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.