Talkativeness had it. Dignity retired hurt. Speech came from him in a rush. When he brought off an excellent drive from the eighteenth tee, he seemed to forget everything.
"Me dear boy,"--he began; and stopped abruptly in some confusion. Silence once more brooded over us as we played ourselves up the fairway and on to the green.
He was on the green in four. I reached it in three. His sixth stroke took him out.
I putted carefully to the very mouth of the hole.
I walked up to my ball and paused. I looked at the professor. He looked at me.
"Go on," he said hoarsely.
Suddenly a wave of compassion flooded over me. What right had I to torture the man like this?
"Professor," I said.
"Go on," he repeated.
"That looks a simple shot," I said, eyeing him steadily, "but I might miss it."
He started.
"And then you would win the Championship."
He dabbed at his forehead with a wet ball of a handkerchief.
"It would be very pleasant for you after getting so near it the last two years."
"Go on," he said for the third time. But there was a note of hesitation in his voice.
"Sudden joy," I said, "would almost certainly make me miss it."
We looked at each other. He had the golf fever in his eyes.
"If," I said slowly, lifting my putter, "you were to give your consent to my marriage with Phyllis----"
He looked from me to the ball, from the ball to me, and back to the ball. It was very, very near the hole.
"Why not?" I said.
He looked up, and burst into a roar of laughter.
"You young devil," said he, smiting his thigh, "you young devil, you've beaten me."
"On the contrary," I said, "you have beaten me."
* * * * *
I left the professor at the Club House and raced back to the farm. I wanted to pour my joys into a sympathetic ear. Ukridge, I knew, would offer that same sympathetic ear. A good fellow, Ukridge. Always interested in what you had to tell him; never bored.
"Ukridge!" I shouted.
No answer.
I flung open the dining-room door. Nobody.
I went into the drawing-room. It was empty. I drew the garden, and his bedroom. He was not in either.
"He must have gone for a stroll," I said.
I rang the bell.