“I didn’t mean to speak of it,” she said, “and I won’t again. Let’s have a day off, and not regret or wonder or wish. What lots of times you and I have gone up to Lord’s together, though we usually went by Underground. Now we go in a great, noble motor. Let’s have fun for one day; I haven’t had fun for ages.”
Jim nodded at her.
“That just suits me,” he said. “I want a day off, and we’ll have it. Pretend you’re about eighteen again and me twenty-one. After all, it’s only putting the clock back a couple of years.”
“And I feel a hundred,” said Dora pathetically.
“Well, don’t. I felt a hundred yesterday, and it was a mistake.”
“Jim, I was so sorry about your bad luck at Newmarket. Somebody told me you had done nothing but lose. What an ass you are, dear! Why do you go on?”
Jim’s face darkened but for a moment.
“It’s nothing the least serious,” he said. “I did have rather a bad time, but I’ve pulled through and have paid every penny. In fact, that is what kept me this morning. I hate to give away all those great, crisp, crackling notes! I hate it! And then on my way home I determined not to think about it any more, nor about anything unpleasant that had ever happened, and I get here to find you had come to the same excellent determination. Let’s have a truce for one day.”
“Amen!” said Dora.
It is astonishing what can be done by acting in pairs. Dora would have been perfectly incapable alone of watching cricket with attention, far less, as proved to be possible, with rapture; and it might also be open to reasonable doubt as to whether alone Jim could have found any occupation that would have deeply interested him. But together they gave the slip to their anxieties and preoccupations, and Jim did not even want to bet on the result of the match. All afternoon they sat there, and waited till at half-past six the stumps were drawn. Then Dora gave a great sigh.