# Top-Notch Magazine/Volume 50/Number 6/Fourteen All!

* information about this edition.
* sister projects: Wikidata item.
Chapters: I — II — III — IV — V — VI — VII — VIII — IX — X — XI — XII
Fourteen All!
    By
Burt L. Standish
(A NOVELETTE)
CHAPTER I.
INFORMALLY INTRODUCED.
EDUCATION? Well, Johnny Gerrity had very little schooling, to tell the truth, but he was not without education; he knew quite a lot of things. First, he was well up on the subject of horses. Almost from the day he could walk—in the Harlem street where he was born—he had played in O'Donohue's stable. There were all kinds of horses there, and Johnny had made friends with them. He learned to know them, and to love them. Horses instinctively nuzzled his pockets for sugar when he came close to them, and they usually found what they wanted.
When he had grown older Johnny drifted down to the race track and learned about a different breed of horses—sleek, speedy thoroughbreds who accepted him as an equal, which was more than some of them did for their owners.
He was too heavy to be a jockey, but his fame as a genius around horses grew in the profession, and he handled more than one valuable string. It was due to the recommendation of an owner that he was placed in charge of the horses on the Marlinghue estate, at Cedar Cove. That was at the age of twenty-three.
Another thing that Johnny knew exceedingly well was tennis. He learned originally on the Central Park tennis courts. On bright summer afternoons, if you stood at the east end of the tennis courts and looked west, you would see six rows of nets stretching out into the far distance to westward, placed side by side, hundreds of them; and by each net you would see a group of players, battling earnestly.
There was no wire netting around each court to catch the ball and bounce it back to some waiting hand. If your opponent sent over one you could not stop, it usually traveled a couple of city blocks before stopping. You had to run for it at top speed, before some other earnest player claimed it. After a while you either got so expert that very few got by you—or you quit playing in Central Park.
When it is said that Johnny Gerrity was a graduate of the Central Park tennis courts, it is meant that he began in a difficult school. Later he played on regulation courts, and—to cut the account of that part of his career very short—he became an expert player.
The third—and to his mind, the most important—thing that Johnny knew was that Sylvia Marlinghue, sister of his young employer, was the most beautiful girl in the world—and the most unattainable. Justifiably unattainable, he felt, for who was he to aspire even to think of her? That being the case, he proceeded to think of her in most of his spare moments—-and during a good many moments when he should have been thinking of something else.
Old Mr. Marlinghue had always called his superintendent of the horses an equerry. He had lived abroad a great deal, and had taken a fancy to the title. When his son succeeded to the estate at Cedar Cove he continued the custom of his father. Thus it fell out that Gerrity was called the equerry. He looked the word up in the dictionary, learned that it meant master of the horse in a royal establishment, and had a good laugh over it. He had been engaged with his duties as equerry just two days when Sylvia Marlinghue nearly dashed out his brains with a tennis racket. They had not met before, and the somewhat informal introduction marked the beginning of their acquaintance.
CHAPTER II.
SHOWING SOME FORM.
THAT introduction came about in this manner: It was a fleckless, flawless, sunny June day, with just enough breeze stirring the pine tops to make the effort of playing tennis not too arduous. In the background stood the great Marlinghue house, show place of the county, the severity of its fine Colonial lines contrasting pleasantly with the lavish display of nature as exemplified in the trees and shrubs that surrounded the white house. In the foreground was the tennis court, peopled at the moment by two desultory players, Sylvia Marlinghue and her brother Larry, known to fame in Sunday supplements and rotogravure sections as the heirs to a great name and greater fortune.
He called irritably across the net, as she permitted a ball to get by her. “Sylvia, I do wish you'd show some sign of life. If you don't want to play, say so, but as long as you're——”
“But I want to play, old stupid!” she called back. “I can't help it if you hit them past me. Very few men could have returned that one, much less a poor, weak female——”
He laughed. “There's very little weak about you.” He admired her from where he stood. They walked down to the net. “You're right—if you couldn't return that, there are very few men around here who could, Syl. Don't know what we're going to do about the county championship. Looks like Clavering again.”
“Unless you beat him, Larry,” put in his sister. “Which is possible, because——”
“Because nothing physical is impossible; but that's about all. I may be the best player in these parts, next to Clavering; still, I have absolutely no chance against him, and you know it. I wish somebody would beat him, though. His boastful, swaggering ways get on my nerves.”
“You'll have a chance to enjoy his company to-night; he's coming over,” she announced.
Larry groaned. “Oh, Lord!” he exclaimed. “To what am I indebted for this great kindness? Oh, that a great tennis player would arise in the land—I mean in the country—and——”
“Well, never mind that, Larry,” said his sister, laughing. “Let's finish the set.”
They went back to their places. Swish! She sent the ball whirling on its way over the net, just outside the white line.
“One,” he said. She nodded and cut another one across. He returned it easily past her, and performed the same service for the next three balls she served, giving him game. In a momentary temper, she whirled and flung her racket as far away as possible, with all the strength of her good right arm.
“There!” she breathed. “Now——” She kept her mouth open, but no words issued therefrom.
That was the moment Johnny Gerrity picked, of all moments in the day, to come walking from around one of the hedges on his way to the other side of the house, where the horses lived. Incidentally, there were other ways of reaching his destination, but no other way by which he could get a glimpse of the trim form and glinting hair of Sylvia Marlinghue.
“Now, I'll say that's some little jane,” he remarked to himself. At the same instant he stepped from behind the hedge. As he did so a heavy tennis racket whistled past his head; it actually clipped his ear in its flight. An inch more and he would have been seriously hurt.
“Fer the love of Mike!” he began. “Now, who in the——”
He was speechless for a moment as he recognized that the projectile had been fired by the fair, if muscular, hand of Sylvia Marlinghue.
“So sorry,” she called to him, recovering from her amazement. “It was an accident——”
“Bad shot!” He smiled back at her. “You missed me.” He turned to get her racket, and brought it back to her, swinging it tentatively. It felt like old times to him; he had not played tennis for months, and he was passionately fond of the game.
He picked up a ball at his feet in order to return it to Larry Marlinghue, who waited on the other side of the net. Johnny's racket flashed downward, and the ball sailed over the net lazily. Idly Larry made a cut at the ball, to stop it, and then he stared in amazement; he had missed it. When his racket reached the point where the ball flew, the ball was no longer there. He looked up inquiringly at Johnny.
“Some cut, Gerrity!” he said. “Where'd you learn that one?”
Johnny smiled. “Oh, I don't know; I just kind of knew it.”
“Can you do it again?” asked Larry.
Johnny nodded. “Sure thing—many times as you want.” He picked up another ball and sent it over the net with the same flash of his racket. This time Larry had been watching for it. Alert, his racket flicked down to where the ball would swerve, as before. His racket hit nothing but thin air. The ball had swerved to the opposite side this time.
“How do you do that?” demanded Larry.
“Why, I don't know. You just sort of do it, if you know what I mean.”
“Try some more,” said Larry.
