In consequence Roland did not find them very responsive. They listened attentively to all he told them, but they asked no questions, and the conversation was not made easy. Roland was piqued by their behavior; he had intended to arrange a picnic for the three of them on the last day, but now decided that he would not. After all, why should he: it would be no pleasure for any of them, not if they were going to sit glum and silent. Two days before his marriage he went for a walk in the evening with his father, and as Gerald would be coming on the next day to stay the night with them this was the last walk they would have together. But in nothing that they said to each other was implied any appreciation of the fact. When Mr. Whately returned from the office he handed the evening paper to his wife, commented on the political situation in Russia and on the economical situation of France, and was, on the whole, of the opinion that Spanish cooking was superior to Italian. “Not quite so much variety,” he said, “but there’s a flavor about it that one gets nowhere else.” He then proceeded to remove his boots: “And what about a walk, Roland?”
Roland nodded, and Mr. Whately went upstairs to change his suit. They walked as usual down the High Street, they turned up the corner of College Road, they crossed by the Public Library into Green Crescent, and completed their circuit by walking down into the High Street through Woolston Avenue. They talked of Fernhurst, of the coming cricket season, of the marriage ceremony, of the arrangements that had been made for meeting the guests at the church, of the train that Roland and Muriel would catch afterwards. But there passed between them not one sentence, question, intonation of the voice that could be called intimate, that could be said to express not remorse, but any attitude at all towards the severing of a long relationship. As they walked up the steps of 105 Hammerton Villas they were discussing the effectiveness of the new pull stroke that in face of prejudice so many great batsmen were practicing.
“I think I shall go down to the nets at the Oval to-morrow morning, father, and see what I can make of it.”
It was a bleak morning and the Oval presented a dismal appearance; a few men were pottering about with ladders and paint brushes; a cutting machine was clanking on the grass; the long stone terraces were cold and forbidding; the clock in the pavilion had stopped; far over at the Vauxhall end a couple of bored professionals were bowling to an enthusiastic amateur who had no idea of the game, but demanded instruction after every stroke. Roland stood behind the net and watched for a while an exhibition of cross-bat play that was calculated to make him forever an advocate of the left shoulder, the left elbow and the left foot. He had a few minutes’ chat with one of the groundsmen.