isn't it?"

He was shaking hands with King and smiling genially upon the trim,
panting figure of the Prince's adversary.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Blithers," said King, still staring." You--you
know my wife?"

Mr. Blithers ignored what might have been regarded as an
introduction, and blandly announced that tennis wasn't a game for fat
people, patting his somewhat aggressive extension in mock dolefulness
as he spoke.

"You should see my daughter play," he went on, scarcely heeding Mrs.
King's tactless remark that she affected the game because she had a
horror of getting fat. "Corking, she is, and as quick as a cat. Got a
medal at Lakewood last spring. I'll fix up a match soon, Mrs. King,
between you and Maud. Ought to be worth going miles to see, eh,
King?"

"Oh, I am afraid, Mr. Blithers, that I am not in your daughter's
class," said Loraine King, much too innocently.

"We've got a pretty fair tennis court up at Blitherwood," said Mr.
Blithers calmly. "I have a professional instructor up every week to
play with Maud. She can trim most of the amateurs so--"

"May I offer you a drink of some kind, Mr. Blithers?" asked King,
recovering his poise to some extent. "We are having lemonades, but
perhaps you'd prefer something--"