They volleyed the ball back and forth. So piqued was Larry at his failure several times to make anything of the shots sent across the net by his equerry that he suggested they play a set. Sylvia added the tinkle of her merry voice to the urgings of her brother.
“Go on, Mr. Gerrity,” she said. “You can beat him. He needs a beating, you know.”
They played, and from the, first it was apparent that Larry was a child in the hands of his opponent. Johnny was smiling and calm, seeming scarcely to hurry, hardly accelerating his pace at any part of the game; yet he covered every inch of his court, and shot them from any position so fast, so deceptively, that Larry could not cope with him at all. And through the game Sylvia sat on the side lines and enjoyed it all immensely. Her brother was good humored, however, and gave it up when he had lost five games without winning one.
CHAPTER III.
SPLENDID HUMILIATION.
LATE that night, after Clavering had left, Sylvia came to Larry in the study, where he was reading. He laid down his book and looked at his sister curiously, noting that she was not her ordinary sunny, happy self.
There was a singularly strong line to her jaw, a cold hardness in her usually carefree eyes, and a pallor to her cheek that he was not accustomed to.
“What on earth's the matter, Syl?” he asked, rising. “You look madder than a nest of hornets.”
“I am, Larry,” she said simply, but there was a quality in her voice that gave him pause, and he was silent, waiting for her to speak.
Presently she said: “Guy Clavering kissed me to-night.”
“The hound!” burst from her brother.
She nodded. “I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't looking, and——”
“I'll give him the thrashing of his young life!” cut in her brother.
She shook her head. “That won't do, Larry. In the first place you couldn't do it; he's got thirty pounds on you. In the second place, that isn't what I want. I want him humiliated. I want his pride hurt.”
He looked mystified at this, a little at sea. She caught his inquiring glance. “You don't understand, Larry dear. It isn't just his kissing me. What I am so angry about, so mortified about, is his assumption that I'm the kind of a girl one can kiss like that—his conceited, easy familiarity in the matter, as though no girl could think of resisting him, or refusing him a kiss. He's gone now; I sent him home. He said I'll get over being mad, and he thinks so, too. He cannot conceive of any woman being permanently angry at him, really displeased with his actions. He's—oh, he's just a conceited fool; that's all he is; and what I want is to take the conceit out of him. A thrashing won't do it. It's got to be something different, Larry.”
They were silent a while, the girl sitting there rigid, with two red spots on her cheeks, sharply defined.
He spoke at length. “Well, what do you want me to do, Syl? Anything you say goes with me,” he said tenderly, laying his hand on her arm.
“I know, Larry,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I don't know exactly what. It's got to be something to humble him. Something about which he's enormously proud—his tennis title, for instance. If you could take that from him! You couldn't, of course—and that wouldn't quite be what I want, anyway.” She was quiet again, casting about in her mind, clutching at the idea that was being born. Then there was a sudden light in her eyes as it came to her. She turned to her brother excitedly.
“I know, Larry!” she exclaimed. "I have it! Your new man, Gerrity! He can do it!”
Her brother looked mystified. “Gerrity! The man in charge of my horses! Why, he can't belong to the Brook Club—and you must be a member to compete for this title.”
“Of course he can belong to the Brook Club, if you say so!” she flung back at him. “Anybody can belong who has your O.K. Don't you see the point? Nobody knows him here yet—he has been here only a day or two, and he has met his assistants only at the stables. You take him into the house, let him get properly fixed up, and announce that he's an old friend who is going to live with us. Take him to the dance at the country club Saturday night, get people to know him, and then put him up for membership at the club. He'll be elected.”
“Oh, I say, Syl! That's hardly the thing. I'll do most anything for you, but introduce this man at my club; how can I?”
“Of course,” she returned, “you'll do anything for me, and then when I ask you for something, you——”
“I know,” he said. “But this!”
“It seems to me if I were a man,” she replied, “and my sister wanted me to do something like this for her, I'd do it. Suppose he is introduced and elected to your club—what of it? Whom will he harm there? He looks to be a better man than many of those who were born into membership. And, oh, Larry, don't you see what a splendid humiliation it will make? Guy Clavering loses his tennis title to one of our employees!”
She paused here and regarded him. “And after all,” she continued after a moment, as she saw he was wavering, “why shouldn't he belong to your old club? In this country a man is supposed to be what he makes himself, not what he's born.”
He laughed at this.
“You can laugh,” she threw at him hotly, “but where would some men be without money—would they be able to do as well, to be as respected in their professions as Gerrity is in his?”
He was silent a moment, then said: “Well, don't think any more about it, Sylvia. If you still feel the same way about it to-morrow morning, I'm going to take a chance and pull it—that is,” he added as an afterthought, “provided Gerrity is willing to go through with it.”
“I'll answer for him,” replied his sister confidently.
“Do you think he'll be able to carry it off?” asked Larry as an afterthought. “You know, I mean his manner and speech, and all that?”
“I think so,” she answered. “I'll take him in hand. Of course, you mustn't tell him that we're going to expose the whole scheme after he beats Guy. That would spoil it.”
“O.K.,” he said; “only I think it might be harder on Gerrity than it's going to be on Clavering. However, I'll try anything once.”
CHAPTER IV.
ONE LITTLE BLUNDER.
WHEN the matter was placed before Gerrity the next morning by Larry and Sylvia, the equerry did not at first think very favorably of the scheme. He was quite willing to be elected to membership in the Brook Club, and to play Clavering for the county tennis title, but he did not see the necessity for concealing his identity—that is, his previous occupation and position as an employee of the Marlinghues; his name, of course, was to remain the same.
There was much argument on this point. “You don't get me,” he said to Larry. “I'm as good a handler of blooded stock as there is in this country, if it's myself that says so, and I'm not ashamed of it. If I'm not good enough for you as I am——”
“But you are, Mr. Gerrity,” protested Sylvia. “It isn't that. It's only that it might be difficult to get you into the club that way. There are foolishly prejudiced people——”
“Well, if that's the kind of birds there are in that club, I don't want to belong to it,” he persisted.
“But you can't play for the title if you don't belong. You see, this title is not exactly an official one. There are only two country clubs in this county, the Brook and the other, the Bowling Green Country Club. There's very little tennis played in the county except at these two clubs—practically every good player belongs to one or the other—and it's generally recognized that the winner of the match between the champions of the two clubs is the county champion—sort of family affair, you know.”
“But why are you so anxious to beat Mr. Clavering?” he asked.
“I have my reasons, Mr. Gerrity. You'll do it for me, won't you?” She accompanied this with a smile that made Johnny's heart do a triple somersault. It required very little more talk to make him do as she asked.
It was arranged that he was to live at the house as a sort of permanent guest. The men at the stables were old servitors who would keep mum on the subject when warned. At the house no one knew him except one maid, Delia Moriarty, a red-haired Irish girl, not long in this country, who had attended to making up his room at a nearby cottage. There did not seem to be any danger in that quarter.
