From what I was able to gather, the course of young Ted Carmichael’s love was highly meritorious in its constancy. His affection was a solid, reliable fact, and, to me, correspondingly uninteresting. His father, I remembered, had, years before, wooed little Alice Chatterton on much the same lines, between which two it had been what their friends called an “understood thing,” since the first bashful glances of adolescence. In both cases this trait was regarded as a highly commendable faithfulness, and invested with the usual attributes of true and undying love; but to me it had less of this positive quality than appeared, and argued rather a certain paucity of invention in the finer relations of amorous adventure. It was admirable, but the case was settled from the beginning, and offered little field for speculation, even its incidental tiffs and mischances being in their rise and end perfectly accountable. In the case of the son, his three terms at Eton, coming when they did, might have resulted in a break from this monotonous routine of laudable love; his father had been hopeless from the start.

But Miss Nellie Bassishaw bade fair for freer flights. During the occasional intervals of my seeing her she seemed to grow in sections and to develop in seasons, and now, emancipated from the last suggestion of governess, was gowned and coifed beyond the limit of girlhood. True, her neck still showed a whitish celery colour from the unhabitual exposure, and in the management of her feet and skirt the last trace of the tomboy was disappearing; but she displayed beneath an eminently suitable hat glances that promised in the near future a hundred roguishnesses and mischiefs. If anything could shake Ted’s devotion, Miss Nellie, I decided, had it.

Young Ted called on me one afternoon for no reason at all that I could discover during the first half-hour of his visit. He was clad point-devise, bore his gloves and cane with admirable instinct, and looked as fresh and trim a youth as ever received the half-motherly kiss of a widow. I greeted him with pleasure.

“And the match, Ted?” I asked, when he had sat down; “how do you feel?”—Ted was the youngest member of the Eton eleven, which was to meet Harrow in the annual match at Lord’s in a day or two.

A troubled look crossed his face.

“I don’t feel a bit up to it, Butterfield,” he replied. “I shall go and mess the confounded thing, I know I shall. A fellow who’s playing cricket shouldn’t have anything on his mind—that is——”

He paused, and flushed half angrily.

“Anything wrong?” I asked in an offhand tone.

“No,” he replied—an affirmative “no,”—“nothing that matters.”

“Only?” I prompted.

“Only this,” he answered with another flush, “that women oughtn’t to have anything to do with cricket.”

“From my experience,” I returned, “they are invariably proud to see their sons playing.”

“Sons!” he replied. “Oh, it isn’t that—I know my mother is all right. But it doesn’t matter—much,” he concluded, in a tone that was not intended as a hint to let the matter drop.

“Ah, I see,” I replied sympathetically. “Sorry, Ted. Of course, that does make a difference. When you said 'women,’ I thought for a moment you——Yes, it’s very awkward. To know that in such a crowd two eyes are aching with anxiety that you should acquit yourself well must be extremely trying to the nerves. I should try to forget it.”

He fidgeted with his gloves, and then turned sharp round.

“And suppose they were not anxious?” he retorted. “Suppose they didn’t care whether you came off or not? Hang it, Butterfield,” he continued, “you can imagine what it’s like—they think because a fellow hasn’t a moustache—it’s enough to make a fellow go and drink rotten stuff. I shan’t stand it.”

It was Nellie. I got it all out of him. He had evidently come to tell me. The rude health of public school life had not knocked the fancy out of him, and he had come back to find her grown up and with a tendency to be interested in men ten years her senior. How he had managed to get into the first eleven and to remain in love was to me one of the mysteries of constancy.

“But I thought you would have forgotten almost, Ted,” I said, in the maturity of our confidence. “It’s a year since you went away.”

“A fellow never forgets,” he replied sulkily. “It’s the girls who forget. Could you?”

I passed the point, and speculated on the validity of pledges on eternity.

“And she has—pardon me—snubbed you?” I inquired, after a while.

“Well, no,” he rejoined dubiously, “it isn’t quite that; but she always seems to have engagements or something. She must always 'be going now,’ and she’s altered so. I told her so, and she said we were silly then; and if I muff this match it will be worse than ever.”

