Gracious heavens ! Why should he have



THE GOLFICIDE

been wasting his time "addressing"
a miserable ball when he might have
been talking to a woman like Alice
Townley? Why should his left foot
know or care what his right foot was
doing, so long as his " stance " was at
her side ? By Jove ! and there was that
idiot Robinson Brown making up to
her now.
He hardly knew how it had all come
about so quickly, but there he was in
that secluded corner, and he had just
finished asking Alice Townley to be his
wife. She was speaking slowly and dis-
tinctly, but for the moment the words
sounded unintelligibly in his ears. What
was she saying ? In those calmly modu-
lated sentences there was not a trace of
the conventional surprise, of the maiden-
ly confusion which might very properly
have been expected under the circum-
stances. No one knew better than Mor-
gan Gordon himself that he was by long
odds the most eligible bachelor in all
Lauriston, and his declaration had cer-



THE GOLFICIDE

tainly been precipitate and calculated to
confuse even so well-balanced a young
woman as Alice Townley. But she was
speaking, and he must force himself to
listen.