Larry looked over Gerrity's wardrobe, and decided that while most of it was passable, there were additions to be made in the way of evening clothes, et cetera, and both of them took a rapid trip to town to supply what was needed. It was decided that, if he was to be treated as an intimate, a member of the family, they should call each other by their Christian names—including Sylvia. Johnny liked this part of the arrangement particularly. So Johnny Gerrity, of Harlem and the East River, became John Seumas Gerrity, intimate of the Marlinghues, and other favorites of fortune.
He took a square look at himself in the mirror of his expensive dresser that night before retiring, in the large chamber that had been assigned to him in the Marlinghue house. He was resplendent in evening clothes. In his mouth was a fine cigar from the stock of his host, and in his heart a strange mixture of feelings, bewilderment, pleasure, exasperation that he should be masquerading, and a resolve that he would stick and help Miss Marlinghue out of her difficulty, whatever it might be.
“So this is you, Johnny Gerrity,” he remarked to his reflection in the mirror. “My woid! Gittin' t' be more than 'arf a swell, what!” He smiled back at his reflection and flicked the ash from his cigar with a motion that he had copied from his favorite screen star. “Oh, ya-as!” he drawled languidly, mimicking some one he had heard. “Conrad is—er—fair, though, to be shuah, he does lack—er—continuity. Now, lahst season at Bar Harbor—er—I mean Bah Hahbah, y'know—— Shut up, y' poor simp, ye're gittin' t' look like one of them yourself,” he scolded humorously. He turned to the bed, his thoughts of sleep.
On the bed lay a suit of pale-blue silk pajamas, quite the correct thing, and a dressing gown that some mandarin might have envied. He looked at it and whistled.
“Holy wheat cakes! If the boys of the third ward could only catch a flash of me now—my life wouldn't be worth a Russian ruble. Why——” A knock on the door interrupted his reflections.
“Ah—entah!” he directed, calmly, languidly.
The door opened and red-haired Delia Moriarty stood in the opening. She made a curtsy, coldly, as she regarded him.
“Did you call, sir?” she asked, though she knew he had not called. She wanted to get another look at him in his new splendor. She gazed her fill, coolly, even impertinently, but she gazed at him with approval. Sure, and he was a broth of an Irish boy.
“I did not call, my good woman,” he said, turning to his mirror. He was simply paying her out for the impertinence of her manner. She glared at his back angrily for a moment. He did not turn around again, and she closed the door softly behind her.
Outside the door Delia clenched her fists, and if there were no tears in her eyes it was simply due to her will power and not to her inclinations. “So it's the grand gintlemin ye are, Johnny Gerrity!” she muttered. “Forgettin' yer own people, no less—mixin' wid the great! 'Me good woman,' says he.”
CHAPTER V.
ALWAYS AMUSING.
SUCH was the manner of Gerrity's induction into the social life of Green Valley. The rest was not difficult. Both Sylvia and Larry took Johnny in hand immediately, and they made great strides during the next few days, being fortunately untroubled by visitors. Sylvia, by the mere fact of her company and her manners, taught Johnny a great deal. He found his companionship with her very pleasant. By precept and example she taught him to bring out the latent gentility that was his; and he learned rapidly. He was to attend the Saturday night dance at the Brook Club, in the nature of his introduction to the set, and Sylvia gave him a few pointers to bear in mind.
“The point for you to remember, Johnny,” she said, her eyes sparkling, “is that, no matter how little you know, the person you're talking to knows still less. Talk about books if you want, to—but mention the book before the other person does, and be firm and insistent in your opinions.”
“But suppose I haven't read the book?” said Johnny.
She laughed. “How funny you are, Johnny Gerrity! What difference does that make? You don't suppose the others have read it, do you? And remember, whenever you're asked for an opinion about any one or anything, it's always safe to say that it's amusing. Suppose somebody asks you about Bernard Shaw. Why, just remark that the chap amuses you. Or if they want to know what your opinion is of Newport—why, it's an amusing place. You're on safe ground there. Only keep watching your g's at the ends of words. Don't drop any more of them than you can help.”
“Right-o, Sylvia,” Gerrity replied, “but what I'd like to know is why you are so anxious to have me put it over on Mr. Clavering?”
She colored. “I think I won't tell you—now,” she said. “It's a question of—of honor, I think, among other things.”
He was silent a moment after this. Then, “What's honor?” he asked—not derisively, but as one who is looking for information.
“Honor?” she repeated. “Don't you know?”
He colored slightly at this. “Yes, I do.”
“If you know what it is, why did you ask?”
“Oh, I just wanted to see what smart people think it is. It isn't the same everywhere, it seems. I always thought it was, but I'm finding out different. For instance, this masqueradin' I'm doin'—bang go my g's!—that, doesn't strike me as being just—just——”
“I know, Johnny—but don't worry about that; it isn't as bad as you think. Now tell me: What do you think about honor?” She asked it provocatively, looking up at him with her laughing eyes.
He stood up, gazing into the distance a moment. “Honor?” he drawled. “Oh, ya-as. I rawther imagine it's very amusing.”
It was arranged that Johnny should keep a sort of advisory supervision over the blooded stock for the present. The assistants were capable, and needed only some one in authority to guide them.
All in all, Gerrity was pleased with his transition to a different plane, though a bit confused in mind as to whether, strictly speaking, it was a sporting thing to do. He would have preferred appearing in his workaday capacity as Johnny Gerrity, expert on horses, and tennis amateur; but he recognized the impossibility of this in the false standards that were presumed to obtain in the set at the Brook Club. He would have declined the proposition had it not presented an opportunity not only to help Sylvia Marlinghue, but to enjoy her companionship. It was something like an impossible dream becoming true.
The servants did not, by word or deed, betray any evidence that they knew he was not just what he purported to be—with the exception of Delia Moriarty. This personable young woman had taken a strong fancy to Gerrity from his first appearance, and it exasperated her—to say the least—that he should be taken out of her sphere by just a flip of the hand, so to speak, of her employers.
But he wasn't thinking of Delia. His thoughts were filled with Sylvia. It seemed to him that she assumed an intimacy with him, a pleasure in his company, that was even beyond the purpose to which they had set themselves. It pleased him. The truth was that Sylvia found him very interesting; he was so different from the rank and file of the Brook Club set. He was a bit rough, to be sure, but never rude or guilty of breaches of good taste; and there was something in the set of his square, capable shoulders, the laughing gleam in his clear-blue eyes, the swing of his walk, that rather intrigued her. It was just a passing interest, but how was Johnny to know that?
He wondered, on and off, what could be Sylvia's reason for her intense resentment against Clavering, whom he had seen at the house the night he had called; but he dismissed it as something he could make nothing out of until Sylvia saw fit to divulge her mind to him. He wasn't quarreling with his good luck.
Gerrity was good to look upon. He gave an air of distinction to his clothes. His light manner blended well with his pleasant personality. If the truth were known, however, he was nervous about the ordeal of the dance on Saturday night. Surely they would be able to see through his masquerade! They could not be so stupid as to believe, he thought. But his thoughts were his own, and if he was nervous nobody but he knew it. Indeed, he had no need for nervousness. He seemed more in his proper place than a good many who were born into it.