I couldn’t help thinking that if I had organised the female mind I should have done it more consistently; but then there would probably have been no comedy in the world. I was willing to help Ted all I could, and advised a spontaneous gaiety in her presence—Ted shook his head—or failing that, a desperate counter-movement with a married woman; a notion he also rejected.

The only suggestion Ted had to make was that I should go to the match, contrive to sit next to Miss Nell, and—what, he didn’t say; a delicate reserve I admired.

“You’re a good chap, you know, Butterfield,” he added. “I’ve told lots of our fellows what a good chap you are. Harrop major says so too—he met you once, you know, Butterfield.”

I fear I had forgotten Harrop major in the multiplicity of my affairs, but I was properly touched. I smiled at my own goodness.

“Well, thanks awfully, Butterfield”—he rose to go—“it’s awfully good of you really. You’re a brick.”

“Thanks, Ted,” I returned. “I hope you’ll come off all right in the match.”

His lips twitched queerly; I forbore to press the alternative contingency, and he took his leave.

My duty, apparently, was to keep an eye on Miss Nell, to diagnose her condition when Ted went in to bat, to mark how, as should befall, his success or failure was received, and to exercise a discretionary supervision over the state of her heart as revealed by the vicissitudes of the game. It was doubtful of what precise use I should be, but—it was interesting, and Ted was a pleasant-mannered youth.

It was peculiarly interesting in view of the fact that the Carmichaels were a cricketing family. Now the purely abstract part of the game was a cult to which I had never aspired, my only interest being in such personal cases as that of my young friend Ted. I was convinced that the progress of Carmichael senior’s love, if it had had a progress, was accelerated by the fact that he had, in his Eton match, made fifty on a wet wicket; and the question whether a similar performance on the son’s part would please Nellie, or whether Nellie would be merely pleased to see Ted pleased with himself, was a speculation which I followed into the nicer nuances.

Our party accounted for a considerable segment of bench space, the apex of which, I contrived it, consisted of Miss Nell and myself. We were backed by tiers of Carmichaels, Chattertons, and Bassishaws, and penetrated wedge-wise into half a division of Eton younglings, with close-cropped hair and large ears, which looked frank admiration at Nellie. One keeper of the public manners with freckles and an even greater extent of white collar than the rest cuffed his neighbour for saying that she was stunning. Nellie heard and laughed. She sat provokingly upright, and shot enfilading glances to left and right beneath the brim of a hat remarkably adapted to such proceedings. A pretty, slim thing she was, and the careless white flash between her lips unsettled Ted considerably, who was paying uneasy flying visits.

“I think the Harrow boys look nicer,” she said, with a look of illicit pleasure from the shade of that eminently suitable hat; and Ted left with ill-feigned unconcern. I remembered my mission, and leaned towards her.

“Nellie,” I said, “do you consider that an encouraging remark to a young man whose happiness depends on his playing a straight bat and keeping his head cool?”

“Oh, Ted’s all right,” she returned with, I was pleased to observe, a touch of shame; “besides, what does it matter? It’s only a game.”

She might have had her answer from the group of Eton juvenility surrounding us, which broke into excited babble.

“Yes, you can.” “No, you can’t.” “You can’t be caught off your pads. Fat lot you know about cricket.” “Silly ass.” And so forth.

“But, Mr. Butterfield,” she said after a moment, “he will be so unbearable if he makes a lot of runs. He’s important enough already at being in the eleven.”

She stooped and spoke to young Eton on her right, who blushed at the distinction, but answered with bashful coldness.

“Besides,” she continued, “they say his average is thirty, and I’m sure I don’t care who wins.”

Luckily this treasonable utterance was unheard by the Eton boys, with whom sentiment and cricket hung in highly disproportionate balance. I was satisfied, at least, that if it came to the worst she would be sorry for Ted.

Now, Eton batted first, and there was little talk in our strongly prejudiced quarter. Ted Carmichael, I gathered from my neighbours, was to go in “third wicket down.” He had made a last visit—this time from a different entrance—but had avoided Nell, sitting next to Bassishaw instead, who had not tried to talk to him. Then he had disappeared.

