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Yes, he was all right. He had packed everything; moreover, his hair was brushed and he had no smut upon his face. With a sigh of relief he lowered the window and his soul drank in the beautiful afternoon. “We are going away–we are going away–we are going away,” sang the train.

At the prettiest of wayside stations the train stopped and Ronald got out. There were horses to meet him. “Better than a car,” thought Ronald, “on an afternoon like this.” The luggage was collected. “Nothing left out,” he chuckled to himself, and was seized with an insane desire to tell the coachman so; and then they drove off through the fresh green hedgerows, Ronald trying hard not to cheer.

His host was at the door as they arrived. Ronald, as happy as a child, jumped out and shook him warmly by the hand, and told him what a heavenly day it was; receiving with smiles of pleasure the news in return that it was almost like summer.

“You’re just in time for tea. Really, we might have it in the garden.”

“By Jove, we might,” said Ronald, beaming.

However, they had it in the hall, with the doors wide open. Ronald, sitting lazily with his legs stretched out and a cup of tea in his hands, and feeling already on the friendliest terms with everybody, wondered again at the difference which the weather could make to one’s happiness.

“You know,” he said to the girl on his right, “on a day like this, nothing seems to matter.”

And then suddenly he knew that he was wrong, for he had discovered what it was which he had told himself not to forget … what it was which he had indeed forgotten.

And suddenly the birds stopped singing and there was a bitter chill in the air.

And the sun went violently out.

* * * * *

He was wearing only half-a-pair of spats.