"Will you come too, father?" he asked, pulling at his father's hand.
The elder Roger looked somewhat wistfully at the little group inside the netting on the tennis court. His little daughters kissed their fingers to him, calling to him to come; but his wife had turned her back upon him, and she had a most expressive back. He shook his head at the children, muttering something about letters to write, and turned to walk slowly towards the house.
"I'll bowl to you if you come, Roger; the grass is really quite dry again!" called his mother. Roger stood still in the drive, looking from one to the other of his parents both with their backs to him. Lettice looked over her shoulder and saw her husband's departing figure. "Come, my son!" she called, with a queer little catch in her sweet voice. "I've hardly seen you all day."
Roger went round the netting till he found an opening and pushed through. His mother came to meet him, and put her arm round his shoulders. He pointed to his father, who was walking slowly away with bent head.
"Don't you think fardie looks rather lonely?" he asked.
Lettice looked after her husband. "I don't think he is lonely, sonnie: he has so many—other friends." But the boy was not convinced.
Roger's mother bowls uncommonly well, but he did not enjoy the cricket. He kept contrasting it with that of last year. Then father always played too, and one day mother bowled him clean, and there was great shouting and excitement. "It was jollier cricket then!" he reflected sadly.
The elder Roger went and sat in the gun-room. He had to relight his cigar three times, and his reflections, although engrossing, did not seem pleasant.
"Will she never understand," he muttered, "that a man may care and yet play the giddy, and that he may play the giddy and not care a damn? What an almighty fool I've been!"
When the children had gone to bed Lettice went and sat in the newly arranged drawing-room.