CHAPTER XVIII
THE TENNIS MATCH
On their way to the Hall to wash and rest after their rather strenuous exercise on the lake, Jo and Sadie encountered Nan, racket in hand, just leaving the courts.
Nan's face was flushed and she was smiling with some secret enjoyment.
"Girls, I'm glad you came back," she greeted them eagerly. "I've the funniest thing to tell you."
She waited to divulge "the funniest thing," however, until they had reached the privacy of their own room. Then Nan threw her racket on the bed and pirouetted gleefully about the room.
"What do you suppose Kate Speed has done now?" she cried, stopping before her astonished chums.
"Anything for the K. of D. to get excited about?" asked Jo, eyebrows raised.
"Not yet," chuckled Nan. "She's challenged me to a tennis match, to find out who's the better man—I should say, girl."
"I could tell her that without any old tennis match," said Sadie loyally, and in her exuberance Nan hugged her.
"Well, but it will be a lark!" she cried. "I'll enjoy nothing better than licking Kate Speed properly in the open—with the whole school—more or less—looking on."
"Sure," said Jo. "But suppose you get walloped yourself, Nan? What then?"
Nan snapped her lingers airily.
"I refuse to consider impossibilities," she retorted haughtily, then giggled and hugged them both again. "Oh, girls, it will be fun! This is my chance to put that conceited Kate Speed out of the running for good and all!"
Although they were passionately loyal to Nan, the other girls were not so sure that their chum was a match for Kate Speed on the courts.
There was one thing Kate Speed could do exceptionally well—and that was play tennis. She was, they considered, a more brilliant player than Nan, although Nan was steadier and could keep her head much better in emergencies.
While it would be a great triumph if Nan should win—how would they feel if she lost?
"There would be no living in the same school with Kate Speed then," said Jo, as she discussed this unpleasant possibility with Sadie. "All in all, Sade, I'm not overanxious for the match day to come."
"Nor I!" agreed Sadie ruefully.
But as the day of the match had been set for Saturday, then only three days distant, the girls had scant time, fortunately, to nurse their gloomy forebodings.
The school was all agog over the coming clash between the two who had been rivals on the tennis courts almost since the opening day of the year at Laurel Hall.
Popular sentiment was in Nan's favor. The majority of the students wanted her to win. But there were some—faithful satellites of the rich girl—who were rooting against her.
As Saturday approached one thing became certain—that, no matter which side they favored, practically all the students of Laurel Hall would turn out to see the match.
Saturday morning Jo and Sadie woke up with a terrible weight of anxiety on their hearts.
Not so Nan. Usually the most modest of girls, in this instance she seemed absolutely sure of herself. There appeared not a doubt in her mind but what she could "wallop" Kate with the greatest ease.
Saturday morning fled by. Luncheon came, was over. Two o'clock—the time set for the match—approached.
Jo and Sadie tried gamely to hide their trepidation from Nan, but they were so nervous during the last hour that they ran away and hid until it should be time to accompany Nan to the courts.
They came back five minutes before the time to find Nan testing her racket and confidently smiling.
"Where have you girls been keeping yourselves?" she asked as they came in. "I've been waiting for a quarter of an hour. All set? Let's go."
They went, and at the edge of the campus were met by a group of Nan's friends and loyal adherents. By these they were borne triumphantly to the courts.
Kate was there before them, engaged in animated conversation with a group of her followers.
She frowned as she saw Nan, though Nan nodded and smiled with the friendliness of one sportsman to another. For the moment Kate was not Kate to Nan—an enemy whom it would be a joy to defeat. She was for the time only a worthy antagonist against whose undoubted ability she was testing her own.
The school had turned out for the occasion. The court was surrounded by girls eager to see the fray. Some of them were standing, but for the most part they were seated crosslegged on the ground, hugging their knees and gleefully discussing the possibilities of the coming match.
The two girls most concerned approached the contest in characteristically opposite manner.
Nan came on the court smiling, the racket in her left hand, her right extended to clasp Kate's across the net.
Kate, on the contrary, made no motion to meet Nan half-way. She scowled and ignored the outstretched hand of her antagonist.
Nan flushed and quickly lowered her hand.
There was an angry buzz about the courts, and one or two of Nan's supporters cried out:
"For shame! Do you call that sportsmanship?"
