Just as Horace made the final point. Harry Mitchell appeared, in tight flannels and a white silk shirt and new ornate sport shoes that cost twenty dollars. With a new racket in a patent case and press, he stood with his squat legs and his bald bullet head and his undershot jaw of rotting teeth beside the studied picture of his wife. Presently, when he had been made to drink a cup of tea, he would gather up all the men present and lead them through the house to his bathroom and give them whisky, pouring a glass and bringing it down to Rachel in the kitchen on the way back. He would give you the shirt off of his back. He was a cotton speculator and a good one; he was ugly as sin and kind-hearted and dogmatic and talkative, and he called Belle “little mother” until she broke him of it.
Horace and his partner left the court together and approached the group.
Mrs. Marders sat now with her slack chins in a raised teacup.
The girl turned to him with polite finality. “Thanks for playing with me,” she said. “I’ll be better someday, I hope. We beat ’em,” she said generally.
“You and the little lady gave ’em the works, hey, big boy?” Harry Mitchell said, showing his discolored teeth. His heavy prognathous jaw narrowed delicately down, then nipped abruptly off into bewildered pugnacity.
“Mr. Benbow did,” the girl corrected in her clear voice. She took the chair next Belle. “I kept on letting ’em get my alley.”
“Horace,” Belle said, “your tea is getting cold.”
It had been fetched out by the combination gardener-stableman-chauffeur, temporarily impressed in a white jacket and smelling of vulcanized rubber and ammonia. Mrs. Marders removed her chins from her cup.
“Horace plays too well,” she said, “really too well. The other men can’t compare with him. You were lucky to have him for a partner, child.”
“Yessum,” the girl agreed. “I guess he won’t risk me again.”
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Marders rejoined. “Horace enjoyed playing with you, with a young, fresh girl. Didn’t you notice it, Belle?”
Belle made no reply. She poured Horace’s tea, and at this moment her daughter came across the lawn in her crocus-yellow dress. Her eyes were like stars, more soft and melting than any deer’s, and she gave Horace a swift shining glance.
“Well, Titania?” he said.
Belle half turned her head, with the teapot poised above the cup, and Harry set his cup on the table and went and knelt on one knee in her path, as though he were cajoling a puppy. The child came up, still watching Horace with radiant and melting diffidence, and permitted her father to embrace her and fondle her with his short, heavy hands.
“Daddy’s gal,” Harry said. She submitted to having her prim little dress mussed, pleasurably but a little restively. Her eyes flew shining again.
“Don’t muss your dress, sister,” Belle said. The child evaded her father’s hands with a prim movement. “What is it now?” Belle asked. “Why aren’t you playing?”
“Nothing. I just came home.” She came and stood diffidently beside her mother’s chair.
“Speak to the company,” Belle said. “Don’t you know better than to come where older people are without speaking to them?” The little girl did so, shyly and faultlessly, greeting them in rotation, and her mother turned and pulled and patted at her straight, soft hair. “Now, go on and play. Why do you always want to come around where grown people are? You’re not interested in what we’re doing.”
“Ah, let her stay, mother,” Harry said. “She wants to watch her daddy and Horace play tennis.”
“Run along, now,” Belle repeated, with a final pat. “And do keep your dress clean.”
“Yessum,” the child agreed, and she turned obediently, giving Horace another quick shining look. He watched her and saw Rachel open the kitchen door and speak to her as she passed, saw her turn and mount the steps into the kitchen.
“What a beautifully mannered child,” Mrs. Marders said.
“They’re so hard to do anything with,” Belle said. “She has some of her father’s’ traits. Drink your tea, Harry.”
Harry took his cup from the table and sucked its lukewarm contents into himself noisily and dutifully. “Well, big boy, how about a set? These squirrels think they can beat us.”
“Frankie wants to play again,” Belle interposed. “Let the child have the court for a little while, Harry.” Harry was busy uncasing his racket. He paused and raised his savage undershot face and his dull kind eyes.
“No, no,” the girl protested quickly. “I’ve had enough. I’d rather look on a while.”
