He wondered whether it
had been intended. But Durrance rode silently forward. Again Harry
Feversham was conscious of a reproach in his friend's silence, and again
he was wrong. For Durrance suddenly spoke heartily, and with a laugh.
"I remember. You gave us your reasons that night. But for the life of me
I can't help wishing that we had been going out together. When do you
leave for Ireland?"
"To-night."
"So soon?"
They turned their horses and rode westward again down the alley of
trees. The morning was still fresh. The limes and chestnuts had lost
nothing of their early green, and since the May was late that year, its
blossoms still hung delicately white like snow upon the branches and
shone red against the dark rhododendrons. The park shimmered in a haze
of sunlight, and the distant roar of the streets was as the tumbling of
river water.
"It is a long time since we bathed in Sandford Lasher," said Durrance.
"Or froze in the Easter vacations in the big snow-gully on Great End,"
returned Feversham. Both men had the feeling that on this morning a
volume in their book of life was ended; and since the volume had been a
pleasant one to read, and they did not know whether its successors would
sustain its promise, they were looking backward through the leaves
before they put it finally away.
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