CHAPTER VI.
SOCIETY STUFF TOO EASY.
GERRITY'S début at the dance went off amazingly well. In the first place, his introduction by the Marlinghues worked wonders; it did what ten years' residence might not have been able to accomplish for him; it inducted him unquestioningly right into the heart of the members and their friends. It was enough for them that Larry Marlinghue said he was all right; that Larry said he was the right sort.
Larry himself had more than one qualm about the matter. He felt that he was hardly playing fair toward the members of the club, his friends, and he would have given something to be out of the affair; but he had passed his word to his sister, and he felt that he would have to go through with it at all costs. As to what would happen after the tournament, when Gerrity should be unmasked, he preferred not to think. He liked Gerrity, but felt, however, that some of his friends might not look upon the matter in the same light as he did, and that they would be quite just in their disapproval of his action. Still he shrugged his shoulders and whistled his way through the cemetery of his somber thoughts.
Immediately after the introductions Gerrity found himself whirling off in a swift dance with a blond young thing who whispered to him that he danced beautifully, which he did.
Gerrity took this as his cue to get off some society small talk. “It's been my experience that one either does dance, or he does not,” said he brightly. “I mean to say, as it were, that it's something one does by—ah—instinct and breeding, doesn't one?” He appeared quite distinguished as he delivered himself of this gem. Later they elaborated on the theme when, instead of dancing, he sat out one with her—a dangerous thing to do, and something which Sylvia had warned him against.
“Dull party, isn't it?” she remarked when they had worn the theme threadbare.
He shrugged his shoulders. “I find it quite amusing, don't you know,” he said. “One gets so—ah—tired of—the—ah—other thing, that a quiet little affair of this nature is restful to the nerves.”
She was silent for a while, regarding his pleasing profile. Later she asked: “Have you been to the opera this season?”
It was late spring. He shook his head. “No, really, you know, I've been so busy that I couldn't get around to it. I've been away from town a great deal, too.”
“How do you like Wagner?” she asked.
He looked at her inquiringly. It sounded like a trap to him. “Why, he was a bully shortstop—though he's through now, of course,” he said.
She looked mystified. “What's that?” she asked. He saw that he had made some sort of a bull, and he sensed that this Wagner was in some way connected with the opera.
“Just joking.” He smiled at her easily, as though it was too deep a joke to expect a girl to understand. “What can one say of Wagner?” he said meaningly, deeply. “Wagner is always—Wagner,” he announced, and breathed more easily.
“That's just what I've always thought,” she said, and beamed on him; “but I've never been clever enough to put it in just that way. I must remember that.”
Gerrity felt more confidence after that. Why, getting on in society was too easy. It was while he was engrossed with that thought he nearly gave himself away.
“Isn't Cedar Cove beautiful at this season of the year?” she was saying.
Before he knew what he was doing he answered: “I'll tell the woild it is.” He said it with a careless flip of the hand, smacking for all the world of Third Avenue.
She looked up at him and laughed. Later she confided to Sylvia Marlinghue that Mr. Gerrity was priceless. Such a sense of humor—and such a wonderful mimic! Why, he had imitated an East Side tough so remarkably that, for the moment, she could have believed he was one—were it not for his distinguished bearing and his knowledge of Wagner.
Sylvia breathed a sigh of relief and thanked her lucky stars that he had got by that; next time he might not be so fortunate.
A little later Clavering came in, and when he saw Sylvia sitting alone with Gerrity—it was just after a dance—he hurried over to her and they greeted each other as though there had never been anything between them. Gerrity had a chance to get a square look at him now; he had seen him the night of his visit to the Marlinghues, but had had no occasion to look at him closely at that time. He saw a tall, dark young man, keen of eye, athletic in his bearing—a man well satisfied with himself and with the world in general.
“This is Mr. Gerrity, Guy,” said Sylvia. “Mr. Gerrity is staying with us now.”
Clavering extended his hand, and the men greeted each other. He glanced carelessly at Gerrity at first, but his look was arrested by a fleeting memory of something—he could scarcely say what, it seemed. He appeared to recall something from a look at the equerry—somebody he had seen before; something he had associated with Sylvia, perhaps.
“Pardon me,” he said, smiling. “I thought for a moment I had met you before. I guess not, though.”
“I think not,” said Johnny, very much on his guard. “Though—one meets so many people, it is sometimes difficult to recollect.”
Clavering smiled at him in a perfunctory manner, and turned again to Sylvia. It was easy to see that he was not yet satisfied. And then, this Mr. Gerrity seemed to be on excellent terms with Sylvia; that was something to be attended to.
The next day Gerrity's name was proposed for membership in the Brook Club of Cedar Cove.
CHAPTER VII.
ON DANGER'S EDGE.
THAT week Gerrity, as the guest of Larry Marlinghue, pending his election to membership, played tennis several times on the courts of the Brook Club and made a profound impression. In addition to Larry, there were half a dozen players in the club who rather fancied their game, and each of these in turn played against Gerrity. He beat them, half apologetically, almost.
That was one of the traits they found charming in Gerrity—his entire lack of boastfulness, the absence of blatancy in his manner. He played a fine game of tennis, and most of the members of the Brook Club would have felt puffed up about their ability if they could have done as well. But not Gerrity. He had an ease of manner, an entire lack of affectation, that became him amazingly well. He was a clean-living, fine-looking chap, boyish in his lighter moments; but grave and deliberate at times, mostly because he had to be on his guard in speaking. He won his way into the hearts of the fashionable folk among whom an odd cast of fate had thrown him.
He made a few “breaks,” of course, and the people who heard them were always delighted with the cleverness of his “imitations” of East Side characteristics.
Skillfully given the impression that all had been forgiven him by Sylvia, Clavering visited the house again during the week. That young lady treated him much as she had before he had offended her, but a man more on his guard might have been able to make something out of the hard, calculating glint that appeared occasionally in her eyes when she glanced at him.
Clavering, who, it appeared, had serious hopes and aspirations in the direction of Sylvia, did not like the appearance of intimacy that he discovered between her and Gerrity, a young man whom nobody knew anything about and who had lately appeared out of Heaven knew where. It had been given out that Gerrity was interested in horses; that he was a horseman; and the knowledge of it caused Clavering to prick up his ears. Somehow or other he had been connecting the Marlinghue guest with horses, but he could not remember in what connection he had previously come under his notice. Did he but know it, the incident that he could not remember had occurred when he last visited the Marlinghues. He had gone down to the stable yard to inspect a new hunter that Sylvia had bought, and the equerry had been there supervising the care of the horses. That was when he had seen Gerrity, and that was the reason his mind subconsciously connected Johnny with horses.
However, for some reason or other, Clavering sensed that all was not what it appeared, and he was reserved and watchful where Gerrity was concerned. As for the latter, he seemed to pay little more attention to Guy Clavering than courtesy demanded, though when he was unobserved he inspected him minutely. Although the men had said little to each other, a feeling of strain, almost of antagonism, had sprung up between them—a feeling for which neither could account coherently, though it might have been due to the fact that they were both interested in Sylvia.
