There was a general laugh at Roland’s expense, and before it had subsided Mr. Marston had introduced another subject. Roland was annoyed; he had a distaste for anything that savored of cleverness. He regarded it as an unfair weapon in an argument. An argument should be a weighing of facts. Each side should produce its facts, and an impartial witness should give judgment. It was not fair to obscure the issue with an untrue, if amusing, simile. And once the laugh is against you it is no good continuing an argument. Arnold Marston had learned this on his election platform. He had once been asked what his party proposed to do for the unemployed; it was an awkward question, that gave many opportunities for adverse heckling. But he had obscured the issue with a laugh: “When my party gets in there will be no unemployment.” And the meeting had gone home with the opinion that he was a jolly fellow—not too serious—the sort of man that anyone could understand. It was a good trick on the platform, but it was very annoying at the dinner table, at least so the discomfited found. And Roland felt even more aggrieved as they were leaving the room and the silly ass in the Harrow XI. slapped him on the back and informed him that, “The old man got in a good one on you there.” He could understand Beatrice hating him.
He did not have another opportunity of speaking to her that evening, but as he sat in the big drawing-room among the members of the house party his attention drifted continually from the agreeable, superficial conversation that had been up to now so sympathetic to him. These trivial discussions of cricket, their friends, their careers, and, in a desultory manner, of life itself, had been invaded by a stern, critical silence. His eyes kept turning towards Beatrice as she sat in a deep arm-chair, her hands folded quietly in her lap; they followed her when she walked to the window and stood there, her arm raised above her head, looking into the garden. He would have liked to go across the room and speak to her; but what would he have been able to say? He could not tell what thoughts were passing beneath the unruffled surface; was she fretting impatiently at the tedious cricket shop? Was she criticizing them all?—she, who had seen deeper and farther and come nearer to tragedy than any of them—or was she what she appeared—a young woman moved by the poetry of a garden stilled by moonshine? When she turned away he thought that he detected a movement of her shoulders, a gesture prompted by some wandering thought or gust of feeling, that would have been significant to one who knew her, but for him was meaningless. And that night he lay awake for nearly an hour, a long time for one who thought little and to whom sleep came easily, remembering her words and actions, the intonation of her voice, and that movement by the window. As he began to lose control over thoughts she became transfigured, the counterpart of those princesses, shut away in high-walled castles, of whom he had dreamed in childhood; her husband became an ogre, leering and vindictive, who laughed at him from the turrets of impregnable battlements.
Breakfast at Hogstead was a haphazard business. It began at eight and ended at ten. No one presided over it. There were cold things on the sideboard to which you helped yourself. As soon as you came down you rang the bell and a maid appeared to ask you whether you would prefer tea or coffee and whether you would take porridge. You then sat down where you liked at the long, wide table.
When Roland came down the next morning at about a quarter to nine he found the big rush on; from half-past eight to half-past nine there were usually six or seven people at the table. Before that time there was only Mrs. Marston and anyone who had been energetic enough to take a dip in a very cold pond that was protected from sunshine by the northern terrace of the cricket field. By a quarter to ten there was usually only a long table, covered with dirty plates, to keep company with Mr. Marston, who, strangely enough, was a late riser. There were eight people in all having breakfast when Roland arrived, or, to be more exact, there were seven, for Gerald had finished his some time before, but as he had had a bathe he preferred to remain at the table and inform everyone of his courage as they came down.
“I can’t think why everyone doesn’t bathe in the morning,” he was saying; “makes one feel splendidly fit. I’m absolutely glowing all over.”
“So you’ve told us before,” said Muriel.
“I’ve told you, but I haven’t told Roland. Roland, why didn’t you come and have a bathe this morning, you old slacker? Do you no end of good.”
“Puts one’s eye out,” said Roland, repeating the old Fernhurst theory that cricket and swimming are incompatible.
“Rot, my dear chap; nothing like a bathe, nothing like it. I bet you I shall skittle them out this afternoon, and I don’t see why I shouldn’t make a few runs either.”
Roland had by this time satisfied the maid’s curiosity as to his beverage and had helped himself to a plate of tongue and ham. He turned round with the plate in his hand and looked to see where he should sit. There was a vacant place beside Gerald to which he would have been expected to direct himself; there was also a vacant place beside Beatrice: he chose the latter, and hardly realized till he had drawn back the chair that Gerald was at the opposite end of the table.