“I’ve got it,” he said. “We have got a cricket match on Saturday against the village; we’re quite likely to be a man short; at any rate we can always play twelve-a-side. You come down and stay the week-end with us. The pater’s frightfully keen on cricket. If you can manage to make a few he’s sure to be impressed, and then I’ll tell him all about you. You will get a pleasant week-end and I expect quite a good game of cricket.”
Roland naturally accepted this proposal eagerly. He did not, however, tell his people of the prospect of a job in Marston & Marston, Limited; he preferred to wait till things were settled one way or another. If he were to be disappointed, he would prefer to be disappointed alone. He did not need any sympathy at such a time.
But when he went round to the Curtises’ April could tell, from the glow in his face, that he was unusually excited about something. She did not have a chance to speak to him when he was in the drawing-room. Her mother talked and talked. Arthur had just gone back to school and she was garrulous about his outfit.
“It is so absurd, you know, Mr. Whately,” she said, “the way people say women care more about clothes than men. There is Arthur to-day; he insisted on having linen shirts instead of woolen ones, although woolen shirts are much nicer and much warmer. ‘My dear Arthur,’ I said, ‘no one can see your shirt; your waistcoat hides most of it and your tie the rest.’ But he said that all the boys wore linen shirts instead of flannel. ‘But, my dear Arthur,’ I said, ‘who is going to see what kind of a shirt you are wearing if it is covered by your waistcoat and tie? And I can cut your sleeves shorter so that they would not be seen beneath your coat.’ And do you know what he said, Mr. Whately? He said, ‘You don’t understand, mother; the boys would see that I was wearing a flannel shirt when I changed for football, and I would be ragged for it.’ Well, now, Mr. Whately, isn’t that absurd?”
She went on talking and talking about every garment she had bought for her son--his ties, his boots, his socks, his coat.
Roland hardly talked at all. His father mentioned that he was going down for the week-end to stay with some friends and take part in a cricket match.