Chapter XVIII: Three Days

The summer was nearly over, however, before the crisis came. It was on a Friday evening in the beginning of September, and Roland was sitting with his mother, as was usual with them, for a short talk after his father had gone to bed. He could tell that something was worrying her. Her conversation had been disjointed and many of her remarks irrelevant. And suddenly his instinct warned him that she was going to speak to him about April. He went suddenly still. If someone had thrown a stone at him at that moment he would have been unable to move out of the way of it. He could recollect distinctly, to the end of his life, everything that had passed through his mind during that minute of terrifying silence that lay between his realization of what was coming and the first sound of that opening sentence.

“Roland, dear, I hope you won’t mind my mentioning it, but your father and I have been talking together about you and April.”

He could remember everything: the shout of a newsboy in the street--“Murder in Tufnell Park!” the slight rustle of the curtain against the window-sill; the click of his mother’s knitting needles. And, till that moment, he had never noticed that the pattern of the carpet was irregular, that on the left side there were seven roses and five poppies and on the right six roses and six poppies. They had had that carpet for twenty years and he had never noticed it before. His eyes were riveted on this curious deformity, while through the window came the shriek of the newsboy--“Murder in Tufnell Park!” Then his mother’s voice broke the tension. The moment had come; he gathered his strength to him. As he had walked five years earlier with unflinching head, up the hill to Carus Evans, so now he answered his mother with an even voice:

“Yes, mother?”

“Well, dear, we’ve been thinking that you really ought to be settling something definite about yourself and April.”

“But we didn’t want to be engaged, mother.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that, dear. I know about that. It’s a modern idea, I suppose, though I think myself that it would have been better some time ago, but it’s not an engagement so much we’re thinking of as of your marriage.”

It was more sudden than Roland had expected.

“Oh, but--oh, surely Mrs. Curtis would never agree. She’d say we were much too young.”

“Well, that’s what we thought, but I went round and saw her the other day, and she quite agreed with us that it was really no good waiting any longer. You are making a lot of money, and it’s quite likely that Mr. Marston will raise your salary when he hears you’re going to be married; and after all, why should you wait? As I said to your father: ‘They’ve known each other for a long time, and if they don’t know their minds now they never will.’”

Roland did not know what to say. He was unarmed by a sympathy and kindness against which he could not fight.

“It’s awfully decent of you.” Those were the only words that occurred to him, and he knew, even as he uttered them, that they were not only completely inadequate, but pitifully inexpressive of his state of mind.

“We only want to do what will make you happy, and it is happier to marry young, really it is!”

He made a last struggle.

“But, mother, don’t you think that for April’s sake--she’s so young. Isn’t it rather hard on her to be loaded with responsibilities so early?”

“It’s nice of you to think that, Roland. It shows you really care for her; but I think that in the end, when she’s an old woman like I am, she’ll be glad she married young.”

And then, because Roland looked still doubtful, she offered him the benefit of what wisdom the narrow experiences of her life had brought her. She had never unlocked her heart before; it hurt her to do it now and her eyes welled with tears. But she felt that, at this great crisis of his life, she must be prepared to lay before her son everything that might help him in it. It might be of assistance to him to know how these things touched a woman, and so she told him how she too had once thought it cruel that responsibilities should have been laid on her so soon.

“I was only nineteen when I married your father, and things were very difficult at first. It was a small house, we had no servant, and I had to get up early in the morning and light the fires and get the breakfast things ready, and all the morning I had to scrub and brush and wash up. I had no friends. And then, after tea, I used to lie down for an hour and rest, I was so tired, and I wanted to look fresh and pretty for your father when he came home. And there were times when I thought it was unfair; that I should have been allowed to be free and happy and unworried like other girls of my age. I used to see some of my school friends very occasionally and they used to tell me of their balls and parties, and I was so envious. And then very often your father was irritable and bad-tempered when he came back, and he found fault with my cooking, and I used to go away and cry all by myself and wonder why I was doing it, working so hard and for nothing. And then I began to think he didn’t love me any more; there was another girl: she was fresher; she didn’t have to do any housework. There was nothing in it; it never came to anything. Your father was always faithful; he’s always been very good to me, but I could see from the way his face lighted up when she came into the room that he was attracted by her, and I can’t tell you how it hurt me. I used to think that he preferred that other girl, that he thought her prettier than I was. It wasn’t easy those first three years. When you’ve been married three years you’re almost certain to regret it and think you could have done better with someone else, but after ten years you’ll know very well that you couldn’t, because, Roland, love doesn’t last; not what you mean by love; but something takes its place, and that something is more important. When two people have been through as much together as your father and I have, there’s--I don’t know how to put it--but, you can’t do without each other. And it makes a big difference the being married early. That’s why I should like you and April to marry as soon as ever you can. You’d never regret it.”

