‘But what are you going to do?’ asked Sydney. Mrs Kerr did not answer. ‘I mean, do you want me to go?’ she began again. She did not want to leave the pavilion, this ‘girl of your age’ tone which was being used to her really did give her something to resent. She did not want to go down to the courts again; she knew that if Mrs Kerr sat on here, watching her meditatively, her play would all go to pieces.

‘I have heard so much of your service. Today I am really going to watch it.’

‘This is one of my off days.’

‘Dear Sydney, whenever I come you tell me it’s one of your off days.’ Mrs Kerr laughed. ‘I’m unlucky.’

‘Oh, do you notice that? From the moment you come here I never hit anything.’

‘What on earth do you mean, my dear Sydney! How terribly sinister! It had never occurred to me that my eye might be evil. I meant something much more prosaic – that I happen to miss things.’

Sydney felt foolish. How like her (Mrs Kerr would agree) to have drawn so far-fetched, so morbid an inference. How unlike herself to have been betrayed into so bald an assertion.

‘Luck’s funny,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s constantly good or bad, but it’s sun-y or moon-y, if you know what I mean, and one’s born with one kind or the other. Mine’s moon-y – I’d better go down.’

‘Yes, I shouldn’t have kept you.’

Sydney played so badly that Colonel Duperrier was astonished. Now and then he permitted himself a ‘tut-tut’ – by implication a tribute – an ‘Et tu, Brute!’ at which she ironically chuckled. They crossed and recrossed one another grimly. Along the margin of her vision, distended by nervousness, shoulders were shrugged, and disappointed onlookers strolled away. At a net that grew ever higher Colonel Duperrier’s opponent, Chinesely grimacing, crouched and sprang incredibly. His partner, a long way behind him, nonchalantly flipped at her balls. Away at the back of the pavilion Mrs Kerr remained sitting: the edge of her skirt, the tip of her parasol, came out into sunlight. From out of the black shadow that hid the rest of her, her scrutiny like a livewire was incessantly tugging at Sydney’s consciousness.