Barber came out of the house and brought him a note. "From Mr. Beard, sir. Will you kindly send a verbal answer?"
He read it, and glanced towards Judith. He was minded to consult her. But, no, he would not consult Judith. He would decide for himself; something in the present position made him put a value on deciding for himself, even though he decided wrongly. "All right, say I will, Barber." He lit a cigarette and, walking back to Judith, sat down again beside her. But he said nothing; he waited for her to ask, if she were curious.
She was. "What did Barber want?"
"Only a note from Beard—about the match. We shall be one man short anyhow, and two if I don't turn up. So I told Barber to say I would."
"Good. Margaret and I will come and watch you. We've not gone into official mourning yet, I imagine."
"Hang 'em, they may think what they like! I'm going to play cricket."
So he played cricket, though that again would not have seemed possible over-night, and, notwithstanding that his eye might well have been out, he made five-and-twenty runs and brought off a catch of a most comforting order. Hilsey won the match by four wickets, and Judith, Margaret, and he strolled back home together in the cool of the evening, while the setting sun gilded the mellow and peaceful beauties of the old house.
The little girl held Judith's hand, and, excited by the incidents of the game, above all by Cousin Arthur's dashing innings—his style was rather vigorous than classic—prattled more freely than her wont.
"I wish mummy hadn't had to go away just to-day," she said. "Then she could have seen Cousin Arthur's innings. I wanted to cry when he was caught out."
Arthur applied the words in parable, smiling grimly at himself in his pain. He had been crying himself at being caught out, and at mummy's having had to go away that morning. But he mustn't do it. He must set his teeth, however sore the pain, however galling the consciousness of folly. Surely, in face of what had happened to that house, nobody but an idiot—nobody but a man unable to learn even words of one syllable in the book of life—could be content to meet trouble with sighs and sulks, or with cries only and amorous lamentation? Not to feel to the depths of his being the shattering blow, or lightly and soon to forget it—that could not be, nor did his instinct ask it; it would argue shallowness indeed, and a cheapening of all that was good and generous in him, a cheapening too of her who, towards him at least, had ever been generous and good. What had he, of all men, against her? Had she not given him all she could—joy, comradeship, confidence in all things save that one? In the crisis of her own fate, when she was risking all her fortunes on that momentous throw, had she not paused, had she not turned aside, to pity him and to be very tender towards his foolishness? Was his the hand to cast at her the stone of an ungrateful or accusing memory?