Haswell had insisted must be placed where they would not mar the beauty of her garden. They had been laid out, accordingly, at some distance from the house, and they backed on to the wall which shut the grounds of The Cedars off from the footpath running from the northern, Hawkshead, road, past the Squire's plantations, directly south to Fox Lane, separated from it by a stile. At this point, the path, skirting the spinney belonging to The Cedars, turned sharply westward until it met Wood Lane immediately south of The Cedars' front gates. A gate set in the wall close to the tennis-courts gave access to the footpath. It was through this gate that the Lindales, who lived on the Hawkshead-Bellingham road, had come to the party. Miss Warrenby and Miss Dearham had also used it, none of these persons being so punctilious in the use of front entrances as Mr. Drybeck.

When Mrs. Haswell led the three men up to the courts only one was being used. A cheerful and hard-fought set was in progress between the son of the house and Miss Patterdale's niece on the one side, and the Lindales, a young married couple, on the other; while the Vicar, a tall, bony man with a gentle countenance and grizzled hair receding from a broad brow, engaged Mavis Warrenby in desultory conversation on a garden-seat behind the court.

“Well, I don't have to introduce any of you,” said Mrs. Haswell, smiling generally upon her guests. “Or ask you what sort of games you play, which is such a comfort, because no one ever answers truthfully. Mavis, I think you and Mr. Drybeck ought to take on the Vicar and Major Midgeholme.”

“I'm not nearly good enough to play with Mr. Drybeck,” protested Mavis, with what that gentleman privately considered perfect truth. “I shall be dreadfully nervous. I'm sure they'd much rather have a men's four.”

“Not, I imagine, if you are suggesting I should make the fourth,” interpolated Gavin, throwing her into confusion, and watching the result with the eye of a connoisseur.