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Read Ebook: To Him That Hath: A Tale of the West of Today by Connor Ralph
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Ebook has 2289 lines and 80342 words, and 46 pages
CHAPTER
I THE GAME
II THE COST OF SACRIFICE
IV ANNETTE
V THE RECTORY
VI THE GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE
X THE NIGHT OF VICTORY
TO HIM THAT HATH
THE GAME
"Forty-Love."
"Game! and Set. Six to two."
A ripple of cheers ran round the court, followed by a buzz of excited conversation.
The young men smiled at each other and at their friends on the side lines and proceeded to change courts for the next set, pausing for refreshments on the way.
"Much too lazy, Captain Jack. I am quite out of patience with you," cried a young girl whose brown eyes were dancing with mock indignation.
Captain Jack turned with a slightly bored look on his thin dark face.
"Too lazy, Frances?" drawled he. "I believe you. But think of the temperature."
"You have humiliated me dreadfully," she said severely.
"Humiliated you? You shock me. But how, pray?" Captain Jack's eyes opened wide.
"You, a Canadian, and our best player--at least, you used to be--to allow yourself to be beaten by a--a--" she glanced at his opponent with a defiant smile--"a foreigner."
"Oh! I say, Miss Frances," exclaimed that young man.
"A foreigner?" exclaimed Captain Jack. "Better not let Adrien hear you." He turned toward a tall fair girl standing near.
"What's that?" said the girl. "Did I hear aright?"
"Well, he's not a Canadian, I mean," said Frances, sticking to her guns. "Besides, I can't stand Adrien crowing over me. She is already far too English, don-che-know. You have given her one more occasion for triumph over us Colonials."
"Ah, this is serious," said Captain Jack. "But really it is too hot you know for--what shall I say?--International complications."
"Jack, you are plain lazy," said Frances. "You know you are. You don't deserve to win, but if you really would put your back into it--"
"Oh, come, Frances. Why! You don't know that my cousin played for his College at Oxford. And that is saying something," said Adrien.
"There you are, Jack! That's the sort of thing I have to live with," said Frances. "She thinks that settles everything."
"Well, doesn't it rather?" smiled Adrien.
"Oh, Jack, if you have any regard for your country, not to say my unworthy self, won't you humble her?" implored Frances. "If you would only buck up!"
"He will need to, eh, Adrien?" said a young fellow standing near, slowly sipping his drink.
"I think so. Indeed, I am quite sure of it," coolly replied the girl addressed. "But I really think it is quite useless."
"Ha! Ha! Cheer up, Jack," laughed the young man, Stillwell by name.
"Really, old chap, I feel I must beat you this set," said Captain Jack to the young Englishman. "My country's credit as well as my own is at stake, you see."
"Both are fairly assured, I should say," said the Englishman.
"Not to-day," said Stillwell, with a suspicion of a polite sneer in his voice. "My money says so."
"Canada vs. the Old Country!" cried a voice from the company.
"Now, Jack, Jack, remember," implored Frances.
"You have no mercy, Miss Frances, I see," said the Englishman, looking straight into her eyes.
"Absolutely none," she replied, smiling saucily at him.
"I think you've got him all right," replied Jack carelessly. The Englishman nodded.
"He somehow gets my goat," said Jack. The Englishman looked mystified.
"Rubs me the wrong way, you know."
"Oh, very good, very good. I must remember that."
"He rather fancies his own game, too," said Jack, "and he has come on the last year or two. In more ways than one," he added as an afterthought.
As they faced each other on the court it was Stillwell's voice that rang out:
"Now then, England!"
"Canada!" cried a girl's voice that was easily recognised as that of Frances Amory.
"Thumbs down, eh, Maitland?" said the Englishman, waving a hand toward his charming enemy.
Whatever the cause, whether from the spur supplied by the young lady who had constituted herself his champion or from the sting from the man for whom for reasons sufficient for himself he had only feelings of hostility and dislike, the game put up by Captain Jack was of quite a different brand from that he had previously furnished. From the first service he took the offensive and throughout played brilliant, aggressive, even smashing tennis, so much so that his opponent appeared to be almost outclassed and at the close the figures of the first set were exactly reversed, standing six to two in Captain Jack's favour.
The warmth of the cheers that followed attested the popularity of the win.
"My word, old chap, that is top-hole tennis," said the Englishman, warmly congratulating him.
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