for three or four days i could get no word with mary. i could not now come and go as i had been able to do in the days when we were still "the children." i could not work, i could not rest, i prowled as near as i could to burnmore house hoping for some glimpse of her, waiting for the moment when i could decently present myself again at the house.
when at last i called, justin had gone and things had some flavor of the ancient time. lady ladislaw received me with an airy intimacy, all the careful responsibility of her luncheon party manner thrown aside. "and how goes cambridge?" she sang, sailing through the great saloon towards me, and i thought that for the occasion cambridge instead of oxford would serve sufficiently well. "you'll find them all at tennis," said lady ladislaw, and waved me on to the gardens. there i found all four of them and had to wait until their set was finished.
"mary," i said at the first chance, "are we never to talk again?"
"it's all different," she said.
"i am dying to talk to you—as we used to talk."
"and i—stevenage. but—— you see?"
"next time i come," i said, "i shall bring you a letter. there is so much——"
"no," she said. "can't you get up in the morning? very early—five or six. no one is up until ever so late."
"i'd stay up all night."
"serve!" said maxton, who was playing the two of us and had stopped i think to tighten a shoe.
things conspired against any more intimacy for a time. but we got our moment on the way to tea. she glanced back at philip, who was loosening the net, and then forward to estimate the distance of maxton and guy. "they're all three going," she said, "after tuesday. then—before six."
"wednesday?"
"yes."
"suppose after all," she threw out, "i can't come."
"fortunes of war."
"if i can't come one morning i may come another," she spoke hastily, and i perceived that guy and maxton had turned and were waiting for us.
"you know the old ice house?"
"towards the gardens?"
"yes. on the further side. don't come by the road, come across by the end of the mere. lie in the bracken until you see me coming.... i've not played tennis a dozen times this year. not half a dozen."
this last was for the boys.
"you've played twenty times at least since you've been here," said guy, with the simple bluntness of a brother. "i'm certain."
