He stood for a while with the letter in his hand, speculating upon its meaning, until the wheels of a car grated on the gravel beneath his window.  The Pettifers had come.  But Thresk was in no hurry to descend.  He read the note through many times before he hid it away in his letter-case and went down the stairs.

CHAPTER XXIII

METHODS FROM FRANCE

Meanwhile Stella Ballantyne waited below.  She heard Mr. Hazlewood in the hall greeting the Pettifers with the false joviality which sat so ill upon him; she imagined the shy nods and glances which told them that the trap was properly set.  Mr. Hazlewood led them into the room.

“Is tea ready, Stella?  We won’t wait for Dick,” he said, and Stella took her place at the table.  She had her back to the door by which Thresk would enter.  She had not a doubt that thus her chair had been deliberately placed.  He would be in the room and near to the table before he saw her.  He would not have a moment to prepare himself against the surprise of her presence.  Stella listened for the sound of his footsteps in the hall; she could not think of a single topic to talk about except the presence of that extra sixth cup; and that she must not mention if the tables were really to be turned upon her antagonists.  Surprise must be visible upon her side when Thresk did come in.  But she was not alone in finding conversation difficult.  Embarrassment and expectancy weighed down the whole party, so that they began suddenly to speak at once and simultaneously to stop.  Robert Pettifer however asked if Dick was playing cricket, and so gave Harold Hazlewood an opportunity.

“No, the match was over early,” said the old man, and he settled himself in his arm-chair.  “I have given some study to the subject of cricket,” he said.

“You?” asked Stella with a smile of surprise.  Was he merely playing for time, she wondered?  But he had the air of contentment with which he usually embarked upon his disquisitions.

“Yes.  I do not consider our national pastime beneath a philosopher’s attention.  I have formed two theories about the game.”

“I am sure you have,” Robert Pettifer interposed.

“And I have invented two improvements, though I admit at once that they will have to wait until a more enlightened age than ours adopts them.  In the first place”—­and Mr. Hazlewood flourished a forefinger in the air—­“the game ought to be played with a soft ball.  There is at present a suggestion of violence about it which the use of a soft ball would entirely remove.”

“Entirely,” Mr. Pettifer agreed and his wife exclaimed impatiently: 

“Rubbish, Harold, rubbish!”

Stella broke nervously into the conversation.

“Violence?  Why even women play cricket, Mr. Hazlewood.”

“I cannot, Stella,” he returned, “accept the view that whatever women do must necessarily be right.  There are instances to the contrary.”