The tears began to trickle slowly down her cheeks; she tried to go on, but failed.

Roland did not know what to do or say. He had never loved his mother so much as he did then, but he could not express that love for her with words. He knelt forward and put his arms round her and drew her damp cheek to his.

“Mother,” he whispered. “Mother, darling!”

For a long time they remained thus in a silent embrace. Then she drew back, straightened herself, and began to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief.

“It’ll be all right, mother,” he said.

She did not answer, but smiled a soft, glad smile, and taking his hand pressed it gently between hers.

“As long as you’re happy, Roland,” she said.

And so the crisis had come and had been settled. In those few minutes the direction of fifty years had been chosen finally. It was hard, but what would you? Life went that way. At any rate he would have those first few scented months; that at least was his. For a year he and April would be indescribably happy in the new-found intimacy of marriage, and afterwards--but of what could one be certain? For all he knew life might choose to readjust itself. One could not have anything both ways; indeed, one paid for everything. The Athenian parent had been far-seeing when he knelt before the altar in prayer that the compensating evil for his son’s success might be light. One should do what lay to hand. As he curled himself in his bed he thought of April, and his heart beat quickly at the knowledge that her grace and tenderness would soon be his.

He shut away all thought of the dark years that must follow the passing of that first enchantment and fixed his mind on the sure pleasure that awaited him. How wonderful, after all, marriage could be. To return home at the end of the day and find your wife waiting for you. You would be tired and she would take you in her arms and run cool fingers through your hair, and you would talk together for a while, and she would tell you what she had done during the day, and you would tell her of whom you had met and of the business you had transacted, and you would bring your successes and lay them at her feet and you would say: “I made so much money to-day.” And your words would lock that money away in her little hand--“All yours,” they would seem to say. Then you would go upstairs and change for dinner, and when you came down you would find her standing before the fire, one long, bare arm lying along the mantelpiece, and you would come to her and very slowly pass your hand along it, and, bending your head, you would kiss the smooth skin of her neck. And could anything be more delightful than the quiet dinner together? Then would come the slow contentment of that hour or so before bedtime, while the warmth of the fire subsided slowly and you sat talking in low tones. And, afterwards, when you were alone in the warm darkness to love each other. Marriage must be a very fine adventure.

The next day brought with it its own problems, and on this Saturday morning in early autumn the white mist that lay over the roofs of Hammerton was a sufficient object of speculation. Did it veil the blue sky that adds so much to the charm of cricket, or a gray, sodden expanse of windy, low-flying clouds? It was the last Saturday of the cricket season. Roland was, naturally, bound for Hogstead, and there is no day in the whole year on which the cricketer watches the sky with more anxiety. In May he is impatient for his first innings, but as he walks up and down the pavilion in his spiked boots and hears the rain patter on the corrugated iron roof he can comfort himself with the knowledge that sooner or later the sun will shine, if not this week, then the next, and that in a long season he is bound to have many opportunities of employing that late cut he has been practicing so assiduously at the nets. In the middle of the season he is a hardened warrior; he takes the bad with the good; he has outgrown his first eagerness; he has become, in fact, a philosopher. Last week he made seventy-two against the Stoics and was missed in the slips before he had scored. Such fortune is bound to be followed by a few disappointments. But at the end of the season a wet day is a dire misfortune. As he sits in the pavilion and watches the rain sweep across the pitch he remembers that only that morning he observed the erection of goal posts on the village green, that the winter is long and slow to pass, that for eight months he will not hold a bat in his hands, that this, his last forlorn opportunity of making a century, is even now fast slipping from him.