“I've been told you're considerable of a tennis player,” remarked Clavering to Gerrity on the night he called, just to make conversation.
“Oh, I bang the balls around a bit,” returned Gerrity. “I don't hold any county titles—yet.”
Clavering stared at him. “Yet? What do you mean?”
The other smiled gently. “Why, nothing, Mr. Clavering—only titles change hands sometimes, don't they?”
The guileless, straight look, with which he accompanied the words, robbed them of any sinister meaning they might have had.
“Is there any chance of your competing?” said Clavering.
“Maybe,” put in Sylvia, seeing that the conversation was taking an embarrassing trend. “Larry's put Johnny up for membership in the Brook, you know. If he can beat the best we have, why——” She left the rest to his imagination.
“Well, I think I'll give a fairly decent account of myself, when the title match comes off,” said Clavering with his usual boastfulness. There was an air of self-satisfaction about this statement as he made it that ruffled Gerrity. A man might win a tennis match, but he need not be so confident about it, he felt. There were other tennis players in the world.
Sylvia noted Gerrity's exasperation with approval. That was the way she wanted him to feel. She knew well that, if she wanted to strike a telling blow at Clavering, it had to be a blow at his vanity; and there was nothing that would have the effect of so completely demolishing his vanity as a defeat for the title. He was inordinately proud of his unofficial title of county champion. It pleased him to have people watch him play, and to hear them whisper, “He's county champion, you know.” He intended to remain county champion.
Sylvia also had been wounded in her vanity. It had humiliated her to have Clavering think he had but to stretch out his hand and take her. She knew what it was to be humiliated, and she never wavered in her determination that Clavering should be hurt just as she was. She liked Clavering—had liked him, rather—but she expected that, with his self-complacency gone, she could like him a great deal better. As for Gerrity, he was simply an instrument of discipline.
On Saturday came word of Gerrity's election to membership in the Brook Club. That afternoon he took a long walk with Sylvia, who found that her tutorship was proving as interesting to her as it was helpful to her pupil.
Gerrity, meanwhile, had been living in a totally different world from that to which he had been accustomed, and he was finding it exhilarating. He was dropping into place as though he had always been there, and he was beginning to look upon his old life with the same detachment as Larry Marlinghue himself. The servants did not notice this—except Delia Moriarty. Delia was nursing a secret canker, and she was not the young woman to keep it secret very long.
Gerrity's walk with Sylvia that afternoon was a thing he might have dreamed of in optimistic moments, yet never expected to realize. Never was that young woman so beautiful, never so gracious and understanding. The foliage of the countryside was resplendent; there was just enough haze to take the edge off the sun's heat and to cast a filmy mist over the distant Vernon hills. There were long silences between them that were fuller than talk could ever have been.
Now and again she would speak, in reply, perhaps, to some unspoken thought of his own. She seemed to guess uncannily what was passing in his mind. “Well, what do you think of them?” She smiled at him.
He looked up at her with a bashful grin. “Oh, I guess people are pretty much the same everywhere,” he replied. “I mean, take away their money and put them all in the same station of life, and you'll find just as much goodness—and just as much wickedness per person——”
“I'm not so sure about that. I don't think people are pretty much the same. Now you, for instance—you're quite different from anybody else I know.”
He blushed. Johnny blushed easily. “In what way?” he asked. “I didn't know I was——”
“Of course you didn't; that's one of the things that make you different. I mean you're not always posing, not always playing for an effect.”
“Perhaps I am,” he said. “Isn't the country beautiful at this time of year? You know, I never did take a good, square look at the country before. Somehow, I was just always on my way from one city to another—from one race track to another; the country was just nothing but something I had to pass through to get where I wanted to get.” He was trying to get the conversation into another trend; he did not care to linger on the subject of himself. Still he said: “Well, perhaps it looks so good to me on account of—of the company. You sorta learn to see with the eyes of another sometimes.”
She made no reply to this, and thus they went on, skirting the dangerous edge of too great intimacy, yet always fascinated too much to stay very far away from it. Gerrity was indeed discovering a new world. As he said, he found that people were very much the same, and a beautiful girl was a beautiful girl regardless of her station.
They went to the dance that night at the Brook Club, and Gerrity got on famously with everybody—men and women alike.
CHAPTER VIII.
A SUDDEN DECISION.
DURING the next week the club tournament was held to decide the Brook Club championship. The winner was to play the champion of the Bowling Green Country Club for the championship of the county—unofficial. Clavering had already won the title for his club—the Bowling Green—as usual. There was nobody in either club good enough to beat him; at least, in the past few years there had not been.
An unusually large crowd turned out for the club tournament, word having gone forth that this new member, Johnny Gerrity, was able to swing a wicked racket, as some of them put it. Gerrity and Larry Marlinghue were on opposite sides of the draw, so it was not until the third day of the tournament that they met, in the finals. Each had gone through his own side of the draw without defeat.
If the crowd was looking for an exciting match, they were not disappointed. Johnny began winning on his cannon-ball service—a love game. He won the match in three straight sets, with the loss of only one game in each set.
“Well,” said the referee, congratulating him, “at last the Brook Club has some one who can give Clavering a battle.”
“I think I can,” replied Johnny.
“Well, if you do, there'll be some high times around here.”
“I've played both of you,” put in Larry Marlinghue, who had come up during the colloquy. “It seems to me that you're pretty even—the advantage, if any, is only a shade on your side.” Johnny nodded. He differed from Larry in his opinion.
There was a dance at the club that evening in honor of the victor, and, flushed with adulation, it was after two a.m. before Johnny, in company with the Marlinghues, came back to their home. He rose late the next morning, in consequence—after nine o'clock. He bathed and dressed leisurely, dreamily thinking of what fine eyes Sylvia Marlinghue had, and how they lighted up when he talked to her. In the hall he met Delia Moriarty.
“It's a fine morning, Mr. Gerrity,” she ventured.
“Yes, indeed, Delia,” he replied.
“Aye, it is—fer thim as can be enjoyin' av it,” she put in maliciously.
He caught the tone and turned to look at her, curious. “What do you mean, Delia?” he asked-.
“Nothing.” She shrugged. “Only, there's some who must work, an' enjoyin' av the weather isn't fer the likes o' thim. There's others who can do that same. An' there's some”—she looked him directly in the eyes—“who ought to be workin'.” Then she went on with her work, and Gerrity went down to breakfast.
He fell to thinking over the girl's words; but dismissed all thought of them after a while.
The next two weeks were sunny, happy, long-to-be-remembered days for Gerrity. A large part of each day was spent in playing tennis with Larry on the Marlinghue courts, and with such other members as cared to play on the Brook Club courts. Then there were long afternoons, when the sun was too hot to play tennis, spent in sitting in the shade with Sylvia, talking on every subject that a young man and a young woman can discuss in their idle time.
Evenings were spent with music, visitors, or walks in the gardens with Sylvia. Clavering was a frequent caller, both afternoons and evenings, and he could not help noting the preference Sylvia showed for Gerrity—which is perhaps exactly what that wise young woman wanted him to notice.
