Fred and Lindbeck had done eighteen holes of golf, and after a quick one, they relaxed by watching Sara play tennis. Fred was proud of her feverish speed — even prouder than of his new waist-pleated slacks. She was opposing a dull-faced dumpy girl of eighteen who played with the efficiency of a chopping knife. The girl lacked all of Sara’s dramatic gestures and elegant backhands; her serves just missed the net and dropped dead before Sara could reach them, though she galloped in like the Light Brigade. In grieved wrath, Sara threw down her racket and screamed, ‘Can’t you put some fun into the game, Daugherty? We’re not digging ditches!’

‘Tst! Tst! Tst!’ Fred clucked. ‘Sara oughtn’t to lose her temper that way.’

Walter Lindbeck sounded partisan. ‘I don’t blame her a bit. I’ve played that Daugherty girl. She’s like lard; just plays to win, while your daughter has so much fire and gracefulness . . . Tell me, Fred, why the dickens did she ever get mixed up with this communist sheet? Doesn’t believe all that stuff, does she?’

‘I don’t think so. But we’ve got to admit, way things are now, the young folks and the working men are demanding more say, and you can’t blame ’em entirely.’

‘That’s so.’

Both men exhibited almost frightened admiration of their liberalism.

‘Tell you, Walter, trouble with Sara is, she hasn’t got enough to do, and she’s got too much brains and energy to just stick around. She’d like to follow the tennis tournaments to Bermuda and Florida this winter, but I can’t afford it. Say, I’ve got an inspiration! She’s got a great eye for colours and all that junk. Why don’t you give her a job in your interior-decorating department? If there’s any way you could fix it in your accounting, I’d be willing to finance the scheme to the tune of a few hundred bucks, provided she never knew it. She’s so doggone proud she wouldn’t take a job like that if she found out I’d rigged it.’

‘Oh, that wouldn’t be necessary. Matter of fact, we do need a little new blood in the decorating department. Old Mrs. Vix is about the period of Edward the Seventh, and I always did think Sara had a lot of dash and go. I’d be glad to try her, if she was interested.’

‘She wouldn’t touch it, if she thought I’d butted in. You know how touchy all these blasted young people are today. If you’re interested, too — and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it — let’s get her to sell herself to you.’

When Sara had finished her act, Fred beckoned, and she rode up cavalierly to sit between the two ancients. (Lindbeck was thirteen years her senior.)

‘Didn’t seem to have such a high old time with Miss Daugherty, Sara.’

‘Oh, she’s the dumbest cluck in the club! It’s like playing with a steam roller.’

Lindbeck bubbled, ‘I agree.’

Fred chattered, ‘I seem to be the only cheerful guy here today, in all this lovely autumn weather, with the maples turning. Walter’s been kicking because he can’t find the right person to put some pep in his foolish furnishing-and-decorating department — somebody that knows the local swells with money to spend and that has got an artistic eye for design. Don’t suppose you’d pay real money for the job, Walter?’