The depression of such a day is an abiding memory through the gray months of January and December, and, though Roland had had a fairly successful season, he was naturally anxious to end it well. He was prepared to distrust that mist. He had seen many mists break into heavy Sunshine. He had also seen many mists dissolve into heavy rain. He knew no peace of mind till the sky began to lighten just before the train reached Hogstead, and he did not feel secure till he had changed into flannels and was walking down to the field on Gerald’s arm, their shadows flung hard and black upon the grass in front of them.

It was a delightful morning; the grass was fresh with the dew which a slight breeze was drying; there was hardly a worn spot on the green surface, against which the white creases and yellow stumps stood in vivid contrast. An occasional cloud cut the sunlight, sending its shadow in long ripples of smoke across the field.

“And to think,” said Gerald, “that this is our last game this season.”

But for Roland this certainly marred the enjoyment of the blue sky and the bright sunshine. “This is the last time,” he repeated to himself. For eight months the green field, so gay now with the white figures moving in the sunlight, would be desolate. Leaves would be blown on to it from the trees; rain would fall on them. The windows of the pavilion would be barred, the white screens stacked in the shelter of a wall.

After his innings he sat beside Muriel in the deck-chair on the shaded, northern terrace. But he felt too sad to talk to her and she complained of his silence.

“I don’t think much of you as a companion,” she said. “I’ve timed you. You haven’t said a word for ten minutes.”

He laughed, apologized and endeavored to revert to the simple badinage that had amused them when Muriel was a little girl in short frocks, with her hair blowing about her neck, but it was not particularly successful, and it was a relief when Gerald placed his chair on the other side of Muriel and commenced a running commentary on the game. Roland wanted to be alone with his thoughts. Occasionally a stray phrase or sentence of their conversation percolated through his reverie.

“What a glorious afternoon it’s going to be,” he heard Muriel say. “It seems quite absurd that this should be your last game. One can’t believe that the summer’s over. On a day like this it looks as though it would last forever!”

The words beat themselves into his brain. It was over and it was absurd to dream. The autumn sunshine that had lured her into disbelief of the approach of winter had made him forget that this day at Hogstead was his last. By next year he would be married; the delightful interlude would be finished. He would have passed from the life of Hogstead, at any rate in his present position. If he returned it would be different. The continuity would have been broken.

Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of Muriel’s profile; how pretty she was; quite a woman now; and he turned his chair a little so that he could observe her without moving his head. Yes, she was really pretty in her delicate porcelain fashion; she was not beautiful. But, then, beauty was too austere. Charm was preferable. And she had that charm that depends almost entirely on its setting, on a dress that is in keeping with small dainty features. The least little thing wrong and she would have been quite ordinary.

What would happen to her? She would marry, of course; she would find no lack of suitors. Already, perhaps, there was one whom she had begun slightly to favor. What would he be like? To what sort of a man would she be attracted? Whoever he was he would be a lucky fellow; and Roland paused to wonder whether, if things had been different, if he had been free when he had met her first, she could have come to care for him. She had always liked him. He remembered many little occasions on which she had said things that he might have construed into a meaning favorable to himself. There had been that evening on the stairs when they had felt suddenly frightened of each other, and since then, more than once, he had fancied that they had stumbled in their anxiety to make impersonal conversation.

How happy they would have been together. They would have lived together at Hogstead all their lives, a part of the Marston family. Hammerton would have ceased to exist for him. They would have built themselves a cottage on the edge of the estate; their children would have passed their infancy among green fields, within sound of cricket balls.

At the far end of the field, on the southern terrace, Beatrice was sitting alone, watching Rosemary play a few yards away from her. She must have been there during the greater part of the morning, but Roland had not noticed her till she waved a hand to attract his attention. He rose at once and walked across to her. He felt that a talk with her would do him good.

