Howard had subsequently found other land, and out of his own private means had carried out his plans, but the location was less desirable. And he knew what his father refused to believe, that the polo ground, taking up space badly needed for other purposes, was a continual grievance.
Suddenly Pink stared ahead.
"I say," he said, "have they changed the rule about that sort of thing?"
He pointed to the field. A diamond had been roughly outlined on it with bags of sand, and a ball-game was in progress, boys playing, but a long line of men watching from the side lines.
"I don't know, but it doesn't hurt anything."
"Ruins the turf, that's all." He stopped the car and got out. "Look at this sign. It says 'ball-playing or any trespassing forbidden on these grounds.' I'll clear them off."
"I wouldn't, Pink. They may be ugly."
But he only smiled at her reassuringly, and went off. She watched him go with many misgivings, his sturdy young figure, his careful dress, his air of the young aristocrat, easy, domineering, unconsciously insolent. They would resent him, she knew, those men and boys. And after all, why should they not use the field? There was injustice in that sign.
Yet her liking and real sympathy were with Pink.
"Pink!" she called, "Come back here. Let them alone."
He turned toward her a face slightly flushed with indignation and set with purpose.
"Sorry. Can't do it, Lily. This sort of thing's got to be stopped."
She felt, rather hopelessly, that he was wrong, but that he was right, too. The grounds were private property. She sat back and watched.
Pink was angry. She could hear his voice, see his gestures. He was shooing them off like a lot of chickens, and they were laughing. The game had stopped, and the side lines were pressing forward. There was a moment's debate, with raised voices, a sullen muttering from the crowd, and the line closing into a circle. The last thing she saw before it closed was a man lunging at Pink, and his counter-feint. Then some one was down. If it was Pink he was not out, for there was fighting still going on. The laborers working on the grounds were running.
Lily stood up in the car, pale and sickened. She was only vaguely conscious of a car that suddenly left the road, and dashed recklessly across the priceless turf, but she did see, and recognize, Louis Akers as he leaped from it and flinging men this way and that disappeared into the storm center. She could hear his voice, too, loud and angry, and see the quick dispersal of the crowd. Some of the men, foreigners, passed quite near to her, and eyed her either sullenly or with mocking smiles. She was quite oblivious of them. She got out and ran with shaking knees across to where Pink lay on the grass, his profile white and sharply chiseled, with two or three men bending over him.