“So that is what you are so excited about!” April had interposed. And Roland had laughed and said that that was it.
But she would not believe that he could be so excited about a game of cricket, and in the hall she had pulled him by his coat sleeve.
“What is it?” she had whispered. “Something has happened. It is not only a cricket match.”
And because he wanted to share his enthusiasm with someone, and because April looked so pretty, and because he felt that courage would flow to him from her faith in him, he confided in her his hope.
“Oh, that would be lovely,” she said. “I do hope things will turn out all right. I’ve felt so guilty all along about it; if it hadn’t been for me none of this would ever have happened.”
“Don’t worry about that,” said Roland. “Things are beginning to turn right now.”
There was no time for further conversation; Mrs. Curtis had completed her doorstep homily to Mr. Whately. April pressed Roland’s hand eagerly as she said good-by to him.
It was a glorious week, and through Thursday and Friday Roland watched in nervous anticipation every cloud that crossed the pale blue sky. Sooner or later the weather must break, he felt; and it would be fatal for his prospects if it rained now. It is miserable to sit in a pavilion and watch the wicket slowly become a bog; cheeriness under such conditions is anti-social. Mr. Marston would be unable to work up any sympathy for him, and would remember him as “that fellow who came down for the cricket match that was such a fiasco”--an unfortunate association.
Everything went well, however. Roland traveled down on the Friday night, and as he got out of the train at Hogstead station he saw the spire of the church black against a green and scarlet sky. “With such a sky it can hardly be wet to-morrow,” he said.
The Marstons were a rich family, and it was the first time Roland had seen anything of the life of really wealthy people. He was met at the station and was driven up through a long, curving drive to a Georgian house surrounded by well-kept lawns. Marston received him in a large, oak-paneled hall, and although at first Roland was a little embarrassed by the attentions of the footman, who took his hat and coat and bag, within five minutes he found himself completely at his ease, sitting in a deep arm-chair discussing with Mr. Marston the prospects of a certain young cricketer who had made his first appearance that summer at the Oval.