They had seen a good deal of each other intermittently during the past three years, and each talk with her had been for Roland a step farther into the heart of a mystery. Gradually they had come to talk in shorthand, to read each other’s thoughts without need of the accepted medium of words, so that when in reply to a complimentary remark about the fascination of her hat she made a quiet shrug of her shoulders, he knew that it was prompted by the wound of her wasted beauty. And on that late summer morning, with its solemn warning of decay, Roland felt brave enough to put to her the question that he had long wished to ask.

“Why did you marry him?” he said.

His question necessitated no break in the rhythm of her reverie. She answered him without pausing.

“I didn’t know my own mind,” she said. “I was very young. I wasn’t in love with anyone else. My mother was keen on it. I gave way.”

Beatrice spoke the truth. Her mother had honestly believed the match to be to her daughter’s advantage. Her own life had been made difficult through lack of money. She had always been worried by it, and she had naturally come to regard money as more important than the brief fluttering of emotion that had been the prelude to the long, bitter struggle. It had seemed to her a wonderful thing that her daughter should marry this rich man. Herself had only been unhappy because she had been poor; her daughter would be always rich.

“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 forever!” 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.

“Do come,” he said.

She nodded, and they turned and walked together towards the end of the cricket ground. She did not know why he should want her to come with him at such an unusual time, but she could see that he was unhappy, that he needed sympathy, and so, after a second’s hesitation, she passed, for the first time in her life, her arm through his. He looked at her quickly, a look of surprise and gratitude, and pressed her arm with his. He said nothing, now that she was with him. He did not feel any need of words; it was her presence he wanted, and all that her presence meant to him. But she, being ignorant of what was in his mind, was embarrassed by his silence.

“That was a jolly knock of yours,” she said at last.

“Oh! not bad, but in a second innings!”

“Rather like that one of yours five years ago.”

“What! Do you remember that?”

“Of course; it was a great occasion.”

“For me.”

“And for us.”

The past and the emotions of the past returned to him with a startling vividness. He could recall every moment of that day.

“I was so anxious to come off,” he said. “You know I was to have gone into a bank and Gerald brought me down in the hope that your pater would take to me. I was frightfully nervous.”

“So was I.”

“But you’d never seen me.”

“No, but Gerald had talked to me about you, and I thought it such rotten luck that a fellow like you should have to go into a bank. There’d been a row, hadn’t there?”

They had reached the hedge that marked the boundary for the Marston estate; there was a gate in it, and they walked towards it. They stood for a moment, her arm still in his, looking at the quiet village that lay before them. Then Roland dropped her arm and leaned against the gate.

“Yes, there’d been a row,” he said, “and everything was going wrong, and I saw myself for the rest of my life a clerk adding up figures in a bank.”

He paused, realizing the analogy between that day and this. Then, as now, destiny had seemed to be closing in on him, robbing him of freedom and the chance to make of his life anything but a gray subservience. He had evaded destiny then, but it had caught him now. And he leaned on the gate, hardly seeing the laborers trudging up the village street, talking in the porch of the public-house; their women returning home with their purchases for Sunday’s dinner.

Again Muriel was oppressed by his silence.

“I remember Gerald telling us about it,” she said, “and I was excited to see what you’d be like.”

“And what did you think of me when you saw me?”

“Oh, I was a little girl then”; she laughed nervously, for his eyes were fixed on her face and she felt that she was blushing.

“Yes, but what did you think?” he repeated; “tell me.”

Her fingers plucked nervously at her skirt; she felt frightened, and it was absurd to be frightened with Roland, one of her oldest friends.

“Oh, it’s silly! I was only a little girl then. What does it matter what I thought? As a matter of fact,” and she flung out the end of her confession carelessly, as though it meant nothing, “as a matter of fact, I thought you were the most wonderful boy I’d ever seen.” And she tried to laugh a natural, off-hand laugh that would make an end of this absurd situation, but the laugh caught in her throat, and she went suddenly still, her eyes fixed on Roland’s. They looked at each other and read fear in the other’s eyes, but in Roland’s eyes fear was mingled with a desperate entreaty, a need, an overmastering need of her. His tongue seemed too big for his mouth, and when at last he spoke, his voice was dry.

