Her tears vaguely flattered him, and he kissed
her with real passion.
But a day or two later she made a real scene. There was a tennis-party at
the vicarage, and two girls came, daughters of a retired major in an
Indian regiment who had lately settled in Blackstable. They were very
pretty, one was Philip's age and the other was a year or two younger.
Being used to the society of young men (they were full of stories of
hill-stations in India, and at that time the stories of Rudyard Kipling
were in every hand) they began to chaff Philip gaily; and he, pleased with
the novelty--the young ladies at Blackstable treated the Vicar's nephew
with a certain seriousness--was gay and jolly. Some devil within him
prompted him to start a violent flirtation with them both, and as he was
the only young man there, they were quite willing to meet him half-way. It
happened that they played tennis quite well and Philip was tired of
pat-ball with Miss Wilkinson (she had only begun to play when she came to
Blackstable), so when he arranged the sets after tea he suggested that
Miss Wilkinson should play against the curate's wife, with the curate as
her partner; and he would play later with the new-comers. He sat down by
the elder Miss O'Connor and said to her in an undertone:
"We'll get the duffers out of the way first, and then we'll have a jolly
set afterwards.
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