It was a toss-up between them, however, when both were present. She did not seem to prefer either very much to the other; it was the clear field that Gerrity had when he, Clavering, was not present, that worried him. Clavering had stirred up something strong in her, something resentful, something that was not easily stilled. But to Gerrity she showed herself an angel, a soft-spoken, straight-thinking young woman, filled to the brim with kindness.
Two days before the match Gerrity was in the pink of condition and spirits. He was walking in the garden with Sylvia, and, in their good-natured raillery they seemed closer than ever. Suddenly she said to him: “There is no doubt about it, Johnny?”
“You mean about beating Clavering?” he asked.
She nodded. “Yes.”
He looked at her curiously, as though scarcely understanding. “And after that?” he said.
“Then—we'll see.” She smiled at him again, disarming his completely.
“I think I'll beat him all right,” Gerrity went on. “But I can't see why you're so awfully, anxious to see him beaten. Tell me, now. Just why is it?”
“I once told you not to ask me, Johnny, didn't I? I'll tell you—in time. But not just at present.”
That's where the matter rested, but it left Gerrity's heart filling with a strange hope. For the rest of that day he trod upon air.
Clavering had been invited to dinner that evening. Before dinner Gerrity had been looking at the horses in the stables, and directing the help in the care of them. He turned in the direction of the house, as he had just time enough to dress for the evening meal. By way of a short cut he went around the house instead of crossing in front. Here he found Clavering, who had stepped out from behind some bushes.
“Hello!” was his greeting. Then he stepped into the path in front of Gerrity, frowning. “I want to talk to you,” he said coldly.
Gerrity stared at him. “Well, you have the floor, Mr. Clavering,” he drawled, pausing, hands in pockets, his eyes looking directly into Clavering's. He noticed the hostility of the other. “Speak your piece.”
“It won't do, Gerrity,” said Clavering, stepping closer.
“No?” inquired Johnny. “Probably not. Just what are you referring to, though?” But he had guessed.
“All this.” Clavering took in the Marlinghue place with a wave of his hand. “All this stuff about being a friend of the Marlinghues and playing in the tennis championships.”
“Why won't it do?” asked Gerrity calmly.
“Why?”- The other stared at him belligerently. "You know why as well as I do, but I'll tell you: Because you're parading under false colors. Because you're not what you—or the Marlinghues—pretend you are. Because you don't belong in this crowd, that's all. No stable boy does.” He paused to let this sink in.
Gerrity strove hard to keep his temper, and for the moment succeeded. “The Marlinghues said I was a horse-man, and that's what I am. Don't let nobody tell you different. And as far as——”
“Talk, Gerrity, talk!” snapped Clavering. “You were employed in the Marlinghue stables—I know that. An equerry, I believe they call you. Well, call it anything you like. You're a stable boy all the same. I guess the Brook Club board of governors'll have something to say about it when I tell them.”
“You're going to tell them?”
“Am I? I'm going to tell everybody. Where do you get off, anyway, coming in here where you don't belong, pretending you're something that you're not, mixing with your betters on the assumption that you're their——”
“What do you want?” cut in Gerrity. “Make it snappy.”
“I want you to get out—that's what I want!” answered Clavering.
“And if I don't you'll spring your story, is that it?”
The other nodded, towering above Gerrity almost a head. There was a silence for a moment and then Gerrity spoke. “All right,” he said. “Spring it. I'm staying right here.” He turned to go.
“Here, wait a minute,” called Clavering. “I'm not through yet.”
“I'm through,” flung back Gerrity, walking away. The other followed and kept pace with him.
“There's nothing in this for you, you know,” said Clavering. “You're just being used—I don't know why——”
“What's that to you?” demanded Gerrity.
“Well, just this,” said Clavering. “It's worth five hundred dollars to me if you withdraw—both from the match and from the scene—if you see nothing more of Miss Marlinghue."
Johnny stared at him. “So that's how you fight your battles!”
“You fool!” exclaimed Clavering. “Do you seriously think Sylvia Marlinghue can really care anything about people like you——”
“Don't bring the lady's name in, Clavering,” Johnny warned him quietly; but there was a grimness in his tone that should have spelled danger to Clavering.
“Nonsense!” said Clavering. “Never mind that dramatic stuff. Sylvia Marlinghue is just using you——”
That was as far as he got on that line of thought, because he was suddenly sent into the land of oblivion. It was accomplished by means of a clean-cut swing on Clavering's jaw, followed by another just like it. Both had been delivered with amazing suddenness. Clavering hardly knew what hit him. Johnny stood over him, his clothes scarcely ruffled, and regarded him speculatively. Then he turned and seized a garden hose that was handy, turned it on, and played it on the figure of the recumbent tennis champion.
When Clavering, drenched and miserable, began to clamber to his feet, Johnny dropped the hose.
“Now, go home and get dry—and spring your sensation, Mr. Clavering.”
CHAPTER IX.
A LITTLE CONVERSATION.
GERRITY sauntered away, whistling as he went. So that was the way of it, he reflected. He wondered who had told Clavering; where Clavering had found out. Not that it mattered. As for himself, he had never wanted to conceal his identity. But there was a leak somewhere.
He had just about reached the house when he learned that he had forgotten his pipe in the stables. He could have left it there, of course, if he had been in a hurry, but he decided he had plenty of time, so he turned back to the stables to get it.
He reached the stables and entered the stall of Pomander III, where he had left his pipe. The partitions were about as high as his head, and his entry had been noiseless, so it is no wonder the occupants of the next stall did not know of his presence. That was how he came to overhear their talk. The persons speaking were Sylvia Marlingue and her brother Larry.
Larry's voice was tinged with exasperation. “Look here, Sylvia,” he was saying, “I'm going to get into an awful mess about this Gerrity affair, you know. I——”
“How?” came the voice of Sylvia, cold, hard as granite. It was a voice Johnny had never heard before.
“Oh, you know. Don't make me go over all that again. It was a fool thing to go into, in the first place. When the board of governors learn about it—and you bet they will—I'll be pretty lucky if they don't expel me. Introducing——”
“From the stable to high society! How's that for a movie title?” Sylvia laughed, a little harshly.
“Exactly,” put in Larry. “And when the truth comes out—what?”
“Nonsense!” snapped Sylvia. “It'll be called just a rich man's whim. What can they do to you? There's no rule against his being a member that I know of—no written rule, anyway.”
“I know,” interrupted Larry petulantly. “But it's hardly a sporting thing to do. You know, these people have taken him up on my say-so, and it isn't playing fairly, with them.”
“Rot!” exclaimed his sister. “Anyhow, you're in it now, and you have to go through with it.”
“Well, it doesn't seem the right thing to do,” objected her brother. “And while I'm on the subject, I don't think you're acting nicely with him——”
“What do you mean, Larry Marlinghue?”
“Why,” he went on, determined to have his say, “I mean the way you go around with him as though you had a special sentimental interest in him, you know.”