“And what do you think of me now?”

She could say nothing. She stood still, held by the gray eyes that never wavered.

“What do you think of me now?” he repeated.

She made a movement to break the tension, a swift gesture with her hand that was intended for a dismissal, but he was standing so close that her hand brushed against him; she gave a little gasp as his hand closed over it and held it.

“You won’t tell me,” he said. “But shall I tell you what I thought of you then? Shall I tell you? I thought you were the prettiest girl I had ever seen, and I thought how beautiful you would be when you grew up.”

“Oh, don’t be so silly, Roland,” and she laughed a short, nervous laugh, and tried to draw her hand from his, but he held it firmly, and drew her a little nearer to him, so that he could take her other hand in his. They stood close together, then she raised her face slowly to his and the puzzled, wistful, trusting expression released the flood of sentiment that had been surging within him all the afternoon. His misery was no longer master of itself, and her beauty drew to it the mingled tenderness, hesitation, disappointment of his vexed spirit. She was for him in that moment the composite vision of all he prized most highly in life, of romance, mystery, adventure.

His hands closed upon hers tightly, desperately, as though he would rivet himself to the one thing of which he could be certain, and his confused intense emotion poured forth in a stream of eager avowal:

“But I never thought, Muriel, that you would be anything like what you are; you are wonderful, Muriel; I’ve been realizing it slowly every day. I’ve said to myself that we were only friends, just friends, but I’ve known it was more than friendship. I’ve told myself not to be silly, that you could never care for me--well, I’ve never realized, not properly, not till this afternoon, Muriel.”

She was no longer frightened; his words had soothed her, caressed her, wooed her; and when he paused, the expression of her eyes was fearless.

“Yes, Roland,” she said.

“Muriel, Muriel, I love you; I want you to marry me. Will you?”

She blushed prettily. “But, Roland, you know; if father and mother say yes, of course.”

In the sudden release of feeling he was uncertain what exactly was expected of a person whose proposal had been accepted. They were on the brink of another embarrassed silence, but Muriel saved them.

“Roland,” she said, “you’re hurting my fingers awfully!”

With a laugh he dropped her hands, and that laugh restored them to their former intimacy.

“Oh, Roland,” she said, “what fun we shall have when we are married.”

He asked whether she thought her parents would be pleased, and she was certain that they would.

“They like you so much.” Then she insisted on his telling when and how he had first discovered that he was in love with her. “Come along; let’s sit on the gate and you shall tell me all about it. Now, when was the first time, the very first time, that you thought you were in love with me?”

“Oh, but I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do; you must, of course you must, or you’d be nothing of a lover. Come on, or I shall take back my promise.”

“Well, then, that evening on the stairs.”

Muriel pouted.

“Oh, then!”

“Do you remember it?” he said.

“Of course I do. You frightened me.”

“I know, and that’s why I thought that one day you might marry me.”

“Oh, but how silly!” she protested. “I wasn’t a bit in love with you then. In fact, I was very annoyed with you.”

“And, besides, I think I’ve always been in love with you.”

“Oh, no, you haven’t.”

“Don’t be too sure. And you?”

She smiled prettily.

“I’ve often thought what a nice husband you would make.”

And then she had taken his hand in her lap and played with it.

“And where shall we live when we are married?” he had asked her, and she had said she did not care.

“Anywhere, as long as there are lots of people to amuse me.”

She sat there on the gate, her light hair blowing under the wide brim of her hat, laughing down at him, her face bright with happiness. She was so small, so graceful. Light as heatherdown, she would run a gay motif through the solemn movement of his career.

“You are like a fairy,” he said, “like a mischievous little elf. I think I shall call you that--Elfkin.”

“Oh, what a pretty name, Roland--Elfkin! How sweet of you!”

