"On going into partnership with a man who spends money so lavishly when he needs all the ready cash he can lay his hands on.But don't mention this to any one, Minnie.If it got out it might precipitate matters, and then the whole business would tumble down like a house of cards.As it is, I may be able to pull him out.But I've put the soft pedal on thepartnership talk."
"Has Mr.Carwell mentioned it of late?"
"No.All he seems to be interested in is this golf game that may make him club champion.But keepsecret what I have told you."Minnie Webb nodded assent, and they turned back toward the clubhouse, for they had reached a too secluded part of the grounds.
Meanwhile, Viola Carwell was not enjoying her ride with Captain Poland as much as she had expected she would.As a matter of fact it had been undertaken largely to cause Bartlett a little uneasiness; and as the Seeing this, the latter changed his mind concerning something he had fully expected to speak to Viola about that day, if he got the chance.
Captain Poland was genuinely in love with Viola, and he had reason to feel that she cared for him, though whether enough to warrant a declaration of love on his part was hard to understand.
"But I won't take a chance now," mused the captain, rather moodily; and the talk descended to mere monosyllables on the part of both of them."I must see Carwell and have it out with him about that insurance deal.Maybe he holds that against me, though the last time I talked with him he gave me to understand that I'd stand a better show than Harry.I must see him after the game.If he wins he'll be in a mellow humor, particularly after a bottle or so.That's what I'll do."The captain spun his car up in front of the clubhouse and helped Viola out."I think we are in plenty of time for your father's match," he remarked.
"Yes," she assented."I don't see any of the veterans on the field yet," and she looked across the perfect course."I'll go to look for dad and wish him luck.He always wants me to do that before he starts his medal play.See you again, Captain"; and with a friendly nod she left the somewhat chagrined yachtsman.
When Captain Poland had parked his car hetook a short cut along a path that led through a little clump of bushes.Midway he heard voices.In an instant he recognized them as those of Horace Carwell and Harry Bartlett.He heard Bartlett say:
"But don't you see how much better it would be to drop it all - to havenothing more to do with her?"
"Look here, young man, you mind your own business !" snapped Mr.Carwell."I know what I'm doing!""I haven't any doubt of it, Mr.Carwell; but I ventured to suggest?" went on Bartlett.
"Keep your suggestions to yourself, if you please.I've had about all I want from you and your family.And if I hear any more of your impudent talk - "Then Captain Poland moved away, for he did not want to hear any more.
In the meantime Viola hurried back to the clubhouse, and forced herself to be gay.But, somehow, a cloud seemed to have come over her day.
The throng had increased, and she caught sight, among the press, of Jean Forette, their chauffeur.
"Have you seen my father since he arrived, Jean?" asked Viola.
"Oh, he is somewhere about, I suppose," was the answer, and it was given in such a surly tone with such a churlish manner that Viola flushed with anger and bit her lips to keep back a sharp retort.
At that moment Minnie Webb strolled past.She had heard the question and the answer.
"I just saw your father going out with the other contestants, Viola," said Minnie Webb, for they were friends of some years' standing."I think they are going to start to play.I wonder why they say the French are such a polite race she went on, speaking lightly to cover Viola's confusion caused by the chauffeur's manner."He was positively insulting.""He was," agreed Viola."But I shouldn't mind him, I suppose.He does not like the new machine, and father has told him to find another place by the end of the month.I suppose that has piqued him."While there were many matches to be played at the Maraposa Club that day, interest, as far as the older members and their friends were concerned, was centered in that for cup-winners.These constituted the best players - the veterans of the game - and the contest was sure to beinteresting and close.
Horace Carwell was a "sport," in every meaning of the term.Though a man well along in his forties, he was as lithe and active as one ten years younger.He motored, fished, played golf, hunted, and of late had added yachting to his amusements.He was wealthy, as his father had been before him, and owned a fine home in New York, but he spent a large part of every year at Lakeside, where he might enjoy the two sports he loved best-golfing and yachting.Viola was an only child, her mother having died when she was about sixteen, and since then Mr.Carwell's maiden sister had kept watch and ward over the handsome home, The Haven.Viola, though loving her father with the natural affection of a daughter and some of the love she had lavished on her mother, was not altogether in sympathy with the sporting proclivities of Mr.Carwell.
True, she accompanied him to his golf games and sailed with him or rode in his big car almost as often as he asked her.And she thoroughly enjoyed these things.But what she did not enjoy was the rather too jovial comradeship that followed on the part of the men and women her father associated with.He was a good liver and a good spender, and he liked to have about him such persons-men "sleek and fat," who if they did not "sleep o' nights," at least had the happy faculty of turning night into day for their own amusement.
So, in a measure, Viola and her father were out of sympathy, as had been husband and wife before her; though there had never been a whisper of real incompatibility; nor was there now, between father and daughter.
"Fore!"