But Nan was smiling again gayly.
On her toes she danced back to her end of the court, taking her position about eight feet back of the net and to the right. For Nan was essentially a net player; although she had been known, in doubles with a partner who was also a net player, to cover the line with great success.
Now, however, she chose the more familiar position, for she was determined to beat Kate Speed.
"All right, Kate!"' she cried, swinging her racket. "First serve yours!"
"She's foolish," cried Jo. "Here she starts with the sun full in her eyes and gives Speedy Kate first serve."
She half rose to her feet as though to remonstrate with Nan, but Sadie pulled her back again.
"Let her alone," she cried. "Nan knows what she's doing."
"Let's hope so!" muttered Jo, and, frowning, sat back on her heels to watch the play.
Kate Speed accepted the generosity of her adversary without protest—as the Kate Speeds of this world will always accept as their right any advantage offered them.
Nan waited, alert, half-turned from the net, both feet planted firmly on the ground, her racket ready.
Kate tossed the ball and with the weight of her body behind the stroke, sent a smashing service into the far left-hand corner of the court.
Running swiftly, Nan was there before the ball, and, with a lightning stroke slashed it over the net and almost at Kate's feet. Kate, dancing nimbly backward, struck at the ball, but not quite quickly enough. It fell into the net, and a triumphant cry came from Nan's supporters.
"Love fifteen!"
Kate's face burned a dull red. She would not look at Nan as she retrieved the ball.
From that on action was swift and furious.
Nan served and Kate smashed the ball back over the net to be met by a clever backhand stroke from Nan that sent Kate scurrying toward her base line. On her toes Kate reached for the ball and got it. Her smashing return caught Nan off guard. Her racket twanged with the impact of the ball, but the shot was low.
"Fifteen all," said Kate, and treated her adversary to a glance of triumph.
The sun was worrying Nan. She wished that she had brought her eyeshade.
Jo saw the swift motion of hand across sun-dazzled eyes and was on her feet in an instant.
"I'm going up to the room for something," she explained to Sadie.
But when she returned, Nan's sun shade dangling, Jo found she was too late. Kate, playing like one inspired, had won three points in rapid succession and with them had captured the first game.
Joe ran to Nan with the eyeshade, which her chum accepted gratefully.
"Thanks, Jo," she said, with a rueful smile. "I should have had this during the last game!"
But even the eyeshade failed to turn the tide. Kate was in better form than they had ever seen her. She seemed all over the court at once. She developed an uncanny accuracy in placing her shots where her adversary was not!
Nan appeared confused, dazzled by Kate's brilliant play. The score now stood 4-0 in favor of Kate.
Kate's cronies were jubilant; Nan's friends correspondingly downhearted.
"Kate's sort of cast a spell over her," Sadie worried. "I wish we could do something to wake her up."
"Never mind," said Jessie Robinson, who had come up and seated herself beside the chums. "Just watch out for a big comeback!"
This prophecy was soon, to some extent, justified. Nan drew herself together and, with lips set doggedly, wrenched the next two games from Kate.
They were won by "the skin of her teeth," as she afterward admitted. But they were won, and they certainly made the score look a little better. It stood now 4-2, in favor of Kate.
"Go it, Nan! Go it!" cried her friends from the sidelines, and Nan waved her racket at them cheerfully.
But their pleasure was short-lived. Kate won the next two games swiftly and with apparent ease.
"Game and set!" she cried, and triumphantly flung her racket over the net.
In changing courts it was necessary for Nan to pass close to the spot where Jo and Sadie and Jessie were seated.
"Nan," Jo cried in a pleading voice, "don't let Kate win! You can beat her!"
"Jo," said Nan, turning a set face to her chum, "let me tell you a secret. I'm going to!"
As Nan passed on Jo sank back on her heels again and gripped Sadie's hand hard.
"She's riled, Sade! Watch out now! I bet we see some fireworks!"
And they did!
Nan possessed one great asset, and that was that she played best when losing. Something stubborn and indomitable rose up in her and refused to submit to defeat.
As she faced Kate for the first game of the second set, Jo and Sadie saw this change in her. Their eyes shone.
"She's caught her stride!" Jo whispered. "Now, Speedy Kate, look out!"