His sister laughed, peal on peal of metallic, sharp laughter. “How funny you are, Larry! So you think——”
“Why, what would anybody think?” he asked. “I wouldn't be surprised if you married him!”
“Larry!” She came back at him sharply. “How dare you say such a thing?”
“Sorry,” he apologized. “But you see how it is.”
“Well, if it looks that way, that's just how I want it to look. You didn't think I'd descend so low as to marry him, did you—even if it looks like that.”
“Well, what are you going to do after the match?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she answered. “Guy Clavering comes back to heel, chastened and subdued, where he belongs, after I've made the news public that he was beaten by a stable boy!”
“And Gerrity?” put in Larry.
“Gerrity?” she asked, as though she had forgotten him. “Oh, yes; he goes back to the stable, where he belongs.”
There was a movement behind them, in the doorway. They whirled to face Johnny, who was standing there, rigid, grim, his face white. His eyes were hard and dead, as he stared at them. Speechless with surprise, they stared back at him. For several seconds the tableau held.
Then, without a word, Johnny turned and walked out. In half an hour he was on his way to New York, without having spoken to anybody.
CHAPTER X.
SOMETHING SURPRISING.
THE next day Clavering sprang his sensation in Cedar Cove. The first person he met was Rita Rittenhouse, whose family owned a large slice of that part of the county. He told her all about Johnny, what his real profession was, and so forth. Her eyes lighted up with interest. She liked Johnny Gerrity; there was something clean, something straightforward about him that had grasped her.
“So he soils his lily hands with work!” she remarked. “Isn't that jolly? You know, Guy, somehow I thought he was rather worth while. I must be sure to ask him to dinner.”
Clavering looked at her, puzzled. “But he's a stable boy, Rita!”
“No, he isn't; he's an expert on horses, as anybody who's talked with him for more than two minutes could tell you. And moreover, what do I care what he does for a living? I like him. He's interesting, he's got something to talk about, and he has an interest in life that most of you people lost long ago.”
He gave her up as a bad job, and next tackled Billy Shaw, to whom he told the story of Johnny.
Billy laughed. “I suspected something like that all along,” said he. “Say, he's a regular fellow, isn't he, Guy!” He laughed again, as if in remembrance of something Johnny had said. “You know, the minute I clapped my eyes on that chap he interested me. I must get some advice from him about my two-year-olds. Ripping good tennis player, isn't he? I think you're going to lose your old crown, if you ask me, which you don't.”
It was an amazing thing to Clavering—and probably it would have been to the Marlinghues, too—but it was the same thing all along the line. The story of Johnny's real business in life made no sensation at all among the young people. They didn't care what he did for a living—despite the reputation for snobbishness that they had! What interested them was the fact that Johnny was “the right sort,” and they liked him.
Meanwhile, Sylvia and Larry Marlinghue did not quite know what to do. The next day was the date of the important tennis match—the match Johnny had been booked to win from Clavering. It happened that the athletic committee was stalled somewhere on a three or four-day fishing trip in the woods, and could not be reached. Johnny Gerrity had been appointed to represent the club in the match, and nobody had any authority to make any substitution. And Gerrity had disappeared.
“Well, we seem to have spilled the beans,” remarked Larry. “I don't know what to do about that match. I don't believe Gerrity will show up again. Did you hear what they're saying at the club? That it's about time we got some healthy young blood, new blood, into the place. That's Johnny. I hardly understand it myself, but nobody seems to be mad about Johnny except Clavering. There was something about him they liked, I guess.”
Sylvia nodded. She knew what that something was; in spite of her pose she liked it herself. She would not have admitted it before, but now that he was gone she missed him. “I know,” she said. “I wonder how Guy Clavering found out.”
“Why, didn't you know?” asked Larry. “He told me. From one of the upstairs girls—Delia Moriarty.”
“Delia Moriarty!” echoed Sylvia, a puzzled look creeping into her eyes. “You mean that good-looking, red-haired Irish girl?” He nodded. “I guess that explains why she left so suddenly this morning. Afraid' of getting discharged for telling, I suppose. Well, she might just as well have stayed. It doesn't seem to have been much of a sensation either way. Now about the match?”
“I think the only thing to do will be for me to appear there at the scheduled time, in place of Gerrity. We can fix it up with the athletic committee later, when they get back to the city. Somebody has to play Clavering. We can't let the title go by default.
CHAPTER XI.
ONE TOO MANY.
THE large stands at the Brook Club were freighted to their capacity, towering gayly against a perfect sky. A huge crowd was present; every one who was able to crowd into the arena was there. In the throng was the entire membership of both the Brook Club and the Bowling Green Country Club, reënforced overwhelmingly by their friends and partisans.
A big contingent from the county at large was there, drawn by the lure of a championship match, and by the chance that the title might change hands. The news had gone out that a new champion would arise—a man of the people, not one of the idle rich; these people wanted to see the event take place, and to cheer for Johnny Gerrity. Clavering was not a popular champion.
Most of the crowd did not know that Gerrity had disappeared; they found it out only upon their arrival, and they were not pleased about it, you may be sure. They liked Larry Marlinghue, but they knew he had little chance against Clavering. And the news that Gerrity was an employee in the stables of the Marlinghues only increased the desire of many to see him in action.
Leaning against the grand stand, at one corner, lounged Clavering, impressively towering in his tennis flannels and grace of pose. A cynical smile played over his face as he stood there talking. Some one remarked that it was strange Gerrity should have disappeared just before a match; it looked like running away from it.
“Well, who knows!” returned Clavering, smiling in his reserved, egotistical manner. He gave the impression that it was his view of the matter.
The stands, however, felt differently about it. As the officials began to scurry around before the start of the match, and as Larry sauntered to his place on the courts, they set up a concerted cheering.
“We want Gerrity! Johnny Gerrity! We want Gerrity!”
Clavering looked up at them wordless, but with a trace of contempt for their judgment in his bearing that they did not miss. They would have liked to see Clavering beaten.
At last came the moment for the match. Positions were tossed for and awarded, and the men took their places.
“Are you ready?” asked the referee from his ladderlike chair at the net.
The reply was drowned in a roar of applause that suddenly arose. Tennis racket under his arm, debonair and faultless in flannels, a graceful figure had walked onto the court, bewildered a little by the uproarious greeting, and taking it in his charmingly bashful and diffident manner.
“Johnny Gerrity! Johnny Gerrity!” screamed the crowd at him.
It was he, for a fact, and he had come back to play Clavering. He nodded to the referee, who was a little uncertain as to how to act. In a moment there was an excited group under the referee's stand. Larry and Clavering came up hastily.
Gerrity turned to Larry. “Have you been appointed by the athletic committee to take my place?”
“No,” answered Larry. “But we thought you wouldn't appear.”
“I'm here,” said Johnny. He turned to the referee. “Is there any reason why I shouldn't play?”
The referee shook his head. “None that I know of, Mr. Gerrity.”
Here Clavering pushed his way through. “This man is not really representative of the Brook Club,” he asserted. “Marlinghue is the man to play me.”