They talked so eagerly together of the brilliant future that awaited them that they quite forgot the lateness of the hour, till they heard across the evening the dull boom of the dinner gong. They both gasped and looked at each other as confederates in guilt.

“Heavens!” she said, “what a start. We’ve got to run!”

It was the nearest approach to a dramatic entrance that Roland ever achieved. Muriel kept level with him during the race across the cricket ground, but she began to fall behind as they reached the long terrace between the rhododendrons.

“Take hold of my hand,” said Roland, and he dragged her over the remaining thirty yards. They rushed through the big French windows of the drawing-room at the very moment that the party had assembled there before going down to dinner. They had quite forgotten that there would be an audience. They stopped, and Muriel gave out a horrified gasp of “Oh!”

They certainly were a ridiculous couple as they stood there hand in hand, hot, disheveled, out of breath, beside that well-groomed company of men and women in evening dress. Mrs. Marston hurried forward with the slightly deprecating manner of the hostess whose plans have been disturbed.

“My dear children----” But Muriel had by this time recovered her breath and courage. She raised a peremptory hand.

“One minute. We’ve got something to tell you all.”

“But surely, dear, after dinner,” Mrs. Marston began.

“No, mother, dear, now,” and, with a twinkle in her eye and a sly glance at her embarrassed lover, Muriel made her alarming announcement:

“Roland and I, mother, we’re going to be married.”

Roland had seen in a French novel a startling incident of domestic revelation recorded by two words: _consternation générale_, and those two words suited the terrible hush that followed Muriel’s confession. It was not a hush of anger, or disapproval, but of utter and complete astonishment. For a few minutes no one said anything. The young men of the party either adjusted their collar studs and gazed towards the ceiling, or flicked a speck of dust from their trousers and gazed upon the floor. The young women gazed upon each other. Mrs. Marston thought nervously of the condition of the retarded dinner, and Mr. Marston tried, without success, to prove adequate to the situation. Only Muriel enjoyed it; she loved a rag, and her eyes passed from one figure to another; not one of them dared look at her.

“Well,” she said at last, “we did think you’d want to congratulate us.” To Mr. Marston some criticism of himself appeared to be implied in this remark. He pulled down his waistcoat, coughed, and went through the preliminaries usual to him when preparing to address the board. And, in a sense, this was a board meeting, a family board meeting.

“My dear Muriel,” he began, but he had advanced no further than these three words when the dinner gong sounded for the second time. It was a signal for Mrs. Marston to bustle forward.

“Yes, yes, but the dinner’ll be getting quite cold if we don’t go in at once. Don’t trouble to change, Mr. Whately, please don’t; but, Muriel, you must go up and do your hair, and if you have time change your frock.”

“Weren’t they lovely?” said Muriel, as she and Roland ran upstairs to wash. “I could have died with laughter.”

“You made me feel a pretty complete fool,” said Roland.

“Well, you made me feel very silly about three-quarters of an hour ago. I deserved a revenge.” And she scampered upstairs ahead of him.

Roland washed quickly and waited for her at the foot of the stairs. He was much too shy to go in alone.

“And they say that women are cowards,” said Muriel, when he confessed it to her. “Come along.”

The quarter of an hour that had elapsed since the sensational disclosure had given the company time to recover its balance, and when Muriel and Roland entered the room, they found that two empty seats were waiting for them side by side.

“Here they are,” said Mr. Marston, “and I hope that they’re thoroughly ashamed of themselves.” He felt himself again after a glass of sherry, and it was an occasion of which a father should make the most. It could only come once and he was prepared to enjoy it to the full. “To think of it, my dear, the difference between this generation and ours. Why, before I got engaged to your mother, Muriel, why, even before I began to court her, I went and asked her father’s permission. I can remember now how frightened I felt. We respected our parents in those days. We always asked their opinions first. But to-day--why, in you burst, late for dinner, and announce with calm effrontery that you’re going to be married. Why, at this rate, there won’t be any engagements at all in a short time; young people will just walk in at the front door and say: ‘We’re married.’”

“Then we are engaged, father, aren’t we?” said Muriel.

“I didn’t say so.”