“Don’t be silly,” Belle said. “They can play any time. Make them let her play, Harry.”
“Sure the little lady can play,” Harry said. “Help yourself; play as long as you want to.” He bent again and returned his racket to its intricate casing, twisting nuts here and there; his back was sullen, with a boy’s sullenness.
“Please, Mr. Mitchell,” the girl said.
“Go ahead,” Harry repeated. “Here, you jellybeans, how about fixing up a set with the little lady?”
“Don’t mind him,” Belle told the girl. “He and Horace can play some other time. He’ll have to make a fourth, anyway.”
The two players stood now, politely waiting.
“Sure, Mr. Harry, come on. Me and Frankie’ll play you and Joe,” one of them said.
“You folks go ahead and playa set,” Harry repeated. “I’ve got a little business to talk over with Horace. You all go ahead.” He overrode their polite protests, and they took the court. Then he jerked his head significantly at Horace.
“Go on with him,” Belle said. “The baby!” Without looking at him, without touching him, she enveloped him with rich and smoldering promise. Mrs. Marders sat across the table from them, curious and bright and cold with her teacup. “Unless you want to play with that silly child again.”
“Silly?” Horace repeated. “She’s too young to be unconsciously silly yet.”
“Run along,” Belle told him, “and hurry back. Mrs. Marders and I are tired of one another.”
Horace followed his host into the house, followed his short, rolling gait and the bald indomitability of his head. From the kitchen as they passed little Belle’s voice came steadily, recounting some astonishment of the day, with an occasional mellow ejaculation from Rachel for antistrophe. In the bathroom Harry got a bottle from a cabinet, and preceded by labored, heavy footsteps mounting, Rachel entered without knocking, bearing a pitcher of ice water.
“Why’n’t y’all go’n and play, ef you wants?” she demanded. “Whut you let that ’oman treat you and that baby like she do, anyhow?” she demanded of Harry. “You ought to take and lay her out wid a stick of wood. Messin’ up my kitchen at fo’ o’clock in de evenin’. And you ain’t helpin’ none, neither,” she told Horace. “Gimme a dram, Mr. Harry, please, suh.”
She held her glass out and Harry filled it, and she waddled heavily from the room. They heard her descend the stairs slowly and heavily on her fallen arches. “Belle couldn’t get along without Rachel,” Harry said. He rinsed two glasses with ice water and set them on the lavatory.
“She talks too much, like all niggers.” He poured into the two tumblers, set the bottle down. “To listen to her you’d think Belle was some kind of a wild animal. A damn tiger or something. But Belle and I understand each other. You’ve got to make allowances for women, anyhow. Different from men. Born contrary; complain when you don’t please ’em and complain when you do.” He added a little water to his glass; then he said, with astonishing irrelevance: “I’d kill the man that tried to wreck my home like I would a damn snake. Well, let’s take one, big boy.”
Presently he sloshed water into his empty glass and gulped that, too, and he reverted to his former grievance.
“Can’t get to play on my own damn court,” he said. “Belle gets all these damn people here every day. What I want is a court where I can come home from work and get in a couple of fast sets every afternoon. Appetizer before supper. But every damn day I get home from work and find a bunch of young girls and jellybeans, using it like it was a public court in a damn park.” Horace drank his more moderately.
Harry lit a cigarette and threw the match on to the floor and swung his leg across the lavatory. “I reckon I’ll have to build another court for my own use and put a hog-wire fence around it with a Yale lock, so Belle can’t give picnics on it. There’s plenty of room down there by the lot fence. No trees, too. Put it out in the damn sun, and I reckon Belle’ll let me use it now and then. Well, suppose we get on back.”
He led the way through his bedroom and stopped to show Horace a new repeating rifle he had just bought and to press upon him a package of cigarettes which he imported from South America, and they descended and emerged into afternoon become later. The sun was level now across the court where three players leaped and sped with soft quick slappings of rubber soles, following the fleeting impact of the ball. Mrs. Marders sat yet with her ceaseless chins, although she was speaking of departure when they came up. Belle turned her head against the chair
