"How did you meet him?" Roland asked.
"I was his secretary. Romantic, isn't it? The poor girl marries the rich employer. Quite like the story books." And her hands fluttered at her sides.
Roland sought for some word of sympathy, but he was too appalled by the cruel waste of this young woman's beauty, of her enormous potentialities flung away on an ageing, withered man, who could not appreciate them. Her next sentence held for him the force of a prophetic utterance.
"When you marry, Roland," she said, "choose your own wife. Don't let your parents dictate to you. It's your affair."
As their eyes met it seemed to him that they were victims of the same conspiracy.
"One can't believe that the summer is over on a day like this. It looks as though it would last for ever!" The words ran like a refrain among his thoughts all the afternoon. He had a long outing. Hogstead had imported for the final match talent that was considerable but was not local. The doctor had persuaded a friend to bring his son, a member of the Rugby XI. It was discovered that an old blue was spending his honeymoon in a farmhouse a few miles away and a deputation had been dispatched to him; while, at the last moment, the greengrocer had arranged a compromise on a "to account rendered" bill with a professional at the county ground. Hogstead was far too strong for Mr Marston's side and all the afternoon Roland chased terrific off drives towards the terraces. The more tired he became the deeper grew his depression. The sun sank slowly towards the long, low-lying bank of cloud that stretched behind the roofs of the village; the day was waning, his last day. Came that hour of luminous calm, that last hour of sunlight when the shadows lengthen and a chilling air drives old players to the pavilion for their sweaters. Above the trees Roland could see the roof of the house; the trees swayed before its windows; the sunlight had caught and had turned the brass weathercock to gold. Never again, under the same conditions, would he see Hogstead as he in the past had so often seen it, standing above the trees, resplendent in the last glitter of sunset. It was only five years ago that he had come here for the first time, and yet into those five years had been crowded a greater measure of happiness than he could hope to find in the fifty years that were left him.
At the end of the day Mr Marston's eleven had half-an-hour's batting, during which Roland made one or two big hits. But it was an anticlimax, and his innings brought him little satisfaction. It was over now. He walked back to the pavilion, and with dismal efficiency collected his boots and bat and pads and packed them into his bag. What would he be like when he came to do that next? What would have happened to him between then and now? He came out of the pavilion to find Muriel standing on the step, waiting, presumably, for her brother. The need for sympathy, for feminine sympathy, overwhelmed him, and he asked her whether she would come for a walk with him—only a short stroll, just for a minute or two. She looked at him in surprise.
"But it's so late, Roland," she said; "we'll have to go and change for dinner in a minute."
"I know, I know, but just for a minute—do."
He was not ready yet for the general talk and laughter of the drawing-room; he wanted a few minutes of preparation.