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.