And then there was the evening when they had gone to the opera in Bonn and had had supper afterwards in a little restaurant, from the window of which they could see the Rhine flowing beneath them in the moonlight, and its beauty and the tender sentimental melodies of Verdi had produced in both of them a mood of rare appreciation; they had sat in silence and made no attempt to express in talk the sense of wonderment. Much was recalled to them by these pieces of crumpled paper, and when Roland put away the drawer it seemed to Gerald that he was locking away a whole period of his life. And when they said good-night to each other on the stairs Gerald could not help wondering whether, in the evening that had just passed, their friendship had not reached the limit of its tether. Roland was beginning a new life in which he would have no part. As he heard his friend’s door shut behind him he could not help feeling that never again would they reach that same point of intimacy.
CHAPTER XXII
AN END AND A BEGINNING
NO doubt the groundsman at the Oval rubbed his hands together with satisfaction when he looked out of his bedroom window on the following morning. It was not particularly warm; indeed he must have shivered as he stood with his shaving brush in his hand, looking at the sky instead of at his mirror. But the sky was blue and the sun was shining, and he would, no doubt, be warm enough after he had sent down a couple of overs at the nets. The thoughts of Roland as he surveyed the bright spring morning were not dissimilar. He saw in it a happy augury. Summer was beginning.
They were a silent party at breakfast; each was preoccupied with his own affairs. They had decided to leave Charing Cross at twelve-thirty-five by a train that reached Hogstead at half-past one; the service was fixed for two o’clock. They would not need to leave the house till a quarter to twelve. They had therefore three hours to put in.
“Now, I suggest,” said Gerald, “that you should come down with me to the barber’s and have a shave.”
“But I’ve shaved already.”
“I daresay you have, but on a day like this one can’t shave too often.”
And Roland, in spite of his protests, was led down to the shop. Once there, Gerald refused to be satisfied with a mere shave.
“This is a big occasion,” he said. And he insisted that Roland should be shampooed, that he should have his hair singed, that his face should be oiled and massaged and his finger nails polished.
“Now you look something like a bridegroom.” And in defiance of Roland’s blushes he explained to the girl at the counter that his friend had intended to be married unshaven.