's quite feasible."

"Yes, but----"

"It's a good sporting proposition," said Aurora North, suddenly kindling to interest. "Why not?"

Ventnor and McLemore only smiled amusedly, as became true golfers.

"Oh you can laugh, you two. Why not give it a trial? Just to make it interesting I'll offer a cup for the Club champion and runner-up. It will be a pretty cup--and Aurora and I will caddy."

"Willingly," laughed Aurora.

There the matter stopped. It was a joke, of course, and both men realized it, but any joke in which Aurora North had a part was the joke for them. A week passed before Patricia completed her plans and in the meanwhile everybody had forgotten all about her amazing proposition. It was, therefore, with surprise and not a little amusement that McLemore and Ventnor received the dainty notice in Patricia's handwriting, which advised them that the Cross Country Match would be played off on the following Thursday afternoon, at two o'clock. Jimmy McLemore smiled at a photograph on the desk in his library, but later in the day after a talk over the telephone with Aurora he got a mashie, and a heavy mid-iron from his bag and went out in his own cow-pasture to practice. Steve Ventnor in his office in the city turned the note over in his fingers and frowned. Thursday was his busiest day, but he realized that he had given his promise and that if McLemore played he must. It was a very silly business. Several things mystified him, however. What did Patricia mean, for instance, by the absurd lines at the bottom of his invitation? "Aurora will caddy for you; and don't wear a crimson vest--there's nothing to be gained by it."

On a slip of paper enclosed were the _local rules_:

(1) The first ball and every fourth ball thereafter may be played from a rubber tee.

(2) A ball in "casual" water may be lifted and dropped without penalty.

(3) Running brooks, ponds, rocks, fences, etc., are natural hazards, and must be played over as such.

(4) A lost ball means the loss of one stroke, but not of distance. A ball may be dropped within twenty-five yards of the spot where ball disappeared.

(5) _The match must be finished_ within four hours. The competitor who for any reason fails to finish loses the match.

Steve Ventnor smiled as he read, but in spite of his golf sense, which is like no other sense in the world, felt himself gently warming to the project. He would go of course--for Aurora was to caddy for him.