Just then there was a shout from the players. Ruth was out and retired. She came towards them, glowing, laughing, her fingers touching her hair to order. She was thirty now, but at that moment she did not look twenty-five. Then she saw the Colonel and deliberately turned away. Susie and Jenny pursued their mother.
The Colonel walked off through the groups of white-clad players towards Alf's garage in the Goffs. A tall man was standing at the gate on to Southfields Road, contemplating the English scene with austere gaze.
It was Royal—the man who would know.
"You think it's going to be all right?" asked the Colonel so keen as to forget his antipathy.
"Heaven only knows with this Government," the other replied. "I've just been on the telephone. Haldane's going back to the War Office, they say."
"Thank God for it!" cried the Colonel.
His companion shrugged.
"Henry Wilson's in touch with Maxse and the Conservative press," he said. "He's getting at the Opposition. There's to be a meeting at Lansdowne House to-night. H.W.'s going to ginger em."
The Colonel looked away.
"And what are you doing down here?" he asked.