I knew in my soul what was going to happen. Ted’s nervousness at his first match, and the condescending interest of Miss Nellie Bassishaw, could only have one result; and I was so busy speculating on the mysteries of this dread fatality that hems us so remorselessly about, that I forgot the scene for a moment, and was startled back by the juvenile clamour. The inevitable had happened.

“Oh!” “Oh, I say!” “What a trimmer!” “Just on the bails!” “First ball!” “—broke from the off!” “It didn’t—it was a straight ball.” “Four for fifty-three.”

Ted was out, for a duck.

I glanced at the slender white figure trailing a fruitless bat towards the pavilion, and adjusted the knees of my trousers. I commented mentally on the pattern, and waited.

She did not speak, but absently pulled off a glove. The Carmichaels behind slowly resumed their talk, and the Eton boys, after marking their scoring cards, took up the current of the game. True liberals, with them the issue transcended the individual.

Still she did not speak, but folded and unfolded the gloves. I glanced up, and that eminently becoming hat did not seem the same, so inseparably had it been connected with the lurking ambuscade of eyes. Miss Nell was visibly shaken.

I leaned towards her.

“It’s only a game, Nellie——” I began. She interrupted me with a look.

“Please don’t be mean, Mr. Butterfield. I know what you think—you think it’s all my fault.”

I was silent for Ted’s sake, and she continued slowly:

“I don’t see why men should think so much of cricket. It makes them so——”

“So unbearable when they come off,” I replied. “But he must have been very nervous, Nellie, whether or no. You couldn’t help that. Your encouragement would probably have disturbed him just as much as your—as not. That is the double influence of woman on the man of action—neither her smiles nor her frowns help him in the least. Her approval is pleasant when it’s all over, but I’m afraid the presence of the Queen of Love and Beauty has unhorsed many a gallant youth before to-day. He makes the mistake in——”

“In having anything to do with them?” she queried with pretty cynicism.

I leaned back.

“No. In being a man of action,” I returned.

There was a sudden turn and hush among the Eton boys. Ted reappeared, and they were awed in the presence of a great grief. He sat down next to me with the hard look of one who asks no sympathy, folded his hands, and stared at his shoes. The Eton boys whispered.

“And they play me for my batting,” he said, so softly that I scarcely heard. “I’m a bat—a bat. I’m here to make runs.”

The Weltschmerz had sunk into his soul. I was about to say something, but checked myself as Nellie bent forward.

“Ted,” she said, “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

I folded my arms, looking before me. Ted did not move an inch.

“I was horrid,” she continued, “and I pretended——”

She stopped, conscious of the significance of what she was about to say. She had pretended to be unconscious of her empire over his heart, and was now retracting. Miss Nellie is the modern girl, with whom proposal is unnecessary.

Ted cut her short with the brutality of male desperation.

“All right, Nellie,” he said curtly. “It’s not your fault. I drank brandy.”

This was a surprise to me. Brandy steadies the nerves, but it is a remedy not recommended by the captains of cricket elevens, and his boyish devilry, as training, was as reprehensible as it was in the spirit of the comedy. But Nellie saw further than Ted.

“Oh, Ted,” she said humbly, “and that is my fault too. I made you angry. Will you forgive me?”

It has always seemed to me that when a pretty, half-tearful creature asks you if you will forgive her, the question is beside the mark, the forgiveness not depending on whether you will or not. You are not willing; you would much rather not; but—you do precisely as Ted did; he squeezed her ungloved hand across my knee, and an Eton boy sniggered.

I don’t know why I should have experienced a sensation as near akin to jealousy as I can locate it. I pursued the moral labyrinth for a time, and, getting no nearer, was fain to come to earth.

“And the next innings, Ted——” Nellie was saying.

Alas! What then? What, in Ted’s words, had women, even Queens of Love and Beauty, to do with cricket? More subtle in their influence than the forbidden brandy, why do not the captains demand that their followers shall be bachelors unattached? Ted was too blessedly happy to know; certainly too happy to be let alone. I spoke for his own good.

“The next innings,” I remarked, “will exemplify the second stage of the female relation to the man of action.”

I don’t think either of them took the trouble to understand.