“Want to rest a while, Marj?” suggested Ruth, in a compromising tone.
“No, indeed!” replied the girl. “I’m just waking up now!”
And it seemed in the minutes that followed that she was right. Trying out a new serve--a cut--she took the first game without a point against her. Then, adopting a new system of team play, which allowed her partner to play net at all times, her side continued to score. The second set was finished even more quickly than the first with a score of 6-1, in Marjorie’s favor.
While Marjorie’s reserve strength seemed unfailing, Ruth began to realize that she had worked too hard at the beginning. She had not calculated correctly for a five-set match, and she began to be tired. Marjorie noticed this, and skillfully managed to put the balls just beyond her reach. Jack attempted several times to cross the court, and get those his partner missed, but this move proved disastrous in each case, for Griffith returned the ball to an empty court. As Ruth had dreamed, the defeat was overwhelming, but not for Marjorie. The score of the third set was 6-1, and of the final set 6-0.
“I guess you’re sorry now you didn’t play at the club,” whispered Ruth, as the players made their way toward the spectators.
With characteristic modesty, Marjorie put aside the congratulations of her friends, and the feeling of inward triumph that her victory had brought her, to fasten her thoughts upon the contest of the following day. For, after all, as she said again and again, the tennis championship belonged rather to Griffith Hunter than to herself.
“I suppose if he had played with Alice, or Frieda, or me,” teased Lily, as the girls were getting ready for bed, “that he would have won just the same?”
“No doubt. Oh, Lil, suppose it should rain to-morrow!”
“Oh, it wouldn’t dare do it again! My, but wasn’t it lucky that it did on Wednesday!”
“Marj,” said Lily, “did Jack tell your parents to put a detective to work searching for that old man?”
“No,” replied Marjorie, quietly. “I told him not to tell them anything about it, for--I caught the man myself!”
“Sh! I don’t want anybody to hear. But since you’re going to spend the night with me, I’ll tell you the whole story now, just as I have figured it out. But don’t tell a soul--I never even said anything about it to Frieda. I’m going to tell Jack when we get home and he promised to say nothing about it till then.”