Your true golfer is a man who, knowing that life is short andperfection hard to attain, neglects no opportunity of practisinghis chosen sport, allowing neither wind nor weather nor anyexternal influence to keep him from it. There is a story, with anexcellent moral lesson, of a golfer whose wife had determined toleave him for ever. "Will nothing alter your decision?" he says.

　　"Will nothing induce you to stay? Well, then, while you're packing,I think I'll go out on the lawn and rub up my putting a bit."George Bevan was of this turn of mind. He might be in love; romancemight have sealed him for her own; but that was no reason forblinding himself to the fact that his long game was bound to sufferif he neglected to keep himself up to the mark. His first act onarriving at Belpher village had been to ascertain whether there wasa links in the neighbourhood; and thither, on the morning after hisvisit to the castle and the delivery of the two notes, he repaired.

　　At the hour of the day which he had selected the club-house wasempty, and he had just resigned himself to a solitary game, when,with a whirr and a rattle, a grey racing-car drove up, and from itemerged the same long young man whom, a couple of days earlier, hehad seen wriggle out from underneath the same machine. It wasReggie Byng's habit also not to allow anything, even love, tointerfere with golf; and not even the prospect of hanging about thecastle grounds in the hope of catching a glimpse of Alice Faradayand exchanging timorous words with her had been enough to keep himfrom the links.

　　Reggie surveyed George with a friendly eye. He had a dimrecollection of having seen him before somewhere at some time orother, and Reggie had the pleasing disposition which caused him torank anybody whom he had seen somewhere at some time or other as abosom friend.

　　"Hullo! Hullo! Hullo!" he observed.

　　"Good morning," said George.

　　"Waiting for somebody?""No.""How about it, then? Shall we stagger forth?""Delighted."George found himself speculating upon Reggie. He was unable toplace him. That he was a friend of Maud he knew, and guessed thathe was also a resident of the castle. He would have liked toquestion Reggie, to probe him, to collect from him insideinformation as to the progress of events within the castle walls;but it is a peculiarity of golf, as of love, that it temporarilychanges the natures of its victims; and Reggie, a confirmed babbleroff the links, became while in action a stern, silent, intentperson, his whole being centred on the game. With the exception ofa casual remark of a technical nature when he met George on thevarious tees, and an occasional expletive when things went wrongwith his ball, he eschewed conversation. It was not till the end ofthe round that he became himself again.

　　"If I'd known you were such hot stuff," he declared generously, asGeorge holed his eighteenth putt from a distance of ten feet, "I'dhave got you to give me a stroke or two.""I was on my game today," said George modestly. "Sometimes I sliceas if I were cutting bread and can't putt to hit a haystack.""Let me know when one of those times comes along, and I'll take youon again. I don't know when I've seen anything fruitier than theway you got out of the bunker at the fifteenth. It reminded me ofa match I saw between--" Reggie became technical. At the end of hisobservations he climbed into the grey car.