“Oh, but you did; didn’t he, Roland?”

Roland was, however, too confused to hold any opinion on the subject.

“Well, if you didn’t actually say so you implied it. At any rate we shall take it that you did.”

“And that, I suppose, settles it?”

“Of course.”

Mr. Marston made a theatrical gesture of despair.

“These children!” he said.

It was a jolly evening. Roland and Muriel were the center of congratulations; their healths were drunk; he was called on for a speech, and he fulfilled his duty amid loud applause. Everyone was so pleased, so eager to share their happiness. Beatrice had turned to him a smile of surprised congratulation. Only Gerald held back from the general enthusiasm. Once across the table his eyes met Roland’s, and there was implied in their glance a question. He was the only one of the party who had heard of April, and never, in all their confidences, had there passed between them one word that might have hinted at a growing love between his sister and his friend; it was this that surprised him. Surely Roland would have told him something about it. Roland was not the sort of fellow who kept things to himself. He always wanted to share his pleasures. Gerald would have indeed expected him to come to him for advice, to say: “Old son, what chance do you think I stand in that direction?”--to entrust him with the delicate mission of sounding Muriel’s inclinations. He was surprised and a little hurt.

As they were going towards the drawing-room after dinner he laid his hand on Roland’s arm, holding him back for a minute. And as he stood in the doorway waiting for his friend, Roland felt for the first time a twinge of apprehension as to the outcome of this undertaking. But he could see that Gerald was nervous, and this nervousness of his lent Roland confidence.

“It’s no business of mine, old son,” Gerald began, “I’m awfully glad about you and Muriel and all that, but,” he paused irresolute; he disliked these theatrical situations and did not know how to meet them. “I mean,” he began slowly, then added quietly, anxiously: “It’s all right, isn’t it, old son?”

“Of course,” said Roland. “It’s the most wonderful----”

“I know, I know,” Gerald interrupted, “but wasn’t there, didn’t you tell me about----”

“Oh, that’s finished a long time ago. Don’t worry about that.”

“You see,” Gerald went on, “I should hate to think---- Oh, well, I’m awfully glad about it, and I think you’re both fearfully lucky.”

Two hours later Roland and Muriel stood on the landing saying good-night to one another. She was leaning towards him, across the banisters, as she had leaned that evening three years earlier, but this time he held her hand in his.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am,” he was saying; “I shall dream of you all night long.”

“And so shall I of you.”

“We’re going to be wonderfully happy, aren’t we?”

“Wonderfully.”

And in each other’s eyes they saw the eager, boundless confidence of youth. They were going to make a great thing of their life together. Roland cast a swift glance over the banisters to see if anyone was in the hall, then stood on tiptoe, raising himself till his face was on the level with Muriel’s.

“Muriel,” he said.

“Yes.”

“I want to whisper something in your ear.”

“What is it?”

“Lean over, closer to me, and I will tell you.”

She bent her head, her cheek brushing against his hair. “Well?” she said.

He placed his mouth close to her ear.

“Muriel, you haven’t kissed me yet.”

She drew back and smiled.

“Was that all?” she said.

“Isn’t it enough?”

She made no answer.

“Aren’t you going to?” he said.

“I don’t know.”

“Please, please, do.”

“Some day I will.”

“But why not now?”

“Someone would see us.”

“Oh, no, they wouldn’t. And even if they did what would it matter? Muriel! please, please, Muriel!”

He raised himself again on tiptoe; and leaning forward, she rested her hands upon his shoulders. Then she slowly bent her head to his, and their lips met in such a kiss as children exchange for forfeits in the nursery. As she drew back Roland slipped back again on to his heels, but he still held her hand and her fingers closed round his, pressing them, if not with passion, at least with fondness.

“You’re rather an old dear, Roland,” she said. And there was a note in her voice that made him say quickly and half audibly:

“And you’re a darling.”

She drew her hand from his gently. “And what was that pretty name you called me?”

“Elfkin.”

“Let me be always Elfkin.”

Both of them that night were wooed to sleep by the delight of their new-found happiness.