Since the count had given permission for the families of the neighbouring landowners to use his course she imagined it to be one of these or perhaps a guest at some local mansion.
Anthony Trent was never one who made a habit of the pursuit of the fair. His profession had taught him caution. Almost always the feminine element had brought the great criminals to peril. There had been one or two harmless flirtations but his love for Daphne was the great affair of his life. He groaned when he looked into Pauline's bold eyes and saw admiration looking from them. Other women had looked at him like that. Pauline was absolute at Castle Radna. Her enmity might be very harmful. Her friendship might be ruinous.
He assumed the bearing of Alfred Anthony which he had abandoned unconsciously. He even touched his cap to the lady as a servant who habitually wears livery should do. She frowned as he did so.
"I'm the new chauffeur, miss," he returned in English.
"Having a bit of a game," he said with an air of timidity. "I hope you won't tell the guv'nor."
"The count," he said, "the old toff with the beard."
Trent produced a Woodbine and lighted it luxuriously. He had all the quick nervous gestures of the cockney.
"Where did you learn to play golf like that?" she asked, looking at the white speck almost three hundred yards distant.
"Anyone can make a fluky drive," he said, "one drive doesn't make a golfer, Miss. I used to be a caddie at the Royal Surrey Club."
"Then you can carry my clubs," she said. She looked at him with a frown. "How is it the door is open?"
"Someone must have forgot to shut it," Trent said simply. "I just walked in."
All his excuses to get back to his garage were ineffectual.
"You will understand later," she said imperiously, "that if I order a servant to obey me he must do so. I wish you to teach me to play better golf. I shall pay you."
"I'll be glad to have a little extra money to send the mis'sus," said Trent cheerfully.
"That means you are married, eh?" she said.
He misjudged Pauline if he thought this would have any effect upon her. She was a specialist in husbands, an expert in emotional reactions.
Pauline played a very fair game. She had not been properly taught. But she was strong and lithe and although she had begun the game in order to keep her figure she played it now because she liked it. When she had performed professionally in London and big provincial cities she had seen that efficiency in some sport or another was _de rigueur_ among women of importance and she hankered after the social recognition that unusual skill at sports often brought with it.