“You'll play me, Clavering, or you'll play nobody to-day, I think. How about it, Mr. Referee?”
The referee nodded. “That's the way I understand it. I had your name down.”
Here the crowd, impatient at a discussion of which it could hear nothing, drowned out the conference with shouts of “Gerrity! Johnny Gerrity!”
There was more talk, in which Johnny took little part; at last he took Larry Marlinghue's place on the court, and, grumbling, Clavering went to his own.
“Are you ready?” asked the referee, for the second time that day. The players nodded. “Then play!”
Gerrity held the ball, ready to serve. A tense silence overhung the clear air, unusual to such a large crowd. There was a square set to Gerrity's jaw and the usual smile was absent from his eyes. He was grim; he was going to fight with all he had of brain and brawn.
His racket slashed back, poised for an instant at the top of the stroke; then a white ball flashed past Clavering.
“Fifteen love!” announced the referee. The men changed to the other sides of their courts.
Crash! The ball went on a dead line over the net. No human being could have returned it in time.
“Thirty love!” announced the referee.
In a dazed silence Johnny Gerrity took the first game on four served balls; the older man had been unable to send one of them back across the net.
There was a slightly puzzled look in Clavering's eyes as he poised the ball for his service. He could scarcely understand how a man could get so much power behind his racket as Johnny had exhibited. No man he had ever played had shown this type of speed; it was dazzling. He saw that if he wanted to win from Gerrity he would have to win his own service every time and trust to win on Gerrity's service at some time when he weakened or faltered for an instant.
Clavering's racket whizzed through the air and hit the ball with the entire strength of his shoulders behind it. Like a rocket it shrieked across the net. From far back in his own court Johnny sent it back even swifter.
“Love fifteen!” announced the referee monotonously. The second game was marvelously fast after that. Both men covered their courts perfectly, but where Clavering was simply playing tennis, Gerrity was playing an almost inspired game.
Like a gray shadow in the night, Gerrity's lithe body ranged over every inch of his side of the net—as he had learned to do in Central Park, where the game had to be suspended if you lost the only ball you had. His racket rose and fell. The ball would clear the net by the veriest fraction of an inch, and shoot unimpeded to the back screen. It would have taken a national champion in good condition to stand up to that kind of game. Gerrity took the second game with the loss of only one point.
The rest of the first set was in about the same mold. Johnny won it in six straight games—a love set in championship tennis! Rattled and bewildered by the other's truly brilliant playing, Clavering did not look the really good player that he was. He seemed a mere novice in the hands of Gerrity. His speed seemed to avail him nothing; he was far in the back court when Johnny served, and even then had difficulty getting to the ball.
In a box sat Sylvia Marlinghue, and on her face was a queer expression. It was the look of a girl who had found herself; the face of one who had cast away sham and got down to elemental facts. Her eyes almost devoured Johnny; they followed his every movement, his every expression.
CHAPTER XII.
AN INVITATION DECLINED.
BEFORE an excited crowd Gerrity took the second set with the loss of only one game. He looked not at the crowd at all. His face was like a stone, so cold and so grim was it. His business was to play tennis—not to notice crowds. His play was the perfect coördination of body and mind.
Suddenly, as it seemed, a change came over Clavering, as if he were just recovering from what might almost have been a coma. He called on his own will, and on all of his nerve. In his eyes came a hard glint of determination. There was a firm set to his jaw and a tightening around his lips. He took a decided brace. It was time, too; the match was for three out of five sets. As Johnny had won two, he had but to win one more out of three.
The third set was an epic of tennis. Grimly, silently, they contended. Each was fighting the battle of his life with an opponent who must be beaten back, crushed, driven to his base lines. The stands shrieked in their excitement, and on the courts the battle raged back and forth, with the games going first to one and then to the other in clockwork regularity.
Like the ghosts of all the wonderful tennis players of the past the men ranged over their courts, covering every inch. Not a mistake—not a misstep! Their placements were magnificent; their services were exact to the fine quarter of an inch. Up and up the score in games mounted. Now it was six all; now it was nine all; now it was ten to nine in favor of Clavering; then it was ten all. Such a set had never before been seen in match play at the Brook Club. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen!
Sternly they fought on. The crowd had lapsed into a strained silence. Presently Clavering swayed a trifle—just the merest trifle, on his feet. He was beginning to give way. He was being beaten down at his last frontier. The pace was too stiff for him.
At the fifteenth John Gerrity broke through Clavering's service. He became a whirlwind galvanized into action; he shot the balls back like a sharp-shooter to all angles of the other man's court. The only sounds were the scuffling of the men's fast-flying feet, the thud of the rackets against the lively balls, and the calling of the referee's voice.
Gerrity won a love game. He needed one more game for the set and match. He started like a panther to sweep Clavering off his feet, and did so in short order. He smashed the ball over the net with uncanny speed. The eye could scarcely follow its terrific flight. It cleared the net by an infinitesimal fraction of an inch. Clavering made a desperate sweep at it with his racket, but it was impossible to return that service. They changed to the left sides of their courts.
Slam! It was another fierce one, just clearing the net, but Clavering was expecting it. His racket swooped up before the ball had even crossed the net, and it fairly sang with the impact as he slammed the ball down hard in the farthest reaches of Gerrity's court. The crowd gasped as he made what seemed an impossible return, and Clavering could only stand and watch it flash past him. The white projectile whizzed over the net right to the feet of Clavering. For an instant he hesitated. He recovered and made a forehand lunge at the ball. Straight as a shot from a gun it flew into the net. The score was now forty love. One more point and the game was Gerrity's.
A tense look appeared in Clavering's face. Far back of his line he played, to give him time and room to return the ball, which he knew would be shot across at him.
Gerrity's racket flashed in the air. The ball sailed lazily over the net and dropped on Clavering's side with not more than an inch to spare. Too late Clavering saw his mistake. Desperately he darted to the net, but the ball did not even bounce. It was a perfect cut, and lay dead when it struck the ground.
“Game, set and match!” announced the referee, but no one heard him. The stands poured out their occupants in a gay-colored deluge onto the courts.
Some time later, when the crowd had thinned out around Gerrity and it was possible to speak to him, Sylvia and Larry pushed up.
He received them smilingly, diffidently, as though there had never been any hard feeling between them. She congratulated him with eyes beaming her admiration.
“I'm glad you liked it, Sylvia,” he said.
“Oh, it was wonderful!” she exclaimed, and Larry added his comments.
“You'll come up to the house for dinner, won't you?” she added hopefully. “I've such a lot to talk about.”
He smiled good-humoredly. “Can't possibly,” he said. “I signed up with a man this morning to take charge of his horses. He's taking them to Kentucky. I must hurry off to make the train. Good-by. Had a bully time at Cedar Cove, and”—he looked squarely into Sylvia's eyes—“I've learned a heap about a lot of things and—people.”
How did this story strike you? A few words about it, if you will be good enough to write them and send them to the editor. We ask you to say, without reserve, just what you think of it. And in the same letter, please give us your opinion of TOP-NOTCH in general.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1945, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 78 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse