STEPHEN MCKENMA 
 
SONIA MARRIED 
 STEPHEN M C KENNA 
 
"As a clownish Fellow was driving his cart along a deep miry 
 lane, the wheel stuck so fast in the clay, that his horse could not 
 draw it out. Upon this he fell a bawling and praying to Hercules 
 to come and help him. Hercules, looking down from a cloud, bid 
 him not to lie there like an idle, dastardly booby as he was, but get 
 up and whip his horse, and clap his shoulder stoutly to the wheel, 
 adding that this was the only way for him to obtain assistance." 
 
 The Fables of JEsop: "Hercules and the Carter." 
 
SONIA MARRIED 
 
 BY 
 
 STEPHEN M C KENNA 
 
 AUTHOR OP "SONIA," "iflDAS AND SON," "NINETY-SIX 
 HOURS' LEAVE," ETC. 
 
 NEW ^ISJr YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT, IQig, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE METROPOLITAN PUBLICATIONS, INC. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
EPISTLE DEDICATORY 
 
 To WALTER FRANCIS ROCH 
 
 My dear Roch, 
 
 Ever since you read "SONIA" in manuscript, you have 
 been the book's most generous critic. May I mark my 
 gratitude for this and for a friendship older than "SONIA" 
 by dedicating its successor to you? Perhaps you remem- 
 ber openly doubting whether in fact the spiritual shock 
 of war could so change and steady Sonia as to make her a 
 fitting wife for any man, O'Rane most of all; you may 
 recollect my confessing that such a marriage of hysterical 
 impulse contained the seeds of instant disaster. 
 
 Sequels are admittedly failures, but I look on this book 
 less as a sequel than as an epilogue or footnote. Sonia was 
 not to know happiness until she had suffered, and the 
 sacrifice in the early days of war was to many a new and 
 heady self-indulgence. It is the length of the war, the 
 sickening repetition of one well-placed blow after another 
 on the same bruised flesh that has tested the survivors. 
 After a year of war O'Rane could have mustered many fol- 
 lowers, when he murmured to himself, "I all of us who 
 were out there have seen it. We can't forget. The 
 courage, the cold, heart-breaking courage . . . and the 
 smile on a dying man's face. . . . We must never let it be 
 forgotten, we've earned the right. As long as a drunkard 
 kicks his wife, or a child goes hungry, or a woman is 
 driven through shame to disease and death. . . . Is it a 
 great thing to ask? To demand of England to remember 
 that the criminals and loafers and prostitutes are some- 
 body's children, mothers and sisters? And that we've all 
 been saved by a miracle of suffering? Is that too great 
 
 vii 
 
 5.1 06 -4 () 
 
viii EPISTLE DEDICATORY 
 
 a strain on our chivalry? I'll go out if need be, but but 
 must we stand at street corners to tell what we've seen? 
 To ask the bystanders and ourselves whether we went to 
 war to preserve the right of inflicting pain ?" 
 
 After four years of war do you find many traces of 
 O'Rane's crusading spirit? Loring, he and a thousand 
 others intrigued and pulled wires to be sent out before their 
 turn; since they lost their lives or eyes or limbs, we have 
 seen their places filled by men who were first jeered and 
 shamed, later pricked and driven into the army, under the 
 amused gaze of their more fortunate fellows who had in- 
 trigued and pulled wires to be kept at home! We have 
 watched conscience being made a penal offence and perse- 
 cution exalted into patriotism. We have seen self-denial, 
 like self-sacrifice, made statutory; and the comprehensive 
 plea of war has excused the recrudescence of that feverish 
 licence which many of us superstitiously felt the war had 
 been sent to end. Financially, morally and politically we 
 were living on the last few hundreds of our capital. And in 
 public life the war stepped in where honour feared to 
 tread. 
 
 I dedicate this book to you in sympathy, because we 
 would both recapture, if we could, O'Rane's first fine care- 
 less rapture. But there is little permanence in collective 
 moral upheavals; action and reaction are equal and oppo- 
 site, and the same violence which transformed the world in 
 1914 has hastened the return to pre-1914 conditions. The 
 House of Commons, as you know it, and the society outside 
 the House of Commons, as I know it, are not going to 
 legislate a new world into existence in the spirit of the 
 Constituent Assembly. We have worked, like old Bertrand 
 Oakleigh, through the phases of extravagant hope and 
 premature pessimism; we are tired and dispirited, chiefly 
 anxious to end the strain, glad if we can curtail the 
 slaughter, though we are growing used to this, but con- 
 cerned more for securing the peace of the world in our life- 
 time than for declaring any other dividend on the lives 
 which have been expended. "We shall be dazed and 
 bruised before an end is made, laddie, staggering like 
 
EPISTLE DEDICATORY ix 
 
 drunken men," as Dr. Burgess prophesied in "SONIA," 
 "Peradventure, if ye speak of the Promised Land, men 
 will arise and stone you with stones, saying, 'Would to 
 God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land 
 of Egypt, when ve sat by the fleshpots, and when we did 
 eat bread to the full/ I am an old man, laddie, and old 
 men and weary men, broken with the cares of this life, 
 are fain to go back to the things they know." 
 
 What is left to those who are weak or obstinate enough 
 to feel that the things they know are capable of improve- 
 ment and that man is essentially perfectible? If a collec- 
 tive revival flicker to smoking extinction, can you attain the 
 same results from the aggregate of individual efforts? 
 O'Rane, you will find, tries both extremes. 
 
 Always cordially yours, 
 
 STEPHEN MKENNA. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn, 1918. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EPISTLE DEDICATORY vii 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I AN ARABIAN NIGHT 15 
 
 II THE OPEN DOOR 51 
 
 III SONIA O'RANE 96 
 
 IV THE DOOR CLOSED 146 
 
 V THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 191 
 
 VI THE UNWRITTEN LAW 241 
 
 VII THE DOOR RE-OPENED 291 
 
 VIII SANCTUARY 338 
 
SONIA MARRIED 
 
SONIA MARRIED 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 AN ARABIAN NIGHT 
 
 ". . . Is it not singular, and almost touching, to see Paris City 
 drawn out, in the meek May nights, in civic ceremony, which they 
 call 'Souper Fraternel' Brotherly Supper? . . . See it, O Night! 
 With cheerfully pledged wine-cup, hobnobbing to the Reign of Lib- 
 erty, Equality, Brotherhood, with their wives in best ribands, with 
 their little ones romping round, the Citoyens, in frugal Love-feast, 
 sit there. Night in her wide empire sees nothing similar. O my 
 brothers, why is the reign of Brotherhood not come; It is come, 
 it shall have come, say the Citoyens frugally hobnobbing. Ah me! 
 these everlasting stars, do they not look down 'like glistening eyes, 
 bright with immortal pity, over the lot of man!' . . ." 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE: "French Revolution" 
 
 AFTER twelve months in an Austrian internment camp, 
 the roar and movement, the familiar smell and glare of 
 London streets were stupefying. 
 
 I had arrived in Vienna a week before the mobilisation 
 order was issued; my mission was to secure the services 
 of certain physicians and surgeons for a new hospital which 
 I had in contemplation, and, though I was conscious of 
 unwonted restlessness, though my young friends in the 
 Chancery were kept working late, the recent ultimatum to 
 Servia could never, I felt, involve England in war. So 
 time went by, the hotels emptied, but I preferred to trust 
 my own judgement and went on trusting it until war had 
 been declared. I knew Vienna so well, I had lived there 
 so long and made so many friends from my earliest days 
 
 15 
 
1 6 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 at the Embassy'- 'thai I: atn; afraid I continued to trust my 
 judgement and to back my luck even after I had become 
 technically scheduled as an enemy alien; and, when the 
 reluctant authorities more in sorrow than anger placed 
 me under surveillance, we all felt that a mistake had been 
 made and that I should have only to ask for my release 
 to obtain it. Was I not well over the most extravagant 
 military age? Was I not physically unfit to bear arms? 
 Could I not at any time have left Vienna with the Embassy 
 Staff? 
 
 I was to find from August, 1914, until July, 1915, that 
 the aspirations of the Litany for the well-being of pris- 
 oners and captives were neutralised by the reluctance of 
 constituted authority to disturb the status quo. I was se- 
 cure in my loose-box on a race-course five miles from 
 Vienna; wire entanglements discouraged my comings and 
 goings, arc-lamps laid me bare to the vigilance of the 
 sentries ; what good purpose could be served by setting me 
 at large ? My brother made the one appearance of his life 
 in the House of Lords to raise me as an issue and to urge 
 the exchange of civilian prisoners; memorials were pre- 
 sented to the Foreign Office ; I am sorry to say that in the 
 first convulsion of war I and my few thousand fellow pris- 
 oners did not matter. 
 
 I was interned for a twelvemonth. And, writing now 
 in the third year of the war, I doubt whether I shall ever 
 make good the knowledge which was then withheld from 
 me. The newspapers were censored or inspired for pur- 
 poses of propaganda; my colourless letters from England 
 were enriched by half-page smears of indelible black. Be- 
 tween ignorance of what they might say and what I might 
 receive, my correspondents confined themselves to business 
 discussions and bald family history. My brother wrote of 
 his son Archie's death in the retreat from Mons ; my niece 
 Yolande Manisty told me that she and her husband had 
 moved into my house in Pont Street and were attending 
 to my affairs as best they might. A further letter brought 
 me the shocking news of Deryk Lancing's death on the eve 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 17 
 
 of war, with consequences to myself which I required many 
 weeks to digest. . . . After that there were guarded and 
 bewildered little notes from Felix Manisty, who is a greater 
 archaeologist than man of affairs; there were voluminous 
 technical enquiries from Hatherly, my solicitor, a weekly 
 budget from Yolande and sporadic outbursts from friends 
 who had heard of my internment and felt constrained to 
 write one letter to cheer my loneliness. 
 
 In July, after a year of false starts, an exchange of pris- 
 oners was finally arranged; in the last week of the month 
 I returned deviously through Switzerland and France, 
 landed in a most unrecognisable England, reported myself 
 at an equally unrecognisable Foreign Office and then stood, 
 much as I had stood forty years earlier with a crowd of 
 other shy new boys at Eton, wondering what I was ex- 
 pected to do next. In the roar and movement, the smell 
 and glare of London streets, I had ceased to have any 
 property. The people were different, there was an in- 
 credible number of soldiers about. And everyone seemg^ 
 to have been getting on very satisfactorily without me. . . . 
 
 I remember walking a few steps towards the House of 
 Commons, but I did not know whether the House was 
 sitting; I turned back to Trafalgar Square with some idea 
 of taking a train to Hampstead and visiting my office, but 
 I had abandoned it for twelve months. If I called on 
 Hatherly in Lincoln's Inn Fields, I should be told that he 
 was at Ripley Court; if I went home, I should find that 
 Yolande and Felix were both out. ... It was salutary, 
 I am sure, to find the measure of my importance, but it 
 left me very lonely, I felt for some reason that not only 
 was I not wanted but that I had no right to be there. Eng- 
 land seemed to have been taken over as a going concern by 
 a new management, which was in a great hurry. . . . 
 
 I passed through the Admiralty Arch and looked round 
 me. New Zealanders and Australians, bronzed and big- 
 boned in summer khaki, South Africans, with their hats 
 pinched to a point, were strolling up and down the Strand, 
 in twos and threes, gravely smoking cigarettes; a slow- 
 
1 8 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 speaking Canadian enquired of me the way to Westminster 
 Abbey; in St. James' Park two brakes passed me filled 
 with Indian troops, turbaned, silent and undemonstrative. 
 I remember that certain German prints had described the 
 British Army as a menagerie .... 
 
 Through the Arch, I could see a stream of motor omni- 
 buses hurrying into Trafalgar Square and displaying long 
 posters in a red and white streak "LORD KITCHENER 
 WANTS YOU," "LEND YOUR STRONG RIGHT 
 ARM" on the Horse Guards* Parade recruits were wait- 
 ing their turn by the long wooden sheds at the Downing 
 Street end; the finished soldier came swinging down the 
 Processional Avenue to the music of a drum and fife band, 
 watched a little wistfully by a knot of men in service caps, 
 blue jackets, loose red ties and grey trousers, sometimes 
 pinned emptily at ankle, knee or hip. Standing on the kerb, 
 a girl of twenty in deep mourning completed scene and se- 
 quence. 
 
 I was still gaping like a yokel, when I heard my name 
 called and found my hand wrung by an officer in unfamiliar 
 naval uniform; and, though we had sat and voted side by 
 side during his short term in the House, though I had shot 
 with him a dozen times at his place in Ireland, I had to 
 look twice before I recognised him as George Oakleigh. 
 We stood shaking hands, laughing, talking both at once 
 and shaking hands again until he suggested that I should 
 come into his room at the Admiralty for a cigarette and a 
 talk. George, whom I had known as a dilettante journalist 
 and political wire-puller, explained parenthetically that he 
 had for a year been one of innumerable auxiliary civil 
 servants ; I did not need to be told that he was tired, over- 
 worked and vaguely, sullenly bitter. 
 
 "Fancy people going out and trying to slaughter one 
 another on a day like this!" he cried, looking with pink- 
 lidded eyes at the sparse trees and scanty shade amid the 
 white flood of sunshine. 
 
 "Well, you'd go out, if you had the chance," I said. 
 
 "And hate it like Hell all the time!" he murmured re- 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 19 
 
 flectively, as he mechanically took a salute. "I've seen 
 enough people in the casualty lists to realise that war is a 
 dangerous occupation, Stornaway ; and I've met enough fel- 
 lows home on leave. . . . You know Jim Loring's gone, 
 by the way?" His teeth grated together. "This this is 
 the very thing that my uncle Bertrand and I spent half-a- 
 dozen years trying to avert ! Well, I must be getting back 
 to work. If this war's done nothing else, at least it's cured 
 me of the conventional, twelve-to-three-with-two-hours-orr'- 
 for-luncheon view of Government offices. With me it's 
 nine-thirty to eight, six days' holiday in twelve months and 
 about one week-end in three." 
 
 As I would not come into his office and waste his time 
 there, we wasted it for a few moments more by the Cook 
 monument. George tried to give me my bearings, inter- 
 rupting himself to ask jerkily, "I suppose you've heard that 
 Jack Summertown's dead? He was knocked out at the 
 same time as your nephew. And Val Arden ? . . . " 
 
 I had an additional tragedy in which Oakleigh did not 
 share, for we were almost within sight of the house which 
 poor Deryk Lancing had so proudly adorned: on such an- 
 other day he had taken me over it, room by room; I had 
 heard that he died on the very evening that war was de- 
 clared, yet I suppose he only anticipated what would have 
 come to anyone of his age in six months' time. 
 
 "I suppose you can't imagine what all this looks like to 
 a man who's seeing it for the first time," I said. "All this 
 drilling and training. How many of these fellows will 
 come back, d'you suppose? And what are we going to get 
 in return?" 
 
 He smiled wistfully. 
 
 "A lasting peace, I hope. It can never happen again, you 
 know." 
 
 "I never thought it could happen this time," I said. 
 
 "Well, this is going to prove that war is a failure. Per- 
 haps we needed the proof. . . . You'll find that after the 
 war people will begin to do what we you and Bertrand 
 and I and a thousand more tried to make them do before 
 
20 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 remove the incentive to war and the means of making 
 war. There must be a general disarmament, the military 
 machine must be broken. You'll find that Germany will 
 be a confederated republic within twelve months we can 
 never make peace while there's a Hohenzollern at large. 
 You know, Stornaway, this war's given us the opportunity 
 of healing the sore places of Europe, and there's only one 
 way to do it ; when the peace conference begins to sit, it has 
 got to divide the world according to nationalities. Belgium 
 and France will have to be cleaned up first of all, and after 
 that we must let the world go as it wants to go. Alsace- 
 Lorraine will return to France; you'll find north and south 
 Germany separating; Poland must be reconstituted; Italy 
 will get back the Trentino and Trieste, though, of course, 
 that leaves Austria without a port. . . . But you'll find 
 Austria-Hungary splitting into a thousand pieces as soon as 
 you apply the principle of nationality. I'm not sure about 
 Constantinople, but I'm inclined to give it to Russia. . . . 
 It's worth some sacrifice to clean up the international 
 anomalies of the world and to make an end of war." 
 
 "It's going to be a big business, George, and a long busi- 
 ness," was all that I would say. 
 
 "We're in sight of doing it/' he asserted. "The moment 
 we get within range of Constantinople, Turkey goes out 
 of the war; she's on her last legs now. Then with Rus- 
 sia bursting in on the southeast and Italy pressing up from 
 the south, Austria will be the next to go. People who 
 know tell me she's on the verge of starvation. Then next 
 spring we shall be bringing off a big offensive on the west. 
 We're so frightfully handicapped now by lack of shells." 
 He paused and looked at his watch. "By Jove, I must fly !" 
 he exclaimed. "When shall I see you again? I'm dining 
 with the Maurice Maitlands to-night and I happen to know 
 that the Manistys are going to be there. Why don't you 
 invite yourself? You're a lion, you know; and Connie 
 Maitland will never forgive you, if anyone else catches hold 
 of you first." 
 
 Leaving him to hurry into the Admiralty, I went slowly 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 21 
 
 on foot to Pont Street. England was an armed camp and 
 munition factory, London a gigantic General Headquar- 
 ters. And George, with his rimless eye-glasses enthusi- 
 astically askew and a normally pale face ecstatically 
 flushed, was throwing corps here and divisions there, divid- 
 ing the map of the world by the test of nationality. . . . 
 I felt giddy. 
 
 There was no one at home, when I reached Pont Street, 
 and I explored the havoc of war as it had invaded the 
 house of a man to whom personal comfort means much. 
 My butler, footman and chauffeur had enlisted, my car 
 was wearing itself out in the service of an elderly general ; 
 the ground-floor gave office-room to a railway canteen 
 organisation administered by my niece, and the rest of the 
 house, when not allocated to herself or her husband, pro- 
 vided temporary accommodation for derelict officers and 
 nurses. Never have I felt less wanted. 
 
 "But, darling uncle, there's so little that we can do!" 
 Yolande exclaimed, trying to combine apology and self- 
 defence. "I feel that if we don't pinch and scrape and 
 slave. . . . And everyone's in the same boat . . . . I bought 
 one black frock when Archie was killed, and I'm not going 
 to buy another stitch till the war's over. I don't dine out 
 once a month ; and then I don't usually have time to dress." 
 
 She was looking a little thin and white- faced; for some 
 reason the auburn hair which I loved had been cropped 
 short, but she was undaunted and self-reliant, one of a 
 hundred thousand women to whom the war was bringing 
 that opportunity for service for which they had so long 
 pined. 
 
 The emergence of my nephew Felix from a War Office 
 car completed the sense of revolution and unreality. That 
 least military of archaeologists was now arrayed in a staff 
 captain's uniform, which accorded ill with his glasses and 
 bald head, for duty behind a string of letters and a tele- 
 phone extension at the War Office. 
 
 "You'll get used to it in time," Yolande laughed, as we 
 set out on foot for Eaton Place. 
 
22 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 My sense of not being wanted certainly evaporated in 
 the warmth of Lady Maitland's greeting. One of her sons 
 was home on leave from the Front, and the familiar, red- 
 lacquer drawing-room was filling with a party of twenty- 
 four, each of whom was acclaimed at a distance, introduced, 
 epitomised and enlisted for charity or intrigue before he 
 had fairly crossed the threshold. 
 
 "Yolande ! My dear, I got your note and I've put off the 
 committee till Friday," she cried, when our turn came and 
 my niece surrendered to a resonant kiss on either cheek. 
 "And dear Captain Manisty there was something I wanted 
 to see you about. . . . It'll come back to me. And Mr. 
 Stornaway!" She surveyed me for a moment with her 
 handsome square head on one side, then turned to a little 
 group behind her. "My dears, we all thought he was dead ! 
 Mr. Stornaway, I want you all to myself, you're going to 
 tell me all about your terrible hardships and, before you're 
 a day older, you're going on my Prisoners of War Relief 
 Committee." She turned again to explain me to the room. 
 "This is Mr. Stornaway who's been interned in Austria 
 all this time. He's going to tell us all about it. ... Mr. 
 Stornaway, it's a scandal, we can't get the Government to 
 act. Now here's Mr. Deganway you know him? he's in 
 the Foreign Office and he tells me that the question of the 
 prisoners " 
 
 She broke off to welcome two new arrivals with a sur- 
 prised cry of "Lord Pentyre! And my dear Sir Harry 
 Mordaunt !" as though she had not invited them. I shook 
 hands with Maitland and was trying to see whom else I 
 knew, when she returned and remorselessly introduced me 
 to Vincent Grayle, with whom I have sat in the House for a 
 dozen years. He was leaning on a stick, and I learned in 
 a galloping exchange of biography that he had had one 
 knee shattered in the Antwerp expedition and was now at 
 the War Office, "cleaning up the mess made by the pro- 
 fessional soldiers." 
 
 "But what were you doing out there at all?" I asked, 
 clinging to him for a moment before Lady Maitland could 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 23 
 
 present me to anyone else. We had been contemporaries, 
 if not friends, at Eton and Trinity, which meant that he 
 was past fifty. 
 
 "Much too good a war to miss!" he answered with a 
 laugh, hobbling away to be introduced to a young bride in 
 half-mourning who had already collected two young Mait- 
 lands, Pentyre, Deganway and George Oakleigh. 
 
 "I expect you find everything a bit changed," said Mait- 
 land earnestly, glancing at his own uniform and speaking as 
 though the war were a secret in which he was doubtfully 
 initiating me. 
 
 "Grayle's much the same," I answered, looking enviously 
 after the viking figure with the blue eyes, pink and white 
 cheeks and corn-coloured hair. 
 
 There was a moment's silence, as my hostess mentally 
 called the roll and I strolled away before her husband was 
 ready with another platitude. 
 
 "Eleanor Ross is always late!" she complained. "Well, 
 you haven't altered much, Mr. Stornaway." 
 
 Nor had she, I answered. The war seemed only to 
 have turned her tireless energy into new channels. Where- 
 as she had once called for the heads of Nationalists, strike 
 leaders and, indeed, anyone with whom she chanced to be 
 in temporary disagreement, she would now, I gathered, be 
 content with the public execution of the Prime Minister, 
 Mr. Ramsay Macdonald and Sir Ian Hamilton. She seemed 
 the motive power of as many committees as ever; her 
 house was the meeting-place of as many incongruities as 
 before, and she was prepared to yoke the meanest of 
 us to one or other of her charities. 
 
 "We must have a talk about the Prisoners," she said, 
 with one eye on the door. "The Government will do 
 nothing, but what do you expect?" 
 
 Lowering her voice, she confided that three Ministers, of 
 whom I knew one to be a bachelor, were married to Ger- 
 man wives, while a fourth was discovered to have arms 
 stacked in his cellar and a wireless installation on his roof. 
 She told me, further, that we had had enough of these 
 
24 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 lawyer-politicians, that the country needed a Man, be- 
 cause the young shirkers that you met in the street were 
 stealing the work of those who had patriotically enlisted; 
 the Press, she went on to say, was a public danger (only 
 exceeded in imbecile virus by the Press Bureau) and it 
 was high time that in the matter of war we sat at the feet 
 of Germany. She barely had time to weaken her last ef- 
 fect by declaring the German military machine, for all its 
 forty years' perfection, to be the greatest imposture in his- 
 tory, before the Duchess of Ross was announced. 
 
 "Odious painted creature. And always late !" Lady Mait- 
 land whispered to me, as she hurried forward with both 
 hands outstretched. 
 
 "You look giddy/' Yolande murmured. 
 
 "And what do you think of England after a year of 
 war?" Eleanor Ross cried over her shoulder, as we went 
 down to dinner. 
 
 If Lady Maitland had invited a full account of my in- 
 ternment and had then scampered away without waiting 
 to hear it, I was not let off so easily by either of my 
 neighbours at dinner. For the first three courses I told 
 my tale to the Duchess of Ross, who spent the second three 
 handing it on to the right, while I turned like an autom- 
 aton and repeated my recitation to Lady Pentyre. As I 
 might have foreseen, knowing their craving to be ahead of 
 the world with any new thing, I was instantly committed 
 to lunching with both (because each knew so many people 
 who would be simply dying to meet me and hear all about 
 it) ; and, if I bore my cross with resignation, it was be- 
 cause I knew that I was relieving someone else (he proved 
 to be a submarine commander who had recently been 
 awarded the Victoria Cross) and that I should be re- 
 lieved in my turn when a greater novelty presented itself 
 (after three days an American Lusitania survivor came 
 to my rescue). 
 
 I was beginning to get used to the noise and strangeness 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 25 
 
 and to recover from my first bewilderment, when Lady 
 Maitland rustled to her feet, and I was left at the mercy 
 of a political argument carried on between my host and 
 Grayle across my body. So far as I remembered, it con- 
 cerned the likelihood of compulsory service, and I was 
 only interested to find Grayle, the most lawless man of my 
 acquaintance, pleading for more discipline, while a high- 
 and-dry Tory like Maitland defended Ministers whom he 
 had styled thieves and common sharpers at the time of the 
 1909 Budget and the Marconi enquiry. I had almost for- 
 gotten my poor little host's genius for picking up the 
 hastier opinions and less profound catchwords of the un- 
 informed. George caught my eye and winked, as Mait- 
 land thumped the table impressively, tugged at his mous- 
 tache and talked with a slightly shocked intonation of 
 "the brain and sinew of the Government, my dear Grayle." 
 Young Pentyre, as surprise relaxed into boredom, moved 
 next to me and began a rival conversation. 
 
 "Who's the patriotic gentleman?" he whispered. "And 
 why's he so excited about the jolly old Government?" 
 
 "He's got a bee in his bonnet," George explained, "be- 
 cause he fancies he brought down the old Liberal lot and 
 can't make out why he's not been given a job in the Coali- 
 tion." 
 
 "But who is he?" Pentyre persisted. 
 
 As I had known Grayle longer than anyone present, I 
 took it upon myself to answer. 
 
 We had first met nearly forty years ago as boys at 
 Eton, soon drawing together in a common recognition, 
 keenly felt and resented, that we were poorer than our 
 fellows. My father had no business to send me there at 
 all, but every male Stornaway always had gone to Eton, 
 whether he could afford it or not. Grayle, the only son 
 of a hard-drinking Gloucestershire squire, who used to beat 
 him unmercifully, was sent to school when he grew strong 
 enough to resist parental castigation, with an idea, I sup- 
 pose, that others by force of numbers would be able to 
 continue the beatings. We worked our way up the 
 
26 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 school together, until Grayle was withdrawn in conse- 
 quence of some trouble with a tradesman's daughter in 
 Slough, and met again at Trinity, when the scandal was 
 half forgotten. There I remained four years and Grayle 
 four weeks. If I ever heard the full story of his subse- 
 quent, final, cataclysmic quarrel with his father (they were 
 separated, I know, by the stud-groom and a couple of 
 strappers), I have forgotten the details; the result of the 
 quarrel was that Vincent disappeared, and the next time 
 that I saw him was several years later in New York. I 
 had gone up there from Washington and ran unexpectedly 
 into Grayle's arms on Fifth Avenue; he was accompanied 
 by another Trinity man of my year Guy Bannerman, a 
 brilliant, shiftless Rabelaisian, whom Grayle with his 
 startling streak of prodigal generosity had taken in hand 
 and was prepared (as he consistently proved) to keep 
 afloat. I remember how one of the loudest voices in the 
 world suddenly silenced the drone of traffic by thunder- 
 ing, 
 
 "It's the great anomaly of modern civilisation. What 
 are you going to do with them? Theoretically they're your 
 equal fellow-citizens, but they don't vote, they daren't enter 
 a white man's hotel. I can't remember for the moment 
 whether they're actually increasing in numbers " 
 
 Then I knew, even without sight of the square-faced, 
 bull-necked man with the familiar grey eyes, dusty hair 
 and capacious loose-lipped mouth, that Guy Bannerman had 
 discovered America and was concerned to solve the negro 
 problem. He was on his way to Klondike, where he heard 
 that gold had been found, and he swore me impressively 
 to secrecy. 
 
 "Half New York knows about it already," I had to warn 
 him. 
 
 "How did they hear?" he roared. 
 
 "You've just told them." 
 
 The three of us lunched together, and I found that 
 Grayle, too, was bound for the gold-fields. Their methods 
 of approach were notably different, for, while Guy Banner- 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 27 
 
 man informed New York City that any fool could dig for 
 gold and I retorted that every fool would, Grayle was com- 
 piling an exhaustive list of everything that a gold-digger 
 could need or be drugged into thinking he needed. 
 
 "One wants a pick and shovel, I suppose," Guy ven- 
 tured, "and and a pannikin." His conception of gold- 
 digging impressed me as being literary. 
 
 "And food, drink, lights, clothes, covering, cooking-gear, 
 
 medicine " Grayle struck in ferociously. "No, we're 
 
 not going to discover the North West Passage, but we're 
 going to make these swine squeal and the more squeals we 
 knock out of them the better I shall be pleased. Tools, 
 blankets or rather, sleeping-bags. Tents. Tobacco. 
 Mustn't forget tobacco. Bags for the gold. I suppose, if 
 you've had a good day, you sleep with a revolver under 
 your pillow ; and stand drinks all round, which involves the 
 worst obtainable Californian gooseberry. I'm going to sup- 
 ply the outfit, and they're going to dig the gold. Exploit, 
 or be exploited. Care to come in with us, Stornaway? 
 Anything you like to put up, you know. . . ." 
 
 He could not persuade me to come and help him exploit, 
 nor could he save Bannerman from being exploited, but 
 the enterprise as he saw and planned it was a giant suc- 
 cess even in the history of gold-rushes. I believe Aylmer 
 Lancing supplied the capital; Grayle reached Klondike a 
 week after the rush had begun and only came east when 
 it was starkly not worth his while to be left with a month's 
 stores on his hands; then the insalubrious shanty known 
 as "Grayle's Hotel" was sold by private treaty, the stock- 
 in-trade was put up to auction on a rising market and he 
 returned to square his accounts with Lancing in New York. 
 
 However much money he made, I dare swear that he 
 returned with even more experience. For many months 
 many thousands of the world's choicest blackguards had 
 slept between his blankets, worked with his tools, eaten 
 his food and sheltered beneath his roofs. Raving with his 
 Californian gooseberry champagne, a Pittsburg smelter had 
 emptied one of his six-shooters into the scattering head of 
 
28 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 his partner; Grayle sold the coffin and subsequently a coil 
 of rope. He supplied jewellery and dresses to the women 
 whom he had induced to follow the camp ; he peddled con- 
 certinas to the musically-minded. Twice the store was 
 looted, after a good day and a full dinner, which the loot- 
 ing party instinctively felt to have been insufficiently full. 
 The first time he convened a public meeting and asked if 
 it was in the common interest to make him close down ; the 
 second time he began to pack and only unpacked when the 
 leader had been unobtrusively lynched. As a study in con- 
 trasts, Guy Bannerman spent three months carrying the 
 gold south and bringing back stores; then he tired of the 
 only work for which he was fit, pocketed his share of the 
 profits and started digging. The profits were coaxed out 
 of him by a woman whom he set himself to reclaim with- 
 out noticeable success and, whereas the gold began to 
 peter out within a month of Grayle's departure, Bannerman 
 stayed on until his last dollar had passed to the new pro- 
 prietor of "Grayle's Hotel." 
 
 I met both adventurers in Venezuela, which they had to 
 leave before their scheduled time, and again at Colon. Then 
 I returned to England and got myself elected to the House 
 of Commons for the Southdown division of Sussex; I did 
 not see Grayle again until the 1900 election brought him 
 into the House, with Guy Bannerman faithfully running 
 the election and later acting as secretary, shadow, press- 
 cutting agency, collector of statistics, fact-finder and gen- 
 eral parliamentary devil. Then he went out to South 
 Africa for the second half of the war. 
 
 Having seen the man undisguised in two continents, I 
 have always been a little surprised to find how little he 
 was known here; he can be a very entertaining ruffian, 
 causing the usually censorious to apologise and say "a 
 blackguard, but at least he's not a hypocrite, you know;" 
 on the other hand, through the rose-tinted spectacles of 
 middle-age I seem to look back on a House of Commons 
 which would not have tolerated him ; perhaps we are more 
 indulgent nowadays, perhaps no one took the trouble to 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 29 
 
 compile a dossier, perhaps each man felt that his own turn 
 might come next. 
 
 Be that as it may, Grayle succeeded in entering a House 
 that neither liked nor trusted him. Fishing in troubled 
 waters for twelve years, he picked up a knowledge of his 
 colleagues, even if he landed no fish; speculation in coun- 
 tries too enterprising to be critical had made him rich 
 enough to pay other people's debts and occasionally to 
 compensate lost honour on behalf of some rising politician 
 with a reputation to preserve, but he never came into the 
 open until the Marconi enquiry, when I discovered by the 
 savagery of his attacks on the Government that he was 
 now a newspaper proprietor. The war gave him his oppor- 
 tunity, and, according to the far from impartial statement 
 of Bertrand Oakleigh, who liked an actionable story for 
 its own sake, Grayle was one of the leaders in organising 
 the Unionist attack on the Liberal Government in 1915. 
 
 All this and more I contrived to convey to Pentyre be- 
 fore Grayle had finished his cigar and signified his willing- 
 ness to come upstairs. 
 
 We were hardly inside the drawing-room before he had 
 limped briskly to the sofa where the young bride who had 
 been his neighbour at dinner was seated ; she smiled easily, 
 ungratified but obviously conscious of his admiration, and 
 in a moment they were splashing to the waist in vivacious 
 badinage. I sought out my niece and tried to secure ten 
 minutes' quiet discussion of my own affairs. 
 
 In one of the first letters to reach me in my internment 
 camp Yolande cautiously prepared me for bad news; on 
 the next page she announced young Deryk Lancing's death ; 
 a week later I heard in my loose-box and amid a smell of 
 straw and whitewash that the whole estate of some 
 twenty odd millions had passed to me. I had known old 
 Sir Aylmer Lancing, the boy's father, ever since I was 
 transferred from Vienna to Washington, when he was in 
 the fulness of his powers and Deryk was unborn. Indeed, 
 he had hitched me out of the Diplomatic and given me a 
 start with one of his own firms of contractors in South 
 
30 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 America, and there I had made enough money to retire to 
 affluence when my health broke down in Panama. I had 
 seen him, too, regularly and intimately for fifteen years 
 after his stroke; indeed, I had induced my brother to sell 
 him Ripley Court and I spent so much of my time there 
 that it was sometimes hard to believe that the great, gaunt 
 house had ever changed hands. Deryk I had known since 
 he was a boy of eight or nine, brilliant and precocious, 
 neurotic, impatient and inconsiderate, but winning and lov- 
 able with it all and filled with a blaze of promise. He had 
 succeeded to the title and estate less than twelve months 
 before he was killed; he had just become engaged rather 
 romantically to a girl with whom he had long been in love ; 
 and it was on the day when he had been shewing her the 
 house which I persuaded him to buy and which was wait- 
 ing for them both that he had fallen from the roof and 
 been picked up dead and hideously broken. . . . 
 
 I looked round the room, through the rich gleam of Lady 
 Maitland's red lacquer, at Grayle, sitting with one leg per- 
 manently stiff in front of him, Charles Maitland, already 
 twice wounded, Pentyre in his Guards uniform, \vaiting 
 to go out, and my eyes came to rest on Yolande's black 
 dress. 
 
 "You would have thought the war had done enough dam- 
 age without any extras of that kind," I said. 
 
 "What are you going to do with all the money?" she 
 asked wonderingly. 
 
 "I want time to think, Yolande," I said. "I feel a little 
 bit dazed. It's so much the same and yet so different. I 
 know this room so well, Lady Maitland's the same fat, 
 voluble, outrageous, delightful creature that she always 
 was, and yet I seemed to have dipped into another 
 world. ..." 
 
 We were still talking of ourselves and the family when 
 a maid entered to say that a Mr. Jellaby wished to speak 
 to Colonel Grayle on the telephone. I smiled in easy 
 triumph as Grayle scrambled to his feet, for I have so often 
 found Mr. Jellaby wishing to speak to me on the telephone, 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 31 
 
 and poor Jellaby with tears in his voice has begged me to 
 help keep a house or stand in readiness for a division or 
 relieve guard after an all-night sitting. 
 
 "If there's a division, I shall take you," Grayle threat- 
 ened in retaliation for my smile, as he leaned down for his 
 stick. "One of these Labour swine making trouble, I ex- 
 pect. We've all got to back the Government as long as it 
 is the Government." 
 
 It was a good guess, for he returned a moment later 
 and dragged me to my feet with the announcement that 
 Grimthorpe, the A.S.E. man, was threatening to divide the 
 House unless the Prime Minister gave an assurance that 
 the National Registration Bill would never be made the 
 basis of a system of conscription. 
 
 "Infernal nuisance, but we shall have to go," he said. 
 "You've got to start your duties some time, Stornaway, 
 and you may as well keep me company and start them to- 
 night. Only a formality, you know. Half the Cabinet's 
 sworn not to graft conscription on to the Bill, and the 
 other half's sworn it will. Beauty of coalition govern- 
 ment !" 
 
 More from a desire to see what the House looked like 
 than from any wish to support Grayle, I allowed myself 
 to be taken away. As I shook hands with Lady Maitland, 
 he stumped back to his sofa and roundly told the young 
 bride that he proposed to come and call on her. 
 
 "Haven't half finished our conversation," he said in a 
 tone of authority, "so if you'll tell me your address " 
 
 I chose to think that her manner hardened, as though she 
 felt that Grayle was taking her for granted too much. 
 
 "I'm hardly ever at home," she answered. "My Belgian 
 refugee work " 
 
 "Free in the evenings," he interrupted jerkily. "My only 
 time for calling." 
 
 She hesitated and, as I thought, sank her voice slightly, 
 putting herself on the defensive. 
 
 "You'd only be bored, you know," she warned him. "It 
 
32 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 isn't an ordinary house, and you won't meet ordinary 
 people." 
 
 "Coming to see you, 91 Grayle answered. 
 
 "You clearly aren't wanted, Grayle," I said, taking him 
 by the arm. "If you insist on dragging me to the House, 
 let's start at once." 
 
 He shook free of my hand and turned to her, as though 
 he were delivering an ultimatum. 
 
 "You don't want me to come?" he demanded. 
 
 "You won't be amused," she answered, this time in un- 
 mistakable distress. 
 
 "Where do you live?" he asked relentlessly. 
 
 "In Westminster." I was rather shocked by the way 
 in which she allowed him to bully her. "A house called 
 'The Sanctuary/ on the Embankment, just by the Tate 
 Gallery." 
 
 He repeated the name as we walked downstairs and 
 whistled unsuccessfully for a taxi. On the steps I told 
 him again that he had been making a nuisance of himself, 
 for she was probably living in some modest boarding- 
 house. Grayle would only murmur irrelevantly that she 
 was a devilish pretty girl, an opinion evidently shared by 
 George Oakleigh and the Maitland boys, who had sur- 
 rounded her before Grayle was out of the room. I cannot 
 remember that her looks left any impression on me at this 
 meeting. 
 
 " 'The Sanctuary'," he murmured for the third time, as 
 we set off on foot for the House. "Didn't happen to hear 
 what her name was, did you ? Never bother about names 
 myself." 
 
 "It would be inartistic," I said. 
 
 We walked through Eaton Square in silence and along 
 Buckingham Gate and Birdcage Walk to Parliament Square. 
 As we aproached the Palmerston monument, Grayle touched 
 my arm, pointed ahead and quickened his limping pace ; an 
 open-air meeting of two soldiers, nine loafers and one 
 woman was being addressed by a shabbily-garbed young 
 man who seemed to be on the worst possible terms with 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 33 
 
 his audience; Grayle, who has the nose of a schoolboy or 
 a terrier for any kind of fight, clearly felt that this, like the 
 war, was too good to miss. What went before, I have, of 
 course, no means of judging, but such fragments of vituper- 
 ation as reached me suggested the wonder why a man, who 
 cared nothing for his hearers, troubled to harangue an 
 exasperated group, which was quite unconvinced by his 
 reasoning. The speaker kept his temper; his hearers had 
 lost theirs from the outset, I should imagine, and this pos- 
 sibly amused him and justified the effort. 
 
 "Go aht and fight yourself," cried one of the soldiers 
 truculently, "before yer snacks at the men that 'ave been 
 out there." 
 
 "I should not der-ream of fighting," the lecturer an- 
 swered with practised and very clear enunciation. 
 
 "Precious sight too careful of yer dirty skin !" 
 
 The lecturer laughed with maddening calm. 
 
 "I value my life," he conceded, "but I happen to be 
 brave enough to value my soul more. I do not choose to be 
 the deluded instrument of Junkers here or elsewhere, and, 
 had anyone thought you worth educating, you would not 
 choose it either. My fine fellow, you were before the war 
 what? A coal-heaver? But you had no quarrel with 
 the coal-heavers of Germany, until your Junkers told you 
 to fight ; you will again have no quarrel when your Junkers 
 tell you to stop fighting. I was a medical student once, I 
 had no quarrel with the medical students of other nations, 
 nor can I make a quarrel when a Junker tells me to hate, 
 to be red and angry if you could see how red and angry 
 you look now ! to stab and shoot and slash. If I have to 
 kill, let me kill a Junker, who cannot maintain the peace 
 of the world." He sank his voice with artistic pretence of 
 talking to himself. "But I was educated, I have thought, I 
 am not a dog to be whistled to heel or incited to fight 
 other dogs." 
 
 In the pause that followed Grayle put his lips to my 
 ear and whispered behind his hand. 
 
 "Get those two Tommies away," he begged. "Dust this 
 
34 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 fellow's jacket for him, but can't do it in uniform with 
 men about." 
 
 I gripped his arm firmly and tried to drag him away. 
 The war seemed to have brought all Grayle's latent ferocity 
 to the surface. 
 
 "Don't be a fool!" I whispered. 
 
 "Not going to let a damned German agent talk sedition 
 in my hearing!" he cried. 
 
 Even as he spoke, the decision was taken out of our 
 hands. The soldier, rightly or wrongly described as a coal- 
 heaver, stepped forward and called upon the lecturer to 
 "take that back, will you?" The lecturer smiled, folded his 
 arms and said nothing, quietly waiting for the interruption 
 to subside. 
 
 "Take that back !" repeated the soldier, with a new note 
 of menace in his voice, and, when there was no answer, 
 dealt a swinging open-handed blow to the lecturer's face. 
 
 His victim staggered, recovered his balance and stood 
 with lips tightly compressed and a print of angry scarlet 
 on his cheek. One of the women had screamed; two of 
 the loafers cried, after deliberation, "Serve him right!" 
 
 "When opposed to truth," the lecturer continued, when 
 he had satisfied himself that no second blow was com- 
 ing, "violence is as ineffectual in the street as on the bat- 
 tlefield. You do not stifle truth by sending a man to Si- 
 beria, as I've seen men sent, though you may remove an 
 undesirable prefect of police, as I have seen one removed, 
 sky-high in Kiev, because well, the truth was not in him. 
 Nor is there truth in you; there can be no truth in dogs 
 who feed on bones flung from the table, dogs who rise up 
 raw from their beating and give their lives to protect their 
 masters." 
 
 This time there was no invitation to retract. The same 
 soldier again stepped quickly forward, threw his arm across 
 his chest and flung the full weight of his body into a sweep- 
 ing backhander. The lecturer was lifted off his feet and 
 carried a yard back, where he struck the railings and fell 
 in an invertebrate mass with one leg curled under him. The 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 35 
 
 onlookers craned forward uneasily, glanced at one another 
 and began to separate in silence, the more quickly when 
 Grayle limped up and confronted the avenging soldier. 
 
 "Clear out of this!" he ordered abruptly. 
 
 " 'E insulted the uniform, sir," came the husky justifi- 
 cation compounded of alcohol, fear and regard for Grayle's 
 red band and tabs. 
 
 "I know all about that. Clear out and take your friends 
 with you. He's not dead," he added a moment later, when 
 we were alone, contemptuously exploring the body with 
 his toe. "I don't suppose he's even badly hurt. I propose 
 to leave him here and tell one of the Bobbies at the 
 House " 
 
 There was a groan as the toe glided on to an injured part. 
 I asked the man where he was hurt, and at sound of my 
 voice he opened his eyes, looked round for a moment and 
 closed them again. I was as yet far from used to the dim 
 light from the shrouded street-lamps and could only see 
 that he looked a man between twenty and thirty, shockingly 
 thin of body, with fair hair, dark blue eyes and a narrow 
 face with high cheek bones. His air and costume were 
 generally threadbare. More from policy than compassion 
 Grayle relented somewhat. 
 
 "I'll mount guard," he said. "Get hold of a Bobby and 
 a stretcher." 
 
 To be involved, however innocently, in a street brawl 
 is considerably more characteristic of Vincent Grayle than 
 of myself. I think that he should have discontinued the 
 habit at least when he reached the age of fifty, but I know 
 well that he only regretted his late arrival. 
 
 "They keep a stretcher at the House, don't they?" he 
 asked, as he bared his crop of yellow hair to the wind and 
 lit a cigarette in preparation for his vigil by the recumbent 
 agitator. "If not, telephone Cannon Row." 
 
 I was starting on my way when I collided with a young 
 man who had joined us unperceived. He was in evening 
 
36 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 dress with an overcoat across his arm and a sombre-eyed 
 Saint Bernard at his side. 
 
 "Someone hurt?" he enquired, after waving away my 
 apologies. "I thought I heard the word 'stretcher/ " 
 
 "It was only a street row," Grayle explained callously. 
 "This fellow thought fit to address an anti-recruiting meet- 
 ing, and his points weren't very well taken." 
 
 The young man wrinkled his forehead, laughed and, after 
 a moment's thought, slipped his arms into the sleeves of his 
 overcoat. 
 
 "Didn't Doctor Johnson say that every man had the 
 right to express his opinion and that everyone else had the 
 right to knock him down for it?" he drawled. Then 
 abruptly, "Are you Colonel Grayle, by any chance?" 
 
 "I am," Grayle answered with a look of surprise. 
 
 "I thought I recognised your voice. I collect voices and 
 I heard you last week when the National Registration Bill 
 was in Committee. Do you think it's possible to arrive at 
 a taxi? I live quite near here and I can take the patient 
 home for treatment." 
 
 "But why the deuce should you bother about him?" 
 Grayle asked. 
 
 The boy smiled to himself and shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "If we cast him off to a hospital, there'll be all sorts of 
 silly questions," he explained. "And I'm a bit of an 
 Ishmaelite myself. What's the extent of the damage?" 
 
 The injured man opened his eyes again and reduced his 
 huddled limbs to some sort of order, not without occasional 
 twinges of pain. He seemed nothing but skin and loose 
 bones and might well have fainted from exhaustion rather 
 than injury. 
 
 "My left leg's done for," he announced. 
 
 The stranger nodded sympathetically. 
 
 "Can anyone see a taxi ?" he asked. "They've simply dis- 
 appeared from the streets of London, like Sam Weller's 
 dead donkeys and postboys. Well, you men help him up 
 and give him a hoist on to my shoulders. I'm only a step 
 from here." 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 37 
 
 At a guess the sprawling figure was some inches taller 
 and at least as heavy as the new-comer, but my suggestion 
 that we should wait for a taxi or send for a stretcher was 
 disregarded. 
 
 "Perhaps I'm stronger than I look/' he told me; to the 
 injured man he said, "Clasp your hands round my neck ; I'll 
 try not to shake you, but it may come a bit painful. And 
 one of you men look after the steering so that I don't 
 tumble off the kerb or get run over. The house is just by 
 the Tate Gallery a big sort of barn with a lamp over the 
 door it's called The Sanctuary/ " 
 
 Grayle started violently and looked at me, but I had ap- 
 pointed myself steersman and was heading for Millbank 
 in the wake of the sombre-eyed Saint Bernard. The young 
 man's looks belied his strength, for he walked fast enough 
 for Grayle to have difficulty in keeping pace, and, as he 
 walked, he told us that the expected division was a false 
 alarm and that the House was up. I hurried along by his 
 side, feeling more and more that the whole evening had 
 passed in a dream and that I should wake up to find my- 
 self back in my internment camp. The noise and excite- 
 ment had tired me into somnolence; the darkened streets 
 added to my feeling of unreality. The dog with a cane and 
 hat in his jaws, one young man with another young man 
 sprawling on his shoulders, Grayle panting on one side and 
 myself guiding the unconvincing procession on the other 
 made up a picture whose reality I myself doubted more 
 than once. 
 
 And the house, when we reached it, was a large brick- 
 and-timber warehouse, once the property of a wharfinger, 
 before the Embankment was built, and quite unlike any- 
 thing that I had expected, though in keeping with every- 
 thing that night. I stood waiting for instructions, for there 
 was a modern annexe, with a second floor. I learned after- 
 wards that Whaley, the Pre-Raphaelite, had used the place 
 as a studio. 
 
 "It's only about half furnished at present," our young 
 friend informed us, ''and I expect you'll find it very un- 
 
38 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 tidy. We've not been married a month yet. The house 
 was a wedding-present." 
 
 I had guessed him to be the husband of the young bride 
 whom we had met at dinner and could understand why his 
 wife was unprepared for visitors. 
 
 "We won't come in," I said, as we stopped under a 
 wrought-iron lamp by a heavy oak door painted in white 
 gothic characters with the name of the house. 
 
 "Oh, you must !" he cried. "I may want help. You just 
 push the door it isn't locked and, if there's no light on, 
 you'll find the switches to the right. Don't turn it on, 
 though, till the door's shut, or someone will run me in for 
 signalling to German aircraft." 
 
 Grayle at least seemed to need no second invitation, and, 
 when our host said that he might want help, I did not see 
 my way to refuse the first. I confess, too, that I was 
 amused and curious; the boy was attractive, with mobile 
 face, dark hair and big, black eyes; I liked his quick smile 
 and rather mischievous laugh, above all, I respected his 
 good-nature in picking up a total stranger, who, so far as 
 one can justify private acts of violence, had been most justi- 
 fiably punished. 
 
 We passed through the hall into a lofty room with long 
 windows far up the walls above ten feet of oak panelling, 
 rough-cut beams melting into the shadows of the roof and 
 a block-floor half -covered with rugs. On a dais to our 
 right as we entered stood a long refectory table between 
 two rows of heavily carved Spanish oak chairs; at the 
 far end was a grand piano; low book-cases ran round the 
 walls, there were three or four big oil-paintings above the 
 panelling, and arranged in half -circles round the two fires 
 were luxuriously large sofas and arm-chairs. I was a little 
 reminded of a college hall, when I looked at the severe table 
 on this dais, the black-beamed roof and panelled walls; I 
 thought of the perfect club smoking room, when I tried one 
 of the chairs ; and the whole room, as I surveyed its warm, 
 bright emptiness from the doorway suggested a stage scene 
 at the rise of the curtain. 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 39 
 
 "It's rather jolly, isn't it?" said my host, when I ex- 
 pressed my admiration. "The bedrooms are all in the new 
 part, but, when we're not asleep, we shall feed and work 
 and live here. Personally I never want more than one 
 room and, if this one isn't big enough, I should like to know 
 what is. I'm sorry my wife isn't in, she could shew you 
 round so much better ; but she's dining out to-night." 
 
 He settled the injured man in comfort on a long sofa and 
 went to a telephone by the piano. While he waited for his 
 call, we were invited to help ourselves from a side-table on 
 the dais, where a generous choice of cake, sandwiches, 
 fruit, cold meat, cheese and drinks of many kinds awaited 
 us. He hoped that we should find something to our taste; 
 people were apt to drop in at all hours, he assured us, so it 
 was as well to have something handy. I poured myself 
 out a brandy and soda and accepted one of his cigars. 
 My young friend took for granted much that is not usually 
 taken for granted, but I tried to harmonise with his mood 
 and succeeded better, I think, than Grayle, who walked 
 slowly about the room, staring at the furniture and pictures, 
 but not committing himself to criticism. My cigar was 
 hardly alight when the flame-coloured silk curtain over the 
 door was drawn aside and a girl came in, looked round at 
 us incuriously and cut herself a slice of cake. As she 
 prepared to eat it, she caught sight of the figure on the 
 sofa and walked quickly up to our host, who murmured 
 something and shook his head. Five minutes later the doc- 
 tor arrived, and, while he began his examination, I an- 
 nounced that I must go home. 
 
 "My wife will be back any minute now," our host 
 pleaded, putting a repeater to his ear. "Are you sure you 
 won't stay?" 
 
 "Let us come again in day-light," I said. "I'm really 
 rather tired now. I've been travelling a lot lately." 
 
 He bowed with smiling courtesy. 
 
 "I won't keep you, but please come whenever you feel 
 inclined to. You just push the door, as I explained " 
 
 "Don't you ever lock it?" asked Grayle, breaking silence 
 
40 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 for the first time since we had set out from Parliament 
 Square. 
 
 The young man's black eyes smiled wonderingly. 
 
 "Why should I?" he asked. 
 
 "Prevent things being stolen," Grayle answered. 
 
 "Nobody's stolen anything yet, and we've been here 
 a week ! But, if anybody did steal, it would probably mean 
 that he wanted it more than we did." 
 
 "What's your objection to locking it?" Grayle pursued. 
 
 The boy stood with his hands in his pockets, swaying 
 backwards and forwards from heel to toe and smiling mis- 
 chievously, with his luminous black eyes upon our faces. 
 
 "It seems so inhospitable!" he laughed, "and I love 
 symbols." 
 
 "But who d'you keep it open for ?" I asked. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and laughed. 
 
 "Your friend, the doctor, his patient, that lady who came 
 in a moment ago. You, if you will come again." 
 
 "I shall certainly come again," I said, as we shook hands. 
 
 Walking along Millbank, Grayle broke into an unexpected 
 laugh. 
 
 "I thought I'd met most kinds of lunacy," he remarked. 
 "Fellow said he was in the House, didn't he? I must look 
 him up in the directory to-morrow and see what their 
 name is. 'The Sanctuary/ I suppose that's a symbol, too." 
 
 A reputation for honesty is often embarrassing; when 
 coupled with efficiency, it is always disastrous. For five- 
 and-twenty years I have reeled under the name of a "good 
 business man," and this has exposed me to attack by every 
 impulsive woman and woolly-headed man who has wanted 
 something done without quite knowing how to do it, who has 
 wished money collected without quite knowing how to set 
 about it, who has dragged his committee and himself knee- 
 deep into the mire of stagnant insolvency without knowing 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 41 
 
 whether to go on or to struggle back. Then someone has 
 said, "We must co-opt Mr. Raymond Stornaway." 
 
 As the reputation has long ceased to be an honour and 
 is now only a nuisance, I propose to affect no false modesty 
 about it. Before the war I was always being made a 
 governor of some new school or hospital, and my success 
 is to be measured by the fact that I almost invariably got 
 my own way in committee (if I was not voted into the 
 chair at once, I overwhelmed the chairman until he yielded 
 place) and as invariably I raised the funds which I had 
 been appointed to find. Perhaps I hoped that, as everyone 
 had comfortably survived my absence for a year, I should 
 be allowed a respite, but on the morrow of this Arabian 
 Night of mine I was to discover that London contained as 
 many voluble, sympathetic and unpractical women as ever, 
 all convinced that they had only to form a committee of 
 their friends, dispense with book-keeping, insert their 
 photographs in the illustrated papers and stretch out both 
 hands to a man who knew a man who had a friend on one 
 of the daily papers. 
 
 Lady Maitland rustled in, grey-haired and majestic, as I 
 was finishing breakfast the first morning ; the Duchess of 
 Ross starved me into submission before she would let me 
 go down to luncheon ; and by night I was duly included in 
 the Committees of the Belgian Relief Fund, the Emergency 
 Hospital Fund and the Prisoners of War Relief Fund. The 
 following day Mountstuart of the Treasury wheedled me in- 
 to the Deputy Commissionership of the War Charities Con- 
 trol Department, and I found myself after an interval of 
 thirty years once more a Government servant, charged to 
 see that the amateur enthusiasm of Eleanor Ross and her 
 friends did not defraud the public too flagrantly and that 
 a reasonable proportion of the money collected was in fact 
 paid over to the objects for which it had been raised. 
 
 Throughout August and the first half of September I 
 set myself to learn my new duties, spending the morning in 
 the St. James' Street Committee rooms and the afternoon 
 at the Eaton Hotel, where my Department had been in- 
 
42 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 stalled in a faded coffee-room enlivened by a sardonic por- 
 trait of Lord Beaconsfield in Garter robes and made busi- 
 ness-like by rickety trestle tables, paste pots and letter trays, 
 internecine telephones and japanned deed-boxes earmarked 
 as His Majesty's property by a white crown and "G.R." It 
 took me several bashful days to grow acclimatised to the 
 epicene life of the office, but I discovered in time and with 
 relief that the expensive young women with the Johnsonian 
 capacity for conversation and tea were every whit as much 
 frightened of me as I of them. The men afforded material 
 for my insatiable interest in my fellow creatures; we had 
 a few journalists, a stockbroker or two, several college 
 tutors, an elderly miscellany which had retired some years 
 before and was returning to active service for the duration 
 of the war, two or three men rejected or invalided out of 
 the army and three or four whose reason for not being in 
 the army was not so obvious a gathering which was partly 
 patriotic, wholly impecunious and very different from the 
 collection of unfledged naked intelligences which were dis- 
 tributed through the public offices of other days by the 
 Civil Service Commissioners. 
 
 When I had subdued Lady Pentyre in the morning and 
 ploughed through the familiar files in the afternoon, I de- 
 voted the evening to private business. A year's accumula- 
 tion of letters made a considerable pile, which was not re- 
 duced by the kindly friends who thought it necessary to 
 congratulate me on my return; nor was my leisure in- 
 creased by those others who invited me to lunch or dinner 
 with a persistency that brooked no refusal. In time, how- 
 ever, I had read myself abreast of the periodical literature 
 produced by the hospitals and schools; in time, too, I be- 
 gan to tackle the Lancing inheritance and paid formal visits 
 to Ripley Court and the house in Pall Mall to see that they 
 were satisfactory to the War Office. So long as the war 
 continued, I was not likely to be faced by poor Deryk 
 Lancing's inability to dispose of the income of the Trust. 
 
 A month slipped imperceptibly away before I had got rid 
 of the arrears of work and felt justified in taking on extra 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 43 
 
 burdens. Then I paid my first visit to the House of Com- 
 mons and tried in one evening to get the temper of a House 
 which I had left toiling acrimoniously in 1914 with the 
 third presentation of the Home Rule Bill. The Front 
 Benches were pleasantly mingled in late-found amity, there 
 was a solid, unquestioning Ministerial majority, but in place 
 of an official opposition I found a curious collection of 
 cliques not wholly satisfied with all the heroic remedies of 
 the Government and fearful that criticism might be con- 
 strued as factiousness. I was to find later that, with the 
 abdication of the House of Commons, all control of ad- 
 ministration fell gradually into the hands of the Press. 
 
 The Smoking Room, which like the rest of London 
 moved in a regular cycle of elation and depression, opti- 
 mism and despair, was in deep gloom my first night. The 
 recruiting-figures were shrinking daily, we could look for 
 no help from America and what Lady Maitland called 
 "that Man Wilson's 'too proud to fight' nonsense." War- 
 saw had just fallen, and Russian Poland lay at the mercy 
 of the enemy; earlier in the week, too, we had experi- 
 enced our first Zeppelin raid and, while it was easy to 
 count the casualties and demonstrate the 700,000 to I odds 
 against any one of us being killed, we felt that something 
 remained to be done and that these birds of death, how- 
 ever exciting to watch, should not be allowed to fly to and 
 fro at will, hover their destructive hour and depart un- 
 scathed. 
 
 As I can do nothing with criticism which is afraid to ma- 
 terialise into action, I decided to leave the House early and, 
 being at a loose end, to pay my promised call at "The 
 Sanctuary." The fact that I had let a month go by without 
 discovering my host's name disturbed me little in a house 
 where so much was taken for granted, and I boldly pushed 
 open the door, as I had been bidden, and looked into the 
 long, warm room. By firelight it seemed empty at first; 
 then I heard voices and saw the disabled agitator sitting on 
 a sofa with his leg up, talking to the girl whom I had seen 
 
44 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 on my last visit. As I hesitated by the door, she jumped 
 up and made me welcome. 
 
 "Leg not right yet, then?" I said, as I joined them by 
 the sofa. "By the way, my name's Raymond Stornaway." 
 
 "Mine's Hilda Merryon," said the girl at once. 
 
 I had not had much opportunity of observing her before, 
 but I saw now that she was young and slight, with black 
 hair and very pale, regular features. She had in her man- 
 ner, too, something scornful which I found immediately 
 antagonistic. 
 
 "Oh, I shall be here for weeks," said the young agitator, 
 "if they'll keep me. We're tuberculous as a family, and 
 the knee will probably turn out tuberculous. I'm Peter 
 Beresford." 
 
 My niece Yolande, who buys all modern poetry that she 
 can find, tells me that I ought to have been certainly the 
 wiser and perhaps the more impressed by this information ; 
 and, if I had spent the last year in England instead of 
 abroad, I might very well have read of Beresford's es- 
 capades with the police. Various people have from time 
 to time contributed fragments of his biography. I believe 
 that he started as the dreamy and eccentric son of a Lin- 
 colnshire family and that on leaving school he had be- 
 taken himself to Moscow on a self-conscious literary holi- 
 day. Once there, he refused to come back. The sombre, in- 
 toxicating magic of Dostoevski had drawn him, Russia laid 
 her spell upon him; and, when funds from home were cut 
 off, he starved and feasted, worked and slumbered for two 
 years, until the woman with whom he was living forsook 
 him. A violent reaction sent him to Cambridge, a strangely 
 experienced and natively rebellious freshman, for he had 
 written poetry and abandoned it, read medicine and aban- 
 doned it, mixed in revolutionary society and drifted under 
 a haunting police surveillance which only relaxed when 
 powerful friends urged his reluctant steps homeward. 
 
 "No more public meetings for the present, then," I said. 
 
 Anyone may call the words fatuous, but they were harm- 
 less and not ill-natured. I quote them because of their 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 45 
 
 effect in lashing Beresford to a passion only describable 
 as insane. I have never met anyone who knew him as a 
 boy, I cannot say whether he was naturally neurotic or 
 whether too early acquaintance with oppression had warped 
 his mind, but I saw a good deal of him between this night 
 and our last meeting and I have consistently felt from the 
 moment of this encounter that he was separated from cer- 
 tifiable madness by a hair's breadth. He had all the suspi- 
 cion, the sudden fury, the courage and the obstinacy of 
 fanaticism, the whole streaked with morbidity. We talked 
 long that night, and every chapter of his Russian Odyssey 
 ended with the refrain "Alone of the beasts man delights 
 in torturing his fellows;'* yet, when he described a meet- 
 ing in Petersburg being broken up by a charge of Cos- 
 sacks, I could have sworn that there was gloating in his 
 tale of casualties, as with a man who will pay money to 
 stare at physical deformity. Against this, his hatred of 
 oppression was rooted in a poet's love of beauty. His 
 quarrel with society in peace was that it made man a soul- 
 stunted slave and the countryside an industrial ash-heap, 
 in war that it made him a disembowelled and screaming re- 
 proach of the Maker who fashioned him in His image. 
 Beresford had a sense of colour, form and sound which a 
 man will never know unless he be born with it. Again 
 and again it came out in his descriptions. And then I re- 
 member his making a sarcastic and grotesquely ineffectual 
 speech to a knot of drunken loafers. 
 
 "Do you feel that the sort of thing you were saying the 
 other night does much good?" I persisted, as he glared at 
 me, breathing quickly. 
 
 His sudden blaze of anger seemed to dab two spots of 
 scarlet on his shining, prominent cheek-bones. 
 
 "For you no good!" he cried. "I told those fools not 
 to fight, I asked them what they were fighting for! They 
 didn't know. How should they? But you know. Keep 
 the dogs fighting one another, and they won't turn on you. 
 But when your troops come back, the troops that you have 
 
46 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 drilled and taught to shoot, when they ask why their com- 
 panions were killed " 
 
 The girl relaxed the scornful attitude of aloofness, which 
 she had preserved throughout the evening, to touch his arm 
 warningly ; he coughed and went back to his cigarette. 
 
 I laughed at him, partly because it was good for him and 
 partly to help me keep my own temper. 
 
 "That stuff didn't go down the other night, and it won't 
 go down with me. You've been talking quite sensibly so 
 
 far " He bowed ironically. "You can't make war 
 
 without killing people, and there would have been no peace 
 or safety, if we'd stood out. Of course, if you want to see 
 this country or Russia treated as Belgium has been 
 treated " 
 
 He snorted contemptuously and told me, as an eye-wit- 
 ness, that the Belgian atrocities could at their worst al- 
 ways be matched by the Russian atrocities in East Prus- 
 sia. ("Alone of the beasts man delights in torturing his 
 fellows.") But why strain at the gnat and swallow the 
 camel? The major atrocity was war; and, the greater the 
 war, the greater the atrocity. "The English were not too 
 humane in South Africa. No. And South Africa was 
 child's play, it didn't matter who won. You were less 
 humane still in putting down the Indian Mutiny, where 
 you were fighting for our lives. Germany is fighting for her 
 life, she must fight how she can. A screen of women and 
 children before the advancing armies ? One husbands one's 
 troops. The Zeppelin attacks ? One always likes to under- 
 mine civilian moral, to make the whimperers at home yelp 
 for peace on one's own terms (and are not you high- 
 minded English warring on civilians women and children, 
 too by blockading Germany?). This is a war of nations 
 with all the nations' human and material resources poured 
 into the scale. If you want to fight, fight to win! Sink 
 your hospital ships! They will have to be replaced, and 
 fewer troops, less food, less ammunition will be carried 
 in consequence." 
 
 He threw himself back exhausted and gave way to a 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 47 
 
 fit of coughing which threatened to tear him in pieces. I 
 looked at my watch and got up to go. 
 
 "You should have preached this before the war," I 
 suggested. 
 
 "It will be before the next war," he gasped. "And war 
 there will be! I'm sick of this 'war-to-end-war' claptrap! 
 That's been thought in every war, it was thought when 
 Europe was leagued against Napoleon, as it is now leagued 
 against the Kaiser! There will be war until the fools I 
 addressed that night, those dogs who fight for the masters 
 that betray them, turn and tear their masters limb from 
 limb. Yes. If they don't do that before the world is ripe 
 for another vintage, if they wait till present memories 
 have faded and another generation of old men sits in power 
 to send young men to their death " 
 
 His pity again became merged in imaginative blood-lust 
 until he seemed to revel in the horror of his own descrip- 
 tion. Science was to be applied without mercy or dis- 
 crimination. When the maximum of destruction had been 
 effected in the field, the war would be carried behind the 
 lines to those who made its continuance possible. There 
 would be no quarter for prisoners, who might escape, nor 
 for the wounded, who might recover and fight again. The 
 nurses and doctors who dragged the wounded back to life 
 and patched them into the semblance of men were making 
 new soldiers; it was not convenient that the enemy should 
 be presented with new soldiers, so the war must be con- 
 tinued against these nurses and doctors. And against the 
 countrymen, who raised food for the troops, and the artifi- 
 cers, who supplied them with arms, and the women, who 
 came to take men's places on the farm and in the work- 
 shop, and the old men, who lent money to buy more guns 
 and shells, and the young boys, who day by day drew nearer 
 to the age when they, too, would be soldiers, and the last 
 woman in the country, who, if she did nothing else, could 
 bear a child to the last man. . . . 
 
 Beresford's voice rose until it broke, and his words 
 poured out more and more quickly. The fellow had the 
 
48 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 impressiveness which is born of conviction, and the girl by 
 his side no longer attempted to restrain him, but a sound 
 unheard by me stopped him abruptly, and he glanced over 
 his shoulder with quick apprehension, as the door opened 
 and closed. It was not the glance that I associate with 
 an easy conscience, and I was suddenly sorry for the man. 
 A moment later the hunted look left his face, as the flame- 
 coloured curtain was drawn aside, and my host appeared 
 in sight. There was the same whimsical smile in his big, 
 black eyes that I had seen when we met before mis- 
 chievous, kindly, and baffling. He threw his hat into a 
 chair and gave his cane to the Saint Bernard to carry; 
 as he came into the room I was struck by the lightness 
 and grace of his movements. The atmosphere cleared of 
 its electricity. 
 
 "Only a small party to-night," he murmured. 
 
 The girl on the sofa looked up quickly. 
 
 "I'm here," she said, "and Mr. Beresford and " She 
 
 hesitated and blushed to find that she had forgotten my 
 name. 
 
 "Raymond Stornaway," I supplemented. "You said I 
 might come again." 
 
 He turned and grasped my hand. 
 
 "I've heard our friend George Oakleigh speak about 
 you!" he cried. "I didn't know, the other night, that it 
 was you. Haven't you just been released from Austria? 
 My wife said something. . . . They're a funny people, the 
 Austrians ; there's no pleasing them. Now, when they get 
 hold of you, they simply won't let you go, but the last 
 time I was in the country officially they escorted me 
 over the frontier and hinted that they'd put a bullet in 
 me, if I ever came back. And all because of a regrettable 
 little disturbance in Vienna, when an Austrian officer said 
 things about my father and myself which I thought and 
 think still a gentleman does not say." 
 
 As I looked at the animated, thin face, I was trying hard 
 to remember where I had seen it before. At the mention 
 of Vienna I saw again an open-fronted cafe on the Ring- 
 
AN ARABIAN NIGHT 49 
 
 Strasse with white-aproned waiters bustling, gesticulating 
 and shouting round a swaying mass of combatants; in the 
 heart of the struggle I saw a thin-faced, black-haired boy 
 fighting like a tiger; one arm hung limp and helpless by 
 his side or flapped horribly with the movements of his 
 body, and his face was streaming with blood. I saw his 
 companion bring down the lamp with a blow from a chair, 
 I remember how infinitely more alarming and suggestive 
 the cries, the groans and general tumult of the fight became 
 in the darkness. It was no affair of mine, however, and 
 I was far down the Ring-Strasse when the police cut their 
 way into the melee with drawn swords. 
 
 "I was in the cafe at the time," I told him. "You 
 were there with Jack Summertown. Pm surprised that 
 either of you got out alive." 
 
 "You were there?" he echoed with a burst of boyish 
 laughter. "It was a great night ! I've still got some of the 
 marks ! I wondered who you were. . . . Of course, we've 
 got scores of friends in common. You know Bertrand 
 Oakleigh in the House ? Well, he lives here. The place in 
 Princes Gardens is being used as a hospital, so George 
 has a room at his Club and the old man stays with us. 
 He gave us the house he's always been astonishingly 
 generous to me but of course I couldn't accept it like 
 that. I only let him give it to me on condition that I was 
 allowed to share it with others. Perhaps now my sym- 
 bolism " 
 
 He broke off with a laugh and asked whether the others 
 had looked after me well. 
 
 "I'm sorry my wife's not here," he said. "Let me see, 
 she wasn't in the last time, either; the fact is, Colonel 
 Grayle telephoned to say that he'd been given a box for 
 some theatre and would we dine with him and go on? 
 Pd already promised to dine at the House and I don't 
 go to the play much, anyway, but she thought she'd like 
 to go, and she hasn't come in yet. To-night you've got 
 to wait." 
 
50 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 It was half -past eleven, and I held out my watch to him, 
 shaking my head. 
 
 "Look at the time," I said. 
 
 He took out the repeater that I had seen before and 
 set it striking. 
 
 "I set mine by Big Ben this evening," I told him. 
 
 "Ah, but I can't see it. I haven't the use of my eyes, 
 you know. If you feel you must go, I will only remind you 
 that the door will be open next time. I've got any amount 
 to talk to you about, and my wife will be most fright- 
 fully sorry to have missed you again. I rather gathered 
 that you and Grayle and she had been dining in the 
 same house that night, but you were at different ends 
 of the table, and she didn't hear your name." 
 
 "I don't yet know yours," I said. 
 
 "David O'Rane," he answered. "There's no particular 
 reason why you should, unless George has ever talked to 
 you about me. Now, will you swear on your honour 
 that you'll come again? And it must be before I go 
 away. Good-night !" 
 
CHAPTER TWO 
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 "I was a baby when my mother died 
 And father died and left me in the street 
 I starved there, God knows how, a year or two 
 On fig-skins, melon-parings, rinds and stalks, 
 Refuse and rubbish. . . . 
 
 But, mind you, when a boy starves in the streets 
 Eight years together, as my fortune was, 
 Watching folk's faces to know who will fling 
 The bit of half-stripped grape-launch he desires, 
 And who will curse and kick him for his pains, 
 Which gentleman processional and fine, 
 Holding a candle to the Sacrament, 
 Will wink and let him lift a plate and catch 
 The droppings of the wax to sell again, 
 Or holla for the Eight and have him whipped, 
 How say I? nay, which dog bites, which lets drop 
 His bone from the heap of offal in the street, 
 Why, soul and sense of him grow sharp alike, 
 He learns the look of things, and none the less 
 For admonition from the hunger-pinch." 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING: Fra Lippo Lippi. 
 
 IT was not until I had introduced some little organisa- 
 tion into my work that I had opportunity or justification 
 for seeing my friends. I have reached an age when I 
 like to go early to bed between two long days of work; 
 I never ceased to wonder, therefore, at the nervous vitality 
 of some of the people whom I was meeting; London was 
 fuller than I had ever known it, the customary autumn 
 exodus had ended with the war; and, what with a few 
 hundred officers home on leave and athirst for amuse- 
 ment, what with a few thousand girls working in hos- 
 pitals, canteens and Government offices, anyone who 
 
 51 
 
32 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 wanted distraction had not to look long for it. The rest- 
 lessness which seized London every summer before the 
 war seemed to have increased and become permanent, 
 with an astounding new licence which I found hard to 
 understand. I suppose the war broke down most of 
 the old social conventions, but I sometimes wondered in the 
 early days whether there was anything which the strictly 
 brought up and closely chaperoned young girl of other days 
 was now not allowed to do. . . . 
 
 Young O'Rane carried me off to my first war party. 
 After I had looked for him unsuccessfully for some weeks, 
 we had been dining at the House and talking business and 
 school politics, for the Governors of Melton School had 
 lately co-opted me in place of Aylmer Lancing, and I had 
 heard from George that O'Rane was temporarily on the 
 staff there. At ten o'clock he told me that he was due 
 home for a house-warming and plunged into a descrip- 
 tion of his domestic life with all the eagerness of a child 
 which is what he was shewing a new toy. Old Bertrand 
 Oakleigh had given them the house as a wedding present; 
 ever since his illness at the outbreak of war (no one was 
 allowed to call it a stroke) the old man had needed some 
 little attention ; what easier than to set a couple of rooms 
 aside for him? And the place was so big that you could 
 give a shakedown to "most anyone" and a meal. It was 
 what O'Rane had always wanted to do--as in the Middle 
 Ages (rather vaguely). ... I should hardly believe some 
 of the people he'd had there even in five weeks. . . . 
 People were such fun; Beresford, for instance . . . full 
 of good stuff, full of white-hot idealism which only needed 
 to be directed. "And he's fallen in love with my wife, 
 so she's gently taming him." 
 
 He threw out his sentences with jerky exuberance, pas- 
 sionately serious at one moment and laughing at himself 
 and me the next. 
 
 And that girl I had met, Hilda Merryon. ... A little 
 throb of anger came into O'Rane's voice ; she had led a 
 most awful life for about three years; some brute had 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 53 
 
 victimised her, and her sanctimonious devil of a father 
 had turned her out of the house. . . . Now she was a new 
 woman, though years must pass before she overcame her 
 bitterness and hatred towards the world, and, when he 
 went back to Melton, she was coming as a sort of 
 secretary. . . . 
 
 We had reached the house, and he threw open the door 
 and stood aside to let me in. 
 
 "I hardly felt this was a normal household when I was 
 here before," I said. 
 
 In the light of the hall I could see his black eyes gleam- 
 ing with laughter. 
 
 "You should hear old Oakleigh!" he suggested. "It's 
 a phase, my dear boy. You'll grow out of it. You 
 see the devil of a lot of strange things, if you live to be 
 as old as I am.' " He paused to laugh at his own exquisite 
 mimicry of Bertrand's disillusionised, pontifical manner and 
 gruff, disparaging voice. "Well, he wouldn't eat a twelve- 
 course dinner with a starving man opposite him. ... It 
 makes life so much easier, if nobody thinks you're quite 
 sane. Won't you go in?" 
 
 "Does your wife enter into the spirit of it?" I asked, 
 as I looked at the silk curtains bellying away from the 
 white walls. 
 
 He evaded the direct question almost apologetically. 
 
 "It's a big change after the life she led before the war," 
 he conceded, "but then the war itself is a big change." 
 
 He had mentioned a party, but I was hardly prepared 
 for the army of occupation which I found in the library. 
 Every chair at the long table was filled, and the guests had 
 overflowed and scattered throughout the room, bearing 
 their plates and tumblers with them. Mrs. O'Rane jumped 
 up from her place between Beresford and Deganway, mak- 
 ing me welcome and apologising for having missed me 
 before. 
 
 "This is such an irregular menage," she exclaimed in 
 a clear, high voice that dominated the clear, high voices 
 around her. "David's at the House so much, and I spend 
 
54 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 my days serving out clothes to Belgian refugees, or finding 
 them nouses and work, or getting up concerts and things 
 to raise money for them, but somebody's sure to be at home 
 at some hour of the night. This is our house-warming, 
 and of course David forgot all about it." She twisted 
 her arms round her husband's neck and kissed him with 
 an ecstasy that told me stabbingly of something that had 
 been left out of my life, "Admit you did, sweetheart, 
 or you won't get any supper." 
 
 "/ remembered ! I invited Mr. Stornaway," he protested. 
 "And you're going to look after him while I strum. You 
 seem to have got some people here, Sonia. And there's a 
 sort of hint that some of them have been smoking." 
 
 The crowd, the heat, the babble of voices and the fog 
 of tobacco smoke robbed me of resistance and individu- 
 ality. Before I had been three minutes in the room, I was 
 eating a meal which I did not need, drinking hock-cup 
 which I knew disagreed with me and trying to carry on 
 two conversations and at the same time to see who was 
 already there and who was arriving. Lady Maitland in- 
 troduced me volubly to a watchful-eyed, supercilious boy 
 whose first play, she assured me, had taken London by storm. 
 Had I seen it? If not, I must go at once; and she re- 
 freshed her memory of its name by reference to the author. 
 When he escaped in bored embarrassment from his own 
 biography, she explained loudly a second time that that 
 was Eric Lane, the great coming dramatist, and confided 
 as loudly that he was desperately in love with Babs, little 
 Babs Neave, Barbara Neave, Lady Barbara Neave it was 
 no use my pretending that I didn't know her and that 
 Crawleigh was at his wits' end, because it was quite out 
 of the question for them to marry, but Babs was such an 
 extraordinary girl that, if you opposed her, you might 
 simply drive her into his arms. . . . Lady Maitland shook 
 her vigorous grey head with an air of concern and at once 
 asked me to meet "both the silly children" at luncheon, 
 because it would interest me. . . . 
 
 Before the end of supper I was beginning to get my 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 55 
 
 bearings and to resolve the unassimilated party into its 
 elements. O'Rane was at the piano, surrounded by George 
 Oakleigh, two shy and hero-worshipping pupils from MeK 
 ton, Miss Hilda Merryon still aloof and implacable and 
 Beresford. In the middle of the room I deduced from Sir 
 Roger Dainton's presence a purely family gathering of Mrs. 
 O'Rane's relations; their tongues were as busy as their 
 eyes, and they looked slightly bewildered as well they 
 might and a trifle disapproving. 
 
 On the dais Mrs. O'Rane ruled supreme. Even without 
 the explanation which George strolled across to drawl in- 
 to my ear, I placed her by her surroundings as belonging to 
 a society with which I was very familiar before the war. 
 Lady Sally Farwell sat on one side of her, giving an excel- 
 lent and somewhat ill-natured imitation of Lady Barbara 
 Neave, who with young Eric Lane was hardly out of ear- 
 shot. Mr. Evelyn Staines, the romantic hero of half a 
 hundred musical comedies at the Regency, sat on the other, 
 looking out of humour, surprisingly unkempt and un- 
 expectedly old. There was a youthful claque of young 
 officers, two or three actresses, whose appearance the illus- 
 trated papers had made known to me, and a sprinkling of 
 middle-aged nondescripts. Before the war I used to or- 
 ganise a good many charity bazaars, charity balls and 
 charity matinees; and Mrs. O'Rane's troupe was always 
 much in evidence. She has since told me that she and 
 Sally Farwell appeared in three duologues and two oriental 
 ballets on my behalf, though I am ashamed to say that 
 my neglect of details left me ignorant of my indebtedness. 
 
 There were a dozen smaller groups, thrust into corners 
 or wedged between the heavier furniture. I threaded my 
 way in and out with a word here and a bow there, blinded 
 by the smoke and deafened by the noise. All seemed to 
 be enjoying themselves, however, and I was reasonably 
 amused and interested. From time to time, when O'Rane 
 began to sing or whistle to his own accompaniment, there 
 was a rippling hush; from time to time, again, he would 
 break off with a sudden laugh and plunge into dance music, 
 
56 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 whereat most of us flattened ourselves against the walls, 
 while Mrs. O'Rane and Mr. Evelyn Staines gave an exhibi- 
 tion of highly technical stage-dancing. 
 
 "I don't quite fit your uncle Bertrand into this," I 
 observed to George, when we found ourselves out of 
 harm's way on the dais. 
 
 "He looked in for a moment to offer Raney his blessing 
 and a cheque. Fortunately he can't hear much from his 
 end of the house," was the answer. 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane ended a perilous series of movements with 
 a more perilous leap on to her partner's shoulder and was 
 borne breathless and triumphant to the table for hock- 
 cup. 
 
 "George, are we shocking Mr. Stornaway?" she asked 
 across me. "I'm so sick of the war!" 
 
 She jumped down and looked at me, breathing quickly 
 through parted lips. Her dress was daring, and at this, 
 my first unhurried sight of her at close quarters, I was 
 as much fascinated as a man of my age had any right 
 to be. The face was soft, appealing and warm, with long- 
 lashed brown eyes, flushed cheeks like ripe apricots and 
 a wistful mouth that drooped at the corners, when she 
 was disappointed, and pouted over-quickly when she did not 
 at once get what she wanted. It was a wilful, impatient 
 little face, exacting and rather obstinate, without very much 
 depth of character, but amazingly mobile and young, cap- 
 able of a child's ecstatic abandonment to happiness and of 
 a melting tenderness when she looked at her husband's 
 unseeing eyes and whimsical, self -protective smile. 
 
 "In some ways it's extraordinarily like some of his 
 omnium-gatherum parties at Oxford, Sonia," murmured 
 George, as the tireless fingers at the piano passed from 
 waltz to march and from march to Scandinavian boating- 
 song half as old as time. 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane's big eyes swam. 
 
 "As like as we can make it," she whispered tremulously; 
 and I was conscious of a new fascination. Though I 
 have never seen a woman or man more perfectly put 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 57 
 
 together, the head on the neck, the neck on the shoulders, 
 the hands on the wrists or the wrists on the arms, there 
 was something skin-deep and mechanical in her beauty 
 not necessarily reaching to the heart until that moment. 
 
 The softness passed as suddenly as it had come, and 
 she awoke to a sense of her duties as hostess. 
 
 "I want to introduce you to my mother, Lady Dainton," 
 she told me. 
 
 Under cover of the presentation she escaped and in 
 another moment was darting with the movement of a 
 dragon-fly in search of a partner for the savage Hawaiian 
 dance which her husband had begun to play. This in turn 
 she abandoned to give extravagant welcome to Sir Adolphus 
 Erskine and to thank him for a string of pearls which she 
 held out jubilantly for his admiring inspection. 
 
 My next half-hour was more varied and less pleasant. 
 I was introduced to Lady Dainton, who claimed acquaint- 
 ance with my brother and insisted that we had met at 
 one of Aylmer Lancing' s parties at Ripley Court; I was 
 introduced to her daughter-in-law, who had lately lost 
 her husband and now engaged me in a sullen debate on 
 compulsory service with a view, so far as I could follow 
 the poor creature's distraught reasoning, to securing that 
 as many other women as possible should lose their husbands. 
 I exchanged a few words with Roger Dainton about the 
 state of parties in the House and, as I fancied that I had 
 exhausted the family, found myself confronted once more 
 by Lady Dainton, who led me into a corner, enquired how 
 long I had known O'Rane and begged me to use whatever 
 influence I possessed to bring this folly to an end. Since 
 my first sight of her I had watched a storm-cloud of 
 disapproval banking up, but I could not imagine why its 
 force should be expended on me. 
 
 "I'm not narrow-minded, don't you know?" she informed 
 me with majestic uncontradictability, "but this is the first 
 time I've seen Sonia since she was married, and this 
 this bear-garden is what I find." 
 
 There was no disputing the definition, but its application 
 
58 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 was limited, for she flung out her arm, until I feared it 
 would leave its socket, in the direction of an arm-chair 
 where Beresford, shabbier than ever by contrast with the 
 rather rich clothes around him, was holding forth with 
 combative resonance on the hypocrisy of our fighting for 
 the free development of the smaller nationalities while we 
 held our Indian Empire in unrepresentative thraldom. 
 
 "It's not what Sonia's accustomed to, it's not what she 
 has a right to expect !" exclaimed Lady Dainton with rising 
 indignation. "That that creature has been mocking the 
 people who've gone out and given their lives for their 
 country, when half of us in the room are in mourning. As 
 for the woman " 
 
 "I really don't feel / can interfere," I interrupted dif- 
 fidently. 
 
 She sighed with an attempt at resignation. 
 
 "I didn't know how well you knew David," she said. 
 "Of course, he's a delightful, gallant, generous soul no- 
 body's fonder of him than I am , but he's so terribly 
 impulsive, don't you know? I really hoped that, when 
 Sonia consented to marry him, she would well tame 
 him a little. Dear Diavid will pretend that everybody's 
 like everybody else; well, I don't suppose either of us is 
 a snob, Mr. Stornaway, but there are distinctions, don't 
 you know? We should be called old-fashioned, if we said 
 anything, but some of the people here to-night of course, 
 Sonia's a wonderful actress, much cleverer than half the 
 professionals you see, so she's got into rather a theatrical 
 set I suppose that's the modern spirit; Eleanor Ross had 
 a woman lunching with her to-day who six months ago 
 well, she wouldn't have dared. . . . But when it comes to 
 turning a private house into a sort of mission-room. . . . 
 One can carry democracy to excess, don't you know ?" 
 
 The voice was rising again, and Mrs. O'Rane danced to 
 my side and snatched me away on the plea that Lady Mait- 
 land wanted to fix a day for my meeting with Barbara 
 Neave. 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 59 
 
 "Was darling mother being tiresome?" she asked sympa- 
 thetically. "The casual-ward stunt, I suppose?" 
 
 "What do you feel about it yourself ?" I asked her. 
 
 "About David's lame ducks ? Oh, he has his friends, and 
 I have mine, and it's no one else's business." She looked 
 round the crowded room and then seemed to decide that 
 she had been too brusque. "I don't know yet, whether it 
 will answer," she went on uncertainly. "David's always 
 been a freak about money, he'd always give anything to 
 anybody. Now he says that he'd be dishonoured, if he 
 took with one hand and refused with the other. . . . He's 
 rather absurd, poor darling, because he wouldn't need to 
 take anything from anybody, if he hadn't been so frightfully 
 smashed up in the war. And if I don't mind. . . . It's 
 really rather fun, however mad it may seen. We've all 
 of us gone mad since the war. Except David. You didn't 
 know him, but he's almost sane compared with what he 
 was before." She abandoned her pose of affected insin- 
 cerity and turned to me with shining eyes. "You do love 
 David, don't you?" she asked. 
 
 "My dear lady, I've only met him twice," I said. 
 
 "Isn't that more than enough ?" Her expression changed 
 restlessly; and I remembered wondering how long she 
 would retain her looks, if she continued to live on her 
 nerves like this. "Too many dam' dull Daintons here, you 
 know. I made certain mother would think this sort of 
 thing too Bohemian. She'd like me to have a prim and 
 proper little house in one of the streets about here and 
 entertain the conventional people in the conventional way 
 simply wagging my tail if I enticed an Under-Secretary 
 here. Mother'd go miles for an Under-Secretary. Well, 
 it's much more fun inviting the amusing people, the people 
 you like. I am rather a Bohemian, I've always led my own 
 life. I do now. Darling David never tries to make me do 
 anything or stop me doing anything, he never wants to know 
 what I've been doing. ... All the same, David's 'duty to 
 one's neighbour' stunt. . . . Thank goodness! he doesn't 
 expect me to share my clothes with casual visitors I" 
 
60 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 She stood with her eyes fixed thoughtfully and without 
 complete comprehension on her husband's thin, mobile face. 
 His own, black and arresting for all their sightlessness, 
 were turned to the rafters and the shadows of the roof, 
 as he sat with head bent back and fingers idly modulating. 
 Then Lady Dainton came forward and took her leave ; the 
 party broke up rapidly, and, by the time that I left, only 
 Vincent Grayle remained, talking to his hostess, while 
 Beresford transferred himself to the other end of the room, 
 ostentatiously turning his back and resting his injured leg 
 on the edge of O'Rane's piano stool. 
 
 2 
 
 I left the grotesque party with the feeling that contrary 
 to all reasonable expectation I had enjoyed myself immoder- 
 ately. The enthusiasm survived the night, and at break- 
 fast the following day I informed Yolande that I proposed 
 to invite the O'Ranes to dine with us. Here, however, I 
 was met with unforeseen opposition. I have no idea how the 
 antagonism started, but at some period of their careers 
 Yolande had decided that Mrs. O'Rane was of those who 
 "do all the things one doesn't do," while Mrs. O'Rane has 
 been known to dismiss my niece alliteratively as a "prig, 
 prude and poseuse." 
 
 "You'll regret it," Yolande told me frankly enough, 
 sagaciously smoothing back a strand of auburn hair from 
 her forehead. "She's very fascinating, but I've an instinct 
 about her, and you'll find she's all superfluity and flashi- 
 ness. Any number of people have been in love with her, 
 of course, but she'll grate on you. Ask any woman." 
 
 One dinner, I felt, could not commit me very deeply, 
 and it was my own house, although I was already debating 
 the desirability of moving into bachelor quarters and giv- 
 ing up my remaining rooms to the Canteen Executive. 
 Yolande, however, was to be spared in spite of me. 
 
 Whether Mrs. O'Rane disaproved of her as strongly as 
 she disapproved of Mrs. O'Rane, I am incompetent to say, 
 but I was informed in terms of suitable regret that she was 
 either dining out or having people to dine with her every 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 61 
 
 night of the week; was it possible, on the other hand, for 
 me to come on one of the days when they were at home? 
 I had not yet finished that talk with David about Melton. 
 . . . The reminder was perhaps inserted as a reason for not 
 inviting Yolande. 
 
 I chose my night and, within five minutes of entering the 
 house, I should have confessed, had I been honest with my- 
 self, that Yolande was right. An air of tension greeted me, 
 an interrupted controversy was at once resumed, and I 
 found myself required by my hostess to arbitrate in a lovers' 
 quarrel. The cause of dispute was the girl Hilda Merryon, 
 whose career O'Rane had briefly sketched for my benefit; 
 fortunately she was not present at the time, but with O'Rane 
 composed, pacific and unyielding in an arm-chair with his 
 big St. Bernard beside him, Mrs. O'Rane flushed and ag- 
 grieved with one foot on the fender and one bare arm 
 shielding her face from the fire, and Vincent Grayle, my 
 fellow guest, directing and perhaps stimulating the contro- 
 versy, I felt that we had enough disputants. 
 
 "I'll put it to Mr. Stornaway!" cried Mrs. O'Rane, as 
 soon as our greetings were over. "Mr. Stornaway, we were 
 only married in July, it's now the end of September, and 
 I don't think David ought to go off and leave me for three 
 months. It isn't necessary, I've asked him not to " 
 
 O'Rane stroked the dog's head reflectively. 
 
 "But you've told me you can't get away, Sonia," he said 
 at length. "You've got your Belgian refugee work, you've 
 got a string of engagements and you've got Beresford laid 
 up for months yet. You admitted, too, you'd simply be at 
 a loose end in Melton." 
 
 "I should be with you." She tossed her head back until 
 she was looking at him through half-closed eye-lids. "Of 
 course, if you don't want me . . ." 
 
 "But, darling, your work here . . .?" 
 
 "Anybody can do that!" Mrs. O'Rane interrupted un- 
 guardedly. "That's not the point, though, and you know it 
 isn't. I say you oughtn't to go. It's like setting a race- 
 horse to pull a removal van." 
 
62 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 In the pause that followed, I wondered what opportuni- 
 ties for propaganda Lady Dainton had enjoyed since our 
 meeting the week before. 
 
 "I've promised to resign the moment I've paid back the 
 money I owe," said O'Rane with emphatic reasonableness. 
 
 "The money was given you as a present." 
 
 "But I can't take presents of that kind so long as I'm fit 
 to work. Darling Sonia, you don't imagine I want to go 
 away from you for three months, do you ? If you can come 
 down without leaving your work here undone " 
 
 "Oh, I should be in the way!" she interrupted with an- 
 other toss of her head. "You've got your Hilda." 
 
 She looked round the room, pointedly inviting us to fol- 
 low the direction of her eyes and nodding at the tidy ar- 
 rangement of books, the filing-cabinet, the half-hidden safe 
 and neat library card-catalogue. I could see O'Rane blush- 
 ing, as I myself began to blush, that such a scene should be 
 enacted before comparative strangers. 
 
 "You mustn't say things like that," he remonstrated 
 gently; then, with the lightness of affected inspiration, 
 "We'll put it to Mr. Stornaway, as you suggest ! I'm com- 
 mitted, sir, as I think in honour and certainly by an under- 
 standing with the Headmaster, to go back to Melton on 
 Thursday. You've met Miss Merryon ; I'm taking her with 
 me to act as a sort of secretary. She'll have rooms in the 
 town and will lend me the use of her eyes in the evenings ; 
 I was frightfully handicapped last term and had to take ad- 
 vantage of the boys' good-nature. I know it's an unusual ar- 
 rangement, but the circumstances are unusual. I got Dr. 
 Burgess's approval " 
 
 "Did you tell him anything about her past?" Mrs. O'Rane 
 broke in, tapping a gold slipper with scarlet heel against 
 the fender. 
 
 O'Rane smiled dreamily. 
 
 "I'm chiefly concerned with her future," he answered. 
 Something in the voice and smile told me that he was 
 spiritually as far removed from his wife as the mad from 
 the sane. 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 63 
 
 There was a long pause which Grayle broke by shrugging 
 his shoulders, sighing, shaking his head at Mrs. O'Rane 
 with an expression of rueful sympathy and finally opening 
 his cigarette-case with a muttered request for permission to 
 smoke. 
 
 "Of course, the world will say ," he began. 
 
 O'Rane laughed to himself. 
 
 "I don't know that I've ever paid much attention to what 
 the world says. But Mr. Stornaway is going to arbitrate." 
 
 I looked at one disputant after another. Mrs. O'Rane's 
 expression can best be described as mulish; O'Rane was 
 smiling, debonair and yet, I felt, it was the first time that 
 I had felt it unshakable. What part Grayle was playing I 
 could not determine; if he had been invited to arbitrate 
 before my arrival, he had not been successful, and I wished 
 that he would leave me to compose the quarrel uninter- 
 rupted. 
 
 "If you've promised yourself to Dr. Burgess," I told 
 O'Rane after consideration, "you can't disappoint him at 
 forty-eight hours' notice. It's out of the question. You 
 tell me that he approves of your taking Miss Merryon?" 
 
 "He'd do anything for me," O'Rane answered easily. 
 
 "Even so, if I may put it bluntly, it's an imprudent thing 
 to do. Surely the simplest and most natural solution, as 
 well as the pleasantest for both, is for Mrs. O'Rane to 
 accompany you. If you want work found for Miss 
 Merryon, that ought not to be difficult in these times; I'll 
 pay any money for a competent shorthand-writer in my 
 own office." 
 
 Neither O'Rane nor his wife offered any criticism, but 
 Grayle considerately supplied the reason which both were 
 hiding. 
 
 "That was discussed, I think," he said, "but I gather Mrs. 
 O'Rane has her hands pretty full with work here." 
 
 "But you said anyone could do that," I reminded her. 
 "And, as long as Bertrand's here, there'll be some one to 
 look after Beresford." 
 
 In addition to Bertrand there were two maids and a 
 
64 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 plenipotent housekeeper, for Mrs. O'Rane liked to boast of 
 her domestic incompetence. Mine was the obvious solution, 
 and I could see that she recognised it. There was a sup- 
 pressed yawn and a gain of three seconds. 
 
 "If I died, some one would have to do my work," she 
 admitted, "or, it wouldn't be done. . . . But, Mr. Storn- 
 away, David's a member of Parliament, his whole future 
 is in the House ; isn't it ridiculous for him to waste his time 
 teaching a pack of schoolboys ?" 
 
 As she shifted her ground, I felt that my work was done. 
 
 "I haven't got much future of any kind," I said, "but 
 I'm a begging-letter writer in the morning and a second- 
 class clerk in a government office the rest of the day. These 
 are not normal times, Mrs. O'Rane, and he can't leave his 
 chief stranded at the last moment without anyone to take 
 his place. When he comes back at Christmas, there'll be 
 an opportunity for reconsideration." 
 
 O'Rane said nothing, and I was disappointed. I felt that, 
 as he had got his own way, it would have been diplomatic 
 and perhaps convincing to pretend that he was consenting 
 to a compromise. Mrs. O'Rane looked at him out of the 
 corner of one eye and pouted openly. 
 
 "We might just as well not be married, if you don't want 
 me," she said. 
 
 "Come, come ! Mrs. O'Rane !" I cried. 
 
 I am afraid that the mild protest only inflamed her. 
 
 "Well, he doesn't! The other night we were talking 
 about marriage. Peter Beresford says that any man who 
 loves a woman may do anything to win her; it doesn't 
 make any difference whether she's married or not " 
 
 O'Rane leaned forward and resumed his stroking of the 
 dog's head. 
 
 "Perhaps it makes a difference to the woman," he sug- 
 gested. 
 
 "Then David said," she went on, regardless of this inter- 
 ruption, "that men and women weren't justified in spoiling 
 each other's lives by clinging on when one was tired of the 
 other." 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 65 
 
 Every word was purposefully clear, and at the end she 
 paused invitingly. O'Rane sprang up with a ring of laughter 
 and held out his arms to receive her. 
 
 "Sweetheart!" 
 
 She made no movement until he had come a pace nearer, 
 then she stepped unrespondingly aside. O'Rane's hands met 
 on the marble of the mantelpiece. 
 
 "I missed you/' he said with a little breathless laugh. 
 
 I could not turn to see Grayle's face, but I was rigid with 
 horror that such a trick should be played on a blind man. 
 Gradually what she had done dawned on Mrs. O'Rane, and 
 she threw her arms convulsively round her husband's neck. 
 
 "God forgive me !" she whispered. "Oh, my darling, I'm 
 mad ! I don't know what I've been saying !" 
 
 I turned to Grayle and asked him for a cigarette. A 
 moment later I heard a car stopping at the door, and Beres- 
 ford was helped into the house after his drive. 
 
 From time to time throughout the meal (whenever, per- 
 haps, Mrs. O'Rane was trying to make amends), my mind 
 went back to the scene. The O'Ranes' outlook and tempera- 
 ment were so dissimilar that I could see no common ground 
 between them. The outsider never knows why any two 
 people marry and is content to believe in the existence of an 
 affinity hidden from his view. These two were both so full 
 of vitality, both so good-looking, and, above all, both so 
 young that I tried hard to resist a feeling of melancholy 
 and to persuade myself that I had been an inadvertent 
 eavesdropper at the oldest and most trumpery quarrel in 
 the world rather than the witness of an inevitable breach. 
 The long windows on either side of the room were warmly 
 curtained in flame-coloured silk ; the two fires glowed com- 
 fortingly on to their half-circles of chairs and sofas. Mrs. 
 O'Rane, who could make a story out of nothing, poured out 
 an endless stream of anecdotes against herself. When din- 
 ner was over and we left the dais for a distant view of 
 high-hung chandeliers reflected softly in the gleaming sur- 
 face of the long refectory table, I could not but be reminded 
 of the Grail scene in "Parsifal." 
 
66 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 The discordant note, the one persistently discordant note, 
 was struck by Beresford. Alien in mind from the rest of 
 us, he neither forgave nor forgot the contemptuous toe 
 which had once searched his body for signs of breakage; 
 and after dinner he withdrew to a far divan and spent the 
 evening conversing in whispers with Mrs. O'Rane, who sat 
 by him on a footstool, while he played with her long amber 
 necklace. The rest of us reverted to a wholly undergraduate 
 disputation, led by O'Rane on the theme of my own un- 
 expected fortune and developed by me into a disquisition 
 on education and the art of healing, though every question 
 and view was put forward in the hope of making my host 
 expound his own philosophy. 
 
 "You can't get efficiency without organisation," Grayle 
 insisted as we laid the lessons of the war to heart. "Noth- 
 ing can hold together without discipline. Look at Ger- 
 many." 
 
 For myself, I have always regarded German organisation 
 as the over-advertised co-ordination of the largest number 
 of second-rate intelligences, but the criticism was taken 
 from me by Beresford, who interrupted his own conversa- 
 tion to inform the room at large that it was one thing to 
 teach a man how to shoot and quite another to be sure 
 that he did not end up by shooting his own officers. Mrs. 
 O'Rane held up one finger and pursed her lips, only to let 
 them break a moment later into a smile. 
 
 "Efficiency is the gravest menace that the war holds over 
 us," said O'Rane reflectively. "Whenever I've met it, it 
 means being unkind with Government sanction to some 
 one weaker than yourself ; Jesus Christ would not have been 
 tolerated by the Charity Organisation Society, all the bour- 
 geois press would have said that He was pampering the 
 incompetent and maintaining the survival of the unfit. Effi- 
 ciency frightens me." 
 
 Whether he was speaking seriously or in paradox, he had 
 struck a note of idealism which jarred on Grayle, who 
 threw away his cigar half-smoked. 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 67 
 
 "If we don't learn our lesson out of this war, we don't 
 deserve to win it," he answered, reaching for his stick. 
 
 "But what is the lesson?" O'Rane asked, more of him- 
 self than of us. "Do you men find that you think best at 
 night?" he went on reflectively. "There's less distraction 
 . . . and I'm always thinking at night now. I would say 
 that every man who cOmes out of this war alive is a re- 
 prieved man and that we don't deserve to win it unless we 
 learn that the only crime in all the world is cruelty. . . . 
 If we can't affect others, we can at least affect ourselves. 
 It's no use waiting for an act of parliament to make you 
 humane ; if you're prepared to jump into the river to save a 
 child from drowning, you must be prepared to jump through 
 a window to save it from starving." He shook his head 
 and turned to me. "But how you're going to teach that, 
 sir, even with your million a year to endow schools. . . . 
 The Church has had Peter's keys for nearly two thousand 
 years, but how many of us would literally pick a man out 
 of the street, turn on the hot water for him, lend him a 
 razor and a rig-out, keep him in funds till his ship comes 
 home. . . ." As he paused, I looked beyond him to the sofa 
 where Beresford lay idly fingering Mrs. O'Rane's amber 
 beads. "Of course it's all figurative and the gorgeous 
 imagery of the East and that sort of thing, but I don't know 
 how any man could remain a professing Christian for two 
 minutes if he didn't believe that Christ would bathe the feet 
 of the first tramp on the road. That's far more important 
 to the human race than the Crucifixion. But then Christ 
 was always poor, and you can't begin to be charitable until 
 you've known what it means to be poor." His voice sank 
 and grew silent. "I'm boring you, Grayle!" he exclaimed 
 penitently, as a boot creaked on the polished floor. 
 
 "I must be getting home," was the answer, following hot- 
 foot on an ill-suppressed yawn. "Boring me, indeed ? En- 
 joyed it all immensely." He got up and walked towards 
 Mrs. O'Rane, to whom he bade an elaborate good-bye, while 
 I followed slowly behind, wondering how such a woman 
 
68 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 ever came to marry such a man. "I shan't see you this side 
 of Christmas, I suppose?" 
 
 She looked up a little negligently without releasing Beres- 
 ford's hand. 
 
 "But I thought I was dining with you on Friday ?" 
 
 "I understood you were going to Melton." 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane's expression became blank. 
 
 "I must think about this," she said. "Yes. I don't know 
 how long it'll take me to tidy up things here. . . . Oh, I 
 shall certainly be in London on Friday. David darling, you 
 understand that I can't possibly get away at a moment's 
 notice any more than you can." 
 
 Her husband nodded. 
 
 "Come whenever it suits you," he said, as he walked on 
 ahead to open the door for us. 
 
 Grayle lingered behind for a moment in the middle of the 
 room. 
 
 "You mustn't stay on my account," he said to Mrs. 
 O'Rane. "It won't be a party, you know." 
 
 There was a moment's silence; then she laughed pro- 
 vocatively and gave a mischievous, sideways glance at 
 Beresford, which only Grayle and I saw. 
 
 "Jealous?" I heard. 
 
 "Not a bit. I shouldn't like you to come, though, if you 
 were simply going to be bored." 
 
 "Oh, if you'd rather I didn't come, I won't." 
 
 I passed into the street and out of earshot. As I shook 
 hands with O'Rane, Grayle joined us, and we walked to- 
 wards the House on the look-out for a taxi. He was silent 
 at first and then started to discuss the evening communique 
 from the Front. I could not help wondering whether he, 
 too, in middle-aged company under the penetrating chill of 
 an autumn mist realised that it was beneath his dignity to 
 be flirting with O'Rane's young wife and doubly ridiculous 
 to be taking it seriously and devoting an evening's ill- 
 humour to the enterprise. 
 
 "Do you care about dining on Friday?" he asked me 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 69 
 
 suddenly. "Mrs. O'Rane will be there, and I'll rope in 
 some more people." 
 
 3 
 
 Ever since his return from South Africa, Grayle had 
 occupied a small old house in Miliord Square, with a bleak, 
 discouraged garden bounded at the far end by a private 
 garage. I always wondered how he confined himself in so 
 small a space, for his turbulent flaxen head seemed to scrape 
 every ceiling and it was impossible for anyone to pass him 
 on the stairs or in the doorway or corridor. When Guy 
 Bannerman was required at the last moment, as now, to fill 
 an unexpected gap, his loose-knit, centrifugal body seemed 
 to take up every cubic foot of space not already appro- 
 priated to Grayle's use. But as a rule Guy was not allowed 
 to leave the big work-room over the garage where he cov- 
 ered himself and his clothes in three different shades of ink 
 and industriously "got up" his master's subjects and wrote 
 his master's speeches, while Grayle himself devoted his 
 talents to cultivating personal relationships, or, as his 
 enemies would say, to intriguing, from a superstition that, 
 if he ever let slip a conspiracy, it might not return to him 
 again. 
 
 The party was small, the dinner perfectly cooked and 
 served. This, at least, I had learned to expect from Grayle. 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane was on one side of me, and I asked how 
 soon she was going to Melton, as I had shortly to attend 
 my first meeting of the governing body. To my surprise I 
 heard that she was not going at present. 
 
 "You see, there's my Belgian work," she explained, "and 
 Peter can't walk yet, and I can't very well leave Mr. Oak- 
 leigh to the care of the servants. Besides I've got an awful 
 lot of other things to do." She nodded across the table at 
 Lady Barbara Neave. "Mr. Lane's written a duologue, and 
 Babs and I are acting in it at the Regency. And I've got a 
 stall at the Albert Hall in November, and I'm sure to be 
 wanted for the Imperial Hospital Fund tableaux. They 
 can't get on without us, can they, Babs darling?" Lady 
 
70 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 Barbara jerked her fair head quickly and returned to her 
 conversation with young Lane. "David was quite right, 
 too ; I should be at a loose end at Melton." 
 
 Her reasons flowed easily, but they were not consistent 
 with her earlier attitude. 
 
 "I thought you'd fixed it up the other night," I said. 
 
 "No. We had another talk after you'd gone. It's only 
 three months, and, if he really wants me " She broke off, 
 leaving me to surmise that she was engaging in a trial of 
 strength with her husband. "This is quite a pre-war dinner, 
 isn't it? I love dining with Colonel Grayle; he's one of 
 the few people who hasA't got the war on the brain. I do 
 get so tired of war-talk, j^ar-economies, war-work. I wish 
 the thing would end, but Colonel Grayle says it will never 
 end while the present government's in power; and Peter 
 says there'll be a revolution when it does end, so it's a cheer- 
 ful look-out either way. Don't you think Peter's improved 
 since he fell in love with me?" She turned to look down 
 the table with the rapid movement of an animal, and the 
 lamps seemed to strike sparks of gold from her closely 
 coiled brown hair. "It takes people different ways ; Colonel 
 Grayle will hardly speak to me to-night, just because I 
 invited him to dinner and then forgot all about it." 
 
 "Mrs. O'Rane," I said, "may I tell you that you talk a 
 great deal of nonsense?" 
 
 She darted a glance at me and then opened her eyes ver y 
 wide, drawing down the corners of her mouth. 
 
 "Ah, you're hating me now! And I thought you were 
 surrendering to my well-known charm. I have got an in* 
 credible amount of charm, haven't I?" 
 
 "We were talking about Melton," I reminded her. 
 
 "George our friend George Oakleigh, I mean; he's 
 known me all my life ," she went on, imperturbably 
 munching salted almonds, "George says that, as part of his 
 education, every man ought to marry me for just one 
 month." 
 
 "Actually you've been married two and a half, haven't 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 71 
 
 you ?" I enquired. "Perhaps you haven't arrived at the full 
 inwardness of George's criticism." 
 
 She pouted like a child under reproof. 
 
 "I suppose you both mean something horrid." Her eyes 
 lit up mischievously. "I must tell George I've found an 
 ally for him. He's always rather loved me, but he says 
 quite definitely that he never wanted to marry me even for 
 a week. He's always telling me so; that's why we're such 
 friends. I'm afraid you'll never even rather love me ; and 
 I'm ready to take such a lot of trouble with you." 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane's voice is faultlessly clear ; I noticed a lull in 
 the conversation and discovered that she and I were per- 
 forming a duologue for the diveij^ion of our fellow-guests 
 and the exasperation of our host. 
 
 "Has George told you that you think about yourself too 
 much ?" I asked, as a self-conscious murmur rose once more 
 around us. 
 
 "Oh, if you want a list of my bad qualities, go to your 
 niece. I'm not such a success with serious people, and 
 Yolande talks about 'Ministers,' when she means 'the Gov- 
 ernment,' and '25 George II,' when she wants to quote some 
 musty old law ; and she considers herself a political hostess 
 because she once bribed the Committee of the Aborigines 
 Protection Society to meet the Governor of the Seychelles 
 at dinner. Yolande would start a salon on one poet and 
 two private secretaries! Oh, I know she's your niece, but 
 you can't help that." She paused to draw breath. "George 
 only thinks that I'm second-rate." 
 
 "I think that you're deliberately second-rate," I said. 
 "Which is a pity. If you'd ever got to grips with life, if 
 you'd suffered or been in love " 
 
 "D'you mean that I'm not in love with David ?" 
 
 "You're still trying on emotions in a room full of mirrors. 
 By the way, we went through all this candour and self- 
 absorption in the 'nineties, and I think people did it better 
 then. If you'll take advice from a comparative stranger, 
 twice your age, drop all this patter about this man and that 
 being in love with you." 
 
72 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane became suddenly majestic. 
 
 "You mean I'm behaving disloyally to David?" she de- 
 manded. 
 
 Her majesty was as superficial and unconvincing as 
 everything else about her. 
 
 "My dear young lady, if you must try these airs and 
 graces, don't try them on me," I begged, watching curiously 
 to see whether there was any criticism she would resent so 
 long as it was focussed on her. 
 
 She turned slowly away with everything of affronted 
 dignity except its essence, exactly as I had expected her to 
 do. A moment later she turned to me again, but by that 
 time Lady Maitland, whose vigorous head and neck always 
 makes me think of a lioness that has been rolling in French 
 chalk, had first asked me to find a place in my office for 
 her third boy, who was leaving school at Christmas and 
 seemed too delicate for the army, though he was excep- 
 tionally quick at figures just the man that the Treasury 
 wanted and then enquired what I knew of the young 
 Beresford who was staying at "The Sanctuary." She would 
 like me to bring him to see her as soon as he was able to 
 get out. He was a poet, she understood ; very wrong-headed 
 about the war, but a good talker and interesting to meet. . . . 
 She had a small party on Thursday ; that man Christie, who 
 had been removed forcibly from the House for calling the 
 Speaker a liar and refusing to withdraw, a ritualistic clergy- 
 man who was in conflict with the Court of Arches, an 
 obscure traveller who had proceeded on foot from Loanda 
 to Port Sudan, the managing director of the Broadway 
 music-hall and a novelist whose name she had forgotten. 
 
 (I may here say that I went and was given the oppor- 
 tunity of stroking all the lions' necks twelve hours before 
 the proletariat caught sight of them and of trying to explain 
 Lady Maitland to several little knots of bewildered Scandi- 
 navian and Dutch delegates and some self-conscious and 
 incorruptible Labour Members who had either resigned 
 from the Ministry or hoped to get into it. What Lady 
 Maitland thought of the lions, they and we knew at once; 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 73 
 
 what the lions thought of Lady Maitland they had hardly 
 time to formulate before being hurried away to tea at Ross 
 House, dinner with old Lady Pentyre and supper at Mrs. 
 Carmichaers. I have found it easier never to refuse any- 
 thing to Lady Maitland, but I hesitate to reckon how many 
 times in a political crisis I have been persuaded to lead 
 political aspirants to school. When O'Shaunessy was re- 
 turned as a Sinn Feiner and refused to take his seat, I, who 
 had met him in America five and twenty years before, was 
 deputed to bring him to luncheon and Federal Home Rule 
 with the Carmichaels, dinner and a united-Ireland-in-the- 
 face-of-the-enemy with the Duchess of Ross. There was to 
 have been a patient search for compromise at Lady Pen- 
 tyre's next day, but O'Shaunessy shook his head at me over 
 the brim of his tumbler and confided that these people gave 
 you too much talk and too little to drink.) 
 
 "You'd better get Mrs. O'Rane to bring Beresford," I 
 said. "I hardly know him." 
 
 "Someone must get hold of him before it's too late," 
 Lady Maitland continued gravely, and I could see that he 
 was going to be adopted, whether he liked it or not. "I hear 
 he's got great ability, and it's all misdirected." 
 
 "I'd never heard of him before," I confessed. "But then 
 I don't read modern poetry." 
 
 "I heard of him from our host this is between our- 
 selves, of course ; there was some question of prosecuting 
 him again for one of his pamphlets." She raised her voice 
 to demand confirmation of Grayle, but he would only shake 
 his head rather irritably at her want of discretion and say 
 that it was not in the province of his department. "I must 
 talk to dear Sonia about him," she went on, "and we'll 
 arrange a little meeting." 
 
 Not only have I led promising statesmen by the hand, 
 I have myself of late been alternately schooled and courted 
 in a way that was hardly known to me before the war. It is 
 partly due, I suppose, to the suspended animation of the 
 Caucus, partly to the increased number of groups and their 
 social backers. As Lady Maitland convoyed the other 
 
74 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 women to the drawing-room, Grayle threw his sound leg 
 across the shattered knee and told me he was not at all satis- 
 fied about our reinforcements. At that, after but five weeks 
 in England, I knew what was coming. Guy Bannerman, 
 with the deep, baying voice of a hound, supplied the dwind- 
 ling figures of the daily returns, I criticised the waste of re- 
 sources in men and ships on secondary fields of war, Grayle 
 opined that the country would never appreciate that it was 
 at war until every man was mobilised in the field, the ship- 
 yard or the shop, and Maitland took the safe but irritating 
 and unhelpful line that Kitchener knew what he was about 
 and that we must leave it to him. 
 
 I preferred to move away and talk to young Lane about 
 his new play, but Grayle quickly recalled me with an ex- 
 hortation to join him and his friends in their effort to 
 galvanise the Government to action. It was the first of a 
 long series of appeals which terminated a year later with 
 the unblushing bribe of an office which I had as little fitness 
 or right to receive as Grayle to offer. I was content to take 
 refuge in Maitland's advice to leave it to the Government 
 (alternatively to "trust the P. M."; a surprising political 
 retrogression for a man of his antecedents), only adding 
 that one Government should not have to shoulder single 
 responsibility for the joint blunders of all the Allies. 
 
 "It's something to cut your losses," said Grayle shortly 
 and with an air of disappointment, "to drop a mistaken 
 policy when it's proved to be mistaken. That's what I want 
 to see done; and that's what this gang of yours won't do. 
 You watch out; France and Russia will make a separate 
 peace, if we don't pull our weight. Let's come up-stairs." 
 
 On entering the drawing-room, Guy Bannerman strolled 
 to the fire and entered into conversation with Lady Barbara 
 Neave. Left with a choice of Lady Maitland and Mrs. 
 O'Rane, Grayle pulled up a chair beside Lady Maitland, 
 while Mrs. O'Rane looked at him like a chess-player con- 
 sidering his opponent's last move and then smilingly made 
 room for me on the sofa by her side. 
 
 "I thought you were never coming up," she said. "I'm 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 75 
 
 going in a minute, but Lady Maitland tells me she wants 
 to meet Peter, and I waited to find out if you'd come, too. 
 Any day next week." 
 
 "I shall be delighted," I said. "Friday's my only free 
 night." 
 
 "Good. It will be just the four of us. Dear Sir Maurice 
 is such a bore, poor darling ; I really can't invite him. Now 
 I must go. Shall we say somewhere about eight ?" 
 
 As she got up, I looked at my watch and found that, for 
 all the excellence of the dinner and the time that we were 
 charged with spending over our wine, it was not yet ten. 
 The Maitlands gave no hint of leaving, nor did Mrs. O'Rane 
 vouchsafe a reason for her early departure. I saw her 
 shaking hands with Grayle and heard him icily asking her 
 to wait while he telephoned for a cab. With equal polite 
 iciness of tone she assured him that she would find one in 
 the Brompton Road. I saw her smiling mischievously to 
 herself, as she walked out of the room; Grayle's smile, on 
 his return, was mysterious, and I surmised that another trial 
 of strength was in progress. 
 
 As we stood on the door-step an hour later, I asked him 
 if we were meeting at "The Sanctuary" the following week. 
 
 "She said something about it," he answered, "but I shan't 
 go." 
 
 "You're too old for this sort of nonsense, Grayle," I told 
 him. 
 
 "What sort of nonsense ?" 
 
 But before I could answer, a taxi crawled invitingly past 
 the door. 
 
 I have never been able to cope collectedly with a verbal 
 invitation and I am now too old to acquire the art. Other- 
 wise I should have found an excuse for leaving my intimacy 
 with Mrs. O'Rane where it was. I had dined the first time 
 at "The Sanctuary" for the sake of her husband ; he inter- 
 ested me, baffled me, refused to let me get to grips with him, 
 and I did not intend to be beaten. His wife, I felt, for all 
 
76 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 her surface fascination and vitality, was rather a waste of 
 time. And her retinue of fashionable actresses, elderly men 
 about town and Guards subalterns was intellectually too 
 exotic for me. I determined that my second dinner with 
 her should be my last. 
 
 The door was unlocked, when I arrived, and Beresford 
 was in undisputed possession of the long, warm library, 
 though several large boxes of chocolates, an earthenware 
 jar of expensive cigarettes, a parcel of books half out of 
 their paper and string and a profusion of hot-house flowers 
 dispelled any rash assumption that Mrs. O'Rane was being 
 neglected by her admirers. And, whilst I waited for her, 
 Beresford told me that the original party of four had multi- 
 plied itself by three. After a pause, in which he tried not 
 to seem self-conscious, he asked whether I knew the 
 O'Ranes well and rather wistfully volunteered his opinion 
 that there was no real sympathy between them and that she 
 was unhappy and unappreciated. 
 
 "I sometimes wonder why she married him," he mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "Presumably because they were in love with each other," 
 I said. 
 
 He shook his head with judicial gravity and an air of pro- 
 founder knowledge than a middle-aged, unsympathetic 
 man like me could hope to attain. 
 
 "I don't think they're happy. I should like to see her 
 happier, she's made such a difference in my life. Women 
 mean something more to me, somehow, since I met her 
 . . ." he confided, with a boy's curious passion to discuss 
 his emotional state with anyone who will listen. 
 
 "She hasn't yet learned the difference between happiness 
 and pleasure," I told him. 
 
 The new tempestuous disorder which the room presented 
 in O'Rane's absence paper and string and half-opened par- 
 cels abandoned when a more pressing call made itself heard 
 struck me as being typical of the woman. And she was 
 late for dinner, which I consider impolite in a hostess. 
 
 Beresford must have seen a hint of disapproval in my 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 77 
 
 face. "Has it occurred to you that all this racket is 
 deliberate, that she wants to live in the present . . .?" 
 
 He relapsed into silence and sat supporting his lean, long 
 face with one hand. I felt Mrs. O'Rane had civilised 
 him to some purpose and that, unless he lapsed from civil- 
 isation within the next quarter of an hour, Lady Maitland 
 would find that her rebel-hunt had been in vain. I also 
 felt that the sooner Mrs. O'Rane rejoined her husband, 
 ceased dining with Grayle, going to the theatre with young 
 Guardsmen and giving Beresford the idea that she was 
 lonely, the better for all and especially for her. 
 
 Deganway and Pentyre, who evidently knew Mrs. 
 O'Rane's ways better than I did, arrived ten minutes later. 
 We were still awaiting our hostess, when Lady Maitland 
 sailed in and, dispensing with introductions, opened fire at a 
 distance of twenty paces. 
 
 "Darling Sonia not dressed yet? But, then, no one's ever 
 known her in time for anything. How do you do, Mr. 
 Stornaway? I suppose this is Mr. Beresford? Now, Mr. 
 Beresford, I want to have a long talk with you; I hear 
 you're a very original young man and I want to know why 
 you're a pro-German." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Beresford roused himself to demon- 
 strate the difference between sympathy with German atroci- 
 ties and antagonism to war and the system of government 
 which made it possible. I, who have heard him for a 
 moment haranguing street loafers and have myself engaged 
 in ding-dong argument with him, little thought to see him 
 so completely routed by the sonorous enquiries of Lady 
 Maitland, who put a question, announced parenthetically 
 that she was a woman with no nonsense about her and 
 flung out a second question before he could answer the first. 
 Deganway stood polishing his eyeglass and murmuring 
 sagaciously "Yes! Yes! That's what our good pacifists 
 never condescend to explain." Pentyre lit a cigarette and 
 confessed to hunger. Two more young officers, whose 
 names I never heard and whom I have never met again, 
 drifted in with a "Sonia not down yet?" and also lit ciga- 
 
78 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 rettes. I was glad when Mrs. O'Rane arrived to end 
 Beresford's agony. 
 
 Without a word of apology for her lateness, she fluttered 
 like a butterfly into our midst, brushed Lady Maitland's 
 cheek with her lips and pirouetted slowly on her toes like a 
 ballet-dancer. 
 
 "How d'you like my new dress, children ?" she enquired. 
 "Say you do or you don't, but please don't try to find rea- 
 sons, or you're sure to go wrong. Peter's the only one here 
 who knows anything about colour, Lady Maitland, and 
 everything I wear has to meet with his approval." 
 
 She stopped her pirouetting in front of his sofa and 
 stood, panting slightly and with shining eyes, holding her 
 skirt out on either side and courtesying low. Beresford 
 appraised it slowly, his head on one side, fingering the stuff 
 and taking in every detail from the gold and silver band 
 round her hair to the silk stockings and gilt slippers. An 
 embarrassed maid awaited her opportunity of announcing 
 dinner, Mrs. O'Rane threw her head back and smiled at me 
 over her shoulder, with parted lips. 
 
 "Someone appreciates me," she laughed. For the first 
 time I realised what her young and not very sinful vanity 
 must miss by never being able to hear a word of pride or 
 praise from her husband. Sonia O'Rane always reminded 
 me of a child who cannot build a castle in the sand without 
 dragging someone by the wrist to come and admire it. "I 
 don't think you did that night at Colonel Grayle's," she said 
 to me. "In fact it was very forgiving of me to ask you. 
 I've never been so found fault with by anyone except David, 
 and he's given it up since we married. I sometimes wonder 
 whether it is because he thinks I'm perfect or only not 
 worth bothering about now he's got me." 
 
 "I only recall saying that you talked a great deal of non- 
 sense," I put in. "I stand by that." 
 
 "Well, that's a nice thing to say when I'd refused three 
 invitations from people who were just dying to hear me talk. 
 However, I suppose I'm a cultivated taste." 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 79 
 
 "And you only invited me in the hope of making me 
 retract," I added. 
 
 "Let's have some dinner," she suggested, avoiding my 
 challenge. 
 
 She spread out two gleaming white arms with the move- 
 ment of a bird taking wing and waltzed to the table, calling 
 to us over her shoulder to sort ourselves anyhow ; the order 
 did not matter as there were ten men and two women. As 
 the others stood back for me to make my choice, I put 
 myself on her left with Lady Maitland on the other side. 
 
 "When do you go to Melton ?" I asked conscientiously, as 
 we settled to our places. 
 
 She pointed a ringer at Beresford. 
 
 "I can't leave my ewe lamb yet," she answered. "D'you 
 know, last night I was up with him until nearly three, con- 
 sidering which I think I'm looking remarkably fresh to- 
 night. . . . Besides, David hasn't asked me to come. . . ." 
 
 Her clear and slightly over-emphatic voice travelled dis- 
 concertingly as far as Lady Maitland, who enquired with 
 some surprise, "Does Mr. Beresford live here?" She was 
 answered with a mischievous nod. "My dear, you know I 
 always say right out whatever's in my mind; well, I don't 
 think you ought to be doing that. With that blessed creature 
 of a husband here " 
 
 "But he brought Peter here and kept him here and finally 
 left him here whether I liked it or not, Peter dear. Be- 
 sides, darling Lady Maitland, I have Mr. Oakleigh to 
 chaperon us, and George drops in every few hours to see 
 that I'm not disgracing his precious David. . . . George 
 once said that I atoned for the number of my flirtations by 
 the excellence of my technique," she went on irrelevantly. 
 "I think he'd just fallen out of love with me and pretended 
 that he never had been in love with me and never would be. 
 You think I'm not good enough for David, don't you?" she 
 demanded of me. "I think he got the wife he deserved, 
 and he'll tell you that's the finest compliment anyone can 
 pay him." 
 
80 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "I'll ask him, if I remember. I'm going to Melton next 
 week. Have you any message for him?" 
 
 She deliberated with one finger pressed to her lips. 
 
 "Tell him exactly what you think of me," she suggested 
 with dancing eyes. "It'll amuse him much more than a 
 message." 
 
 "Are you going down to him this term ?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "I'm too busy, and he doesn't want me, or he'd have sent 
 for me long ago. Not that I should have gone, of course. 
 . . ." She glanced quickly round to satisfy herself that 
 the others were absorbed in their own conversations; then 
 lowered her voice and laid her hand on my sleeve. "Mr. 
 Stornaway, you do agree with me that it's absolute rot for 
 him to be there, don't you? Old Mr. Oakleigh's offered 
 him any money he wants again and again ; I've got five 
 hundred a year from father ; he could wipe out what he calls 
 his debts and live here with the utmost ease. And he ought 
 to be in London, he ought to be in the House ; there are all 
 sorts of jobs that he could get in the City. ... If you want 
 a message, tell him that he must choose Melton or me," she 
 went on with a pout and a rising voice. "If he hasn't 
 chucked Melton by Christmas, I shall chuck him. Tell him 
 that I shall elope to Sloane Square I don't believe any- 
 one's ever eloped to Sloane Square, but it's the handiest 
 place in the world; even the Hounslow and Barking non- 
 stop trains stop there, so sweet of them, I always think 
 I shall go there with Peter and live in his flat and star in 
 revue where I shall be an amazing draw, you know; and 
 Colonel Grayle would scowl at me from the stage box, and, 
 darling Lady Maitland, you'd boom me and invite fashion- 
 able clergymen to meet me at lunch, and George would 
 have his car at the stage door to take me home I don't 
 know that I shall wait till Christmas." 
 
 She paused for lack of breath and looked delightedly 
 round the table. My expression, I imagine, was bored, Lady 
 Maitland's perplexed; only poor Beresford's was un- 
 affectedly pained. 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 81 
 
 "Mr. Stornaway's quite right," Lady Maitland said, when 
 she had collected herself. "You talk a great deal of non- 
 sense." 
 
 "I mean it, though." 
 
 "Rubbish, my dear." 
 
 Yet I believe that both she and I felt a current of dis- 
 content running underneath the froth of nonsense. Per- 
 haps we shewed it, perhaps Lady Maitland reconsidered her 
 judgement, for, when Deganway sat down to play rag-time 
 after dinner and Mrs. O'Rane kicked the rugs aside and 
 began dancing with Pentyre, she observed at impressive in- 
 tervals 
 
 "Darling Sonia is always in such spirits". . . "I don't 
 think it's quite the thing for a young man like that quite 
 good-looking, you know to be living here; Mr. O'Rane 
 will have a great deal to answer for, if there's any unpleas- 
 antness, and you can give him that message from me!' . . . 
 "Tell him a husband's place is beside his wife. . . . But he 
 must make her a home where she can live. I forget whether 
 you were here that night yes, you were ! Well, Lady Dain- 
 ton's quite right. . . . Just like the casual-ward of a work- 
 house. . . ." "Of course, her mother brought her up 
 atrociously". . . "I really hope that she's going to have a 
 family ; it would just make the difference." 
 
 A week later I motored to Melton for the Governors' 
 meeting. Town and school alike had become almost un- 
 recognisable since my last visit three or four years earlier. 
 Leagues of huts, miles of tents, acres of pickets stretched 
 from the outskirts of Melton to the fringe of Swanley 
 Forest ; the drowsy cathedral town was alive with thunder- 
 ing lorries, and the billeting officer's handiwork was visible 
 at eight windows out of ten. My car crawled apprehensively 
 through the crowded streets and up the hill to a school 
 which was half as it had been founded three hundred years 
 before, half as it had been converted into a military academy 
 during the last fifteen months. Great Court echoed with 
 the clatter and scrape of hob-nailed boots, as the corps fell 
 in and marched off to parade on the practice-ground; one 
 
82 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 group of signallers on the steps of the headmaster's house 
 waved frantically to another group by the entrance to Great 
 School, and, as I wandered into the Cloisters to kill time 
 before the hour of our meeting, the Green was filled with 
 pigmy recruits, learning their squad-drill from a husky but 
 intensely business-like young sergeant. Only a handful 
 of obvious weaklings wore the old conventional straw hat, 
 grey trousers and dark jacket, and the open door of the 
 Common Room at Big Gate shewed not more than two- 
 thirds of the staff in cap and gown. 
 
 "War takes on a new horror and hopelessness, when you 
 know that the schools of France and Germany present the 
 same sight," I said to Dr. Burgess. 
 
 Our meeting was over, and he was conducting me round 
 the unaging school buildings which I was thenceforth to 
 hold in joint trust. The company drill on the practice- 
 ground was giving way to a final parade, and we watched 
 four hundred young soldiers from twelve to eighteen march 
 erect and with set faces to the Armoury and from the 
 Armoury to Great School for a lantern lecture on the 
 Dardanelles expedition. A couple of dozen non-commis- 
 sioned officers had fallen out and were awaiting a course 
 in map-reading with their commanding officer. 
 
 'Thank Heaven ! it will all be over before most of these 
 boys are old enough to go out and stop bullets," I added. 
 
 Dr. Burgess stroked his long beard and shook a mourn- 
 ful head. "Some were yet in our midst when the appointed 
 season came," he said, pointing to an already long Roll 
 thumb-tacked to a wire-covered notice-board. ''And they 
 
 that have returned " He sighed deeply. "David O'Rane 
 
 enjoins me to say that he is within." 
 
 We shook hands at the door of a bachelor set of chambers 
 in the Cloisters, and Dr. Burgess strode back to his house, 
 murmuring mournfully into his beard. I knocked and en- 
 tered to find O'Rane seated as I might have expected to 
 find a man with his physical dislike for chairs in the mid- 
 dle of the floor with the big, patient head of his Saint 
 Bernard on his knees. Miss Merryon was writing at a 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 83 
 
 table in the window, and a low wicker-work couch by the 
 fire was timidly occupied by a flushed and disputatious male- 
 factor. She welcomed me by name to give the cue before 
 making an excuse to withdraw. I apologised to O'Rane for 
 disturbing him, but he dismissed the boy and turned with 
 a smile and sigh of relief. 
 
 "We'd both had enough of it," he confessed. "That young 
 man thought fit to play a practical joke on Miss Merryon, 
 so I've been taking his moral education in hand, appealing 
 to his self-interest." 
 
 He felt for a box of cigarettes and threw them to me. 
 
 "Well?" I said. 
 
 "I remember getting held up at Bale some years ago," he 
 explained. "I was on my way home from Italy and I 
 missed the eleven o'clock connection to Paris. There were 
 crowds of us there some on our way back from Italy, like 
 me, some from the winter sports in Switzerland all ages 
 and races, on every kind of business or pleasure. The next 
 train to Paris left the following day, and we had to recon- 
 cile ourselves to an uncomfortable night. Well, I've tried 
 so many varieties of discomfort that I'm hardened and 
 philosophical ; I imagine most people would call these quar- 
 ters uncomfortable, but they're nothing like what they were 
 before Sonia took them in hand last summer." 
 
 He waved proudly at a pair of massive, discoloured vel- 
 vet curtains, a bamboo overmantel and occasional table, 
 wicker chairs half-buried in punt cushions and a thread- 
 bare carpet tattooed by generations of burning matches. I 
 put up with the same sort of thing at Trinity, but I was 
 then nineteen and I had no wife to accommodate. Mrs. 
 O'Rane, I imagine, was not schooled to discomfort. 
 
 "I got a good deal of amusement and interest out of 
 watching the others," he went on. "The French were the 
 worst voluble, excited, indignant, grabbing the best places 
 and all the food they could lay hands on in the buffet the 
 way they always behave when they're travelling; the next 
 worse were the Germans they were ruder and more in- 
 considerate than the French, but not nearly so efficient. The 
 
84 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 Americans all set themselves to westernise Europe and 
 started getting off protests by cable to Paris, ordering 
 special trains and booking three times the accommodation 
 available at any hotel. The English were bored, aloof, tak- 
 ing themselves and their troubles very seriously and refusing 
 to share them with anyone. Well, when the last bedroom 
 had been snapped up, there were still enough of us be- 
 nighted to overcrowd the waiting-rooms and buffet, we were 
 all suffering from a sense of grievance, and there wasn't 
 enough food to go round. I got wedged into a corner with 
 a plate of meat and looked on. One of the Englishmen com- 
 mented loudly on the noise that a German made in eating 
 soup. The comment was understood, so the German laid 
 himself out to shew the sort of noise he could make when 
 he tried. The Englishman wrapped himself in a ferocious 
 dignity, finished his meal and lit a cigar, sending a cloud 
 of smoke in the face of one of the Italians. My attention 
 was then attracted by a brawl in the middle of the buffet ; 
 someone had imprudently left his seat to forage for food, 
 and someone else had promptly bagged it. As they bickered 
 and gesticulated and finally pushed each other about and 
 the onlookers took sides and joined in, I said to myself, 
 'Lord God! this buffet is just like the world, and these 
 fools are behaving just as we all behave, and we should all 
 despise and laugh at ourselves as much as I'm laughing now, 
 if we had any detachment, self-criticism, humour, logic or 
 God's common sense/ " 
 
 O'Rane's black eyes lit up at the memory of the scene. 
 
 "I was telling that story to our young friend," he con- 
 tinued with his baffling smile. "Chivalry? Nothing doing. 
 Moral sanctions and first causes ? Nothing doing. He didn't 
 believe in God, he wasn't going to Hell, if he misbehaved 
 himself, so why in the name of reason should he bother? 
 . . . But I should think I fixed him over my Bale 
 story. . . . We had a hideous night (it was too cold to 
 go and sulk outside which made the symbolism more per- 
 fect; you can't sulk outside this world, unless you're pre- 
 pared to cut your throat) ; and we might have made it quite 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 85 
 
 tolerable, if only we'd had a little imagination and kindli- 
 ness, if we'd struck an international bargain and sur- 
 rendered the privilege of eating soup noisily in return for 
 immunity from cigar smoke in the eyes, if the chairs had 
 only been given to the women and old men, if someone had 
 only lent a hand to a poor boy who was coughing himself 
 sick with asthma. . . ." He whistled reflectively between 
 his teeth for a moment. "Life's like a club, sir ; there are 
 rules and conventions and an endless mass of tradition 
 the things we don't do; but the rules were made so long 
 ago, the conventions only aim at an irreducible minimum. 
 Even so, it's better than treating the world like a company 
 trading for profit, but we must modernise the rules. As 
 you know, I always want to delete 'efficiency' from the 
 English language; efficiency in the Bale buffet would have 
 meant that an organised party of four, back to back, could 
 have downed the rest, grabbed all the food and cleared the 
 till. 
 
 "Keep your temper. Never answer (that was why they spat and 
 
 swore). 
 
 "Don't hit first, but move together (there's no hurry) to the door. 
 "Back to back, and facing outward while the linguist tells 'em how 
 " 'Nous sommes allong a notre batteau, nous ne voulong pas un 
 
 row.' 
 
 "So the hard, pent rage ate inward, till some idiot went too far . . . 
 " 'Let 'em have it !' and they had it, and the same was serious war, 
 "Fist, umbrella, cane, decanter, lamp and beer-mug, chair and boot 
 "Till behind the fleeing legions rose the long, hoarse yell for loot." 
 
 O'Rane's luminous black eyes were gleaming with mis- 
 chief. Remembering my first sight of him, when he fought 
 for his life in a Vienna cafe, I wondered whether any wife, 
 reinforced by any mother, could curb his restless yearning 
 after action, were it blacking the eye of an oppressor or 
 slinging a disabled man on to his shoulders .... For all his 
 cosmopolitan spirit I could not fit him into the Byzantine 
 world in which Lady Dainton had brought up her daughter 
 nor into the Merveilleuse society into which her daughter 
 had gravitated. 
 
 "It's it's really only a very big club," he murmured. 
 
86 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "Full of most undesirable members/' I suggested. ,The 
 Bale story, I felt, would be wasted on Vincent Grayle. 
 
 "They're not acclimatised yet. Now, you'd open the door 
 for the most undesirable member of the Eclectics, if he 
 had a game leg, yet you laugh at me if I pick up an in- 
 jured man in the street and carry him home for treatment. 
 God's name ! Where's the difference ? You're not ac- 
 climatised yet, you see. It's to your interest, too. . . . How 
 is Beresford, by the way? Sonia's the most undutiful wife 
 in the way of writing ; I suppose it's natural enough, really ; 
 she doesn't like having her letters to me read by anyone 
 else." 
 
 I never forgave the old men who advised and hampered 
 me, pinning me to a career for which I was unsuited and 
 quarrelling with me when I broke away from it. In my 
 turn I have tried to refrain from advising and hampering 
 the younger generation only to find that the younger gen- 
 eration sometimes makes an astonishing fool of itself and 
 that it is harder and harder to sit silent and unintervening 
 when someone whom I like is on the verge of falling down- 
 stairs in the dark or of having his pocket picked. Com- 
 menting on the fact that he was at Melton, while his wife 
 was in London, I warned O'Rane that, with their double 
 portion of wilfulness and energy, he was taking unneces- 
 sary risks with his married life. 
 
 "I've not got much to go on," I admitted, "but that sup- 
 per-party you brought me to. . . ." 
 
 "That was exceptional," he objected. "And they were 
 Sonia's friends. You were the only one I invited." 
 
 I reminded him of Beresford, Miss Merryon and per- 
 haps three more obvious recipients of his charity. He col- 
 oured slightly and told me that it was an article of faith 
 with him not to refuse help to anyone who asked. Then I 
 could see that he was not being honest with himself, for he 
 shifted his ground, concentrated on Beresford and asserted 
 that his wife liked him to be in the house. 
 
 "But do you think he ought to be there?" I asked, fol- 
 lowing him on to the ground which he had chosen. "They're 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 87 
 
 both young, attractive; your wife's a very fascinating and 
 beautiful woman. She can take care of herself, of course. 
 ... It was in fact commented on at dinner the other 
 night." 
 
 O'Rane wrinkled his nose in dissatisfaction. 
 
 "He's company for Sonia," he said weakly. 
 
 "You'd be company for her, if she came here or you went 
 to live in London. Much better company, too," I added. 
 
 My tone may have betrayed more than I intended to con- 
 vey, for O'Rane laughed. 
 
 "You don't like her friends ? / don't care a great lot for 
 some of them, but you must remember that she gave up a 
 good deal to marry me a very full life and I can't give 
 her much. What I can give her is the freest possible hand. 
 That's why I haven't pressed her to come down here, though, 
 God knows, it's lonely enough without her. By Easter, if 
 not Christmas " 
 
 "Won't you have given this up by Christmas ?" I asked. 
 
 His face grew tired and perplexed, and he ran his fingers 
 impatiently through his hair. 
 
 "I don't know. I owe the devil of a lot of money; and 
 I should be damned body and soul, if I lived on charity 
 when I could earn my own livelihood. We'll discuss it at 
 Christmas. In the meantime, can you stay and dine with me 
 in Common Room?" 
 
 His invitation was a reminder that I had already stayed 
 perilously long, if I was to get back to London in time for 
 a dinner engagement. 
 
 "See me to my car," I said, as I put on my coat. "Look 
 here, don't think I'm a mere busybody. You and your wife 
 are such a pair of children that you mustn't mind a man 
 twice your age telling you, if he thinks you're behaving fool- 
 ishly. I strongly advise you to throw this over at Christ- 
 mas. Now not another word." 
 
 O'Rane walked in silence through the Cloisters with one 
 hand on the Saint Bernard's collar. As we came into Great 
 Court, he stopped abruptly. 
 
 "Look here, sir; understand one thing," he began. "If 
 
88 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 you think I mind or that I'm not grateful to you for speak- 
 ing like this, I shall never forgive you. But you say Sonia's 
 to be trusted to take care of herself. That's enough. If 
 
 she wasn't " He shrugged his shoulders "she wouldn't 
 
 be worth keeping. If she fell in love with who shall we 
 say? Beresford and ran away with him, in God's name 
 d'you think I should want to stop her? I admit I've only 
 been married three months, but to me love's a thing of per- 
 fect, implicit trust. This is between ourselves, but last week 
 George Oakleigh came down for Founder's Day and 
 dropped a hint that Sonia was lunching and dining out too 
 much with well, I suppose there's no harm in saying it 
 Grayle. As with you, someone had commented on it at 
 dinner. I'm afraid I couldn't pump up the slightest indig- 
 nation. Grayle's rather in love with her. So's Beresford. 
 So's that squeaky tame-cat, Deganway, of the Foreign 
 Office. So's one of my boys here George's cousin Laurie, 
 who firmly believes that he brought me up to the scratch 
 and made me propose rather against my will. So's young 
 Pentyre, so's half the Brigade. If I wanted to be jealous, 
 sir, I'm afraid I shouldn't have time. As it is, I'm so proud 
 of Sonia that I glory in seeing other people proud of her, 
 loving her. ... As for stray comments at dinner I don't 
 say it's right and I don't say it's wrong, but she belongs to 
 a very modern school which goes its own way without re- 
 garding stray comments at dinner. But so long as we agree 
 that she's to be trusted ?" 
 
 We had reached Big Gate, and he held out his hand to 
 me with the mischievous smile which I was beginning to 
 know so well and which always rilled me with a sense of 
 helplessness. As I looked at him with the October wind 
 blowing through his black hair, I reflected that he must 
 think me very old-fashioned to be surprised when a three- 
 month-old wife boasted of the men who were in love with 
 her and her husband derived a reflected happiness from her 
 successes. 
 
 Driving back to London I felt that I was escaping mile by 
 mile from a bewildering world of serious make-believe. 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 89 
 
 My engagement that night was to dine with Harry Mere- 
 field and to discuss something which, he said, he could ex- 
 plain better by word of mouth than in a letter. I was 
 intrigued by the invitation, because Merefield at this time 
 was of considerable account in the Foreign Office. We 
 dined at his Club, and, as the only other person present was 
 Barton, who had thrown up his work at Cambridge twelve 
 months before and was now my official chief in the Treas- 
 ury, I divined that they contemplated a deal in my person. 
 The preliminaries were already settled, and, as we drank 
 our sherry, Merefield confided that the Foreign Office 
 wanted me to go out to America ostensibly to raise money 
 for the War Charities Fund, in reality to carry on a cam- 
 paign of propaganda ; my knowledge of country and people 
 would be invaluable and our relations had reached a point 
 where we could no longer afford to do nothing. Would I 
 think over the proposal ? 
 
 "If this Press agitation goes on . . ."he began grimly 
 and lapsed into eloquent silence. 
 
 I must confess that I have never been able to under- 
 stand what function Ministers proposed that the Press 
 should fulfil ; they set up a Bureau to control the supply of 
 news and occasionally to restrain editorial comment, but 
 their interest seemed to die when once the War Office had 
 secured that direct military information was not to be dis- 
 closed and that discussions and attacks should not take 
 place round the head of this or that commander. Valiantly 
 they feared nothing, despondently they hoped for nothing 
 from a somewhat despised organisation which, despite their 
 contempt, believed in its own power and was capable daily 
 of placing the same view before every man and woman in 
 the country until a vague but obstinate conviction arose 
 that "there must be something in it." The Press with a 
 little diplomatic flattery, might have become the handmaid 
 of the Government; with promptitude and vigour it could 
 have been emasculated to the semblance of an official bul- 
 
90 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 letin. Instead, Ministers treated it like an intrusive wasp, 
 slapping at it with ineffectual petulance, ducking their heads 
 and running away when it was angered, until Sir John 
 Woburn and half a dozen of his fellows were left to sug- 
 gest, condemn, support and attack, to push favourite min- 
 isters and policies, to be inspired by those same ministers 
 and to indulge in superficial criticism and the promulgation 
 of half-truths which were harder to overtake and refute 
 than a substantial, well-defined lie. Though never a Minis- 
 ter, I am afraid that I must accept my share of responsi- 
 bility, for, when the House of Commons abrogated its 
 duty of criticism, reform or remedy became possible only 
 by a Press campaign. 
 
 "I don't give Woburn credit for excessive modesty," said 
 Merefield, "but it never occurs to him that his vile rags 
 can have any effect abroad. Yet, if you say a thing often 
 enough, it gets repeated. The French and the Russians are 
 now beginning to ask what England's doing, what the 
 Navy's thinking about, and why we don't do more. . . . 
 Wolff's Bureau itself couldn't have a greater success than 
 Woburn in making the French believe that we're sacri- 
 ficing them to preserve our own trade. We've given America 
 about as much ragging as she'll stand, and I want you to 
 sweeten things. You do know the country." 
 
 I know enough of America to feel that she has always 
 suffered, as Ireland suffers, from the characteristically Eng- 
 lish belief that because two people speak a similar language 
 they must have an identic soul and that the Americans are a 
 homogeneous Saxon race, estranged indeed from an equally 
 homogeneous parent stock by a certain insolent inde- 
 pendence imparted by General Washington to his turbulent 
 followers, but Saxon in orientation and sympathy, essen- 
 tially sound at heart. When Merefield asked me to go out, 
 I knew that he could have found others better qualified for 
 the work, but at least I was a man who never expected to 
 find unanimity on the issues of European peace and war 
 in New England, purest in Saxon blood and tradition, sensi- 
 tive to every European repercussion and receptive of every 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 91 
 
 thought-wave borne across the Atlantic; in the Southern 
 States, with their political concentration on the negro with- 
 in their gates and the Mexican without ; in the North-West, 
 watchful of Canadian encroachments; in the Far West, 
 with its eyes set on a Japanese peril ; in the Middle West, 
 where the farmer of Illinois and Iowa lives and dies with- 
 out coming nearer than at a thousand miles' distance to 
 Pacific or Atlantic ; in scattered, unassimilated lumps of dis- 
 affected Ireland or duly prepared Germany. 
 
 "They're getting tired of hearing what 'America* ought 
 to do," Merefield continued. "People here won't see that 
 there is no American people yet, hardly an American idea, 
 only the vaguest groping after an American ideal. They've 
 been snapping and snarling at Wilson over Belgium, over the 
 'Lusitania', over his notes as if he had a mixed population 
 of a hundred and ten millions in his pocket! I want you to 
 explain that it's only our fun. After all, they've got their 
 own Woburns ; they'll understand." 
 
 My American friends were too numerous to allow of my 
 accepting Merefield's facile diagnosis and treatment. I 
 knew then, as I had confirmed later, that the commonest 
 feeling in the American mind was a quiet but affronted 
 indignation at British ingratitude. Of the organisations, the 
 funds and charities, the work of humanity and succour that 
 had begun in America from the first day of war, not a 
 word was said in our press or speeches ; over the hardships 
 and inconveniences involved by our blockade, over the sense 
 of grievance occasioned by our censorship of mails and 
 cables, no sympathy was expressed or felt. When Russia 
 was dependent on American munitions, when English credit 
 in America was the hope and salvation of allied finance, we 
 could find no more gracious form of acknowledgement than 
 a sneer at a so-called proud nation which let its sons and 
 daughters drown without protest and shirked the sacrifices 
 of war in order to steal trade, to sell the means of destruc- 
 tion to others and to increase the ever-mounting accumula- 
 tion of wealth. I am too old and cosmopolitan to have any 
 right to be surprised, yet I always am in fact surprised by 
 
92 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 my countrymen's abysmal want of imagination and inter- 
 national courtesy. I approached my mission with the most 
 unfeigned reluctance. 
 
 Merefield left me to think over his suggestion undis- 
 turbed, and before saying good-night I told him that, if 
 he would give me a few weeks to order my affairs, I would 
 gladly go for as long a time as the Foreign Office chose to 
 keep me. Yolande and her husband had attended to my 
 domestic requirements so admirably during my absence in 
 Austria that I had no hesitation in entrusting them to her 
 again and in surrendering the rest of my house for use 
 as an office. My departmental work was gradually trans- 
 ferred to other shoulders, though at one moment I feared 
 that the department itself was going to be extinguished. 
 After dissipating numberless troops on secondary opera- 
 tions in every corner of the world except the western front, 
 the Government found itself short of reinforcements for 
 the great offensive which was to break the German line 
 in the spring of 1916. The flow of volunteers was drying 
 up, and I heard much excited gossip about an immediate 
 measure of conscription. Grayle, I remembered, was very 
 active and tried to commit me to an organised attack on 
 the Government; as, however, even he admitted that no 
 one but the Prime Minister could carry a compulsory ser- 
 vice bill, I told him that he must be content with anything 
 he could get. My department, or the younger section of it, 
 was saved by a comic-opera compromise whereby volun- 
 teers were encouraged to enlist on pain of being conscribed, 
 if they held back. To introduce a democratic note and 
 make the figures imposing, all my youngsters were invited to 
 attest; to ensure that the official machine continued in be- 
 ing, it was arranged that no government servant should 
 be called to the colours without the leave of his depart- 
 mental head. So, after a week's flutter, I was at liberty 
 to go. 
 
 There was no secret about the fact of my mission, and 
 Bertrand Oakleigh arranged a little dinner at the House 
 to wish me good-speed. I walked back with him to his 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 93 
 
 rooms at "The Sanctuary" and looked into the library to see 
 if there was anyone about. George was asleep on a sofa, but 
 otherwise the room was deserted. 
 
 "I'm waiting to see Sonia," he yawned, as I came in. 
 "With any luck she's out at a dance and won't be back till 
 about four. I've induced Beresford to clear out, but I 
 don't want her to be frightened or wonder where he is." 
 
 He broke off to yawn again. I asked him how he had 
 contrived the eviction, and the yawn shortened into a smile. 
 
 "I didn't put it on the ground that he was falling in love 
 with Sonia," he said, "because I suppose he knows that ; I 
 just told him that a comment had been made. . . . D'you 
 know, after that dinner, dear Lady Maitland called on me at 
 ten next morning at the Admiralty, telling me to use my 
 influence? And I may say that when Lady Maitland tells 
 me to do a thing I do it. Well, Beresford is in the pulpy 
 state where he'd cut his throat if he could protect Sonia's 
 reputation in any way, little knowing the evergreen hardi- 
 ness of that same reputation, and he went off to his own 
 flat. Sonia will probably be very indignant with me this 
 evening, but she's made her Peter much too lamb-like to 
 be seriously interested in him any longer. Anyway, if she 
 isn't indignant with me for one thing, she'll be indignant 
 for another. And I seem to survive it comfortably. So 
 that danger's over, though as a matter of fact there never 
 was any danger. ..." He filled a pipe and lurched wearily 
 round the room in search of matches. "The only danger 
 for Sonia is from a man who'll bully her," he drawled. 
 "When she was engaged to Jim Loring, he behaved like an 
 extra lady's maid; she might still be blowing hot and cold 
 with Raney, if he hadn't shewn her very definitely who had 
 the stronger will. It was at the very beginning of the war, 
 and he was quite ruthless. . . . Last time he saw her, poor 
 old Raney. ..." 
 
 "You know them both pretty well, don't you?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes. And the next question is, why did they marry ? I 
 can't answer that. They were in love, but that's more a 
 
94 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 reason than an excuse. . . . Yes, I've known 'em both for 
 years. And for years I've tried to restrain Sonia's destiny 
 when I saw it going to her head. Oh, by the way, Beres- 
 ford's by no means my only success. I don't know whether 
 Grayle's a friend of yours, but I dislike him always did, 
 when I was in the House with him and the other day I 
 thought it was time to interfere; you couldn't stir a yard 
 without running into them. This time I didn't bother about 
 approaching the man that would have been too great a 
 waste of time, but I talked to Sonia until she promised 
 never to have Grayle inside the house again and never to 
 meet him of malice aforethought. Which you will admit is a 
 fairly comprehensive victory." 
 
 He looked at his watch and walked impatiently to the 
 writing-table. 
 
 "Mrs. O'Rane seems to be a whole-time job," I com- 
 mented. 
 
 "She's all that," he grunted. "Mark you, I'm fond of 
 her in spite of herself. . . . But I'm fonder of Raney, and 
 the pair of them seem steering for disaster. ... I don't 
 know. I may be all wrong. I'm a bachelor and I've never 
 had to humour a woman. . . . Here, I've finished this. 
 I'll walk with you as far as the club." 
 
 As I latched the door behind me, I asked what he thought 
 of the life which O'Rane had decreed for "The Sanctuary." 
 He smiled before answering. 
 
 "If you'd known Raney as long as I have, it would be 
 just the thing you'd expect of him all taken au grand 
 s&rieux, too, of course. As for Sonia, she'd consent to 
 sleep in a doss-house, if she were doing it for the first 
 time a new experience, you know. She was prepared to 
 put up with anything, I fancy, to get away from home and 
 have a house of her own; and she'd have cheerfully ac- 
 cepted half a room in a workman's cottage when she mar- 
 ried Raney. After four or five months of it, I should 
 think it's beginning to pall; the caravanserai life wouldn't 
 suit her for twenty-four hours in the day, she likes it for 
 
THE OPEN DOOR 95 
 
 an hour after dinner for more new experiences. I think, 
 I think you'll find Raney will have to drop it. ... But I 
 don't know. . . . There are five things that are too hard 
 for me, and the way of a maid with a man is the hardest 
 of them all." 
 
CHAPTER THREE 
 
 SONIA O RANE 
 
 'Vanity induces men, more than reason, to act against inclination.' 
 THE DUKE DE LA ROCHEFOUCALD : Maxims. 
 
 I SAILED for America in December, 1915, on perhaps the 
 most difficult mission that I have ever undertaken. It was 
 not expected, of course, that the United States would enter 
 the war against us or upset the diplomatic equilibrium in 
 our favour without provocation and until the result of the 
 elections had been seen. I went, as I have suggested, to 
 counteract the German propaganda, which sought to make 
 all at least equally responsible for the war, and also to 
 remove some part of the bad impression which had been 
 left by our more unbridled journalists and our less imagina- 
 tive statesmen. The moral approbation of America was 
 too precious an asset to fritter away, and the purchase of 
 material depended on the goodwill of American financiers, 
 the supply of munitions could be stopped as a diplomatic 
 reprisal. 
 
 It was perhaps unfortunate that my arrival coincided with 
 an outburst of new interest in the Blockade, ending with 
 the creation of a Blockade Ministry and the appointment 
 of a Blockade Minister. (Harry Merefield used to shake 
 his head over any new interest in the Blockade. "We al- 
 ways say that Germany must be defeated in the field, and 
 I'm apprehensive when the soldiers tell me that they're 
 counting on our starving the brutes out.") I was asked, 
 too, at more than one meeting how the Government of Great 
 Britain reconciled its passionate crusade in defence of small 
 
 96 
 
SONIA O'RANE 97 
 
 nationalities with its no less passionate refusal to allow the 
 Irish to control their own destinies. The dreary tale of the 
 unchecked Ulster gun-running and the appeal to Germany 
 was rehearsed for my benefit; and my more law-abiding 
 Irish audiences generated considerable heat over the pres- 
 ence of "the rebel Carson" in the Cabinet. 
 
 But, if I found the work difficult, it gave me a respite 
 from England, where I felt that I had been watching the 
 machine at too close quarters. Since the day when I helped 
 George Oakleigh to divide the world and secure a lasting 
 peace, our nerves had worn thin; we devoted too much 
 time to seeing that other people went promptly about their 
 duties; and a deadly personal bitterness embodied for 
 me in Grayle, though I do not single him out for attack 
 poisoned our confidence in our own leaders. I was glad to 
 feel the icy wind of the Atlantic lashing my face, blowing 
 the cobwebs from my brain and the sour taste from my 
 mouth, as we rounded the last Irish headland. 
 
 During the week that I had to myself on board, sailing 
 without lights and zig-zagging out of reach of submarines, I 
 put together the notes for some of my speeches. It was 
 extraordinarily difficult to say anything definite. After 
 eighteen months of hostilities and mid- way through a sec- 
 ond winter, there was a confident expectation that the great 
 spring offensive would end the war. The Austrian losses 
 were known to be gigantic, and it was believed that the old 
 emperor was flirting with peace ; Germany was starving, and 
 the moral of the German army had notoriously broken. 
 (Our avowedly humorous publications demonstrated that 
 a British soldier had still only to call "Waiter!" or to ex- 
 hibit a sausage at the end of his bayonet to have a swarm 
 of German prisoners on their knees to him.) 
 
 Yet, beneath all our confidence ran a chilling current of 
 doubt. The spring offensive would be launched in Belgium 
 or France, but the clubs and dinner tables, the military cor- 
 respondents it was whispered, the Cabinet itself were di- 
 vided into "westerners" and "easterners." 
 
 "If we could hold up the Huns at Ypres," George had 
 
98 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 said to me gloomily on my last day in England, "they can 
 hold us up equally well, when the proportion of fighting 
 strength has been reversed. I hoped in the early days of 
 the Dardanelles that we were going to knock away the 
 buttresses and bring down the whole structure of the Central 
 Empires, detach Turkey and Bulgaria, you know, carve a 
 way into the Hungarian plains. Now I'm by no means com- 
 fortable. . . ." 
 
 George, with many others, was not destined to think of 
 the Dardanelles with an easy mind until news reached.the 
 Eclectic Club one day at luncheon that Gallipoli had been 
 miraculously evacuated, and a sigh of relief rose over Lon- 
 don, to be followed by a feeling that, though we had es- 
 caped once, our luck might desert us at the second tempting. 
 More and more I was hearing the criticism that there were 
 too many amateur strategists in the Cabinet with no one to 
 check the careless inspiration which led them to fling their 
 armies to Sulva Bay or Salonica, while the thinning re- 
 serves on the western front impelled the Government inch 
 by reluctant inch to conscription. 
 
 And every time that the Blockade bit deeper into the puffy 
 German flesh, every time that the mark exchange fell, every 
 time that the numbers of enemy killed, wounded, missing 
 and prisoners satisfied our military ready-reckoners that the 
 last reserves were under fire and that the inevitable col- 
 lapse would ring and echo through the world within so 
 many days or weeks, the enemy retaliated with the wriggle 
 of a Japanese wrestler, flung his adversary away and sur- 
 mounted him. Servia had been overrun by the effete, 
 vanquished Austrians in October, Montenegro followed in 
 January ; we had sent troops to Gallipoli, because the west- 
 ern front was impregnable, we had withdrawn them be- 
 cause the eastern front was no less impregnable. Amateur 
 strategy or political intrigue was now mysteriously dissipat- 
 ing more troops in Greece, and I was required later to 
 square the allied landing in Salonica with the allied re- 
 sistance to the German incursion into Belgium. To say 
 that King Constantine had defaulted on his treaty obliga- 
 
SONIA O'RANE 99 
 
 tions to Servia was venturesome but inadequate, for the 
 terms of the treaty were unknown; it was common knowl- 
 edge, on the other hand, that Great Britain had guaranteed 
 the Greek constitution, by which foreign troops might only 
 land at the invitation of king and parliament. 
 
 The public temper in England led me to expect one 
 thing, crystallised by Vincent Grayle in a bet that, if we 
 had not broken the German line by September, the Gov- 
 ernment and the Higher Command would have passed into 
 ineffectual history. 
 
 "It's their last chance," were his parting words to me. 
 "After all, you find a leak in your cistern, you get a 
 plumber ; if he can't mend it, God's truth, you get another 
 plumber. You're likely to find considerable changes by 
 the time you get back." 
 
 I think it was the taste left in my mouth by Vincent 
 Grayle that I was most glad to have blown away by the 
 north-east Atlantic wind. 
 
 I landed in New York to find that I had lost one false 
 perspective of the war to acquire another. In the eastern 
 states there was indeed an "American Rights" party, flam- 
 ingly incensed that the President had not broken off diplo- 
 matic relations on the sinking of the "Lusitania," but as 
 unprepared as I had been on my return to England after a 
 year of war for the resolution and effort, the suffering and 
 bereavement, the social upheaval and snapping nerves which 
 I had met. New England, to my pity, talked of participa- 
 tion and still fancied, as we had once done, that it would 
 be someone else's son or brother, someone of academic 
 interest, who would appear day after day in the casualty 
 lists. Yet what else could I expect? As I walked up and 
 down the un familiarly lighted streets to see men still em- 
 ployed on work which was being done by women in Eng- 
 land, as I met abundance on every hand and heard of war 
 as an intellectual conception in the middle distance, I had 
 only to shut my eyes and imagine that it was a fantastic 
 nightmare of my own. 
 
 For three months I spoke and wrote ; for three months, 
 
ioo SONIA MARRIED 
 
 as I was flung from end to end of the continent on journeys 
 of incredible length and intolerable discomfort, interview- 
 ers boarded my train and invaded my car. The daily news 
 of the war had long been relegated to some corner of a 
 back page, and my interviewers were clamorous as children 
 to be told a story. 
 
 I am content to be judged by results ; in the south there 
 were men who responded to my eloquence by crossing the 
 border and enlisting in a Canadian regiment, and the War 
 Charities Fund has its record of the subscriptions which I 
 collected. My audiences reacted on me until I am afraid 
 I came to idealise unpardonably. I remember describing 
 to a Boston audience the spontaneous uprising of England 
 as I had found it after a year abroad; I remember, too, 
 returning to my hotel and finding a handful of letters and 
 a batch of month-old papers. . . . England was agitated 
 by the question whether a married man, who had volun- 
 teered for service, should be taken into the army until an 
 unmarried man, who had not so volunteered, had been 
 coerced. It was not an ennobling controversy for one who 
 had been describing crusades. . . . 
 
 "It serves the married men right for calling the single 
 men shirkers," George Oakleigh wrote. "Now that they've 
 screwed themselves up to the point of attesting, they're try- 
 ing to shirk in their turn. . . . Psychology is revealing it- 
 self curiously. Men who despise a Catholic for surrender- 
 ing the right of private judgement are praying for the Gov- 
 ernment to order them about and relieve them of the re- 
 sponsibility of making up their own minds .... A thriving 
 trade is being driven in rejection certificates. Your enter- 
 prising patriot with some physical defect gets himself duly 
 turned down for the army; he then personates his more 
 robust friends for a suitable fee, attending at their local 
 recruiting offices under their names and pocketing any 
 solatium that may be handed out at such times. It was 
 hardly this spirit which sent Jim Loring and Raney out. 
 . . . The whole wrangle is a great opportunity for our 
 friend Beresford, but he is at least honest and intelligible; 
 
SONIA O'JRANE 101 
 
 if conscription comes, he'll rcfiiso to- serv'e, and the Gov- 
 ernment can shoot him. He was committed to a war with- 
 out being consulted and he's not going to die of malaria in 
 Salonica to please a House of Commons which he helped 
 to return five years ago to carry the Parliament Bill." 
 
 I feel that I must have addressed my audiences with 
 less conviction after a letter of this kind, yet it was but 
 the occasional snapping of overstrained human nerves. 
 Yolande, I remember, wrote in great concern to tell me that 
 her husband and George two of the kindest, mildest and 
 most level-headed men I know had quarrelled and parted 
 in anger. A successful raid into the German lines was 
 magnified into at least a second-class victory; George in a 
 mood of depression minimised it unduly; Felix thereat 
 raked up his opponent's record of eight years before as a 
 champion of disarmament and international peace, charging 
 him with being a pro-German. "I wanted to bang their 
 heads together, uncle darling/' my niece confided. "Will 
 you believe it? They weren't on speaking terms for a 
 week, until I made each apologise to the other. So ridicu- 
 lous! . . ." 
 
 The unrest and dissatisfaction ran through public and 
 private life equally. 
 
 "There's a perfect crop of what my young cousin Laurie 
 calls 'stunt-artists' of late," George wrote a week later. 
 "Every third man in the House feels called on to do a 'stunt' 
 of his own. There's a 'Ginger Stunt,' to keep the Govern- 
 ment up to the mark, and an 'Air Stunt/ to protect us 
 from Zepps, and a 'Civil Liberties Stunt/ to resist conscrip- 
 tion, and a 'Conscription Stunt/ to resist civil liberties, and 
 a 'Press Stunt/ to quash the Press Bureau, and a sort of 
 'Standing Stunt' to quash Northcliffe. Men of imaginative 
 bent are turning their eyes to Mesopotamia and the Dar- 
 danelles, ready to start stunts there at the earliest oppor- 
 tunity and on the smallest provocation. Bertrand says that 
 in all his experience he's never known the House so neurotic 
 and out of hand. The cumulative effect is exceedingly bad. 
 Whether the stunts do any good or not I can't say, but 
 
102 SONlA MARRIED 
 
 they destroy : confidents in the Government, depress people 
 at home and at the front, not to mention the allies, and 
 ultimately they'll bring the Government down. Now, with 
 the exception of Grayle, that's what no one wants to do. As- 
 quith's the only man who can hold the country together, 
 but he's so anxious and rightly to keep his team working 
 harmoniously and to avoid any possibility of a split any- 
 where that I don't think he asserts himself enough. A 
 party truce can be overdone, and a good many Liberals are 
 saying that they are always sacrificed to conciliate some- 
 one else and never the other way about; as with Ireland 
 but I've no doubt your Irish-Americans have delicately 
 hinted in the same sense. ... By the way, I forgot to 
 mention the 'Stop the War Stunt/ Since last I wrote 
 Beresford has been had up and fined; at least he was or- 
 dered to pay the fine, but he refused ; so they kept him in 
 prison for a bit, and he hunger-struck and now he's at 
 large again. ..." 
 
 George's next letter made no reference to anything of 
 public interest. 
 
 "Do you remember saying that Sonia was a whole- 
 time job for a man?" he began. "She's too much for me; 
 I'm going to retire from the fray. When Raney came home 
 for the Christmas holidays, he and Sonia talked things over 
 Melton and the House and work of various kinds. 
 Bertrand was dragged in to keep the peace and advise gen- 
 erally, and they reached this amount of agreement: Raney 
 consented to throw up his appointment at the school, pro- 
 vided he found work at least equally remunerative to pay 
 his debts and keep the household going and provided that 
 it was work of some public utility. He wasn't prepared 
 simply to make money, if his services could be of any use 
 to anyone for the war. Well, as you know, almost every 
 kind of public work involves the use of your eyes, and it 
 would have taken him some time to find the right kind of 
 job. In fact, he and Bertrand had not begun to discuss it 
 when Sonia went on to the next question with a very 
 definite statement that, if he was going to live at The 
 
SONIA O'RANE 103 
 
 Sanctuary', she claimed equal rights with him to decide who 
 was invited to the house in other words (and very rea- 
 sonably, from her point of view) the house was their home 
 and she might just as well be living in the street as in that 
 menagerie. I confess I sympathise. I knew she wouldn't 
 stand it for more than a very few weeks. You don't know 
 the place as I do, you've probably never seen anyone but 
 Beresford dossing on a sofa, but Raney with the best in- 
 tentions in the world sometimes turns that place into a 
 casual ward. Sonia stood it at first, because it was a new 
 experience and she's got a passionate enjoyment of life 
 which would carry her through everything. But, when the 
 novelty had worn off, it must have been singularly uncom- 
 fortable; even Raney's friends would only smile pityingly, 
 and you may be sure that all the Dainton influence was 
 thrown into the scale against him. I know for a fact that 
 Lady Dainton's done all the mischief she can in the way 
 of sneering, criticising, setting Sonia against Raney. The 
 important new development was that Sonia was beginning 
 to echo her mother. I happened to drop in about this time. 
 I expect you've noticed that moral undressing is always 
 conducted publicly in that house; I heard Raney defend 
 himself by pointing out that Bertrand's house had been 
 turned into a hospital, that Crowley Court was a hospital 
 and that he was not asking Sonia to do anything very dif- 
 ferent from what Lady Dainton was doing. 'Ever since 
 I came back from the front/ he told her, 'I've been trying 
 to get this war into perspective. Everyone's doing his 
 best to save this country and all that it stands for, but it's 
 got to stand for a good deal more than it did before the 
 war; we owe it to the fellows who have died and the fel- 
 lows who are dying now and the numberless fellows who've 
 still got to die, we've got to shew that they died for some- 
 thing that we can look at without shame. It'll be a long 
 time before we can be really proud of this country, but 
 we can make a beginning, and the time to begin is when 
 we've stood sweating with fear and remorse with a halter 
 
io 4 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 round our necks and the hangman comes to say we've been 
 reprieved/ 
 
 "As you know, my uncle's a tough old cynic, but, when 
 Raney talks with that cold, vibrant passion of his, you have 
 to be very tough not to feel at least a little uncomfortable. 
 I've had to stand it ever since we were at Oxford together. 
 Sonia was about as much impressed as if he'd been talking 
 to a brick wall. He wasn't discouraged, but he turned 
 to Bertrand 'You remember when I got back, sir?' (God! 
 I'm not likely to forget the night when we found he was 
 blind!) 'You were in a furnished flat, and I had awful 
 difficulty in finding you, but I came straight to you, and 
 you and George took me in without a murmur,' (I sup- 
 pose he thought that after sixteen years we were going to 
 refer him to the nearest Rowton House.) 'That was 
 symbolical, sir,' he went on. 'D'you remember that you 
 came in very late, when I was in bed, and we had a talk? 
 After you'd gone, I got out of bed and lifted up both hands 
 and swore that I'd not give in, that I'd do what I could with 
 what was left. I swore that, as I'd been taken in not only 
 by you; a hundred other people had done the same, I'd 
 try very humbly and patiently never to say "no" to anyone 
 else that wanted to be taken in, anyone else that I could 
 help. That's what I'm trying to do now.' Then he stopped 
 and left them to digest it, with the result which you can 
 imagine when two people take up wholly irreconcilable po- 
 sitions. Sonia said that charity should begin at home, that 
 he talked about not being unkind to anyone, but he Was 
 being unkind to his own wife you can imagine the dialogue. 
 Bertrand raised his two hands that night and swore that 
 he'd clear out into quarters of his own, and Sonia's parting 
 words were that she regarded her marriage as at an end, 
 which is a pretty sentiment after five months." 
 
 A week later George wrote again on the same subject. 
 
 "How you must enjoy the sight of my hand !" he began. 
 "I'm sorry, but I want to blow off steam. The other night 
 I took Raney out to dinner and talked to him for his soul's 
 good. I saw a good deal of the tragi-comedy when Sonia 
 
SONIA O'RANE 105 
 
 was engaged to Jim Loring and I told Raney that he was 
 courting disaster by the way he was treating her. He was 
 in one of his most smiling, most obstinate moods steel and 
 india-rubber. He said he couldn't slam his door in the 
 face of anyone who wanted help. 'Very well !' I said ; 'keep 
 it open. You say "y es >" she says "no," and there's not a 
 square inch of ground for compromise. One of you has to 
 climb down, and you won't?' 'If you like to put it like 
 that,' says Raney, 'I won't.' 'Then make her' I said. 
 'She'll do it, if you make her; she won't love you any the 
 less and she'll respect you all the more, if you force her 
 to obey you.' Raney was really upset. 'Old man! you 
 mustn't talk to me about forcing my wife to do things!' 
 My dear Stornaway, that's the kind of imbecile we've got to 
 deal with! I warned him that, if he kept his door open 
 against her will, she would walk out of it. 
 
 "God knows, I never wanted to be a Cassandra,, but I 
 know that child so well ! Two days later Raney bumped in- 
 to a young officer staggering along Victoria Street in an 
 advanced state of intoxication ; Raney just had time to find 
 out that the fellow was due to catch the leave-train at about 
 seven next morning, when his new friend collapsed on the 
 steps of the Army and Navy Stores and settled himself to 
 a comfortable slumber. I don't suppose any of us would 
 have left him there with a fair prospect of being robbed or 
 run in or discovered by the Provost-Marshal, to say nothing 
 of losing the train and perhaps being court-martialled. 
 Raney must needs put him in a cab, take him home and ex- 
 pend time, ingenuity and hard-bought experience in making 
 him sober. It must have been a gruesome night, but the fel- 
 low caught his train. It was the last straw for Sonia. The 
 next day she wired from Northamptonshire, asking me to 
 tell Raney that she was staying with the Pentyres. That 
 was a week ago ; Raney has asked her asked, mark you 
 to come back, and she won't budge. I deliberately cadged 
 an invitation from Pentyre last week-end, we spent Sunday 
 with one scene after another, and her final message on 
 Monday morning was that she would come back when he 
 
io6 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 agreed to do what she asked ; otherwise she would be com- 
 pelled to think that he, too, regarded the marriage as over. 
 I spent most of Monday night storming at Raney, and the 
 present position is that neither will yield an inch and Raney 
 won't exercise his authority. 
 
 "You are probably sick and tired of them both by now, 
 but you cannot be anything like as sick or tired as I 
 am.' 
 
 This was the last letter which I received before my re- 
 turn to England in the spring of 1916. The country, when 
 I landed, reminded me strongly of a theatre before a first 
 night; everyone was waiting for the full deployment of 
 the new armies, everyone expected the summer campaign 
 to be the supreme test; by now, too, almost everyone had 
 son or brother under arms waiting in the line or rehearsing 
 his share in the coming offensive. The tension produced a 
 nervous irritability which manifested itself, so far as the 
 House of Commons was concerned, in a mutinous demand 
 for enlightenment, and one of my earliest duties was to be 
 present, with fine parade of mystery and importance, at the 
 first secret session of the war. The one unvarying rule 
 which I have been able to frame for the House of Commons 
 is that it never fulfils expectations. Though the Press Gal- 
 lery was conscientiously cleared, we were given neither fact 
 nor figure that was not already in the possession of any 
 well-informed journalist; twenty- four hours later the 
 speeches were common property in every club, and the one 
 thing new was the change in psychology. The show of blind 
 loyalty to the Government had broken down until the Gov- 
 ernment itself felt that something must be tried to restore 
 confidence. I found that a man of Bertrand's tempera- 
 mental independence was using Grayle's currency of 
 speech. 
 
 "Much good it's done !" he growled, as we left the House 
 together. "It's no use pointing to the number of men you've 
 raised or the output of shells. The country's outgrown the 
 
SONIA O'RANE 107 
 
 phase of being content with good endeavours, it wants 
 results, it's in the mood to say, 'You haven't beaten the 
 Germans, and, if you don't do it pretty quickly, someone 
 must be found who will/ Stroll home with me, if you've 
 nothing better to do." 
 
 "You're in your old quarters still ?" I asked. 
 
 Bertrand laughed and then sighed. 
 
 "When David asked me to come here, I accepted on an 
 impulse," he confessed. "It was a phase of the early en- 
 thusiasm; I felt we'd got no business to go on living so 
 extravagantly, when the boys out there were going through 
 Hell's agonies and every penny was wanted to carry on this 
 war and to reduce the load of human suffering. I suppose 
 this dog's too old to be taught new tricks. If you find me 
 staying on now, it's only to keep the peace." He stopped to 
 re-light his cigar, and, as he sheltered the match with his 
 hands, I saw that his heavy, powerful face was morose 
 and dissatisfied. "I've got a considerable love for David. 
 He was a fool to marry the girl, of course, but a man doesn't 
 marry or keep a mistress because it's wise, but because he 
 wants to, because he can't help himself. . . . When she 
 married him, I thought that the war had sobered her down, 
 but these soupers fraternels have made her restive, and 
 she's reverted to type. I'm standing by to break up tete- 
 a-tetes and prevent her doing anything irrevocable before 
 they've patched up their present quarrel and agreed on some 
 possible way of life. If he weren't blind, she'd have left 
 him three months ago. You know they've not met since 
 Christmas ?" 
 
 ^ Where are they?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, she's here with the usual tame cats to carry her 
 off to lunch and dinner. She came back the day after David 
 returned to Melton .... You can see it's a pleasant house 
 to live in ! . . . Before the war I sat on a committee with 
 her mother. Do you remember a phase when young men 
 tried to grow side- whiskers ? Well, the drawing-room was 
 always full of these hairy youths, immaculately dressed and 
 simpering round her with boxes of sweets and flowers, 
 
108 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 which she very graciously accepted. Since the war these 
 fellows have shaved and got into uniform, but it's the same 
 old gang. I used to think nobody was injured; she liked 
 racketing about at restaurants and theatres, they were puffed 
 up to be with her. The only man I drew the line at was 
 Grayle; he's much heavier metal." Bertrand paused to 
 laugh with his old cynical relish. "I'm deuced old, but I've 
 still got a very retentive memory, and everybody's always 
 told me things. Well, I went through the mental rag-bag, I 
 talked to a few people, I made a few enquiries particu- 
 larly on the American chapter of his life and the next 
 time we met I became biographical at his expense. George 
 tried and failed. Friend Grayle hasn't been here since. I 
 tell you, I was getting sick of the business. She'd give a 
 dinner party at eight, and Grayle would be here at half- 
 past seven to talk to her alone, and, by Gad ! she'd be dressed 
 and ready for him. I don't know whether they thought I 
 was blind and deaf. . . . And it was the same when she 
 dined at his house. I used to hear her coquetting and 
 threatening to be late, if he wasn't 'good' ugh ! and he'd 
 swear he wouldn't admit her, if she wasn't in time. It was 
 all such poor stuff! I shouldn't have minded so much, if 
 there'd been any red blood in it, but she was obviously just 
 keeping her hand in ; that woman would make sheep's eyes 
 at the Shakespeare monument in Leicester Square sooner 
 than nothing. . . . So I spiked friend Grayle's guns, and 
 she's had to content herself with Beresford. He's pretty 
 harmless, but the devil of it is that she's ready to go wrong 
 with any man, when she loses control of her temper. If she 
 weren't restrained by her husband's blindness . . . Good 
 night. I'm going straight to my room." 
 
 As I had come to the door, I thought that I could do no 
 harm by going in to see who was about. I found Beresford 
 sitting up on a sofa with a block of paper on his lap. He 
 looked exceedingly ill and perhaps not best pleased to see 
 me. 
 
 "You're back again, then?" I said. "How's the knee?" 
 "I'm only waiting till Sonia comes in," he answered. "My 
 
SONIA O'RANE 109 
 
 knee's much the same as it's been all along, very much the 
 same as it always will be. The doctors are going to give 
 me blood-tests or something. Of course, I didn't do it 
 much good when I was in prison; the doctor there was 
 badly scared. He used to examine me each day to see 
 how much longer I could hold out without food, and I used 
 to see him looking grave every time he came to the knee, 
 until I'm prepared to bet he told the authorities he wouldn't 
 take the responsibility of keeping me there any longer. 
 Then they let me out." His grey lips curled into a wither- 
 ing sneer. "God! the authorities in this country deserve 
 to lose their precious war! D'you think that in Germany 
 they'd allow me to write the pamphlets I do here? D'you 
 think, if they decided not to shoot me, they'd let me out of 
 prison because they were afraid to force food down my 
 throat? The blessed innocents here said I might go, if I 
 promised to drop my propaganda; they brought in a pen 
 and paper. Well, I'd been without water for four days, 
 and my throat and mouth were so swollen that I couldn't 
 speak. I couldn't write very elegantly, either, but I col- 
 lected enough strength to scrawl 'I'll see you in Hell first.' 
 And then, if you please, I was let out. And now I'm im- 
 proving the occasion." 
 
 He collected a number of loose sheets and pinned them 
 together. 
 
 "As long as you think it does any good," I said, "the 
 Archangel Gabriel wouldn't be able to stop you." 
 
 "You don't think it's a good thing to keep people from 
 slaughtering one another? Dear man, d'you appreciate that, 
 if Kitchener and Grey were in Potsdam at this moment with 
 the unconditional surrender of Germany in their pocket, 
 they couldn't get anything to compensate our present losses ? 
 There's imbecile talk about security and a 'war-to-end-war,' 
 but you won't have war when people understand what it's 
 like. That's what I'm trying to shew them." 
 
 He threw himself back on the sofa and began reading 
 what he had written. I got up to leave, only pausing to 
 give him a message for Mrs. O'Rane. As I closed the door 
 
no SONIA MARRIED 
 
 behind me, a taxi stopped at the corner twenty yards from 
 "The Sanctuary" and a man in uniform stepped out and 
 stretched one hand to somebody inside, holding the door 
 open with the other. His size alone, without the familiar 
 mane of yellow hair, identified him for me as Grayle; a 
 moment later Mrs. O'Rane emerged and stood by him under 
 the street lamp at the corner. Bertrand might keep Grayle 
 as far away as the end of the street, but I felt that he had 
 boasted prematurely. 
 
 "You'll come in ?" I heard Mrs. O'Rane say, as her com- 
 panion hesitated by the taxi. 
 
 "Not to-night, thanks. It's rather late." 
 
 I caught a light ripple of laughter. 
 
 "You're not getting suddenly anxious about my reputa- 
 tion, are you?" she asked. "You used to like coming in 
 and talking to me ; and you know how I hate going to bed. 
 Of course, if you don't want to " 
 
 Grayle opened his case and took out a cigarette. 
 
 ''That cuts no ice, Sonia/' he said. "Good-night and 
 thank you for coming. I shall see you to-morrow." 
 
 "I don't think I shall come." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you will." 
 
 "If you're so afraid of being compromised " 
 
 "You are coming to-morrow." 
 
 She was silent; and, if it had been day-light, I would have 
 staked my life that she was pouting suitably. 
 
 "You used to say that to-morrow was a very long way 
 off," she remarked irrelevantly. 
 
 Grayle's voice became authoritative. 
 
 "You are coming to-morrow, Sonia." 
 
 No doubt it was the old small change of flirtation which 
 had exasperated Bertrand, and I had already been made to 
 hear more than I relished. Stepping into the circle of dim 
 light, I bade her good evening and asked Grayle if he had 
 finished with his taxi. 
 
 "Hul-/o/ I didn't know you were back in England!" she 
 cried. "Have you been calling? I wish I'd known. You've 
 got to come back now." 
 
SONIA O'RANE in 
 
 "I looked in for a moment," I said. "Now I must get 
 home, though." 
 
 "I'll give you a lift," Grayle volunteered. 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane looked from one to the other of us, and her 
 eyes and mouth hardened in an expression of pique. 
 
 "My society seems rather at a discount to-night," she ob- 
 served. 
 
 "You'll find Beresford waiting for you," I said. "I've 
 been talking to him, but I've got to get home now." 
 
 She turned to Grayle, and I will swear that she was 
 watching to see if Beresford's name was a challenge. 
 
 "I must get home, too," was all that he would say. '1 
 shall see you to-morrow." 
 
 "Oh, I meant to tell you. I can't come to-morrow," she 
 answered with easy gravity, as though I had not heard 
 every syllable of her earlier conversation. "Well, if you 
 won't come in, I'll say good-night. Thanks for a most de- 
 lightful evening." 
 
 Grayle and I drove in silence for half of the way. Then 
 he asked me abruptly how I had got on in America. 
 
 For some weeks I continued to attend to my own work 
 uninterrupted by the O'Ranes, but towards the end of the 
 Easter term I had to make my way to Melton for the 
 Governors' meeting. A note from O'Rane invited me to 
 call before going back to London, and at the end of our 
 business I invaded his rooms to find him seated, as ever, 
 cross-legged on the floor with his head thrown back, lips 
 parted and eyes seemingly fixed on the ceiling or on some- 
 thing beyond it. The room was crowded with what I can 
 only call a cluster of boys sprawling on chairs and tables or 
 precariously perched with linked arms on the broad mantel- 
 piece. Some were conventionally dressed, some were in 
 flannels, some in uniform ; the majority, however, preferred 
 a motley of khaki breeches, puttees and vivid blazers. It 
 was the end of a field day, and a few of O'Rane's friends 
 had dropped in to talk with him. After some moments it 
 occurred to the boy nearest the door to ask if I wished to 
 
ii2 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 speak to Mr. O'Rane, and on that, to my regret, the semi- 
 nar dissolved. 
 
 As the last boy clattered into the Goisters, O'Rane felt 
 for a box of cigarettes and asked me how I had got on in 
 America. 
 
 "George told me you were back," he said. "Have you 
 been round to our place ?" 
 
 "I went round there almost immediately/' I told him. "I 
 say, O'Rane " 
 
 Perhaps he guessed what was coming, for I was not 
 allowed to finish my sentence. 
 
 "Was Beresford there?" he asked. 
 
 I hesitated for what I should have thought was an im- 
 perceptible moment; and O'Rane repeated his question. 
 
 "As a matter of fact he was," I said. 
 
 "Ah! I wish I'd known that before. . . . Oh, now I see 
 why you hesitated!" He gave a buoyant laugh. "I can 
 assure you that Beresford doesn't make me in the least 
 jealous or in the least apprehensive. I'd trust him pretty 
 well as far as I'd trust Sonia ; our outlook's so similar, we've 
 got so much in common. Well, the authorities have got 
 their eyes on him, and he'll find himself arrested again, if 
 he isn't careful. And he's only alienating possible sym- 
 pathisers with the stuff he's writing now. Did you read 
 him on the typhus outbreak at Wittenburg ?" 
 
 He jumped up and brought me a copy of "The Watch- 
 man" from his writing-table. Beresford's article made me 
 very angry. A few days earlier my nephew Felix, dining 
 with me at the Hyde Park Hotel, where I had now taken 
 up my residence, had given me a sickening account of the 
 epidemic in the prisoners' camp; a fuller and yet more 
 sickening account had appeared in the Press, and from end 
 to end of the country there burst a storm of indignation 
 stronger than anything since the outcry against the atrocities 
 in Belgium. At this moment and from this text Beresford, 
 who saw red at the news of the mildest cruelty to man 
 or animal, preached a cynical, superior sermon to prove 
 that, if misguided fools went to war, this was the kind of 
 
SONIA O'RANE 113 
 
 thing they must expect. The object of war was to kill, 
 and the only reason why the Germans did not massacre their 
 prisoners was that on balance their own losses might be 
 greater. But in scientific warfare it was unjustifiable to 
 expect German doctors and nurses to risk their lives for 
 the sake of preserving the enemy's. The English might; 
 the English habitually boasted of picking up survivors after 
 a naval engagement, but it was not war. 
 
 "God knows I'm not in love with war," said O'Rane, as 
 I flung the paper away, "but an article like that infuriates 
 just the decent-minded people he's appealing to. Well, bad 
 taste is not an indictable offence, but I had a hint dropped 
 this week-end that made me think that Beresford had bet- 
 ter go warily. We had a man dining in Common Room on 
 Sunday whose job in life is to advise on people like him 
 and the stuff they turn out. We got on to the Witten- 
 burg article, and it came out that I knew the author. Well, 
 there was nothing much the matter with that branch of 
 Intelligence Service; they knew all about Beresford, but 
 they didn't want to give him a free advertisement and make 
 a martyr of him, so they tried to get hold of him under 
 the Military Service Act and stop his mouth that way. He 
 was ordered to join up on a certain day, so he wrote a 
 polite letter to say that he disapproved of war and did not 
 propose to fight. When the day came, he was well and 
 duly put in charge of a guard and marched off to the re- 
 cruiting office to be presented to the army and turned into 
 a soldier. Before that could be done, though, the doctors 
 had their say. To cut it short, he was rejected rather more 
 completely than anyone's ever been rejected before heart, 
 lungs, knee. . . . One doctor told him that if he didn't live 
 in the open air and blow himself out with milk, he'd be 
 dead in six months. That was a week ago. The army's 
 been cheated of its prey, and my friend of Sunday night 
 must find another means of stopping Beresford's mouth. 
 What the fellow must understand is that they intend to catch 
 him this time; their temper's none the better for the little 
 rebuff at the recruiting office. I was meaning to come up 
 
ii4 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 and talk to him at the next Leave-Out, but I'm afraid he 
 may put his head in the trap before I can get at him. That's 
 why I asked you to come and see me; I want you to take 
 him in hand." 
 
 After the Wittenburg article I was not inclined to raise 
 a finger on Beresford's behalf. And so I told O'Rane. 
 
 "But do you want him to die?" he asked. "If they shove 
 him in prison and he hunger-strikes again, you may never 
 see him alive." 
 
 "I think I could endure that," I said. "The man's mind 
 is perverted." 
 
 "Ah, then, you mustn't treat him as if he were normal," 
 O'Rane put in quickly. "I want you to go to him and tell 
 him to drop the whole business. Lord knows, I've been up 
 against authority in one form or another most of my life, 
 but there's nothing heroic in getting shot, if you don't 
 achieve anything by it. You can get him to see that, surely." 
 
 By this time I confess that I had become one of many 
 who found it hard to refuse O'Rane anything; perhaps it 
 was because he never asked for himself. 
 
 "I'll try, as a favour to you," I said. "Though I've no 
 idea why I should want to do you a favour. O'Rane, you're 
 making a considerable mess of your life." 
 
 The expression on his face suddenly changed, and he 
 became courteously unapproachable. 
 
 "Do you think we shall do any good by discussing it?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Every day that you let slip makes it harder to mend 
 the breach. This term's running out. What are you going 
 to do in the holidays?" 
 
 "I'm going home." 
 
 "To the sort of doss-house life that you led before?" 
 
 "I suppose so." 
 
 I put on my coat and started towards the door. 
 
 "Your wife will leave you," I warned him. 
 
 "I've told her and I believe I told you that I'd never 
 keep her against her will." 
 
 "My friend, you are making a great fool of yourself." 
 
SONIA O'RANE 115 
 
 O'Rane opened the door for me, and we passed into the 
 Cloisters. 
 
 "I didn't think we should do any good by discussing it," 
 he said. 
 
 If I could have persuaded anyone else to carry O'Rane' s 
 warning to Beresford, I would have done so, but old 
 Bertrand and George had crossed to Ireland for a week's 
 fishing, and, when I called on Mrs. O'Rane in the hope of 
 catching her for ten minutes in a serious mood, it was 
 my ill-luck to choose the night before Pentyre went out to 
 the Front. An impromptu dance was taking its noisy 
 course, and the only satisfaction which I derived from the 
 visit was my discovery that the estrangement was not yet 
 common property. Indeed, Mrs. O'Rane was fortunate in 
 that her behaviour, however outrageous, was judged and 
 condoned by a special standard. "That's so like darling 
 Sonia," Lady Maitland and her like would say. I took the 
 trouble to pump young Deganway, whom I personally dis- 
 like, but even his long nose had not scented a scandal. It 
 never seemed to dawn on Sir Roger and Lady Dainton that 
 anything was amiss ; they both disapproved of O'Rane, they 
 both felt, without taking the trouble to disguise their feel- 
 ings, that Sonia had disappointed their ambitions and was 
 wasting her life ; but with a curious timidity or survival of 
 self-respect Mrs. O'Rane never let her own relations see 
 that eight months after her marriage she was in effect 
 separated from her husband. 
 
 Failing to transfer my burden to other shoulders, I drove 
 one night to Sloane Square and ran Beresford to earth in 
 his rooms at the top of a modest block of service flats. 
 There was no lift, and I was out of breath and temper by 
 the time that I had climbed eight flights of stairs and lost 
 myself in an uncharted maze of stone-flagged passages. At 
 last, with a stitch in my side, I found his name painted on a 
 wall and leaned helplessly against the door, as I looked for 
 the bell. The door yielded unexpectedly, and I found myself 
 
n6 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 stumbling into an unlighted passage, where a phosphores- 
 cent rectangle hinted at a second door. Groping for the 
 handle, I knocked and entered. Beresford was lying in an 
 arm-chair with the injured leg on a coffin-stool and a reading 
 lamp on a rickety oriental table behind him. In semi-dark- 
 ness the room was youthfully bizarre. There were low cases, 
 filled with paper-labelled books, running round three walls, 
 a window with a divan under it in the fourth, Japanese silk 
 hangings above the book-cases and praying mats insecurely 
 scattered on an over-polished floor. The furniture con- 
 sisted of a red lacquer cupboard, chest and clock; in one 
 corner a Buddha smiled from behind folding doors with 
 placid and baffling benevolence ; a discoloured Moorish lamp 
 hung from the middle of the ceiling with the Hand of Wel- 
 come outstretched to support it; a joss-stick in a porcelain 
 vase on the mantel-piece smouldered fragrantly. 
 
 At the creak of the door's opening, Beresford raised him- 
 self abruptly in his chair and as quickly subsided. 
 
 "Oh, it's you," he said. 
 
 "I didn't see any bell, so I walked in/' I told him. "Are 
 you busy?" 
 
 Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at the table be- 
 side him. There was neither paper nor book to offer plausi- 
 ble protection. 
 
 "I didn't look for this honour/' he said with a slight 
 sneer. "I was as a matter of fact thinking out an arti- 
 cle, thing I've got to finish to-night, you know." I sniffed 
 disapprovingly, I fear the close, rather sickly atmosphere 
 and loosened my coat. "It's a few reflections on the an- 
 niversary of the 'Lusitania/ " he went on, in a tone of chal- 
 lenge, "pabulum for thoughtful Yanks. Do you want to 
 see me about anything in particular ? I I've got to get this 
 finished to-night." 
 
 His theme gave me my cue, and I furnished him with a 
 digest of my conversation with O'Rane. He heard me out, 
 impatiently but without protest. 
 
 "I'm sure it's very kind of you both," he said at length, 
 "but I'm afraid it's no use. We should never have had this 
 
SONIA O'RANE 117 
 
 war, if a few other people had done what I'm doing instead 
 of blathering about peace and disarmament in a sixpenny 
 review, like young Oakleigh, and throwing everything to the 
 winds the moment war was declared. I appreciate your 
 coming, all the same " 
 
 He pulled himself upright and limped to the lacquer 
 cupboard, from which he took out a writing-block and pad. 
 I was ready and anxious to leave as soon as I had delivered 
 myself of my message, but petty as it may seem I re- 
 sented his hunting me out of his flat quite so unceremoni- 
 ously; hitherto I had perched on the arm of a chair; I now 
 lowered myself with an obstinacy unbecoming my age into 
 its depths. 
 
 "But surely you can see that it's no good trying to 
 separate fighting dogs when once they've got to work? 
 That's why George brought his paper to an end. You've 
 got to wait for a decision of some kind." 
 
 "We reached a decision when the Germans were checked 
 at the Marne," he yawned, pulling back his sleeve to consult 
 the watch on his wrist. 
 
 "But that's over and done with. Any peace efforts now 
 only have the effect of weakening our own endurance and 
 making a German victory the one possible decision." 
 
 "But you know as well as I do that there's going to be 
 no military decision. If they couldn't break through our 
 line, we can't break through theirs, and I want to stop this 
 hideous slaughter on both sides. I want to make people see 
 that they must get Wilson or the Pope to propose terms of 
 arbitration." The pupils of his eyes suddenly dilated. "And 
 that's what I shall go on saying. I'm not going to be per- 
 suaded by you, I can't be intimidated by the militarists, and 
 I won't share your responsibility for future bloodshed, I 
 won't join in this criminal nonsense about crushing Prus- 
 sian militarism humiliating Germany until you've made 
 sure of another war in ten years' time. I think I've told you 
 what the next war will be like." His voice had risen almost 
 to a scream; with an effort he controlled himself, snorted 
 
n8 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 disgustedly and limped to the sofa where I had laid my hat 
 and cane, considerately picking them up for me. 
 
 I moved towards the door. As I did so, my ears caught 
 the sound of a low whistle, followed in the ensuing silence 
 by a light step and the rustle of silk clothes from the flagged 
 passage outside the front door. At last I understood why it 
 had been left open, why the industrious Beresford was un- 
 occupied on my arrival, why he had given me so many en- 
 couragements to retire. An unexpected sense of male free- 
 masonry made me sorry for him. There was but the one 
 door to the room, and already the rustle had passed from 
 the passage outside and was audible in the dark corridor 
 where I had fumbled for the handle twenty minutes before. 
 Beresford stared before him with tragic eyes and parted 
 lips ; he grasped my wrist and let it fall again ; then the door 
 opened, and I could hear a double quick intake of breath. 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane was standing on the threshold in a black 
 dress with an ermine coat open at the neck, an artificial 
 pink rose in her hair and a cluster of them at her waist. One 
 hand in a white glove circled with a platinum watch-bracelet 
 rested on the finger-plate, and she smiled at Beresford de- 
 murely. The smile grew fixed and then faded when she 
 saw who bore Beresford company ; with unfeigned admira- 
 tion I saw her collecting herself and preparing an offen- 
 sive. 
 
 "Are you better?" she asked, coming into the room as 
 though she were paying an afternoon call. "Good evening, 
 Mr. Stornaway. Peter's not been at all well, and I promised 
 to come and talk to him. I hope I'm not interrupting you; 
 I'm rather before my time." She glanced at her watch, 
 laid her hands on Beresford's shoulders and gently impelled 
 him towards his chair. "Darling Peter, how often have I 
 told you that you mustn't stand ? Sit down like a good boy, 
 put your foot up and tell me how you got on with the 
 doctor." 
 
 She seated herself on the arm of his chair, waved me to 
 another and threw open her coat. 
 
 "They took the blood-tests," said Beresford, gallantly try- 
 
SONIA O'RANE 119 
 
 ing to imitate her nonchalance. "I'm to lie up and not to 
 work. ... At least, those are the orders." 
 
 Bending over him, she touched his forehead with her 
 lips. 
 
 "And you're going to obey them," she said. 
 
 Beresford shrugged his shoulders sullenly. 
 
 "What good will it do?" he demanded. 
 
 "It will please me," she answered promptly. "Lady Mait- 
 land says that all I want is love, ten thousand a year and my 
 own way. I don't want you to die, Peter mine." 
 
 He looked at her and turned his head resignedly away. 
 
 "I feel sometimes I've not got a great deal to live for," 
 he sighed. 
 
 She jumped up with a show of indignation. 
 
 "You dare say that, when I've outraged Colonel Grayle 
 by leaving his party to come and sit with you ! Never again, 
 my Peter ! If you think so little of having me here " 
 
 "It would be better for him and more seemly for you 
 to drop this kind of thing," I suggested. 
 
 She looked at me with her head on one side and then 
 swung slowly round to Beresford. 
 
 "I believe he's right, you know, Peter. I come here radi- 
 ating sunniness, but I only seem to depress you. Shall I 
 give you up, baby?" 
 
 "You think that will make me less depressed?" he asked 
 gloomily. 
 
 "I feel I'm a bad habit." Her expression lost its smile 
 and became charged with abrupt neurotic irritability. 
 "You've had more of my time, more of my sweetness " 
 
 "Do you think I don't appreciate that?" 
 
 "I ought never to have let you fall in love with me. 
 Mr. Stornaway's quite right. It's all my fault, and the 
 sooner I end it the better. Good-bye, Peter. It was a mis- 
 take, but I'm not ungrateful. When I was miserable, when 
 I wanted sweetness " 
 
 Beresford jerked himself erect and caught her arm, as 
 she tried to get up. 
 
 "You're not going?" he begged. 
 
120 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "Yes. And I'm never coming back." 
 
 "God in Heaven! Sonia! Don't say that!" 
 
 For perhaps the fourth time that night I picked up my 
 hat and cane. However little I might care for Beresford, 
 common humanity ordained that this kind of game should 
 end. 
 
 "This fellow's an invalid," I reminded her. "You're only 
 making him worse by exciting him. You had better let 
 me see you home. Taxis are few and far between, and I 
 took the precaution of telling mine to wait." 
 
 She turned her little platinum watch to the light and 
 compared it with the clock on the mantel-piece. 
 
 "I can get a train, you know," she told me, losing all 
 her irritability and becoming matter-of-fact. "And I hate 
 going to bed more than anything in the world except getting 
 up. When we had a house in Rutland Gate my first season, 
 Lord John Carstairs who lived next door always used to 
 say that he knew it was time for breakfast when he 
 heard my taxi bringing me home after a ball. So nice to 
 feel that one sometimes really does one's duty to one's 
 neighbour; it justifies the church catechism. He was very 
 grateful about it and, whenever I lost my latch-key, he 
 used to come down and help me in through the fan-light. 
 Then there was a dreadful day when I got stuck on a 
 piece of broken glass father's bill for fan-lights was so 
 heavy that we couldn't take a moor that year; he always 
 thought it was the suffragettes and Lord John stood 
 below in the divinest green silk pyjamas and an Austrian 
 military cloak, I lay half-way through the fan-light, we 
 exhausted every possible topic of conversation, including the 
 Academy, and at last he proposed to me. I've never been 
 so angry in my life! If he'd proposed first and talked 
 about the Academy afterwards, nobody could have minded." 
 
 Having prattled herself into a good temper, she paused 
 to take a cigarette from a gold case at her wrist. I re- 
 minded her that we had lost sight of the particular in the 
 general. 
 
 "It is late," I said. "Too late for you to be calling on 
 
SONIA O'RANE 121 
 
 young bachelors and far too late to be left unchaperoned." 
 
 Her big brown eyes, usually soft and entreating, gave 
 forth a glint of defiance. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Stornaway ! If you knew how often I'd been 
 to see Peter " 
 
 "That makes it no better." 
 
 "You think I'm not respectable," she exclaimed with the 
 slightest perceptible toss of the head. 
 
 "I've other things to think about. If you want to call 
 on Beresford, you can call in the day-time; your only 
 reason for choosing an hour of this kind is that you think 
 there's something rather venturesome and improper about 
 it. It's this sort of behaviour that led me on a famous 
 occasion to tell you that you were second-rate." 
 
 Possibly acting on a hint from George Oakleigh, I was 
 beginning to share his experience that Mrs. O'Rane never 
 resented a certain brutal candour of criticism. 
 
 "You do hate me, don't you?" she laughed. 
 
 "I have no use for the second-rate." 
 
 "And that disposes of me!" She leant down and drew 
 Beresford to her until his head was pillowed on her bosom. 
 "Baby, you're in love with a second-rate woman. So are 
 ever so many people more, I'm afraid. It doesn't speak 
 highly for the first-rate intelligence of men, but then I take 
 men as I find them." 
 
 "Pardon me, you go out to look for them, Mrs. O'Rane," 
 I said. 
 
 "It's the same thing." 
 
 "Not for a married woman." 
 
 We had bantered hitherto without very much malice, but 
 my reminder seemed to carry a sting. 
 
 "I don't regard myself as a married woman," she said 
 very deliberately. 
 
 "I cannot remain out of bed to hear stuff of this kind !" 
 I exclaimed. "Melodrama is only excusable when it is 
 convincing." 
 
 "Don't you be too sure that you won't be convinced!" she 
 cried, springing up and facing me. The ermine coat, droop- 
 
122 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 ing half off her arms and back, fell to the ground and 
 left her bare-shouldered and with heaving breast. The 
 rose in her hair trembled, and two normally pale cheeks 
 were lit each with a single spot of burning colour. The 
 weakness that underlay the softness of her mouth had 
 vanished, and her eyes, grown angry and hot, had lost 
 their beauty. "Will you come and see me, I wonder, when 
 I'm living with Peter?" she asked flauntingly. 
 
 "I shall not," I answered. "I may say that this kind 
 of talk " 
 
 "But you wouldn't mind seeing him?" she interrupted. 
 "This is all right in a man. David can go off with that 
 woman " 
 
 "Good-night, Mrs. O'Rane," I said, holding out my hand. 
 
 Like everyone else, I sometimes feel intuitively when 
 people are speaking for effect. Mrs. O'Rane spoke purely 
 for effect when she boasted of the times that she had 
 been to call on Beresford; she was still speaking for 
 effect when I warned her against being melodramatic, yet 
 sincerity crept in when she referred to her husband. I 
 hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry. For her to be 
 jealous of Hilda Merryon presupposed that she was not 
 so indifferent to O'Rane as she pretended; even to feign 
 suspicion argued an unbalanced mind. 
 
 "Good-night," I repeated, as she stood ostentatiously 
 refusing to take my hand. "You had better let me see 
 you home, though." 
 
 "I'm not coming home. I won't be ordered about! 
 You advise me and find fault with me and insult me. . . . 
 Mr. Stornaway, let me tell you this. You've been poking 
 your nose into my affairs for some time, so I'm sure you've 
 a right to know everything. You side with David and 
 think everything he does is wonderful, perfect, magnificent. 
 Well, I don't. I know I'm vain; and I'm vain enough to 
 think he's not treating me as I'm entitled to be treated. 
 He'll be coming home in a fortnight. I wrote to him to-day 
 and asked him if he wanted to see me. If he does, he 
 can. If he wants me and not the scourings of the London 
 
SONIA O'RANE 123 
 
 streets. ... If not, if he doesn't love me enough for 
 that, I shall look for someone who does." 
 
 I ended my succession of unsuccessful starts and reached 
 the door. Mrs. O'Rane strode after me with arms akimbo. 
 
 "You don't believe it!' 1 she cried passionately. "You 
 don't think I dare!" 
 
 "My dear young lady, in your present mood you're cap- 
 able of most things," I said. "But Beresford and I are 
 going to forget what you've been saying to-night, and 
 I think you'll be glad to forget it, too." 
 
 One says rhetorically that one will forget a phrase or an 
 episode, but my single glimpse of Mrs. O'Rane's temper had 
 frightened forget fulness away. I kept on telling myself 
 that it was no business of mine, that my rule for thirty 
 years had been to let the younger generation take care 
 of itself untrammelled; yet, when George Oakleigh tele- 
 phoned to me from the Admiralty, begging me to cancel 
 other engagements and dine with him, I had to prepare 
 myself for any kind of bad news. 
 
 I could see, when he came into the club, that there was 
 something on his mind, but we had no opportunity for 
 private conversation during dinner, as Maurice Maitland 
 attached himself to our table for first-hand news of the 
 Irish rebellion. I had imagined that George, even with an 
 Irish estate, an Irish upbringing and an unmixed Irish 
 ancestry, was too much overlaid with his English associa- 
 tions to feel more than academically on the Irish aspira- 
 tions. To see him after a holiday in Ireland, where he 
 had gone to fish and had never stirred nearer the county 
 Kerry than Dublin, was to see a hillsman made suddenly 
 mindful of the hills and of his own infancy. Forgotten 
 fires of racial love and antagonism had been blown into 
 life. There was no attempt to be judicial; he had arrived 
 too late for the rebellion (or I dare swear he would have 
 had a hand in it), he was not concerned with the bloodshed 
 
124 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 which it had caused; it was the sight and stories of the 
 repression which made his blood boil and his voice ring. 
 
 "So much for Skeffington!" he cried. "And Casement 
 prosecuted by Smith, who threatened exactly the same 
 tactics before the war! My God! I wonder when you 
 English think this will be forgotten! You've seen the 
 sentences? One woman was carted off to penal servitude 
 for life. Tor life' one of her friends kept saying. 'But 
 Ireland was free for three days/ answered the woman. 
 We've a rare palate for phrases in Ireland. How soon 
 do you imagine that phrase will be forgotten? I'm seeing 
 red at this moment. For two pins I'd join our young friend 
 Beresford in any propaganda against this country that 
 he cared to start." Then he caught sight of Maitland's 
 expression of shocked perplexity. "I mean it, General. 
 When the Huns pretend to be amazed that the Belgians 
 don't eat out of their hands, we're righteously disgusted 
 at the hypocrisy of it. On my honour, you English are 
 every bit as dense or hypocritical with us." 
 
 "But the trouble is over now, surely?" Maitland un- 
 warily asked. 
 
 "It will never be over in your lifetime or mine! Red- 
 mond made the old blunder of trusting the English, he 
 promised a united front in Ireland, when the war broke 
 out, instead of holding the government to ransom. And 
 the government responded by scrapping the Home Rule 
 Act. You've lost Ireland, the Nationalist party's dead and 
 damned, henceforth you'll have a swelling Sinn Fein army 
 held down by English troops as in Poland, as in Alsace- 
 Lorraine, as in north Italy before the liberation. And I 
 don't envy you the job of making things sweet with 
 America." 
 
 Dinner was over before our discussion of Ireland, but, 
 when Maitland left us to return to the War Office, the 
 interruption changed the current of George's thoughts. I 
 was not sorry, for I had endured two nights of Irish 
 debate with Grayle, who saw in the rebellion fresh proof 
 
SONIA O'RANE 125 
 
 of governmental incompetence and new need for a change 
 in which I was to assist him. 
 
 "I didn't ask you here to listen to me tub-thumping/' 
 George began apologetically, when we were alone. "How 
 lately have you seen anything of the O'Ranes?" 
 
 I told him of the meeting in Beresford's flat. 
 
 George smiled wanly. 
 
 "They'll kill poor old Bertrand between them," he said, 
 "if they keep up this racket much longer. Raney wrote 
 to say that he was coming home as soon as term was over 
 and expected Sonia to be at The Sanctuary/ and a couple 
 of days later the Merryon woman arrived with the greater 
 part of the luggage and a box or two of books. She hadn't 
 come to stay, but he'd sent her up to verify a few refer- 
 ences in his library for some work he was doing; she was 
 going back to help him finish off his exam-papers and re- 
 ports, and they were coming up together in about a week's 
 time. This took place yesterday. Now, I'll say at once 
 that Raney 's behaved like a psychological ostrich over that 
 woman, and nobody but Raney would have thought it any- 
 thing but outrageous for a man to let his wife stay in 
 London and calmly accept the services of a secretary in 
 his wife's place and against her wishes. She'd put her 
 eyes on sticks for him, too, Miss Merryon would; and, 
 if Raney doesn't know it, you bet Sonia does. Well, I 
 think it was partly jealousy; Sonia was furious at the idea 
 of anyone else being near her husband. Partly it was 
 shame; when the girl came in with Raney's belongings, 
 arranging this, ordering that, verifying the other, you may 
 be sure that Sonia knew very well that she was letting 
 someone else do her job. And partly it was because she 
 couldn't get her own way. The combined result was a 
 first-class row, in which she said that the girl was Raney's 
 mistress and told her that she wouldn't have her in the 
 house. It wasn't mere words. She escorted her to the 
 door, where the taxi-man was wrestling with the luggage, 
 slammed it behind her and pulled a chest against it. On 
 the business principle of having everything in black and 
 
126 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 white, she then wrote a descriptive account of it all to 
 Raney, which will no doubt be read aloud to him at 
 breakfast to-morrow by Miss Hilda Merryon." 
 
 He mopped his forehead and sent a waiter to fetch him 
 some water. 
 
 "And what are you doing?" I asked. 
 
 "What can I do ? Raney's not going to be told that this 
 woman's his mistress; he'll probably make Sonia apologise 
 to them both or try to ; and he certainly won't let her be 
 turned out. I should think ... I don't know, but I should 
 think that, on the day he comes back, Sonia will try to run 
 away again, and, if he doesn't stop her by main force, 
 by using all the authority he's got and all the brutality 
 he's capable of exhibiting, he'll lose her for good. Sonia's 
 pretty well worked up, too. So am I. These young people 
 are preparing an early grave for me; it's getting on my 
 nerves." 
 
 "But her parents " I began. 
 
 My unfinished suggestion was received with a silent smile, 
 which was perhaps the cruellest and most comprehensive 
 criticism ever passed on Sir Roger and Lady Dainton. 
 
 I was in the smoking-room at the House the following 
 night, talking to Vincent Grayle, when George's card was 
 brought in, and I went out to see him. 
 
 "I've just left 'The Sanctuary,' " he said. "And I thought 
 I'd report progress. Raney got her letter all right and 
 sent very much the reply I should have expected. He's 
 pretty well worked up now. Sonia's got to apologise, and 
 he orders her to receive Miss Merryon. It was an ulti- 
 matum, if there ever was one. Sonia she was like I 
 remember her the last time we met before she broke off 
 her engagement with Jim Loring every nerve tingling. 
 She stalked to the telephone and rang up Beresford, in- 
 forming me over her shoulder that she would not have 
 that woman in the house, even if she had to bring friends 
 in to turn her out. Fortunately Beresford was not at home. 
 Then she rang up this place and tried to get hold of Grayle 
 
SONIA O'RANE 127 
 
 'Mrs. O'Rane. Most urgent/ Again, fortunately, the 
 reply came back that Grayle was engaged " 
 
 I looked at my watch and interrupted him to ask when 
 the message had been sent. 
 
 "Oh, this moment half an hour ago. It was just before 
 I left to come here. Well, we're likely to have the pretty 
 scene of Raney driving up to the door and finding himself 
 barricaded out by his own wife. Beresford can't do any- 
 thing very active, but Grayle " 
 
 "You needn't fear him," I said. 
 
 When the telephone message was brought into the Smok- 
 ing-Room, Grayle glanced at the paper and said that he 
 was engaged. I did not know, of course, who was trying 
 to speak to him, but the messenger repeated that the call 
 was "most urgent." At this Grayle grew impatient and 
 said again and very deliberately, "I am engaged" Then 
 we resumed our interrupted conversation; he was crossing 
 to France almost immediately on a visit to General Head- 
 quarters and would be away for several days. He had 
 promised to introduce a deputation of his constituents to 
 one of the Ministers and wanted me to act for him in his 
 absence. 
 
 "She's gone just too far with him," I said, "and he's 
 lost his temper. But there mustn't be a scene, whatever 
 happens. You'd better tell O'Rane to see you before he 
 goes home; explain the state of mind she's in. ... And, 
 George, for the love of Heaven, get hold of Mrs. O'Rane 
 and knock some sense into her head you say she'll stand 
 a good deal from you. This is becoming frankly intoler- 
 able." 
 
 Then we left the House ; he made his way to "The Sanc- 
 tuary," while I drove home. Had we changed places, he 
 would have been more successful in his mission, for, as I 
 paid off my driver, Mrs. O'Rane hurried up and engaged 
 him. Whether she recognised me or not I cannot tell ; but 
 I had nothing to say to her and I was at pains to avoid 
 an encounter. She was in evening dress, I remember, walk- 
 ing eastwards along Knightsbridge, and I wondered sudden- 
 
128 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 ly whether she had been calling on Grayle in Mil ford 
 Square. Then I remembered that Grayle was still at the 
 House, when I left. As the taxi drove away I asked 
 myself, not for the first time, whether I had not enough 
 work and worries of my own without having to play the 
 double part of bland bachelor uncle and private detective. 
 
 A week later O'Rane came up to London and called on 
 George at the Admiralty. He was so far amenable to advice 
 that he went alone to "The Sanctuary" and talked for an 
 hour with his wife, though they parted without reaching a 
 compromise and on the reiterated understanding that, if 
 Miss Hilda Merryon set foot in "The Sanctuary," Mrs. 
 O'Rane would leave and never return. I met him myself 
 later in the day at the House and was relieved to find 
 him preoccupied with other cares. He had called on Beres- 
 ford and been privileged to hear the proofs of that inde- 
 fatigable pamphleteer's latest composition. It was entitled, 
 I believe, "Lettres de Cachet," and contained a bitter attack 
 on petty tyranny and misuse of authority as practised by 
 the army. O'Rane had tried to get the article withdrawn, 
 but Beresford was inflamed and fanatical with memories 
 of his own treatment in prison and of the attempt to silence 
 his mouth by the exercise of military discipline. I fancy, 
 too, that he was puffed up with his own initial victory and 
 believed that, so far from seeking opportunity for another 
 encounter, the agents of government were rubbing their 
 bruises and keeping out of the way. 
 
 "I couldn't move him an inch," O'Rane had to admit. 
 "I'm sorry, for I don't want to see him killed. . . . And I 
 I must have been extraordinarily like him when I was a 
 kid of about fifteen, and the whole world was a black 
 dungeon of iniquity and injustice, and I had to keep 
 hold of myself with both hands for fear of murdering 
 someone. . . . The first time I talked to Beresford I agreed 
 with most of what he said; I could feel myself going white, 
 if you understand me; we got emotionally drunk together. 
 And then I saw that he wasn't going to do any more good 
 than I should have done at fifteen, if I'd yielded to the 
 
SONIA O'RANE 129 
 
 impulse of killing a man. ... I felt that, if someone could 
 relieve the shadows a bit ... I'm not giving in yet." 
 
 We were interrupted by a division bell, and I gave him 
 an arm to the lobby. Then Bertrand carried him off to 
 dinner, and I made my way to the Berkeley, where I had 
 promised to meet George and his cousin, Lady Loring. 
 Arriving a few minutes before my time, I was smoking 
 a cigarette in the hall when I caught sight of Grayle 
 and crossed over to speak to him. He was scowling in 
 an arm-chair facing the door, with his eyes impatiently 
 fixed on his watch and an evening paper on his knees. 
 
 "You've not started yet, then," I said. "If you're going 
 to be in London to-morrow, I'll give you back your deputa- 
 tion." 
 
 "I leave the first thing in the morning," he answered 
 shortly. "What d'you make the time ? Five to eight ? On 
 the stroke of eight I leave. I don't wait more than half 
 an hour for any woman." 
 
 He hesitated for a moment longer; then pulled himself 
 slowly erect and limped with the resolute fixity of ill temper 
 to the cloak-room. I picked up the paper and was beginning 
 to read it, when he limped back with his coat and cap on, 
 buttoning his gloves. 
 
 "If Mrs. O'Rane turns up while you're here, give her 
 that, will you?" he said, throwing an open envelope on 
 the table. "You might say that I've gone on." 
 
 Protruding from the envelope was a theatre ticket. 
 
 "Aren't you dining?" I asked. 
 
 "I had a whiskey and soda while I was waiting," he 
 answered. "Can't hang about indefinitely, you know. It's 
 Eric Lane's new play. The thing starts at eight of all 
 ungodly hours, and I want to see some of the show." 
 I thought it unnecessary to remind him that we had met 
 at the identical theatre some ten days before. "If a woman 
 can't have the decency to come in time Ah!" 
 
 He interrupted himself as Mrs. O'Rane came in, stood 
 looking round for a moment and hurried forward, smiling 
 at two or three friends on the way. 
 
130 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "You were very nearly late," she said, nodding at his cap. 
 "If I'd had to wait Well, I suppose Mr. Stornaway 
 would have taken pity on me, however much he hates me. 
 The spectacle of a young distressed female simply fainting 
 for a cocktail did you remember to order my special cock- 
 tail?" she asked Grayle. 
 
 "You are late," he observed, without regard to her 
 question. 
 
 "I? But that's too abominable! If you're not going 
 to be sweet to me, I shall go straight home and never speak 
 to you again. Late, indeed! I didn't get home till after 
 seven, but I had a hot bath and dressed and disposed of four 
 people on the telephone, all by seven-thirty " 
 
 "Dinner was ordered for seven-thirty," Grayle inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane puckered her lips mischievously and laid 
 one ringer on them to enjoin silence. 
 
 "Are you listening to my story?" she asked. "If you'd 
 just be patient and not pretend you're working out the times 
 for an infantry advance " She turned to me with a quick 
 smile. "How long would you say it took to get here from 
 'The Sanctuary/ Mr. Stornaway?" 
 
 "That depends how you go," I said. "It's no time in 
 a taxi." 
 
 She clapped her hands in delight. 
 
 "That's what I always say! When anyone finds fault 
 with Westminster or the Embankment fancy finding fault 
 with the Embankment! It's like being compromised with 
 the Albert Memorial. But people do, you know; the Em- 
 bankment, I mean; they say it's not healthy well, when 
 they find fault, I always say, 'Ah, but it's so central. You 
 can jump into a taxi and get anywhere in no time!' Just 
 what you said, Mr. Stornaway. Well, as dinner was at 
 half-past seven and it took me no time to get here, there was 
 no point in leaving the house before half-past seven, was 
 there?" 
 
 Grayle was nodding at each new development in her 
 rather diffuse story, but there were hard, unamiable lines 
 
SONIA O'RANE 131 
 
 from nose to mouth, and I fancied that her smiles and 
 tricks and absurdities were not amusing him. As she paused 
 for want of breath, he took a step backward. 
 
 "Don't go away, when I'm talking to you!" she cried, 
 catching him by the sleeve. "It's rude, to begin with, 
 and you know you're always sorry after you've been rude 
 to me. Oh! the times you've had to call with a taxi full 
 of {lowers ! I will say this for myself, I'm very forgiv- 
 ing ; and, in the second place, you're missing the real 
 pathos of the story, what the Americans call the sob- 
 stuff. I left home at seven-thirty, as I must have told 
 you before, but you will keep interrupting; I walked to the 
 Houses of Parliament no taxi ; I persevered down 
 Whitehall no taxi ; fainting with fatigue and weeping from 
 sheer mortification, I dragged one foot after another for 
 the honour of England, you know up the Haymarket 
 no taxi ; and, believe me or believe me not, as you like, 
 I never saw a taxi till I got here. Then an angel-creature 
 drove up and said, 'Taxi, miss?' and it was almost more 
 than I could bear. I wanted to jump in and drive round 
 and round the Park to shew people that there was just 
 one taxi left in the world and that I'd got it. Nothing but 
 the thought of this wretched play brought me here at all 
 the play and the cocktail; you must admit that, if anyone 
 ever deserved a cocktail, it's me. And, if you say you 
 haven't ordered me one or that they're bad for me, I shall 
 go home." 
 
 She handed me her gloves and held out a bag to Grayle, 
 as she began to take off her cloak. 
 
 "Now, is that the whole story?" he asked. 
 
 "That's a synopsis," she said. "I can elaborate it, of 
 course. Some of the people I met on the way " 
 
 "I think we can dispense with that. Dinner was ordered 
 for seven-thirty, and the play begins at eight. I was 
 starting out, as you came in, but I waited to hear if you 
 had anything to say, any explanation to give. Stornaway 
 has your ticket, and the table's that one in the first window. 
 I may see you later." 
 
132 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane looked at him for a moment without under- 
 standing; then her mouth opened slowly. 
 
 "Oh!" she exclaimed. 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 "Come back this instant!" 
 
 Grayle turned his back on us with a perfunctory bow 
 and limped away. 
 
 "If you don't come back, I'll never speak to you again !" 
 she cried. 
 
 Whether he heard her or not made no difference to his 
 steady progress. As he reached the door, Mrs. O'Rane 
 turned nonchalantly to me with a smile and a, shrug. A 
 moment later she glanced casually over her shoulder to 
 see if he was coming back. A moment later still, with 
 amazement in her eyes, she was hurrying after him into 
 the street. 
 
 When George Oakleigh arrived with his cousin at a 
 quarter past eight, he told me with some concern that 
 he had forgotten to book a table. We were very comfort- 
 ably accommodated, however, in the first window. 
 
 For three weeks I endured an unsought holiday in bed 
 with influenza at the Hyde Park Hotel. In my absence 
 everything seemed to have gone on very much as before, 
 and, when I met O'Rane at the House on the eve of his 
 return to Melton, he told me that he, too, had spent the 
 recess in London with his wife and that Miss Merryon 
 had been packed off to the sea for a change of air. Out- 
 wardly all relations were amicable, but Bertrand told me 
 afterwards that Mrs. O'Rane consistently displayed the 
 guarded civility of a wife who had discovered her husband's 
 infidelity, but decides to stay with him rather than create a 
 scandal. 
 
 "Are you going back to Melton, then ?" I asked O'Rane. 
 
 "Yes. I haven't found anything else suitable so far. 
 You see, I feel it must be war-work of some kind ; and it 
 
SONIA O'RANE 133 
 
 must be paid. I don't seem much nearer solvency than 
 when I came back from France twelve months ago." 
 
 I had a vision of "The Sanctuary," as I had seen it at 
 the O'Ranes' house-warming, crammed to overflowing with 
 their friends and his chance acquaintances. I knew some- 
 thing of his prodigal generosity and of his wife's no less 
 prodigal extravagance ; and I could form no idea how they 
 kept their heads above water. Bertrand, of course, con- 
 tributed to the up-keep of the household; O'Rane had his 
 salary as a Member and some trifle from Melton ; his wife 
 possessed a few hundreds of her own, eked out with chance 
 gifts from admiring friends. Sir Adolphus Erskine, the 
 great financier, would give her a set of furs or a pearl 
 necklace, Lord Pennington would send her a case of cham- 
 pagne out of some unexpected discovery at an auction, but 
 this hardly helped to appease the tradesmen. 
 
 "I don't know what you can expect," I said. 
 
 O'Rane frowned in perplexity. 
 
 "I made a lot of money and I saved a lot of money 
 before the war," he said, "but I don't seem able to do it 
 now. . . . When other people ... I know it's impracti- 
 cable to go out and give a loaf to everyone who's hungry, but 
 it's frightfully hard to refuse when you do in fact meet 
 them. I daresay it's mad, but George and everyone will 
 tell you that I've always been tolerably mad, and I'm afraid 
 I've got much madder since the war." He gave one of his 
 whimsical, Puck-like laughs and then added soberly, "Poor 
 Sonia !" 
 
 "I hope you're in a state of grace," I said. "You know, a 
 madman can be very cruel." 
 
 He looked into my eyes, and I shivered; for, though I 
 knew him to be sightless, he seemed to be looking into my 
 soul. 
 
 "Sometimes I feel there's not room for compromise in 
 this life," he said. 
 
 "You are thirty? I'm afraid I'm a quarter of a century 
 older, O'Rane." 
 
i 3 4 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "Thank God! there's room for inconsistency," he 
 laughed. 
 
 I was at my office the following afternoon when George 
 Oakleigh telephoned to say that his uncle wished to see me 
 at once on a matter of urgency; could I make it con- 
 venient to come round immediately? I replied that it was 
 exceedingly inconvenient, but that, if he could play truant 
 from the Admiralty, I could absent myself equally well 
 from my own department. 
 
 "Thank God you can come !" he exclaimed with disquiet- 
 ing fervour. "It's a bad business." 
 
 I arrived at "The Sanctuary" to find all silent and tense 
 with expectant tragedy. Bertrand sprawled with slackened 
 limbs on a long wicker chair, an untasted drink by his 
 side and an unlighted cigar in his mouth. George was 
 looking bleakly out of the window, with his right hand 
 gripping his left wrist behind his back; the afternoon sun 
 exposed every line and wrinkle of his face, and I found 
 him ten years older, effortless and numbed. 
 
 "Tell me what's happened," I said, as I closed the 
 door. 
 
 Bertrand looked at me for a moment, though I could see 
 that his attention was wandering, and then turned to his 
 nephew. 
 
 "You'd better go back to him," he suggested. "I don't 
 think we've got anything more to say to each other." 
 
 The second closing of the door was followed by a long 
 silence. 
 
 "Tell me what's happened, Bertrand," I repeated. 
 
 "Oh, nothing!" He gave a barking cough of mordant 
 bitterness. "I told George it wasn't fair to drag you in, 
 when you had in fact been spared it. David came back 
 unexpectedly this afternoon to find his wife in Beresford's 
 arms." He buried his face in tremulous hands. "My God ! 
 my God ! They've not been married a year ! And a blind 
 man!" 
 
 When Bertrand is cynical, I find him tiresomely cynical; 
 not content with condoning human depravity, he seems to 
 
SONIA O'RANE 135 
 
 take personal credit to himself for it. When he is human- 
 ly moved, I find him unnerving. 
 
 "Tell me the whole story," I said, "before I try to com- 
 ment on it." 
 
 "Comment on it ?" Bertrand echoed and sat silent, staring 
 at a picture on the opposite wall. 
 
 The story, when it came, was old and simple. The 
 end of the holidays found the O'Ranes as undecided about 
 the future as at the beginning ; it had been easier, I presume, 
 not to discuss it, and no word had passed until the evening 
 before. Then O'Rane had announced his approaching re- 
 turn to Melton, and from that the game, encounter, what 
 you will, had developed automatically. His wife begged 
 him not to go, hinted that he had promised to stay in 
 London and after the usual interchange was undecided 
 whether she would keep him company. It depended . . . 
 There followed the expected debate on Miss Merryon. 
 O'Rane was taking her to Melton whether his wife came 
 or not, as he needed the services of a typist ; Mrs. O'Rane 
 would not go, if "that woman" went, and, if O'Rane went 
 with her alone, he knew the consequences. . . . 
 
 "Then I went to bed/' said Bertrand, pressing his hands 
 to his head. "I imagine they must have had an unpre- 
 cedented row, and this morning O'Rane went off to Water- 
 loo, leaving his wife like a spitting cat. I slunk out of 
 the house as soon as possible; I didn't want the quarrel at 
 second-hand. Sometime this afternoon O'Rane came back. 
 When he got to Waterloo, he felt that he couldn't part 
 from his wife for three months on such a note. He came 
 back to make friends, to see if they couldn't arrive at some 
 modus vivendi. . . . He felt his way round the library; 
 it was deserted; felt his way round the hall and found 
 her umbrella in the stand; went upstairs. Her door was 
 locked, and he tapped on it, begging her to let him in. She 
 shouted out that he wasn't to come in; and he stood there 
 minute after minute, praying her to remember their love, 
 to forgive him, to be reasonable, generous, to forget their 
 wretched quarrel. Never a sound came from inside the 
 
136 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 room. He had worked himself up until he was sweating 
 with emotion. When he stopped, there was utter silence. 
 Then he heard a cough. . . ." 
 
 Bertrand paused to sip the drink at his elbow. It was 
 not Sonia's cough; it was the bursting cough of a man 
 who had been trying in a long agony of suffocation to 
 repress it. At the sound something primitive and over- 
 mastering took possession of O'Rane. He stepped back and 
 flung himself against the door, but it was old, and the 
 weight of his body only wrung a hollow groan from its 
 solidity; within all was still silent. Again and again he 
 charged the door with his shoulder until one panel split 
 and broke in, and the lock creaked in outrage. Insensible 
 to physical pain which was quickly maddening his brain, 
 he took a last flying leap which wrenched handle and lock 
 from the wood-work and sent him to measure his length 
 on the floor. 
 
 The same uncanny silence greeted his entrance. He drew 
 himself upright, rubbing his bruised shoulder, and embarked 
 on what from Bertrand's account was truly the grimmest 
 game of Blind Man's Buff. With the muscles of his back 
 and arms braced to resist an attack, he advanced slowly with 
 arms outstretched and body bent, like a foot-ball player 
 waiting to collar his man. In the first half of the room his 
 groping hands touched only the familiar tables and chairs, 
 but with every yard forward he was uncovering a retreat 
 for the adversary. Retracing his steps, he kicked the door 
 closed, pushed a bed against it and advanced once more 
 towards the window. In the unbroken silence he had to 
 keep stopping suddenly for a half-heard sound of hurried 
 breathing, but his own pulses were hammering so loudly 
 that he could not trust his ears. Nearer and nearer to 
 the window he crept, until an unnamed sense told him that 
 he was within touch of a human body ; as he paused, there 
 was a shiver followed by a sharp intake of breath; some- 
 one's nerves were breaking under the ordeal. The waving 
 arms swept forward and closed on a woman's shoulders. 
 
 "Sonia!" he panted and could say no more. 
 
SONIA O'RANE 137 
 
 For a moment longer the silence continued; then from 
 behind her came the foot-shuffle of the man whom she had 
 been shielding. O'Rane's hands dropped, and he sprang 
 beyond her, only to bark his knuckles on the wall, as his 
 unseen quarry doubled and ran ; there was an instant's vague 
 chase, the sound of a lame man sparing his injured leg, the 
 squeak of rolling castors, as the bed was dragged back from 
 the door, a scratching for the handle that was no longer 
 there and finally the echoing slam of the door itself. O'Rane 
 sprawled once more on the floor, as his foot met a rucked 
 billow of carpet ; the hurried limp grew distant and faded ; 
 there followed the slam of a second door, and the house 
 returned to its afternoon silence. 
 
 What either found to say to the other neither Bertrand 
 nor I had any means of guessing. - 
 
 "She's gone," he told me hollowly. "I saw her driving 
 away, as I came back from the House just before we 
 sent for you. O'Rane was standing in the middle of the 
 library like a like a man in catalepsy. George came in 
 a moment later, and we had the story as I've given it to 
 you." He paused and breathed deeply. "I'm getting too 
 old for this sort of thing, Stornaway ; my my brain strikes 
 work at a time like this, you must tell me what we've got 
 to do. There'll be murder, if he ever gets his hands on 
 Beresford, and we've got to stop that. I'd murder the 
 fellow myself, if I could, but we can't have David hanging 
 for him. And we must do something for David." 
 
 With a quavering hand he picked up the tumbler from 
 the table by his side and sipped its contents mechanically. 
 His eyes were half-closed, and his mind at least was asleep 
 with very exhaustion. My own worked feverishly with 
 utter want of concentration. I told myself that I might 
 have expected this after my surprise meeting in Beresford's 
 flat, that it had been going on for Heaven knows how many 
 weeks ; then that none of this was to the point, that O'Rane 
 was in a bath of liquid fire, that something must be done ; 
 lastly yet my first thought and appreciation that none 
 of us knew what to do, that nothing could be done. 
 
138 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 I have no idea how long I stood staring at Bertrand's 
 shrunken face and closed eyes. Death had left his finger- 
 prints on the big, self-indulgent face when the old man had 
 his stroke at the beginning of the war. I remember 
 wondering how many more rounds he would survive. . . . 
 Yet he had lived fully, powerfully and pleasurably for more 
 than his allotted span; young O'Rane was little more than 
 thirty and he had already undergone what would have 
 broken men of less heroic spirit. 
 
 Instinctively I moved towards the door, and at the slight 
 sound Bertrand opened his eyes and asked what I was 
 going to do. 
 
 "God knows!" I answered. 
 
 Instinctively I found myself walking down the stairs 
 which Beresford and O'Rane had descended so precipitously 
 an hour or two before. The same strained air of expect- 
 ancy hung over the passages and hall, and, when I pushed 
 aside the curtain and entered the library, George started 
 like a surprised criminal. The room was in twilight, and 
 it took my eyes several moments to grow accustomed to 
 the change from the sunset glow upstairs. Then I caught 
 sight of O'Rane sprawling on the sofa, motionless and 
 silent; his hair was dishevelled, his clothes dusty on one 
 side, and I could see white skin and a stain of blood 
 through a rent in one trouser-knee. 
 
 "It's Stornaway," George explained. 
 
 For a moment O'Rane seemed not to have heard; then 
 he said: 
 
 "Thanks. Thanks to you both. Later on, perhaps. . . . 
 Just now I'd rather " 
 
 I exchanged glances with George, who shrugged his 
 shoulders and rose silently to his feet. O'Rane collected 
 himself and walked to the door, fortified by the routine of 
 social convention, as though he were speeding a dinner- 
 guest on his way. I passed by the flame-coloured curtain 
 and turned the handle of the door, looking round to recap- 
 ture the vision seen one night when O'Rane caught his 
 .wife to his heart, while I looked on and envied them 
 
SONIA O'RANE 139 
 
 something that had never been granted to me. There was 
 no response to my pull, but, at the rattle, O'Rane stepped 
 forward with a muttered apology, pulling a cumbrous key 
 from his pocket and feeling for the lock with the fingers 
 of his other hand. George and I passed into the street, the 
 door closed behind us, and I caught the sound of rusty 
 wards turning in an unaccustomed lock. George put his 
 arm through mine and asked if I was going back to the 
 House. 
 
 "I shall dine at the Club," I said ; and I wondered how 
 either of us could speak so conventionally. 
 
 We walked the length of Millbank in silence. 
 
 "You'd have thought he had enough to put up with 
 already, wouldn't you ?" George asked dispassionately ; then, 
 with a tremor in his voice, "God in heaven ! it's a smash-up 
 for Raney! I didn't think she was capable of it, I've 
 known her all her life, I'd have sworn she'd have pulled 
 up in time. ... Of course, she's always had to have people 
 fluttering round her and paying her compliments, and I 
 wasn't a bit surprised to find a boys' school of young 
 Guardees hanging about the house the moment she'd moved 
 into it. It was the same when she was engaged to Jim 
 Loring God knows, she knocked a big enough hole in 
 his life, you'd have thought there'd be some reactive effect 
 on her. . . . But, on my soul, because she'd been doing 
 it so long, I thought she could be trusted. I thought she 
 really loved Raney, I thought he was the only person who 
 could manage her. . . . He would treat her like a man. 
 'No one's ever let up on me. Trust people, and they'll re- 
 pay your trust. . . .' All that balderdash. . . . It's suc- 
 ceeded amazingly well with men, he can do what he likes 
 with them. But women must be fundamentally different. 
 . . . We're both bachelors, of course. . . . But I always 
 feel there was a lot to be said for Petruchio. Raney loved 
 her most kinds of ways, and she loved him on and off in 
 some fashion for years; he really only won her, when he 
 was frankly brutal to her I had the story from both, so 
 I know; she was caught in Austria, like you, and he 
 
140 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 smuggled her back and shewed her pretty clearly who'd 
 got the stronger personality; then she married him after 
 he'd gone blind, when all our emotions were in tatters; 
 and, having once married her, he seemed to think that 
 mere love and trust were enough to keep her. I don't 
 know ; I've never had to live with a woman ; I can't help 
 feeling, though, that, just as he won her by main force, 
 so he could only hope to keep her by main force. And he 
 didn't even give her the 'mere love and trust' I've been 
 talking about ; he trusted her all right, but I think the kind 
 of practical Christianity that he tried to set up was too 
 much to ask of anyone let alone a spoilt darling like Sonia. 
 . . . He's always been so infernally uncompromising, it's his 
 strength and his weakness ; it's because he was uncompromis- 
 ing that he's kept alive and it's because he's been uncom- 
 promising with her that he's brought this on himself." 
 
 We had walked up Whitehall and were waiting for a gap 
 in the traffic by the Admiralty Arch. 
 
 "But this is all ancient history, George," I reminded him. 
 "What are we going to do ?" 
 
 "To soften the blow? Nothing. We can't do anything. 
 Sonia's cleared out, I suppose she' gone off to join Beres- 
 ford. Well, Bertrand thinks Raney's equal to murder, but 
 you can trust Beresford to keep out of the way. ... I 
 suppose there'll be a divorce. ... I honestly don't know 
 what to do about Raney. He's my oldest and dearest 
 friend, but I don't know more than the surface of him. . . . 
 God! If I had Sonia's throat in my two hands!" He 
 broke off and pulled me roughly off the kerb, gripping my 
 arm until we were half-way down Cockspur Street. "I've 
 never been faced with this kind of thing, Stornaway. I 
 suppose you must have been?" 
 
 "Nothing so bad as this," I was able to answer him. 
 
 We walked on into Pall Mall without speaking. Then 
 George gripped my arm again. 
 
 "That poor devil alone in the dark with this this to 
 occupy his thoughts!" 
 
SONIA O'RANE 141 
 
 I made no comment. I do not see what comment was 
 possible. 
 
 "I feel so hopelessly at sea!" he exclaimed agitatedly. 
 "Stornaway, you've had to pull people out of holes before ; 
 can nothing be done ? Can't we get her to go back ? Would 
 he receive her back? Of course, we're all of us seeing red 
 now, but somehow every hour that she spends with Beres- 
 ford makes it harder to get her back; if we could use 
 Raney's love for her " 
 
 "D'you want her to go back?" I interrupted. 
 
 "God knows what I want!" he sighed. 
 
 We had reached the steps of the County Club, and I 
 told George to come in and have some dinner with me. 
 Both of us were already engaged in different parts of 
 London, but we wanted to hold together. 
 
 "Come to Hale's," he said, shaking his head. "It's pretty 
 well deserted since the war; everybody's fighting. I can't 
 risk meeting a crowd of people I know and having to 
 pretend nothing's up." 
 
 Leaving St. James' Square, we walked through King 
 Street and entered the squat Regency house which had 
 sheltered succeeding generations of London's exquisites for 
 a hundred years. The coffee-room was deserted, and we had 
 a choice of wine, food and service; but I have never eaten 
 a gloomier meal. Every few minutes George would say, 
 "Look here, you know, something's got to be done about 
 this !" and I would reply, "Nothing can be done." Then we 
 would attack a new course. Though we had chosen Hale's 
 to be secure from interruption, I am not sure that we were 
 not both a little relieved at the end of dinner when Vincent 
 Grayle limped in with an evening paper under his arm and 
 asked leave to join us for the short remainder of our meal. 
 I can get on with him at a pinch; George cannot; but we 
 shared a common need for diversion. 
 
 "I've just this moment got back from France," Grayle 
 said to explain his late arrival. "I've been having a lively 
 week at G.H.Q., watching the professional soldiers losing 
 the war for us." He summoned a waiter and truculently or- 
 
142 SONIA MARRIED * 
 
 dered dinner. "Anything happening in London ?" he asked. 
 
 "Nothing much," I told him. "What news from the 
 Front?" 
 
 "Everybody's very cheery, getting ready for the big 
 push. They all seem quite sure that they're going to break 
 through this time, and there's an amount of ammunition 
 and reserves that really does put you in good heart when you 
 think how the men out there were starving in the first part 
 of the war thanks to the gang we had running things on 
 this side. Whether we've got the generals is another ques- 
 tion ; if not, we must make a remarkably big clean sweep, 
 politicians included." 
 
 He was evidently preparing one of his usual attacks, and, 
 though I had welcomed the momentary diversion, neither 
 George nor I wanted a political argument at such a time. 
 With a trumped-up apology we went into the morning-room 
 for coffee and liqueurs, leaving Grayle to his opinions and 
 his evening paper. 
 
 "We don't seem to have thought out anything very help- 
 ful," sighed George, as he threw himself into a chair. 
 "D'you think it's the least good going round to Beresford's 
 place and forcing Sonia to go back?" 
 
 "Do you want her to go back, even if you can make 
 her?" I asked once more. "She's been saying for weeks 
 that she regarded her marriage as at an end; now she's 
 proved it. Do you want to send her back on those terms ? 
 And does O'Rane want to have her back ?" 
 
 George covered his face with his hands, shaking his head 
 despairingly from side to side. 
 
 "I don't know," he groaned. "And this must have 
 bowled poor old Raney over so much that I don't suppose 
 he knows. Ordinarily but it's absurd to use such a word. 
 . . . I can only say this; he loved her so much, he loved 
 her for so many years, he believed in her or in some won- 
 derful idealised conception of her by which he saw every 
 kind of saintly quality where the rest of us only regarded 
 her as a good-natured, but quite heartless, fascinating co- 
 quette he thought of her and dreamed of her, she was so 
 
SONIA O'RANE 143 
 
 much a part of his life, the big part, the only thing that 
 mattered. . . ." He paused, out of breath. "You'd have said 
 that it would have been like cutting off his arms and legs, 
 if he'd lost her, if she'd died or married Jim Loring or the 
 other fellow she was engaged to. ... But I don't know now. 
 When you've given all that love and trust, when you've ideal- 
 ised anyone, and the whole conception crumbles away . . . 
 Stornaway, he's extraordinarily frank ; I fancy I know more 
 of him than most people. Well, I do know how he loved that 
 strumpet; I don't know, I can't say whether he'd love her 
 still or whether he'd just want to strangle her and then cut 
 his own throat. . . . But I think it's worth trying. We can 
 at least give him a chance, we can keep his hands off 
 
 her " He jumped up, leaving his coffee untasted. "I'm 
 
 going to have a shot." 
 
 "Shall I come with you ?" I asked. 
 
 He was already half-way to the door. 
 
 "I want everyone I can get!" he threw back over his 
 shoulder. 
 
 We drove to Sloane Square, and in ten minutes' time I 
 found myself once more mounting the stairs to Beresford's 
 flat. The lower floors were silent and deserted, but, as we 
 climbed higher, I heard voices and the tramp of heavy feet 
 growing louder and more distinct with every yard that we 
 covered. As we rounded the corner of the passage, I 
 stopped with a sickening sense of foreboding, when I found 
 my path blocked -by a policeman. For a moment no one 
 spoke, and I fancied that we were being scrutinised with 
 disfavour, even with suspicion. George, however, was too 
 much preoccupied to be daunted. 
 
 "Is Mr. Beresford at home, d'you know ?" he asked. The 
 constable shook his head. "D'you happen to know where 
 he is ? I have to see him on a matter of great urgency. If 
 he's not in, I'll go in and wait till he comes back." 
 
 He made a step forward, but the man shewed no sign of 
 yielding. 
 
 "Afraid I can't let you by, sir," he said. "No one's al- 
 lowed in." 
 
144 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 I was assailed by a dreadful certainty that we had arrived 
 too late. 
 
 "Why not ?" I demanded, but my voice quavered too much 
 to be effective. 
 
 "Mr. Beresford's been arrested." 
 
 "But, in God's name, what for?" 
 
 "That's none of my business," was the answer. 
 
 George was diving significantly into his trouser-pocket, 
 but I felt that what lay before me was too serious for trifling 
 with half-crowns.' I handed the man my card and repeated 
 my request. 
 
 "It's not mere curiosity," I said. "If you don't tell me, 
 there are others who will ; but I want to save time." 
 
 I always have the letters "M.P." printed on my cards to 
 impress government departments, for throughout the public 
 service there is an inherited dread that a question may be 
 asked in the House ; the hierarchy from top to bottom makes 
 it the first business of life to avoid such publicity. This in- 
 stinct of self-preservation, deeply-rooted as a horse's fear of 
 a snake in the grass, led the constable to inform me promptly 
 that Beresford had been arrested for issuing seditious litera- 
 ture ; his flat was at the moment being searched. 
 
 My own sigh of relief was drowned by a deeper sigh from 
 George. 
 
 "When did this take place?" he asked. 
 
 "To-day, sir. I can't tell you the time; I've only just 
 come on duty." 
 
 "Was there anyone there besides Mr. Beresford ? Is there 
 anyone there now?" 
 
 "The inspector, sir ; and two men." 
 
 George thanked him and led me by the arm to the head 
 of the stairs. 
 
 "Thank God !" he whispered. "You you thought so, too ; 
 I could see it in your face. Oh, Christ, if they were going 
 to arrest the fellow, why couldn't they have done it sooner ? 
 7 don't know what to do now. At least I must go back to 
 The Sanctuary' and see what's happened there." He 
 dragged me down stairs and into our taxi at a pace which 
 
SONIA O'RANE 145 
 
 more than once threatened to break both our necks. "Where 
 the devil can she have gone to, Stornaway ? She'd naturally 
 come here. But, when they arrested him . . ." 
 
 The shrouded lamp over "The Sanctuary" door was un- 
 lighted when we arrived; the door was locked against us, 
 and, though I now remembered hearing the key turn when 
 O'Rane shewed us out, the cherished little piece of his be- 
 loved childish symbolism was grown painfully familiar. 
 
 "Come round to the other door," said George, and we were 
 admitted and ushered into Bertrand's room. "Any news ?" 
 he enquired gently. 
 
 Someone had drawn the blinds, someone had brought in 
 a tray of food; otherwise the room was unchanged in as- 
 pect, and Bertrand seemed not to have moved since I left 
 him stretched in the long wicker chair three hours earlier. 
 
 "News?" he repeated, opening his eyes and blinking at 
 us. "David's gone back to Melton. Ah ! this is a bad busi- 
 ness ! Give me a hand up, George ; I'm tired. I sometimes 
 think I've lived too long." 
 
CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 THE DOOR CLOSED 
 
 'Proprium humani ingenii est, odisse quern laeseris." 
 
 T* A /"'TT'TTC " A/*1*f*ff\ln f* 
 
 TACITUS: Agricola C. 42. 
 
 As I write, the war has been in progress for two and a 
 half years, and it is beyond the wit of man to foretell how 
 much longer it will continue, though there is the annual feel- 
 ing that peace will come before the autumn. In August we 
 shall reach the end of the three years which Lord Kitchener 
 had in mind when he began his preparations, but I for one 
 look forward to the summer of 1917 with greater appre- 
 hension than ever I felt a year ago. During 1916 I was the 
 unconscious psychological victim of men like Grayle who 
 were so convinced of our predestined failure under the ex- 
 isting regime that they went some way towards convincing 
 me. In June the field of war was extended by the Bulgarian 
 inroads into Greece, and, though we talked still of the "Rus- 
 sian steam-roller," it was not until July that the Austrian 
 counter-drive in Russia and Italy was checked. The New 
 Army, which had been so grandly raised, went into action 
 at the Somme and covered itself with immortal renown ; we 
 did not quickly see how much had been spent and how little 
 achieved "Six hundred thousand casualties and an un- 
 broken German front," as Grayle declared to me in the 
 Smoking-Room at the House one night. 
 
 Grayle's political sense was good in that from the break- 
 down of the Somme offensive he saw that the days of the 
 Government were numbered. Ministers never recovered the 
 prestige which they had lost in the Irish rising. The dis- 
 
 146 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 147 
 
 astrous expedition to the Dardanelles was being discussed 
 so widely and bitterly that an enquiry had to be in- 
 stituted ; so with the no less disastrous expedition to Meso- 
 potamia ; and, as more men were frittered away in Salonica, 
 we began to wonder whether we should not have to hold 
 a third enquiry, indeed an enquiry into every subsidiary en- 
 terprise which every amateur strategist in the Cabinet under- 
 took in any theatre of war. 
 
 There were many who began at this time to swell Grayle's 
 clamour for a change, a series of changes, indeed, simul- 
 taneously in the Ministry which was weak enough to em- 
 bark on this succession of costly failures and in the soldiers 
 who failed to achieve success with such conditions of men, 
 material and ammunition as the Germans had never equalled 
 in the days when the balance tipped highest in their favour. 
 I had, myself, always simulated rather a superior aloofness, 
 for I felt that, as the war was a bigger and longer enterprise 
 than my fellows would admit, so we must be prepared for 
 greater failures in coping with it. Yet I can see now that 
 I began to listen less impatiently to the critics. The War 
 Office at this time was in the charge of a distinguished sol- 
 dier who had had the vision and courage to prophesy a long 
 war and whose personality and reputation were of inestim- 
 able value in creating the armies which came to bear his 
 name. Largely on newspaper prompting, the Government 
 had made Lord Kitchener Secretary of State for War, and 
 the country as a whole was reassured by the presence of an 
 expert military brain in the deplorably civilian councils of 
 the cabinet. There was a simple-minded faith, which ex- 
 pressed itself in Maurice Maitland's phrase, "Leave it to 
 K." ; a volume of work which no single man could accom- 
 plish was thereupon trustingly concentrated in the hands of 
 one who loved to hold as many strings as possible. Stagna- 
 tion in the War Office gave way to chaos, until one func- 
 tion after another recruiting, equipment and munitions 
 were withdrawn from his grasp and confided to others. 
 Later the Staff control was separated from the political con- 
 trol, and Lord Kitchener gave no orders that were not coun- 
 
148 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 tersigned by his Chief of Staff; later still an effort was 
 made in the cabinet to deprive him of an office which he had 
 ceased usefully to fill. He was sent to inspect the Eastern 
 theatre of war ; he was sent also to Russia. . . . 
 
 I am unlikely to forget a day when I was lunching with 
 Bertrand at the Eclectic Club. Maitland sat down with a 
 blank face and said, "I've got some bad news for you men. 
 K's been drowned. He was going out to Russia, and his 
 ship the 'Hampshire' was sunk by a mine or torpedo 
 they don't know which, and the North Sea must be full of 
 loose mines after this Jutland action. The sea was so rough 
 that the escort had to turn back almost at once. . . ." Some 
 time passed before we could discuss Maitland's news, for 
 Lord Kitchener had been so imposing an idol, so aloof and 
 mysterious until you met him at close quarters, as I had 
 done a few days before, when a deputation of us waited 
 on him and sought enlightenment on subjects which we could 
 not discuss openly in the House so well-established and un- 
 shakable ; we never expected him to die in the middle of the 
 war, certainly we never dreamed of a death so fortuitous, 
 unnecessary, so much the freak of Providence. 
 
 "Yet I'm not sure it's not the best thing for his reputa- 
 tion," Maitland said. "Felix opportunitate mortis, you 
 know. There's a whole crop of failures to explain, and his 
 prestige must have suffered. Don't you sometimes feel that 
 we want a clean sweep, Stornaway? . . . I'm a soldier myself, 
 but it was a great mistake, whatever people may think, put- 
 ting a soldier at the War Office. . . ." 
 
 The news was being cried in the streets, as I went back 
 to my department ; half-way through the afternoon a messen- 
 ger came into my room to say that all blinds in all govern- 
 ment offices were to be drawn ; that night, Yolande told me, 
 was the worst she had known since the tidings reached her 
 nearly two years before that her brother had been killed 
 in the retreat from Mons. Wave after wave of men poured 
 from the leave-trains and surged into her canteen, demand- 
 ing confirmation of this story which was being whispered 
 at the coast. And, when she told them or pointed to the of- 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 149 
 
 ficial report, they still. would not believe it. He was the 
 man under whom they had enlisted. . . . 
 
 Yet, when a civilian was once more at the head of the 
 War Office, I believe that a new embarrassment was substi- 
 tuted for the old. As the Somme campaign had failed to 
 achieve a decision, men like Grayle openly resumed the criti- 
 cism which they had suspended for a few months and de- 
 manded the removal of the responsible Commander in Chief 
 and the Chief of the General Staff. Thereupon two schools 
 arose in the Press, the House and, I believe, the Cabinet; 
 the civilian backers of Sir William Robertson and Sir Doug- 
 las Haig pitted themselves against their civilian detractors ; 
 individual commanders were surrounded by social cliques 
 and supported by individual Ministers and papers. I was told 
 by Grayle and by the section of the press influenced by him 
 that we wanted a reconstruction of the Ministry and of the 
 Higher Command; I was told by the Press Combine that 
 Sir Douglas Haig was the one general of outstanding genius 
 whom the war had brought to the surface. 
 
 Between the two I confess that I lost my temper. Even 
 with South Africa and the Antwerp expedition to his credit, 
 Grayle was no more fit to appoint or depose a Chief of Staff 
 than I was to cast a play or select a prima donna. But I 
 found it difficult to say who was better placed than either 
 of us. Grayle certainly was a pragmatist. 
 
 "Results! results!" he would declaim at me. "I want 
 the contract put out to tender. Can you or can you not 
 break the line? What men and guns do you want? Here 
 they are; you may have three months, and, if you fail, no 
 dignified home commands, but the completest breaking a 
 man's ever had. That's the way Napoleon would have done 
 it ; that's the way the Germans, would do it." 
 
 Grayle was very active in the summer of 1916. I could 
 see him drawing together and co-ordinating the scattered 
 groups of disaffected critics, and my mind went back to 
 George Oakleigh's account of the "Stunt Artists." There 
 was the Liberal Ginger Group, the Conservative Ginger 
 Group, the Mesopotamia Group, the Dardanelles Group, all 
 
150 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 firing occasional volleys into the arms and legs of the Min- 
 istry, none daring to fire at the head or heart. The appar- 
 ently strongest man in the House at this time was Sir 
 Edward Carson. Not content with criticism, he could force 
 the Government to bring in a bill, modify a bill or drop a 
 bill. Glad indeed would Grayle have been to consolidate 
 opposition under such leadership, but at this season unity 
 was regarded as the first requisite ; no one was yet prepared 
 to split the Government or the country into rival factions. 
 
 If not active, I was at least very assiduous in my attend- 
 ance during those summer months. I was assiduous, too, 
 at my office and in my department. The last act of the 
 O'Rane tragedy at which George and I had assisted hit me 
 as hard as the death of a very dear friend. I had thought 
 that I had outgrown other people's troubles ; I found that I 
 was younger than I thought. When I met Bertrand or 
 George, I shunned discussion of the subject; when I went 
 to Melton, I will say frankly that I avoided a meeting with 
 O'Rane. During May I fancy that the others joined me in 
 my conspiracy of silence, and we were aided by events. I 
 read one day that a certain Peter Beresford, described as an 
 author, had been prosecuted for issuing a pamphlet entitled 
 "Lettres de Cachet," which was calculated to undermine the 
 loyalty, discipline, and moral of the army; the pamphlet 
 was confiscated, and its author sentenced to a term of three 
 months' imprisonment. Whether he repeated his hunger- 
 strike or not, I had no means of knowing, as he passed out 
 of my life on his arrest and only re-entered it many weeks 
 later. 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane had disappeared as completely and far more 
 mysteriously. In the early months of the year, quite apart 
 from deliberate meetings at her house or Grayle's or Lady 
 Maitland's, I had caught sight of her at least once a week 
 lunching or dining in a restaurant or chattering to one or 
 other of her many admirers at a play. After the catastrophe, 1 
 though I probably dined and lunched in as many of her 
 favourite restaurants as before, I never met her. There was 
 a vague assumption that she was in the country. One night, 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 151 
 
 as I was smoking a cigarette in the entr'acte at some theatre, 
 Gerald Deganway came up, screwed his eye-glass in place, 
 squeaked a welcome and asked whether I had seen Sonia 
 lately. I told him that I had not. He rather understood 
 that she was staying with her people at Crowley Court. . . . 
 After consultation with O'Rane, George transferred himself 
 to Westminster to look after his uncle and to keep the house- 
 hold in commission. I believe that he forwarded letters to 
 Melton and I have an idea that there was a second vague 
 assumption that she was with her husband at the school. 
 The ties and relationships in social life were so much dis- 
 organised by the war that no one was ever surprised by 
 an unexpected meeting or a failure to meet ; everyone was 
 too much occupied with his own business to care. 
 
 I had convincing evidence of this one day when I received 
 a call from Lady Dainton. She wished to equip Crowley 
 Court as a hospital for shell-shock cases anyone could deal 
 with ordinary wounds and operations; there was no ade- 
 quate scheme for treating these nervous derangements, and 
 she felt that her house was unusually well adapted for the 
 purpose. After we had thrashed out her proposal, I under- 
 took to recommend my Emergency Fund Committee to make 
 a grant. There our business ended, and, as I walked with 
 her to the door, she looked at her watch. 
 
 "It's no good," I remember her saying. "I hoped to leave 
 time for a call on Sonia, but I shall only miss my train, if I 
 try. It's really dreadful how driven we all are. I never 
 have a moment for anything, don't you know? This is the 
 first time I've been in London for months, I've seen nothing 
 of Sonia for I don't know how long Ah, surely, that taxi's 
 disengaged? I mustn't miss it. This petrol shortage is 
 really the last straw. As if we hadn't enough discomfort 
 before, don't you know ?" 
 
 I returned to my desk with a pusillanimous sense of re- 
 lief. The Daintons, then, neither knew nor suspected what 
 had become of their daughter. The secret was in the keep- 
 ing of the O'Ranes, the two Oakleighs, Beresford and my- 
 self. Somehow the disaster seemed hardly so complete while 
 
152 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 there was no public scandal, and neither the Oakleighs nor 
 I were likely to add that last touch. For the others I could 
 not speak ; Mrs. O'Rane or Beresford or both might welcome 
 a petition for divorce; no one knew what was passing in 
 O'Rane's mind. 
 
 Before term was a month old, George went to Melton on 
 a roving commission. 
 
 "I would as soon spend a week-end with a well-bred block 
 of ice," he confided to me on his return. "He was courteous, 
 hospitable nothing too much trouble to make me com- 
 fortable. We talked by the hour of fellows who'd been at 
 school with us, things we'd done you know, endless ridicu- 
 lous anecdotes of how somebody's leg had been pulled, how 
 we'd got into some appalling row together. As a rule I 
 find school 'shop' rather fun, but Raney might have been 
 reciting the kings of England with their dates. He was 
 utterly lifeless and mechanical ; never a smile. . . . When we 
 went into Common Room for dinner, he played up and was 
 a different man ; they chaffed him, and he chaffed them, and 
 we dug out more school 'shop,' and he threw himself into 
 it heart and soul. It was the same on Sunday, when a 
 pack of his boys came and talked to him after evening 
 chapel; he didn't let them see there was anything up. It 
 had been the same when the enigmatic Miss Merryon came 
 in the morning; the usual smile. ... Of course, he never 
 came within a thousand miles of mentioning it. ... When 
 I left on Monday, I told him that I wanted to invite myself 
 again before the end of the term, and then we did get to 
 grips a bit. He shook hands and said, 'Look here, old man, 
 it spoils your week-end and I don't want to be ungracious 
 it doesn't do me any good. I've got to go through this 
 alone/ " 
 
 From George's sigh I felt that in this he was at one with 
 O'Rane. 
 
 But, if not more than six people knew what had hap- 
 pened, there were many who would be more curious to find 
 out than Lady Dainton had shewn herself to be. It was 
 easy enough for Bertrand or George or one of the servants 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 153 
 
 to say that Mrs. O'Rane was away from London and then 
 to hang up the receiver of the telephone, but it was a differ- 
 ent matter as the weeks went by and as the more pertina- 
 cious enquirers called in person. I could sympathise with 
 George. The only person likely to interrogate me was 
 Grayle, and from the fact that he never mentioned Mrs. 
 O'Rane's name I judged that they had quarrelled finally 
 and finally parted on the night when I was privileged to 
 meet them at the Berkeley. I had enough psychological 
 curiosity to wonder what had happened when she hurried 
 out into Piccadilly after him. Grayle had assuredly scored 
 a game when he asserted himself and made her run after 
 him ; but the game had been won when he was too tired to 
 be desirous of winning it. 
 
 My first tidings came to me at the end of May from my 
 niece. She and her husband were dining with me one night 
 at my hotel, and she asked me whether I had been at "The 
 Sanctuary" lately. 
 
 "I've been very busy," I told her. "And I believe Mrs. 
 O'Rane's away." 
 
 "She's not away," Yolande answered : "I saw her at Har- 
 rods' yesterday. That's what made me think of it." 
 
 Yolande, then, knew nothing of what had happened. 
 
 "I wonder when she got back," I said as unconcernedly 
 as I could. "Did she tell you ?" 
 
 "We didn't speak." Yolande's expression became hostile. 
 "I suppose I dislike her every bit as much as she dislikes 
 me, but so far we've kept up appearances. I bowed to her 
 yesterday, and she couldn't help seeing me, but for some rea- 
 son best known to herself she thought fit to cut me." 
 
 "She couldn't have seen you," I said. 
 
 "She couldn't help seeing me," Yolande repeated. 
 
 Three days later I myself met Mrs. O'Rane in Hyde 
 Park. Remembering Yolande's experience, I determined 
 that she should not cut me and, as we had no opportunity 
 
154 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 of pretending not to have seen each other, I blocked her 
 path, bowed and held out my hand to her. 
 
 "I've not seen you for weeks," she said with a composed 
 smile. "You've not been to America again, have you ?" 
 
 "I've been kept very busy at the House and in my de- 
 partment," I answered. "Have you been away ?" 
 
 "For week-ends and things." She glanced collectedly 
 round to assure herself that she was not being overheard. 
 "Why did you button-hole me like this, Mr. Stornaway ?" 
 
 I suppose my real reason was that, if there had to be any 
 cutting, it should not be by her; and I had not made up 
 my mind how to act when we found ourselves suddenly con- 
 fronting each other at the park gate. 
 
 "When a man meets a woman he knows " I began. 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane laughed with soft, repellent scorn. 
 
 "As if you didn't know everything." 
 
 "That is, I believe, an attribute of the Almighty," I re- 
 plied. 
 
 For a few moments she was absorbed in the task of dig- 
 ging with the end of her parasol round the edge of a promi- 
 nent black pebble. As the dry earth crumbled, the pebble 
 worked loose, and she was free to hit it away and look up 
 at me again. 
 
 "You know enough." 
 
 "For what?" I asked. 
 
 She sighed and waved her hand across the dusty, unshaded 
 walk. 
 
 "For passing by on the other side." 
 
 "Habit is sometimes very strong," I said. 
 
 We stood looking at one another reflectively for a few 
 minutes, each perhaps wondering why the other did not 
 make an excuse to break away. I found her so self- 
 possessed that it was difficult to believe what I knew to be 
 the truth. I have met unfaithful wives before, I have seen 
 men and women living in many kinds of social outlawry, 
 but with none of them did it seem to make so little differ- 
 ence as with Mrs. O'Rane. She was not defiant, she was 
 hardly even callous; and her manner was so natural that 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 155 
 
 I felt the last six months might well have been blotted out 
 of her life. Once she lowered her eyes to look at the little 
 platinum watch; then raised them again with a friendly 
 smile. She was dressed with unostentatious distinction in 
 a blue coat and skirt, with a high collar to the coat and a 
 tight-fitting amber-coloured waistcoat with round, page-boy's 
 buttons; there was a high-crowned hat to match the coat, 
 white gloves, grey stockings and black shoes with a pearl- 
 coloured border. Though her eyes were tired and her cheeks 
 a little pale, she looked wonderfully young and carefree. 
 
 "You thought I wouldn't do it," she said at length, more 
 to convict me of bad judgement, I think, than to defend her 
 own conduct. "Men are so curious. . . . You all had the 
 clearest warning, only you wouldn't take it. You wouldn't 
 see that it was the only thing left for me to do." 
 
 "And you are still of that mind ? You feel it was the right 
 thing?" 
 
 "It depends what you mean by right," she answered 
 slowly. "Most people would say it was wrong, but then 
 most people are fools. And none of them could possibly 
 know what I had to go through," she added through her 
 teeth. 
 
 "They'll never know that," I said, "because you'll never 
 be able to tell them. As long as you're happy " 
 
 "I'm very happy," she interrupted. 
 
 "And you think you'll continue to be?" 
 
 "No one can answer that. . . . I'm happier than I was. 
 You, of course, think that I've behaved criminally. I only 
 feel that we made a mistake. I thought David loved me, 
 and he didn't. I believe he thought he loved me. ... I 
 made every possible allowance for him, I did everything a 
 woman could do to make a success of our life, but you must 
 have seen enough to know that he never gave our marriage 
 a chance. I was ready to put up with everything until he 
 humiliated me in my own house. Then it was time to admit 
 we'd made a mistake and to get out of it as soon as possible." 
 Her parasol was again at work on the hard-baked gravel. 
 "If he'd hated me, if he'd enjoyed hurting me, he couldn't 
 
156 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 have done better. I never knew what men were capable 
 of before." 
 
 In my turn I looked at my watch and held out my hand. 
 
 "I have not criticised you, Mrs. O'Rane," I said, "so I 
 prefer not to assist in any criticism of your husband." 
 
 Her lips curled into a sneer. 
 
 "You haven't criticised me in words" she qualified. 
 
 "I am trying to suspend judgement till I know the facts. 
 You will admit that it requires prima facie justification when 
 a young wife leaves a husband who worships her I will 
 cut out the offending phrase, if you like leaves her Hind 
 husband " 
 
 I have only once seen Mrs. O'Rane's beauty of face wholly 
 desert her. At the word "blind" her cheeks flushed, her 
 eyes grew hot and the line of her mouth became broken 
 and unsightly. Months before, Bertrand had told me that 
 her husband's blindness was the one thing restraining her, 
 and, though she had lashed herself into disregarding it, she 
 evidently could not forget it. I could see that a passionate 
 retort was maturing, but she pressed it back and took my 
 hand. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said. "Remember, I didn't ask you to 
 speak to me. This is a matter between David and myself. 
 You needn't think it was an easy thing to do, but I faced 
 it, I've gone through the worst " 
 
 "Not more than six people in the world know that you're 
 not living with your husband," I put in. 
 
 She hesitated, and I could see her lips compressing. 
 
 "I'm ready for that, too," she assured me, valiantly 
 enough. 
 
 "Where are you living?" I asked. 
 
 "You must excuse me if I don't answer that. Good- 
 bye." 
 
 As I walked on towards my office I wondered what use 
 I ought to make of my chance meeting. Yet how would 
 O'Rane or George be benefited by knowing that she was 
 living was probably living in London? And this was all 
 that I could tell them save that, however great her provoca- 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 157 
 
 tion, however unheeding the passion which had possessed 
 her and allowed her to receive a lover in her husband's house 
 to punish her husband, she was not yet insensible to every 
 twinge of conscience: I had succeeded in once flicking 
 her on the raw. 
 
 Then I blamed myself for wasted opportunities ; if I had 
 been less conventionally suave, less afraid of a noisy scene, 
 I might have put many more questions even if I received 
 as few answers. Her life with O'Rane was over, but what 
 was she going to put in its place ? He could divorce her, of 
 course, and she could marry Beresford when he came out 
 of prison. I never felt, however, in the days before the 
 catastrophe that she loved Beresford; to be adored and 
 admired by him was one thing, but I never regarded him as 
 more than a diversion, when no one else was by to flatter 
 her. Even had the passion been there, I could not imagine 
 her marrying such a man. The blue coat and skirt, the 
 high-crowned hat and patent-leather shoes did not accord 
 with a rusty sombrero, Harris tweeds and a loose, orange- 
 coloured tie ; I recalled the bizarre, bachelor rooms of Sloane 
 Square and, in exaggerated contrast, Mrs. O'Rane's ermine 
 coat, as I had seen it when I surprised them there. In any 
 day I dare swear that she could not tell whether she had 
 spent five pounds or five hundred ; but, if she did not know 
 how much she squandered in a year, at least she could be 
 sure that it was far more than she would ever get from 
 Beresford. And, if she did not propose to marry him, where 
 and how would she live ? Would she try to drag out a few 
 more months or years as his mistress with the four or five 
 hundred pounds a year which her father allowed her? 
 Where and how was she living now ? 
 
 To a long list of idle questions I added one more and 
 asked myself how I was to behave, if I met her again. It 
 was not easy to avoid her at the second encounter when I 
 had forced myself upon her at the first ; it was certainly no 
 easier to continue as O'Rane's friend and to meet his wife 
 as though nothing had happened. 
 
 An unsolved problem spoils my temper, and I was with 
 
158 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 difficulty even civil when a messenger came into my room 
 to say that Lady Maitland wished to see me. She was shewn 
 in and preceded straight to the point. Was it true that under 
 this ridiculous Military Service Act all men under forty were 
 to be dragooned into the army ? I must remember how kind 
 I had been in finding a position for her son in my office. 
 Well, he had come home the previous evening and told her 
 of a report that all young men were going to be taken. It 
 made no difference that he had only been allowed to attest 
 on condition that he could not be called up without leave 
 of his chief. That was all a scrap of paper, apparently. 
 Every case had to be submitted to the War Office, every man 
 given a certificate of exemption or packed off with the rough- 
 est clerks and factory hands into the ranks. What was she 
 to do ? It was intolerable. 
 
 It argues, if not self-control, at least great gratitude for 
 past hospitality that I did not remind Lady Maitland of the 
 first dinner I ate on English soil after my release from Aus- 
 tria, when she deafened me with her denunciations of the 
 young shirkers who stayed at home and allowed others to 
 die for them. I was finding no fault with her boy, who 
 might be all that she said ; I had seen him twice and pushed 
 him hastily into a fool-proof room where he read the 
 "Times" and acted as precis-writer for one of my col- 
 leagues ; if he were unfit for the army, there was a chance 
 that he might be rejected, though embittering experience 
 taught me that it was only a chance. If he were passed as 
 fit, the first girl in the street could take his place after a day's 
 instruction, and the office would be rid of a young man who 
 was doing no good to himself or anyone else with the num- 
 ber of whiskies and soda which he found time to consume 
 on his way to the office or with the cigarettes which he 
 smoked all day when he had made his reluctant way thither. 
 
 "Has he been medically examined?" I asked Lady Mait- 
 land. 
 
 "It would be a waste of time," she answered. "I tell you, 
 that boy is a mass of nerves." 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 159 
 
 "Well, send him him before a medical board with a letter 
 from your own doctor," I suggested. 
 
 To judge from her expression, my proposal was unex- 
 pected and inadequate. 
 
 "Isn't the best thing for you to send a letter to the War 
 Office?" she asked. "Bertie tells me that his work is very 
 technical." 
 
 I was grown tired of that word through many a "con- 
 scription scare" and I resented its presence on the lips of 
 Lady Maitland, who had been too free with her taunts ten 
 months before, too disparaging of the volunteer army and 
 too easily insistent on the conscription from which she was 
 now trying to extricate her boy. 
 
 "He had to learn it," I reminded her. "And, if he died 
 to-morrow, somebody 'd have to learn it in his place. If you 
 want to move the War Office, surely your husband's the 
 man to do it." 
 
 "I don't like to bother him," she answered. 
 
 As she walked to the door, I felt that I had lost a friend. 
 It says much for her magnanimity that I was invited to the 
 house within a week to be told that the War Office without 
 encouragement from Sir Maurice had behaved most sensi- 
 bly, reviewing the junior members of my department en bloc 
 and granting them all certificates of exemption on the 
 grounds of indispensability. 
 
 "We seem drifting back to the old life very much," said 
 George, pensively watching the bubbles break on the cham- 
 pagne, when I told him, with some distaste, of my inter- 
 view. "Here we are eating and drinking as usual, I'm 
 always being invited to dances. . . . We're getting used to this 
 infernal war, you know, Stornaway, and we shall lose it, if 
 we can't put up as relatively good a show as the fellows who 
 are being killed. I suppose we're too far away from the 
 front even with an occasional air-raid to remind us." 
 
 "I was glancing through my diary the other night," I 
 told him. "There's hardly a reference to the war. The 
 political situation, my own work " 
 
 He laughed a little sadly. 
 
160 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "If I kept a diary, I'm afraid I should find a good deal 
 of it devoted to Raney and his wife." 
 
 "I did," I told him. 
 
 He looked up quickly and then lowered his head until his 
 chin rested on his fists. 
 
 "God! that has been a tragedy!" he groaned. "It's the 
 biggest tragedy of my life, bigger than when Jim Loring 
 was knocked out. Presumably it was all over with him in 
 a few minutes or hours or days at most. . . . But that poor 
 devil Raney he's some years younger than I am." 
 
 "What is he doing?" 
 
 "He gives no hint. It's about as much as he can stand 
 the agony of it without trying to analyse it or think what 
 he's going to do next. Did I tell you I went down there 
 again ? Well, I did in spite of what he said. I've a con- 
 venient young cousin whose people are over in Ireland 
 Violet's brother, you met her at dinner with me at the Berk- 
 eley and I can always legitimately go and see him. It was 
 rather less of a success than my last visit. The first person 
 I ran into was Lady Dainton, who asked me to shew her 
 the way to Raney's quarters. She couldn't make it out, 
 she said, that she'd written to Sonia about a concert at the 
 hospital, written twice and had had no reply. Obviously 
 she was away from home, but apparently it was nobody's 
 business to forward letters." George smiled ruefully. "It 
 was a hit for me, though she didn't know it. I send all let- 
 ters to Raney, and Sonia's go in a special envelope marked 
 'For filing only'; it was a formula he and I agreed on, so 
 that Miss Merryon could just chuck them into a box un- 
 opened. ... I don't believe even she suspects, though it's 
 bound to come out. . . . And she's in love with him, and 
 that's supposed to sharpen a woman's intuition. . . . Well, 
 I've no doubt Lady Dainton's letters were in the box with 
 the rest, but that didn't bring her much nearer getting them 
 answered. I felt I must really leave Raney to deal with 
 her, so I said I'd promised to call on the Head and would 
 come back later. ... By the way, Burgess sees there's some- 
 thing up; he'd see there was something up if you built a 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 161 
 
 brick-wall round it. When I went into his study, he looked 
 at me for about five minutes, stroking his beard between his 
 thumb and first finger. 'He is thine own familiar friend, 
 whom thou lovest/ he began without any beating about the 
 bush. 'I know the whole story, sir/ I said. 'If I thought 
 for a week, I couldn't think of anything worse. If I may 
 make a suggestion, sir, the kindest thing you can do is not 
 to notice anything/ Burgess stroked his beard a bit more ; 
 then he said 'The adder is not more deaf/ But I'm pre- 
 pared to bet he's made a very shrewd guess." 
 
 "Did you gather how O'Rane disposed of Lady Dainton ?" 
 I asked. 
 
 George shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "He had to say that Sonia wasn't at 'The Sanctuary* and 
 he had to admit that he didn't know her address at the mo- 
 ment. Fortunately, Lady Dainton is so ready to think ill 
 of him and so very unready to think ill of her darling daugh- 
 ter that she never dreamed or suspected what had happened. 
 I don't know whether she went further than thinking that 
 Sonia was staying with friends and that Raney wasn't suffi- 
 ciently interested in her to discover her whereabouts ; per- 
 haps she did, for she took the opportunity of saying that it 
 was monstrous for him to desert his wife like this for three 
 months at a time, but that, on her honour, he didn't deserve 
 to have a wife, if she was to be condemned to the life he had 
 led at Melton or in London. Raney was smiling to himself 
 and saying nothing, when I came in, so she turned her bat- 
 teries on to me. As a rule she frightens me into agreeing 
 with anything she says, but this time I did pluck up courage 
 to tell her that, in my opinion, when two people married, 
 they must be left to work out their own salvation. There's a 
 certain irony there, Stornaway, I was conscious of it at the 
 time when you think of the way you and Bertrand and 
 I laboured to keep their boat from capsizing. She didn't 
 appreciate the irony, though ; she only thought I was being 
 rather rude. That didn't matter so long as I got rid of her." 
 
 He pushed away his plate, sighed and rose from the 
 table. 
 
i62 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "Did you have any talk with O'Rane?" I asked, as we 
 went upstairs together. 
 
 "That depends on your definition of talk," he answered 
 with a joyless smile. "We emitted words at each other. It 
 I don't mind telling you, Stornaway, it hurt like sin to find 
 that I couldn't get near him. I suppose it was a compliment 
 to our friendship that he didn't try to cut jokes as ne did 
 when I dined with him in Common Room the last time, but 
 it v/as an unfilling sort of compliment. . . . No, to offer him 
 any kind of sympathy would have been to get myself pitched 
 out of the room. I felt that. He was in a suit of mail. ... I 
 should have thought but then I've not been through it and, 
 please God! I never shall. It did hurt, though, because 
 there hasn't been much that we've kept from each other all 
 these years." 
 
 He laughed a little at his own sensibility. I thought for 
 a moment and then told him of my meeting that day in 
 Hyde Park. From behind their rimless glasses, his eyes 
 were fixed unwaveringly on mine, and at the end he made 
 no comment. 
 
 "What line do you propose to take if you meet her?" 
 I asked. 
 
 His brows set in a forbidding frown, and, when he spoke, 
 it was between closed teeth, and his voice trembled. 
 
 "I think I told you, my instinct is to get her neck between 
 my two hands and shake her as a terrier shakes a rat. I 
 suppose that would be out of place in the more public parts 
 of London, so I shall walk quietly past her. What induced 
 you, knowing all you did " 
 
 "I have no idea why I did it," I said, quite humbly. 
 
 "Are you going to do it again?" 
 
 "My dear George, once more, I have no idea. I'm like 
 O'Rane in that I haven't been in the mood to analyse or 
 make decisions. I've shirked them. I've deliberately tried 
 to keep my mind occupied with other things so that I 
 shouldn't have to think about this miserable business. Most 
 of us are doing that, I fancy." 
 
 He was silent for many moments, and I fancied that he 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 163 
 
 was visualising my meeting in the light of an early summer 
 morning in Hyde Park with Sonia O'Rane, brown-eyed, red- 
 lipped, redolent to the senses of purity and young fresh- 
 ness. 
 
 "As long as that swine's under lock and key," he said at 
 length, "she can't make a move. And, when he's out, they're 
 bound to hold their hand till they see what Raney's goinjr 
 to do, whether he's going to face a divorce when I sa} 
 'face/ it's on her account, of course. He'd stand anything 
 for himself, but I don't know that he'd let any damned two- 
 and-one junior put questions to Sonia I don't know, and 
 he doesn't know. . . ." He covered his face with his hands. 
 "God in Heaven ! Stornaway ! I remember when I was the 
 oldest fourth-year man and he was a freshman and she was 
 nothing at all a lovely little slip of a girl who'd been sent 
 up for Commem. in place of a woman who'd failed us. 
 Raney'd loved her ever since he'd first set those god-sent 
 eyes of his on her, and they solemnly got engaged that 
 night when he was nineteen and she a baby three years 
 younger. . . ." The rising voice which was beginning to 
 make our neighbours turn curiously round stopped of a sud- 
 den. "Sorry! I'm apt to break out every time I think of 
 that boy coming back from the front . . . and not letting 
 it make that much difference to him . . . and starting again 
 at the bottom for God-knows-the-how-manyth-time and 
 then this. . . . Well, Raney's not in a state to say whether 
 he'll divorce her or not, what he will do, what he wants to 
 do. You're quite right, we're none of us in a position to 
 analyse. By the way, what do you propose to do, if you run 
 intoBeresford?" 
 
 "I don't see myself engaging him in conversation," I said. 
 
 As a false merit seems still to attach to frankness, let me 
 record that, when I met Beresford some three weeks later, 
 I bowed to him and subsequently went up and exchanged a 
 few words. This meeting also took place in Hyde Park, 
 
1 64 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 I was again making a slight detour for the sake of seeing 
 the flowers and once more I turned in at Albert Gate and 
 was nodding before I saw who had nodded to me. When 
 I recognised Beresford, there was a moment's impulse to 
 stalk away, but I am glad to say that I did not yield to it. 
 
 He was sitting in a bath-chair, out of the wind and in the 
 sun, alternately dozing and waking with a start to look at 
 the flowers and then close his eyes again. I have seen sick 
 men in various parts of the world, but I doubt if I ever saw 
 one who was still alive and yet looked nearer death. All 
 flesh had disappeared from his face, until the bones of jaw, 
 temple and nose threatened to cut through the waxen skin ; 
 his eye-lids were more vermilion than pink, with a permanent 
 dusty-grey shadow darkening the hollow sockets. One hand 
 lay exposed outside the rug, so thin that it seemed as if the 
 bones must grate together ; the other pressed painfully to his 
 side whenever he began to cough. 
 
 "Why, how do you do ?" he exclaimed in a weak whisper, 
 bowing a second time, as his eye-lids flickered open and he 
 found me watching him. 
 
 "You look remarkably ill," was all I could say. 
 
 "I'm better than I have been. It was really rather a close 
 shave this time. They evidently felt it was a point of honour 
 not to be beaten again and they kept me there just twenty- 
 four hours longer than I could conveniently stand. I wasn't 
 conscious of anything, I hadn't been for some while before 
 and I wasn't to be for some time after but they had a bad 
 scare. After doing their best to kill me for five days, they 
 spent five weeks trying to keep me alive so like war and 
 peace, you know; wasteful, irrational and utterly, utterly 
 purposeless. In a few weeks' time I shall be where I was 
 when last we met ; the Government will have kept me quiet 
 for perhaps two months and will have expended a portion of 
 a magistrate's time, ditto ditto prosecuting counsel, and six 
 weeks' bed, board, share of prison staff and really first-rate 
 medical attention. No one could have been better treated 
 when once they were afraid they'd killed me." 
 
 He tried to laugh, but only succeeded in making himself 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 165 
 
 cough. As he shook and rocked, growing momentarily pink 
 and then reverting to a deathlier white, as I watched that 
 bag of tuberculous bones being held together by a nervous 
 refusal to die, I shared the sense of waste which O'Rane 
 had once expressed to me. An impulse came to me, and 
 I acted on it before I could give myself time to be cautious 
 and niggardly. 
 
 "If I can get you out to South Africa, will you go?" I 
 asked him. 
 
 He tried to speak before he had finished coughing, and 
 the attack redoubled in violence. 
 
 "That would be playing their game rather too much," he 
 said with a skeleton's grin. 
 
 "You're playing their game as quickly and more per- 
 manently by staying here." 
 
 "You mean I'm going to die? Now, there you're wrong. 
 Of course, I shall die some time like everyone else, but I'm 
 actually getting better now. If you'd seen me a month 
 
 ago !" He looked round at the flowers with eyes that 
 
 burned feverishly. "I've got so much to do, there's so much 
 to live for! Don't you feel you can't die, you won't die, 
 when you see all the new leaves with that shade of green 
 which seems only to last for a day before it becomes dark, 
 dull, mature, dirty. . . . And the first flowers before weVe 
 had time to be sated with them. This is June, summer. . . . 
 And long before that, the little pink, sticky buds bursting 
 everywhere. . . . And those curious fluffy things which you 
 find on some shrubs and which seem to serve no purpose in 
 nature. ... I shall die in the autumn, when I do die; I 
 couldn't in the spring, when the whole world's renewing 
 itself and there's so much to do. God ! there is so much to 
 do!" 
 
 He smiled to himself, and his eyes suddenly closed. It 
 was more than time for me to be on my way, but the scrape 
 of my heel on the gravel roused him, and he held out his 
 hand. 
 
 "It was kind of you about South Africa, I mean, but I 
 Can't get away for reasons which I needn't discuss. And in 
 
1 66 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 any event it isn't necessary; I'm going to get well without 
 that." 
 
 I shook hands and turned my steps eastwards. There are 
 few things more painful than the dying consumptive's belief 
 that he will recover. Beresford called me back with a cry 
 that brought on another fit of coughing. 
 
 "I'm in my old quarters," he said. "You were rather 
 disgruntled by your last visit, I remember, but, if you've got 
 over the shock and can ever spare a moment to call " 
 
 This time I shook my head without hesitation or compas- 
 sion. I do not remember ever being more affronted. A 
 chance encounter in the street might be excused me; one 
 may be pardoned for not upbraiding one's worst enemy when 
 he is as near his death-bed as Beresford was ; but it was an- 
 other thing altogether to condone the past and acquiesce in 
 the present. It was also what Mrs. O'Rane had virtually 
 challenged me to do, when she lost her temper in Beresford's 
 flat and asked whether I should continue to know her when 
 she had come to live with him. 
 
 "I shall not call," I said. "Good-bye." 
 
 Thereafter I denied myself the walk from Albert Gate to 
 Hyde Park Corner and went to my office through Belgrave 
 Square and the Green Park. 
 
 I kept my own counsel about our meeting and went on 
 with my own work, trying not to think of the O'Rane trag- 
 edy until it was brought to my notice by a chance encounter 
 with O'Rane himself. I was deliberately not seeking his 
 company, but I was pleased when he joined me in the Smok- 
 ing Room at the House. 
 
 "Your voice at least is quite unmistakable," he said with 
 his old smile. "So is Grayle's. The people who beat me are 
 most of the Irish and a sprinkling of the Labour men fel- 
 lows who don't open their mouths from one end of the ses- 
 sion to the other. And I'm here so little that it's slow work 
 learning. Still, I'll back myself to be right ninety-five times 
 out of a hundred, if I've heard a voice more than once. Do 
 you know whether old Oakleigh is about?" 
 
 "I saw him here before dinner," I said. 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 167 
 
 "I promised to walk home with him. Why don't you 
 come along, too? There's nothing of any interest on, and 
 you can smoke in greater comfort at my place. Let's see if 
 we can hunt him out." 
 
 Bertrand had sat down late, and we found him finishing 
 his coffee in an almost deserted dining-room. It was still 
 light, however, when we got outside, and we strolled at an 
 easy pace along Millbank to "The Sanctuary/' I had not 
 been there since the night nearly three months before when 
 O'Rane's life was broken in two. As we walked, I thought 
 of the other night when Grayle and I met him for the first 
 time, when, too, he had carried Beresford on his own back 
 into the now empty house. He could not but be thinking of 
 it himself, and I hardly knew whether to pity or admire him 
 the more for his unembarrassed way of admitting us to his 
 secret without suffering us to allude to it. 
 
 Unlocking the door, he went ahead to turn on the lights, 
 came back to relieve us of our coats and bade us help our- 
 selves from the side-board, while he opened a box of cigars. 
 Perhaps from nervousness he talked rather more than usual 
 and shewed himself unnecessarily solicitous for our com- 
 fort; otherwise we might have been sitting, as we occa- 
 sionally sat ten months before, waiting for Mrs. O'Rane to 
 come back from the theatre. ... I confess that I started I 
 believe we all started when we heard a taxi draw nearer 
 and nearer, turn out of Millbank and stop at the door. Ber- 
 trand and I were facing the room, and we both of us gave 
 a quick glance over our shoulders. O'Rane continued talk- 
 ing unconcernedly, only stopping when the curtain was 
 pushed aside and George came in. 
 
 "It's a great thing to have a place where you can be sure 
 of a drink after licensed hours," he remarked contentedly. 
 "I've had no dinner and not much lunch ; and I've left the 
 Admiralty this moment. This war's got beyond the joke 
 some people still think it. Don't mind me, Raney, I'm going 
 to fend for myself and eat solidly for the next half -hour. 
 What's the question before the House?" 
 
 He seated himself on the arm of my chair with a hunk 
 
1 68 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 of bread and cheese in one hand and a tumbler of whiskey 
 and soda in the other. We were talking of the way in 
 which our original intervention on behalf of Belgian eu- 
 trality had been overlaid by the nationalist ambitions of 
 Italy in south Austria, France in Alsace-Lorraine, and by 
 the frankly imperialist trend of Russia towards Constanti- 
 nople and of ourselves towards Mesopotamia and in Africa 
 and the Pacific. 
 
 "It may have been wise, it may be necessary," said 
 O'Rane dubiously. "Perhaps you couldn't bring Italy in 
 without promising Trieste and the Trentino, perhaps you 
 couldn't keep Russia in without promising Constantinople." 
 
 Bertrand sighed and then yawned. 
 
 "I wonder if we've not bitten off more than we can chew," 
 he growled. "I went through the phase of 'crushing Prus- 
 sian militarism/ cutting up the map of Europe with a pair 
 of scissors. ... I hope nobody will put me up against a 
 wall and shoot me, if I now doubt the possibility. I don't 
 believe we can crush Prussian militarism." 
 
 The words, spoken in a familiar, sneering drawl, came 
 from behind me. Bertrand and I swung round in our chairs 
 to face the door; George leapt to his feet, letting fall his 
 bread and cheese and discharging a torrent of whiskey and 
 soda into my lap. If the ghost of Peter Beresford had 
 walked in to reinforce Bertrand at the point where their doc- 
 trines most nearly touched, he could not have dumbfounded 
 us more. But it was not Beresford's ghost. The July night 
 was descending so slowly that we were content with a single 
 lamp in the middle of the room. In the gathering dusk 
 by the door, standing out against the orange glow of the 
 door-curtain, I saw Beresford himself, leaning with one hand 
 on a stick and grasping a shapeless soft hat with the other. 
 He was as waxen of complexion and almost as cadaverous as 
 when we met in the Park three weeks before, but he had 
 made a spasmodic effort to seem collected on entering, and 
 the sneer in his voice was reproduced by a suggestion of 
 swaggering contempt in his attitude. 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 169 
 
 I wondered helplessly and almost without anger why he 
 had inflicted this outrage upon us. Trembling and speech- 
 less, Bertrand propelled himself slowly to his feet ; speech- 
 less and breathing quickly, George took two steps forward. 
 We were all too much preoccupied to look behind and see 
 what O'Rane was doing until I heard what I can only de- 
 scribe as a rattle in the throat; Beresford's eyes opened 
 wider, and he took a half -step back; I turned my head in 
 time to see O'Rane spring like an animal on its prey, both 
 arms outstretched and both feet off the ground. There was 
 a thud, as the two fell together, a gasp from Beresford, the 
 noise of boots scuffling on polished boards and then a silence 
 only modified by laboured breathing. 
 
 George was the first to move. 
 
 "He'll kill him 1" he called back to us. "Help me separate 
 them!" 
 
 As quickly as an old and a middle-aged man could move, 
 Bertrand and I hurried to his assistance. O'Rane was strad- 
 dling Beresford's body, pinning both arms to the floor with 
 his knees and gripping his throat with both hands until the 
 eyes glared in the early stages of asphyxiation and the mouth 
 fell open, gobbling hideously. The face was swollen and 
 mulberry-coloured by the time that we could see it, and 
 the first feeble resistance had given place to the dreadful 
 placidity of physical exhaustion. 
 
 "You fool, you're murdering him!" George roared, slip- 
 ping both hands inside O'Rane's collar and putting forth a 
 reserve of strength which lifted assailant and assailed bodily 
 from the ground. "Pull his hands away, you men !" 
 
 I caught O'Rane's left wrist in both hands, but the pol- 
 ished floor gave no purchase to my feet, and I might as 
 well have tried to pluck a propeller from its shaft. His 
 arms were like flexible, warm steel. When I planted my 
 foot against his shoulder, it was like resting it on masonry 
 that quivered slipperily, but never yielded. 
 
 "Fingers, man, fingers !" George snouted again. "Pull 'em 
 apart, twist 'em, hurt him!" 
 
 I take no pride in having followed his advice save in so 
 
170 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 far as it saved the boy from the scaffold. Bertrand and I, 
 each with our two hands, gripped O'Rane's third and fourth 
 fingers, tugged and twisted until a stifled cry of pain broke 
 from his lips. George was shaking him like a rat, and at last 
 the grip relaxed and 'Beres ford's head fell with a second thud 
 on the floor. 
 
 "Don't let go!" cried George. "Now, Raney, will you 
 swear on your honour not to touch him again?" 
 
 There was a sullen, long silence varied by the rip of rend- 
 ing clothes and the clatter of feet, as O'Rane made three 
 unsuccessful plunges forward. 
 
 "You're hurting my hand!" he panted at length with 
 the whimper of a little child. 
 
 George shook his head at me passionately. 
 
 "Will you swear on your honour, Raney ?" 
 
 "Let me #*f at him !" O'Rane sobbed. 
 
 "We'll break your fingers off at the knuckles if you don't 
 swear !" George returned through clenched teeth. 
 
 There was a second silence, a last plunge. 
 
 "I won't touch him," sighed O'Rane. 
 
 We stepped back, panting and mopping our foreheads; 
 then Bertrand walked to the nearest chair and subsided into 
 it; I leaned against a sofa; George stood for a moment, 
 rocking from his late exertion, then pressed one hand to 
 his heart and hurried into the street, covering his mouth 
 with a handkerchief. O'Rane stood where we had relaxed 
 our hold on him, bending and unbending his tortured rin- 
 gers ; Beres ford lay motionless and silent. 
 
 George's re-appearance with a request for brandy galvan- 
 ised us all, but chiefly O'Rane, who walked up to him with 
 out-thrust lips and cried : 
 
 "You can clear out of this, George Oakleigh, and I don't 
 advise you to come back here." 
 
 "Don't be a fool, Raney," George answered wearily. 
 
 "If you hadn't put them up to it " 
 
 "That's precisely why I did it. It was the only way of 
 stopping you. Don't think I enjoyed it, old man." He 
 caught O'Rane's right hand between his own two and patted 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 171 
 
 it, as if he were caressing a woman. I learned afterwards 
 that in addition to losing his sight O'Rane had been wounded 
 in both hands. "Go and get some brandy or wait, I'll get 
 the brandy, while you lift Beresford on to a sofa. I've 
 pulled my heart out of place." 
 
 Between us we made a rough bed and tried to bring the 
 unconscious man round. His heart was fluttering like a 
 captive bird, and for longer than I cared to count there was 
 no other sign of life. At last the eyes opened for a moment, 
 and I saw George relax his labours and lead O'Rane to one 
 side. 
 
 "You'd better go to bed, old man," he said. "I'll report 
 progress later, and we'll get him away as soon as we can. 
 You'll only make things worse, if you're here when he comes 
 round." 
 
 To my surprise, O'Rane allowed himself to be led away, 
 and George returned to share our vigil. A second and third 
 time the eyes opened ; twice Beresford tried to raise himself 
 and once his lips moved in soundless speech. 
 
 "Don't try to talk," I said, as I gave him some water to 
 drink. 
 
 He closed his eyes, and a quarter of an hour passed before 
 they opened again. 
 
 "W w why ?" he stammered suddenly. 
 
 "Don't try to talk," I said again. 
 
 "But w why did he do that?" Beresford persisted with 
 slow obstinacy. "Is he m m mad?" 
 
 George, Bertrand and I stared at him and then at one an- 
 other. 
 
 "Don't try to talk yet," was all that I could find to say. 
 
 Bertrand allowed himself to be sent to bed at midnight, 
 but George and I took it in turns to watch by Beresford's 
 side. We had a doctor in, but the danger was past before he 
 arrived, and his only orders were that we must report any 
 change. Until dawn we tried sleeping for an hour and 
 
172 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 watching for an hour, but, as an opal light came to warm 
 the rafters on the west side of the room, George sacrificed 
 his turn to sleep and joined me on the sofa. 
 
 We looked at each other for some moments without 
 speaking, both equally tired, dishevelled, unshaven and per- 
 plexed. 
 
 "Well?" I said at length. 
 
 "Well ?" he echoed. "By the way, I promised to report 
 progress to Raney; and I never did. I don't see what we 
 can say at present. WeVe got to clear this up before he 
 comes down." 
 
 "What do you think?" I asked. 
 
 George hesitated. 
 
 "The fact of the fellow's coming here at all " he began 
 slowly. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "We must wait till we can question him direct," he went 
 on evasively. 
 
 "But, if we're right, he mustn't know," I put in. 
 
 "Till everyone knows," sighed George. 
 
 Beresford stirred restlessly, and the sound of a moan 
 silenced us. 
 
 "If " George began again in a whisper. I nodded. "God 
 above ! if we hadn't managed to pull him off in time !" 
 
 I put my finger to my lips, as Beresford stirred again. 
 
 "He's waking." 
 
 We were sitting in a line with his head and outside his 
 field of vision, unless he raised himself on his elbow, which 
 at present he was incapable of doing. We saw his eyes open 
 and close again, open and close again, the opening each time 
 growing brisker than the faint closing, until he was strong 
 enough to stare about him and take in two- thirds of the 
 room. I saw wonder dawning in his face as he found him- 
 self unexpectedly in familiar surroundings; he carried his 
 hand to his head in the effort to remember how he had got 
 there ; then his fingers mechanically slid down to his throat, 
 and I watched him gingerly exploring certain purple marks. 
 Abruptly his eyes closed for another long quiescence, but he 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 173 
 
 was gaining strength and at the next opening he dragged 
 himself unsteadily to a sitting posture, clapped both hands 
 to his temples and slowly turned his head until he had 
 brought the whole room under observation. 
 
 "Where's Sonia?" he demanded abruptly, looking at me 
 with flickering eyelids. 
 
 "She's not here at the moment," I answered. 
 
 He stared uncomprehendingly until a pain at the bruised 
 back of his head made him wince and despatch one hand to 
 assess the danger. 
 
 "How long " He winced again. "How long have I 
 
 been here?" 
 
 "Since last night/' I told him. "You had a fall." 
 
 He continued to stare at me without comprehension and 
 then grew suddenly indignant. 
 
 "Had a fall?" he repeated. "I didn't have a fall. What 
 d'you mean? It's all coming back to me now. I was din- 
 ing I don't know where I was dining, but afterwards I 
 thought I'd come round and see Sonia. . . . Why did O'Rane 
 attack me like that? Was he mad?" 
 
 George's foot pressed lightly against mine. 
 
 "What do you mean 'attack' you?" he asked with fine 
 simulation of surprise. 
 
 "He attacked me," Beresford persisted doggedly. "He 
 knocked me down." His eyes closed once more. "Where's 
 Sonia?" he asked again. 
 
 "She's staying with friends," George answered. "I say, I 
 shouldn't talk too much, if I were you. You're looking 
 rather cheap, and I hear you've been pretty bad." 
 
 For the first time Beresford was able to twist his features 
 into a malevolent grin. 
 
 "I'm putting on weight again now," he boasted. "You'd 
 look cheap, if you'd gone through what I have." 
 
 "How long were you in prison ?" I asked. 
 
 Beresford sighed and shook his head. 
 
 "I don't know. I was unconscious for some days at the 
 end. They arrested me on the third, the trial was on I 
 
174 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 forget. . . ." He lowered himself till he was lying full length 
 on the sofa. 
 
 "They arrested you on the fourth, you say," I began with 
 a glance at George. 
 
 "The third. My birthday," he corrected me, caressing his 
 bruised throat with one hand. "There was a ring at the 
 bell, and I got out of bed and went to the door, expecting 
 to find the postman. Instead of that, there was an inspector 
 with a warrant. He asked whether I was Mr. Peter Beres- 
 ford, read me the warrant. He wouldn't let me shave, I 
 remember ; I suppose he was afraid I might cut my throat ; 
 and I was only allowed to have a bath on condition that he 
 was in the room. I don't know which was the more em- 
 barrassed. . . ." 
 
 He paused to laugh feebly, and I withdrew to the window 
 and checked his date by my engagement book. George 
 raised his eyebrows to me and at my nod tiptoed to the 
 door and made his way to O'Rane's room. 
 
 "What happened last night?" Beresford demanded, cov- 
 ering his eyes with the hand that had been feeling his throat 
 and rubbing his bruised head with the other. "Was everyone 
 drunk?" 
 
 "I can't quite explain now," I said. 
 
 Whether O'Rane had been to bed or not, he was washed 
 and shaved, dressed and booted, when George went into his 
 room at five o'clock. Beresford was reported out of danger, 
 and after some hesitation George asked again to be given 
 the fullest account of O'Rane's unexpected return two 
 months before. 
 
 "I'll tell you my reason now," he said, as O'Rane's ex- 
 pression hardened. "I want to make certain I'm advocatus 
 diaboli, I want your evidence that it was Beresford at 
 all." 
 
 "Evidence? I heard him, she admitted it! Who else 
 could it be ? And he comes back here " 
 
 "Steady on, Raney, this is no way to conduct a trial. I'm 
 going to get Stornaway up here, if I can, and we're going 
 into this very thoroughly." 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 175 
 
 Beresford was sleeping so tranquilly that I left him with- 
 out compunction. Upstairs the court of enquiry had been 
 joined by Bertrand in pyjamas, dressing-gown, and slippers ; 
 George was sitting on the bed with a blotter and writing-pad 
 on his knee, O'Rane walked to and fro with the noiseless 
 tread of a cat. We were all grey-faced and haggard in the 
 diamond, five-o'clock-in-the-morning light. I found myself 
 a chair, and the proceedings opened with a repetition of the 
 story which Bertrand had given me as second-hand. It 
 was more temperate and less dramatic, as O'Rane told it 
 two months after the events ; it was slightly fuller, but in no 
 respect did it vary substantially from the earlier account. 
 
 "I'm not a lawyer." George said at the end, looking up 
 from his notes, "whether you'd get a divorce on that, as- 
 suming you wanted one . . ." he added quickly, as O'Rane's 
 eyes narrowed. "We haven't finished yet, though. You say 
 Sonia admitted it?" 
 
 O'Rane nodded and then seemed to repent his nod. 
 
 "She didn't deny it," he said to correct himself. "I say, 
 you fellows don't want me to go into this part of it, do you? 
 It's not very pleasant for me. I'll just tell you that I as- 
 sumed it was Beresford " 
 
 "Why did you assume it?" I interrupted. 
 
 "She was very intimate with him. She used to talk I 
 thought it was in joke, of course, a silly joke that I didn't 
 like she used to talk about going off and living with him, 
 if we ever had a disagreement about anything. Besides, I'd 
 heard him hopping out of here and down the stairs on 
 one leg. I naturally assumed. . . . And she accepted it. I 
 I can't tell you what we said to each other, but it was never 
 in doubt, it never has been in doubt till this moment." 
 
 George pursed up his mouth and shook his head re- 
 flectively. 
 
 "This is only telling us what the sergeant said," he ob- 
 served. "However, let's get every shred of evidence before 
 we let Beresford open." 
 
 He looked enquiringly at his uncle, who shrugged his 
 shoulders a little impatiently. 
 
176 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "It's not evidence" Bertrand began. "I'm old-fashioned, 
 I daresay I attach too much importance to trifles ; I can only 
 give you what I've seen and heard." 
 
 It was indeed not direct evidence, it was not even cir- 
 cumstantial evidence. Mrs. O'Rane had been very intimate 
 with Beresf ord ; when he was lying ill at "The Sanctuary," 
 she would sit stroking his hand; they sometimes remained 
 together until a very late hour, and she thought nothing of 
 kissing him good-night. On his side Beresford made no 
 secret of his infatuation. 
 
 "Neither made any secret of anything!" growled Ber- 
 trand, thumping his fist on his knee. ... "I suppose it's the 
 modern method. ... I don't understand it. That's why 
 I say my evidence is no use. If you get up and tell them 
 they've no business to be kissing, they'll retort that it was 
 all open and above-board, that I was present as often as 
 not. . . . And it's true. I used to come in late from the 
 House, I used to come in at all hours when I was on Spe- 
 cial Constable duty ; there they were, billing and cooing and 
 not in the least embarrassed by me. You'd have said they 
 rather liked an audience." 
 
 The unhappy O'Rane was wincing at every sneer or word 
 of disapproval. Two months before he would have turned 
 it off with a laugh, as everyone else did, and protested that 
 it was Sonia's way and that we did not know Sonia. . . . 
 But, if he could have been induced to speak frankly, he 
 would probably have agreed with me that some of his wife's 
 friends and a good deal of his wife's behaviour were mere- 
 tricious. 
 
 "I'd better add my testimony, while we're about it," I 
 said. The boy winced again, and I could see him bracing 
 himself. 
 
 I told him how at his request I had called on Beresford to 
 warn him against running his head any further into the trap 
 which was being laid for him. I described his obvious anx- 
 iety to get rid of me, the embarrassment of our meeting, 
 when Mrs. O'Rane came in, her light-hearted assurance that 
 I should be really shocked, or something of the kind, if I 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 177 
 
 knew how often she had visited her patient at such an hour. 
 It was not pleasant work, but I spared O'Rane nothing that 
 my memory retained. 
 
 At the end George crumpled his notes into a ball and rose 
 from the bed with a yawn of mental and physical exhaus- 
 tion. 
 
 "As I said, I'm not a lawyer," he observed. "If Raney 
 were bringing a petition, there's a hundred-to-one chance in 
 favour of his getting a decree; I suppose there's a six-to- 
 four chance on circumstantial evidence that you could bring 
 the- charge of misconduct home to Beresford." He paused to 
 frown in perplexity, unconscious that the word "miscon- 
 duct" had cut O'Rane like a lash across the face. "If it 
 weren't for last night," he muttered. "It's almost incom- 
 prehensible. Unless he came to make a clean breast of it, 
 to tell Raney to divorce her and be damned. . . ." 
 
 O'Rane stopped short in his cat-like prowl and faced us. 
 
 "The only thing is to see Beresford," he said. "You'd 
 better come with me. I can tell something from his voice, 
 but of course I can't see him. Watch his mouth, don't look 
 at his eyes ; it's the mouth that gives a man away, when he's 
 lying." 
 
 The library was stale with cigar-smoke after our long 
 vigil. Beresford was asleep, but the noise of our feet roused 
 him, and he sat up blinking at O'Rane, who was a pace be- 
 fore the rest of us. 
 
 "Why did you attack me last night?" he demanded the 
 moment that we were in sight. 
 
 O'Rane came to a standstill with his hands in his pockets, 
 swaying slightly from heel to toe. 
 
 "We'll go into that in a moment, if you don't mind," was 
 the answer. "What was your motive in coming here ?" 
 
 I had Beresford under vigilant scrutiny, and his surprise 
 was real or uncommonly well assumed. 
 
 "To see Sonia, of course," he replied. "I didn't know 
 you were at home. Do you usually try to murder people 
 who come to see her ?" he demanded with weak truculence. 
 
178 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "I know, of course, that you neglect her and ill-treat her 
 yourself." 
 
 O'Rane rocked contemplatively to and fro, nodding 
 thoughtfully to himself. 
 
 "When did you last see my wife?" he asked suddenly. 
 
 "I can't tell you." 
 
 "You've got to tell me, Beresford." 
 
 "I'm afraid I can't. I spent six weeks in prison and I've 
 had another fortnight getting convalescent. It was some 
 time before that." 
 
 "You have got to tell me the day, the hour and the place." 
 
 Beresford lay back with his mouth obstinately shut. 
 
 "Come along!" O'Rane cried. 
 
 "I can't and I won't. It was some time shortly before I 
 was arrested. If you want to find out any more, you can 
 ask her." 
 
 I refreshed my memory with a glance at my pocket- 
 book. 
 
 "You were arrested on the third of May, you told me," 
 I said. "Going back three weeks, I can definitely trace one 
 occasion on which you met Mrs. O'Rane " 
 
 Beres ford's pale face suddenly flushed. 
 
 "If you're going to drag in your foul-minded suspicions 
 about that," he cried, "have the decency to wait till Sonia's 
 here." 
 
 "I told you that Mrs. O'Rane was away," I reminded him. 
 Then I took O'Rane by the arm. "I want to have a word 
 with you." 
 
 I was too tired to labour upstairs again, and we could 
 be by ourselves outside. There was a haze over the river, 
 rising almost before my eyes, as the sun climbed higher. A 
 succession of young factory girls hurried along the Embank- 
 ment on their way to work; one or two early carts rum- 
 bled over the cobble-stones in the neighbouring streets, and 
 a chain of three black barges glided noiselessly towards 
 Westminster Bridge. All else was still. I caught sight of 
 my dusty boots, the cigar-ash on my waistcoat and a pair of 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 179 
 
 grimy hands, the whole desecrating the clean clarity of 
 the summer morning. 
 
 "Well?" said O'Rane. 
 
 I put my arm through his and walked towards the river. 
 
 "I'm prepared to bet that the last time Beresford saw 
 your wife was when I spoiled their tete-a-tete in his rooms/' 
 I said. "He doesn't know I've told you already and he's in 
 dread that I'm going to. Didn't you feel that? And it's 
 not that he's afraid of you I don't think, he's physically 
 afraid of anyone; he doesn't want you to know that she 
 was foolish enough to come to his rooms at such an hour." 
 
 O'Rane disengaged his arm and rested his elbows on the 
 parapet and his chin on his hands. 
 
 "This was three weeks before?" he asked. 
 
 "I don't believe he's met her since. I don't believe it was 
 him." 
 
 He shook his head slowly. 
 
 "I couldn't see him, of course; I've told you I didn't get 
 near enough to touch him, but I heard him going across the 
 room and down the stairs on one leg. You aren't in a mood 
 then to weigh your suspicions very judicially. ... I taxed 
 Sonia with it. My God ! I can't go through it again, we were 
 both of us out of our minds, I don't know what we said! 
 But I assumed it was Beresford I remember I kept on 
 using his name. She never denied it. If it wasn't Beres- 
 ford . . . ?" 
 
 "Let's first of all establish whether it was Beresford/' I 
 suggested. 
 
 He hesitated a moment longer and then pulled himself 
 abruptly erect, took my arm and walked quickly back to 
 the house. Bertrand and George, a pair of strangely dis- 
 reputable figures, were dozing in arm-chairs ; Beresford had 
 his eyes open and fixed on us the moment we were inside the 
 room. 
 
 "You wanted to know a few minutes ago why I attacked 
 you," began O'Rane. "I'm going to tell you, but I should 
 like to ask one question first. Are you aware that my wife 
 is no longer here ?" 
 
i8o SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "So Stornaway told me twice/' Beresford answered 
 wearily. 
 
 "Do you know she's left me ?" 
 
 "I'm not surprised. I'm only surprised she ever came 
 baok. I don't know why she ever married you." 
 
 O'Rane paused to steady himself. 
 
 "I believed until recently that she had left me for you," 
 he went on. "Now you can understand, perhaps, why I be- 
 haved as I did last night. I can't offer any apology worth 
 having." 
 
 As he stopped speaking, he held out his hand almost 
 timidly. Beresford stared at it contemptuously for a mo- 
 ment ; then his cheeks flushed, and he took it. 
 
 "You can imagine I don't want this to go any further," 
 said O'Rane in a matter-of-fact voice. 
 
 Beresford pulled him close to the couch. 
 
 "I I don't think I'm there yet," he whispered. "Say it 
 all over again, will you ? Sonia's left you ? She used to say 
 she was going to, but that was only to tease you." 
 
 O'Rane's lips were quivering, and his voice trembled. 
 
 "I'm afraid it's all grim earnest," he said. 
 
 "She's left you ? O'Rane, she couldn't ! She loved you 
 so much ! I I often thought you didn't treat her properly, 
 you were frightfully unsympathetic sometimes, but there was 
 nothing you could do to force her to this !" 
 
 Bertrand roused himself to control the excitement of 
 Beresford's voice, which was beginning to react on O'Rane. 
 
 "Deal with realities, young man," he grunted. "The 
 facts are as stated." 
 
 Beresford disregarded him and turned to O'Rane. 
 
 "But where is she ?" 
 
 "We don't know." 
 
 "You don't know who she's with?" His face became 
 suddenly more hopeful. "You've no proof that she's with 
 anyone? She went away once before, remember." 
 
 A smothered sigh broke from O'Rane. 
 
 "I think I may say positively that she's with someone. 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 181 
 
 She's not merely staying with friends. I'm afraid I 
 thought it was you and I must beg you to forgive me." 
 
 He tried to smile and again held out his hand. 
 
 "You needn't have thought it was me, O'Rane," said 
 Beresford quietly. 
 
 "No. But I only heard a lame man hopping away on 
 one leg. And I was seeing red." 
 
 "But you could both of you trust me! If there'd been 
 a moment's danger, I'd never have seen Sonia again. I'm 
 not the only lame man in London. You might have picked 
 on Grayle before me, if she hadn't hated him so much." 
 
 O'Rane covered his eyes with his hand. 
 
 "I though of you both," he said. "When I heard the 
 man going short on one leg, I felt certain that it must be 
 one of you. . . . It's extraordinary how quickly you think 
 at a time like that. I remember wondering whether I 
 should be equal to tackling Grayle, if it were him. . . . 
 Then I knew it couldn't be, because he'd insulted Sonia in 
 some restaurant, and they'd had a row. Besides, he was 
 in France at the time. And so I decided that it must be 
 you. I'm sorry. You couldn't expect me to behave quite 
 dispassionately, could you? I'm only glad it has been 
 cleared up. I'm afraid you'll have to stay with me again 
 till we've patched up last night's damage. You can under- 
 stand that for Sonia's sake this mustn't be talked about. 
 When people want to know where she is, I I usually say 
 she's staying away and I don't quite know when she's 
 coming back ..." 
 
 At the end of August I contrived a holiday for myself 
 on the north coast of Cornwall, where Lady Pentyre had 
 been good enough to offer me a house. Yolande and her 
 husband accompanied me, and on a passing impulse I 
 pressed O'Rane to join us. We could have given him 
 society and some kind of mental distraction, but the House 
 was still sitting, when I left London, and he made this an 
 excuse for declining. In his place George came for a week, 
 
1 82 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 to be followed by several of Yolande's colleagues and 
 friends, whom she invited I am fairly sure less for 
 themselves than for the chance of giving an inexpensive 
 holiday to some exceedingly tired women. 
 
 It was a fortnight of pure enchantment. We rose at 
 eight and walked over hot, spongy turf to the precipitous 
 cliff-path which led us to our favourite bathing-place in our 
 chosen bay. We bobbed and basked in a sea of liquid 
 sapphire under a blazing sun and only left the water when 
 hunger drove us home. Through long, happy mornings 
 all four of us scrambled like children over the rocks, in 
 and out of unexpected pools, slipping on treacherous 
 bunches of sea-weed and cutting our feet on the cones of 
 a mollusc's shell. We were always so wet and unpresent- 
 able by luncheon-time that there was nothing for it but to 
 bathe again and put on dry clothes, which made us late 
 and ravenous, so that we gorged ourselves on dishes which 
 were becoming unprocurable in London and then lay sleep- 
 ing repletely or glancing at the papers until it was time for 
 another walk among the gorse and heather, a last descent 
 to the foreshore where the Atlantic lay drowsy under the 
 setting sun, creaming and lapping the black and dun rocks. 
 
 The papers, when we mustered energy to read them, 
 brought us better news each day. Pressing north and west, 
 the Italian and Russian armies were taking their revenge 
 for the damaging thrust which each had lately sustained, 
 and Austria-Hungary, squeezed simultaneously on two 
 sides, had to adopt the unwelcome and desperate expedient 
 of handing over the eastern troops to German command. 
 The precarious hold on Salonica was strengthened by the 
 safe landing of reinforcements, and, before we left in 
 September, Roumania had thrown in her lot with the 
 Allies. 
 
 Even in London, where for two years the soldiers on 
 leave from any front had found individual self -depression 
 and national self -depreciation flourishing most luxuriantly, 
 became infected with brief optimism. In September a re- 
 port from General Headquarters announced that an in- 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 183 
 
 fantry advance had been assisted by a mysterious new 
 mechanism that rolled its uncouth way imperviously 
 through the rain of bullets and shrapnel which poured on 
 to its armoured sides, some land battleship which dropped 
 unconcernedly into craters and climbed as unconcernedly 
 over fortifications and chance debris of houses, an inven- 
 tion the first of British initiative in the war that bestrode 
 enemy trenches and spattered a hail of death on either 
 hand, a good-humoured steel giant that convulsed the troops 
 until they held their sides and forgot to advance, a some- 
 thing, in fine, that the English soldier with his genius for 
 happy and meaningless nicknames decided to call a "tank." 
 
 Old Bertrand, who had a pretentious theory to explain 
 each new set of facts, enunciated a new art of war with 
 the text "Machines versus Men ;" the rifle-man to the savage 
 with a spear in his hand was as the machine-gun to the 
 rifle-man or the tank to the machine-gun. War had been 
 revolutionised, and our old calculations of effectives and 
 losses must go by the board. 
 
 The mood of optimism passed as quickly as it had come. 
 Hardly had we finished triumphing over German machine- 
 guns with our tanks, overcoming the Zeppelin menace with 
 our anti-aircraft guns there was smart sport in October, 
 amounting almost to a battue, when the autumn campaign 
 ended and we settled down to count the cost and prepare 
 for a third winter. The figures of our losses made the 
 Somme a Pyrrhic victory, and there was troubled wonder 
 where the new drafts were to be found. Ireland, which 
 had been left in suspect and timid neglect like a dog 
 which has snapped once and may snap again, but is quiet 
 for the moment became once more a public interest as a 
 candidate for conscription. And ships were mysteriously 
 scarce. And food prices were exorbitant. And the Gov- 
 ernment was tired, lethargic, void of initiative. . . . 
 
 "Thank God! my duty as a citizen is done when I've 
 paid my taxes !" Bertrand Oakleigh exclaimed one night at 
 the House. 'Tm glad I'm not a fanner, I'm glad I'm not 
 mixed up with industry. I should be unpatriotic if I didn't 
 
1 84 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 double my output of foodstuffs and unpatriotic if I kept 
 one potential piece of cannon-fodder to grow 'em; I'm a 
 pro-German if I manufacture for export to keep up the 
 foreign exchanges Victory versus Trade! and Lord 
 knows what I am if I don't cheerfully pay taxes on a busi- 
 ness I've had to close down. If I lose money, nobody sym- 
 pathises ; if I make any, I'm called a profiteer, and someone 
 takes it away from me. . . . Curious how a phrase or an 
 abusive nickname dispenses the people of this country from 
 using such wits as a niggardly Providence has given them ! 
 You've only to whisper something about a 'hidden hand/ 
 and a crowded meeting of City men will sit and hypnotise 
 themselves into thinking that there's an active service of 
 secret agents with poor Haldane as Director General 
 quietly penetrating our social life and paralysing our efforts 
 in the war. Hidden hand ! Pacifist they can't even throw 
 their absurdities into decent English ! Profiteer ! We're so 
 astonishingly petty as a nation! I wonder if the same 
 thing's being reproduced in all other countries the old 
 'Nous sommes trahis' nonsense. . . . They're all govern- 
 ments of old men, too, and they're tired and no one out- 
 side knows what they've had to go through and every- 
 body's nerves are snapping. I'm sometimes surprised that 
 these fellows have lasted so long, but I think their days are 
 numbered. If you throw your mind back, you'll remember 
 a phase when Asquith's worst political enemies said he 
 was indispensable, the only Prime Minister, the one man 
 who could hold the Government and the country together. 
 You don't hear that now ; we've outgrown that phase. Now 
 people are openly saying that he's not master in his own 
 house, that we shall never win the war so long as he's in 
 the saddle, that they'll turn him out the moment they can 
 find someone to put in his place. . . . Lloyd-George would 
 be in power to-day, if his friends in Fleet Street could be 
 sure that he wouldn't hanky-panky with the Army. . . . 
 To read the papers, you'd think it was the cumulative effect 
 of reverses like Gallipoli and Mesopotamia, the shortage 
 of food, and the fact that we've done nothing to increase 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 185 
 
 our home production, and our failure to grapple with sub- 
 marines. It's deeper and blinder than that. . . . It's be- 
 cause the Government hasn't won the war that it will fail ; 
 and any new Prime Minister will fall in exactly the same 
 way, unless he can win it. Results ! results ! That mounte- 
 bank Grayle is quite right; he represents average, unthink- 
 ing, third-rate, violent opinion, and that opinion's becoming 
 articulate. As I've told you before, I don't think a change 
 will do any good, because we set ourselves too big a task, 
 we started on too high a moral plane. I suppose I should 
 be called a 'pacifist* if I suggested that that phase was over 
 and that we'd better moderate our tone before we're com- 
 pelled to." 
 
 The particular non-party War Committee headed by 
 Grayle was waking to activity after its suspended anima- 
 tion during the summer campaign. In his paper, in con- 
 versation at the Club and still more in the Smoking Room 
 of the House he was calling for more vigour in adminis- 
 tration. . . . The House of Commons position was curious, 
 he informed me; if he could be sure of a certain number 
 of votes he would not trouble me with the figures, we 
 could have a ministry after our own heart. There followed 
 an interval of perhaps five minutes, in which I allowed him 
 to do all the talking. The Unionist members of the Coali- 
 tion were sick and tired of this eternal "Wait and See;" 
 there would be a secession the moment that a better al- 
 ternative government had been sketched out ; you had only 
 to call a Unionist party meeting and put it to 'em straight. 
 But you didn't want to take an unnecessary toss, you 
 couldn't afford to supply powder and shot to rags like the 
 "Daily News," which were always talking about an intrigue 
 and saying that no government could exist with the Ger- 
 mans in front and back-stabbers behind. . . . 
 
 "Nothing's settled yet," he told me after considering 
 academically the offices for which we were both fitted. 
 "But you know the constitutional theory; you're not justi- 
 fied in upsetting a government unless you're prepared to 
 go to Buckingham Palace and take on the job of forming 
 
1 86 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 a new administration. Excuse me ! I want to have a word 
 with Oakleigh." 
 
 The following day I asked Bertrand under what guise 
 the devil had appeared to him, but he had evidently been 
 less patient. 
 
 "Grayle went away with a flea in his ear," he grunted. 
 "He's been worrying me so long that I had to stop it once 
 and for all. God knows, I don't care about this ministry; 
 I shouldn't have much faith in any ministry formed out of 
 the present House the best talent's already on the Treas- 
 ury Bench and I don't believe in bringing in your super- 
 man from outside the House of Commons can't be 
 learned in a night, and even a government department needs 
 study. What I object to in Grayle is his picking on me as 
 one of his fifty or sixty new allies; you can picture him 
 buzzing round with his fellow-conspirators 'Shall we try 
 Oakleigh and Stornaway? They're solid, moderate, old 
 members highly respected. They don't add anything to 
 the common stock, of course, but they carry more weight 
 than the men who are always talking and playing an active 
 part. We might try them, their names would look well on 
 the prospectus inspire confidence, you know/ " He 
 chuckled maliciously. "I suppose I'm getting very old, but 
 I can't stand young men's conceit in the way I once did. 
 Grayle's like a boy just down from Oxford, doing every- 
 thing for the first time and imagining that no one's ever 
 done it before. Does he really think this is the first politi- 
 cal intrigue in history? I recommended him a course of 
 Disraeli's novels to improve his technique. Good God! I 
 was playing this game of detaching wobblers and handing 
 out offices that were not in my gift and mobilising the 
 solid, moderate, highly respected old members under Glad- 
 stone! I toiled and schemed to keep the Liberal Party out 
 of Rosebery's hands; I was making new parties and 
 pigeon-holing possible cabinets all through the Morley-Har- 
 court days, I was intriguing to keep C.-B. in command 
 when the Liberal Leaguers intrigued to kick him into the 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 187 
 
 Lords. I've been through it all ; and be hanged if I didn't 
 do it better than Grayle !" 
 
 Perhaps my manner was too sympathetic. Certainly I 
 was not to escape so easily as Bertrand had done, for 
 Grayle met me leaving the House and offered to drop me 
 on his way home. I accepted because I was nominally 
 amicable with him, because I did not want a wet walk to 
 my hotel and because I could not decently refuse. He talked 
 persuasively the whole way home and was obviously 
 chagrined when I did not invite him into my rooms. He 
 rang me up at breakfast next day and tried to secure my 
 presence at luncheon; once at my office in St. James* 
 Street, once in my department, and once again, when I was 
 tranquilly dining with the Maitlands, I was called to the 
 telephone with an apologetic but urgent request that I 
 would arrange a time when Grayle could have five minutes' 
 conversation with me. 
 
 My position was simple and clear. I would be neither 
 bribed nor bullied into any kind of office, I would give no 
 blank cheque for the future to Grayle or anyone else, but 
 I should no doubt be found voting with him against the 
 Government or with the Government against him as I 
 had done in the past, judging every division on its merits. 
 A note on my dressing-table informed me that Colonel 
 Grayle had telephoned from the House at eleven. ... I 
 picked up my hat, buttoned my coat again and turned my 
 steps towards Milford Square; a far more patient man 
 might be excused for thinking that Grayle was making a 
 nuisance of himself. 
 
 The servant who opened the door informed me that 
 Colonel Grayle was out. 
 
 'Til wait," I said. "I've got to see him." 
 
 "But he's out of town, sir. He didn't say where he was 
 going or when he'd be back. He very often goes away like 
 that." 
 
 The man was sleek of appearance and glib of speech, 
 well-experienced, I thought, in shutting the door to people 
 whom his master did not wish to see. But I did not fall 
 
1 88 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 within that category, and Grayle had plagued me suffi- 
 ciently to justify reprisals. 
 
 "When did he go away?" I asked. 
 
 "Before dinner, sir." 
 
 "Ah, then he must have changed his plans/' I said. "He 
 telephoned to me from the House half an hour ago; he's 
 been trying to get hold of me all day, but this is the first 
 opportunity I've had. Is Mr. Bannerman in? If so, I'll 
 talk to him till Colonel Grayle comes in." 
 
 "Mr. Bannerman has moved into rooms of his own," the 
 servant told me, yielding ground reluctantly. 
 
 I walked into Grayle's smoking-room and left the man 
 to warn him that I was in effective occupation and that he 
 must yield to the inevitable and come down to see me, if he 
 were already at home, or submit to a few minutes of my 
 company when he returned. A moment later I saw that 
 he could not yet have come back from the House, as a 
 pile of letters awaited him on the table and the whiskey 
 and soda set out for his refreshment were untouched. "A 
 model servant," I said to myself, "to have everything ready 
 when you do not expect your master home." I mixed my- 
 self a drink and was preparing to light a cigar when I 
 found that I was without matches. On going into the hall, 
 I found my sleek, glib friend mounting guard, as though 
 he expected me to slip out with my pockets full of silver. 
 
 He produced a box of matches and struck one for me. 
 As I began to light my cigar, a taxi drove into the square 
 and drew up opposite the house. 
 
 "What name shall I tell Colonel Grayle ?" asked the ser- 
 vant, as he held open the smoking-room door for me. 
 
 Before I had time to answer, I heard a latch-key grating 
 in the lock ; the servant moved forward and stopped irreso- 
 lutely; then the door opened to admit Mrs. O'Rane. Our 
 eyes met for a moment, and for the first time since I had 
 known her I saw her out of countenance. In another mo- 
 ment it was all over, for I had backed into the smoking 
 room and pushed the door closed. I heard her clear, rather 
 high voice asking whether Colonel Grayle was home yet. 
 
THE DOOR CLOSED 189 
 
 The servant murmured something in reply, and I caught 
 the sound of his footsteps growing fainter along the flagged 
 passage. Mrs. O'Rane turned the handle and came in to 
 me, once more self-possessed and in control of herself; 
 there was neither embarrassment nor defiance in her man- 
 ner; she greeted me as she had once before greeted me, 
 when I first met her at "The Sanctuary." 
 
 "I hope you've not been waiting long," she said. "Vin- 
 cent's usually home by this time. There's not an all-night 
 sitting or anything, is there?" 
 
 "Not so far as I know," I answered. "Mrs. O'Rane, I 
 don't think I'll stay any longer." 
 
 She looked at my newly lighted cigar and untouched 
 whiskey and soda. 
 
 "It's just as you like," she said. "It seems a pity to 
 run away without seeing him, though. I presume you came 
 to see him and not me?" 
 
 "I came to see him. I didn't know you were here." 
 
 "But I've been here the whole time. Didn't you know 
 that?" 
 
 "We didn't." 
 
 "But where else was I likely to be?" 
 
 "Your husband never suspected that Grayle had any hand 
 in it. I fancy you and Grayle did your best not to en- 
 lighten him. You let him think it was another man, and 
 Grayle gave an alibi. I suppose it was all right; I'm not 
 versed in the ethics of the thing." 
 
 I made a step towards the door, but Mrs. O'Rane was 
 in my way. 
 
 "Yes, I don't know why Vincent said that," she ob- 
 served reflectively. "Unless he thought that nobody was 
 ever going to know. . . . But I'm not quite so abandoned 
 as that. I warned you all, I told you my old married life 
 was over; and I was free to start another. As for not 
 enlightening anybody, it's not my business to correct all 
 the mistakes people choose to make. . . . Now that you've 
 been here, you can report everything you've seen. I'nt 
 not hiding anything, and you can say I'm not ashamed of 
 
1 9 o SONIA MARRIED 
 
 what I've done and I'm quite prepared for all the world to 
 know. He can divorce me as soon as he likes." 
 
 The discussion did not make me want to stay any longer 
 in the house, and I had to ask her to let me pass. 
 
 "You can tell him that," she added carelessly. 
 
 "I don't know that he contemplates divorcing you/' I 
 said. "He's never mentioned the subject." 
 
 "But he'll have to. He can't go on being nominally mar- 
 ried to me, when I'm well ..." 
 
 "Are you sure you don't mean that your own position 
 will be a shade less discreditable when Grayle marries 
 you?" I asked. "Frankly, you haven't been thinking of 
 your husband very much, have you?" 
 
 She sighed impatiently. 
 
 "You will keep on speaking of him as my husband." 
 
 "He is." 
 
 "Until he divorces me." 
 
 "Unless he divorces you," I substituted. 
 
CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 
 
 "O knights and lords, it seems but little skill 
 To talk of well-known things past now and dead. 
 
 God wot I ought to say, I have done ill, 
 
 And pray you all forgiveness heartily! 
 
 Because you must be right, such great lords; still 
 
 Listen, suppose your time were come to die, 
 And you were quite alone and very weak; 
 Yea, laid a dying while very mightily 
 
 The wind was ruffling up the narrow streak 
 
 Of river through your broad lands running well; 
 
 Suppose a hush should come, then some one speak; 
 
 'One of these cloths is heaven, and one is hell, 
 Now choose one cloth for ever; which they be, 
 I will not tell you, you must somehow tell 
 
 Of your own strength and mightiness; here, see!' 
 
 After a shivering half-hour you said; 
 
 'God help! heaven's colour, the blue'; and he said, 'hell.' 
 
 Perhaps you would roll upon your bed, 
 
 And cry to all good men that loved you well, 
 
 'Ah, Christ! if only I had known, known, known . . .'" 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS: The Defence of Guenevere. 
 
 When I first met Sir Aylmer Lancing, I was a very young 
 and very impecunious member of the Diplomatic Service; 
 he was in early middle life and a millionaire many times 
 over. It was a time of mental green-sickness with me, 
 when I had an undergraduate's morbid craving for ideas, 
 
 191 
 
192 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 something of an undergraduate's contempt, too, for those 
 to whom ideas made no appeal. In describing Sir Aylmer 
 as a man without ideas, I am saying something which he 
 would have endorsed and interpreted to mean far more 
 than I intended. He had no ideas outside his business, 
 though within it he shewed a deliberate, dogged objectivity, 
 the sublimation of commonsense, which was staggering and 
 irresistible as a battering-ram. I have met no one with 
 whom the essential was so invariably the obvious. One 
 day, when we were crossing together to America, I asked 
 him what were the qualities which made most for success 
 in any career. He answered, for all the world like the 
 tritest of stage millionaires, "Always know what you want 
 and go for it; always be quite clear about what's going on 
 in your own mind." 
 
 Lancing left an estate of over twenty millions; I had 
 made before the war about two hundred thousand pounds ; 
 despite the difference I boldly affirm that the first in- 
 tellectual quality for success is an ability to know what is 
 going on in other people's minds. Bertrand Oakleigh has 
 the quality in a high degree. I made fun of him, indeed, 
 over many years, because he was so oracular. At his house 
 in Princes Gardens, in the Smoking-Room and at the Club 
 he would sit looking up at the ceiling with a long black 
 cigar jutting defiantly from under his heavy walrus mous- 
 tache, always a little more profound and unhurried than 
 the rest of us, always armed with a general principle, al- 
 ways ready with a philosophic theory, sometimes para- 
 doxical and usually pretentious. But, when he dropped 
 what George once called his "sneers and graces," forgot 
 to be prejudiced or pontifical, he was shrewdly intelli- 
 gent. Had he been less indolent, less fond of gossip, less 
 detached and content to be the amused spectator, he could 
 have made a considerable political position for himself, for 
 he had a rare faculty of hearing innumerable opinions on 
 the same subject, melting them down, so to say, and pro- 
 ducing a prophecy. But, as he grew older, he would not 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 193 
 
 take the trouble to think for himself or to ascertain what 
 others were thinking. 
 
 I went to him for advice on the results of my visit to 
 Grayle's house in Milford Square. 
 
 "Well, I take it that the one person we're interested 
 in is David," he said by way of giving me a lead. 
 
 The remark was characteristic of his love for O'Rane, 
 but I am afraid it was also indicative of his general aver- 
 sion from women and of his dislike for Mrs. O'Rane in 
 particular, a dislike which dated back to a time long 
 anterior to her marriage. I was weakly ready to go 
 farther and interest myself in her, too, if only on account 
 of her youth and an obstinate belief that youth has a 
 good title to happiness. 
 
 "Well, we're looking for the best solution," I suggested, 
 "not meting out justice. Grayle and Mrs. O'Rane are 
 waiting for O'Rane to file a petition. That was her mes- 
 sage. Now, O'Rane's never said whether he'll divorce her 
 or not; probably he hasn't made up his mind, and cer- 
 tainly I don't know his views on divorce. She's in an im- 
 possible position socially as long as she lives with 
 Grayle without marrying him; and Grayle's position will 
 be very uncomfortable as soon as the story gets about. 
 It's enough to spoil his political career; whereas he'll live 
 it down, if there's a conventional divorce and he lies quiet 
 for a few months. If O'Rane wants to take his revenge, 
 he need only refuse to set her free." 
 
 "He's not looking for revenge," said Bertrand oracu- 
 larly. 
 
 "Then you'd say anyone would say that the kindest 
 and most generous thing he could do would be to divorce 
 her. I'm only uncertain because I know something of 
 Grayle; I presume he'll marry her, but, when the honey- 
 moon period's over, he'll make her supremely unhappy. 
 Perhaps that's no more than she deserves, but, if O'Rane 
 thought she'd be unhappy by marrying Grayle, conceivably 
 he might exercise his power to prevent it." 
 
 "Conceivably he might," Bertrand assented dryly. 
 
194 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "Well, those are the alternatives to divorce or not to 
 divorce. I'm amazed to find how well the secret's been 
 kept, but it can't be kept indefinitely. It happened to be 
 me last night, but Tom, Dick or Harry might just as well 
 have made the discovery. Any day now you may have a 
 nauseating scandal. We none of us want that, and O'Rane 
 does nothing to stop it." 
 
 For a moment Bertrand dropped his omniscient manner 
 and shrugged his shoulders with slow helplessness. 
 
 "What do you suggest he can do ?" he asked. 
 
 "Have the minor scandal of a divorce I regard that as 
 less bad than the common knowledge that she's been living 
 for weeks, months, years with a man who's not her hus- 
 band, get it over quickly and give people a chance of for- 
 getting it. If he won't do that, let him see if he's got any 
 power to keep them from living together. I don't think 
 he has. Grayle has sufficient money, his position's not big 
 enough to make him susceptible to blackmail " 
 
 "You may take it that David's got no power," Bertrand 
 interrupted. 
 
 "Well, it's your turn," I said a little impatiently. 
 
 Bertrand stroked his moustache and closed his eyes 
 sleepily. 
 
 "I'll answer your specific question. You know who she's 
 living with and you can tell David or not, as you like. 
 It won't make a pennyworth of difference," he added cheer- 
 fully. "You see, there's one thing you're leaving out, 
 Stornaway, the only thing that matters. David wants her 
 back. I could see that on the day itself, when he'd caught 
 them, when she decamped. . . . Nothing on earth will 
 make him divorce her for purely selfish reasons, if you 
 like ; he can't and won't let her go. But I don't know that 
 you'll do much good by putting a pistol of that kind at her 
 head. I've known that young woman on and off for about 
 ten years. I don't see her knocking at the door and say- 
 ing, 'Oh, by the way, as I can't live with the man I want 
 to, I've come back.' Your general question what to do I 
 can't answer. At least, we can only go on waiting " 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 195 
 
 "And praying that other people won't find out?" I asked. 
 
 "They will, I'm afraid. Well, Sonia's utterly reckless, 
 I gather; she doesn't care who knows. Grayle wouldn't 
 have cared in the old days. When he was living with her 
 predecessor you know, the wife of the man in the 
 Brazilian Legation; Grayle's so untidy in his amours; 
 they always overlap it was common property, they went 
 almost everywhere together, she took the head of his table. 
 Since those happy, careless times Grayle has discovered 
 political ambitions. From the fact that not more than a 
 handful of people know, I judge that Grayle wants to keep 
 the thing quiet; I'm prepared to bet that Grayle would like 
 best of all to be free of the whole tangle and, if he can't 
 do that, he'd like the divorce to come on as quickly as 
 possible. There's another thing you've left out. Do you 
 suppose Grayle had contemplated a scandal, a divorce, the 
 necessity of marrying the woman?" 
 
 "I don't suppose anyone in his position sits down and 
 thinks it out in cold blood," I said. 
 
 Bertrand opened his left eye and looked at me with a 
 malicious smile; then closed it and opened the right. 
 
 "Some do, some don't," he answered. "That's been my 
 experience. I don't much mind your healthy incontinent 
 animal, but I hate your continent calculating man the 
 creature who regulates his passions by his fears. He's 
 artificial, to start with, and he's dangerous. Now, I sit 
 here like the sailor's parrot. Grayle is becoming the calcu- 
 lating animal, Grayle for the first time in his life feels that 
 he has a reputation to lose, Grayle is combining disreputable 
 tastes with a decorous exterior." 
 
 Bertrand paused to chuckle cynically. 
 
 "Well?" I said. 
 
 "Well? Everybody seems to leave out one thing in his 
 calculations, and Grayle was no exception. I put it to 
 you a moment ago that he never contemplated the position 
 he's in now; I suggest that Grayle saw a very beautiful 
 young woman and decided, as you'd expect of him, that 
 she was fair prey. He studied her carefully. She wasn't 
 
196 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 to be bought, because throughout her life she's been re- 
 ceiving everything and giving nothing in return ; she wasn't 
 to be drugged, because her head's strong and her nature's 
 cold ; she wasn't to be cajoled Beresford was doing the 
 chivalrous devotion business, and she treated him like a 
 tame cat, which is what he was; Grayle discovered that 
 the only thing to do was to bully her. He went away, neg- 
 lected her, snubbed her when they met enough to mortify 
 her without even suggesting he cared enough to try and 
 hurt her, shewed her quite plainly that he could get on 
 without her. Down she came with a run and began to 
 make advances to him. He was too busy to waste time on 
 her. She was piqued, she began to throw herself at him 
 until at last he got her into his power. ... I don't know 
 who made her think she'd any cause to be jealous of Miss 
 Merryon; it may have been Grayle, she may have evolved 
 it for herself to excuse her leaving her husband; certainly 
 she lashed herself into thinking it was all true, and that 
 was Grayle's opportunity. But, once more, he never thought 
 of anything more than a passing intrigue, which would have 
 been easy enough with the husband away three months at 
 a time. Unfortunately the husband turned up unexpected- 
 ly just as the intrigue began, and that lifted everything on 
 to a much higher plane. Grayle cut and ran like a boy 
 caught robbing an orchard to be followed a couple of 
 hours later by the woman." Once off the subject of O'Rane, 
 Bertrand was enjoying himself prodigiously. "I would 
 have given something to see his face when she arrived. 
 Now, in my experience, there are mighty few crimes and 
 cruelties that the female won't commit to protect the male 
 the male she's interested in; she'll lie and thieve and 
 we've probably both of us seen her fixing the blame on 
 the wrong man, letting him be cited as co-respondent to 
 save her lover. Well, Beresford was sacrificed to protect 
 Grayle; Grayle himself, who'd stayed behind in England 
 to carry out the intrigue, used the excuse of his mission to 
 the Front to cover his tracks. For two months and more 
 he's contrived to keep the thing secret. Do you imagine 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 197 
 
 he isn't ready however much infatuated about her he may 
 be or may have been to get rid of her and start again un- 
 embarrassed? When we talk about lifelong devotion, we 
 none of us expect to be taken at our word." 
 
 Bertrand opened his eyes to look at me, and I saw that 
 he was shaken with noiseless chuckles of malice. I could 
 not share in his merriment. 
 
 "I don't see how this helps," I said. "She wants a 
 divorce, he wants to get rid of her, and O'Rane she wont 
 come back to him, and, if she did, I can't conceive of his 
 taking her back." 
 
 "Then you don't know David and you've not had much 
 experience of young men in his state of mind," answered 
 Bertrand with assurance. "In the meantime you can do 
 nothing and you'd better wait till the story begins to get 
 round London. It may be weeks or it may be months, but 
 that little scandal is not going to lie hid for ever." 
 
 In spite of Bertrand there was one thing that I could do, 
 and I did it when next I met O'Rane. It was intolerable, to 
 my way of thinking, that he should be allowed to meet 
 Grayle in ignorance of the blow which Grayle had dealt 
 him. To do the fellow justice, I had never seen him seek- 
 ing O'Rane's company either before or after, but I could 
 not stomach the idea that O'Rane might unsuspectingly 
 join him at dinner or even bid him good-night. I broke 
 the news on my autumn visit to Melton. As soon as I ap- 
 proached the subject, O'Rane's face grew rigid; when I 
 had finished, he said, "Oh, that was it? I see. Thank 
 you." 
 
 Our brief meeting took place in October, and I do not 
 know whether O'Rane came more than once to London 
 until the Christmas holidays. I did not see him, certainly, 
 and I have never heard whether he ran across Grayle. 
 About a week after our meeting, I happened to be dining 
 with the Maitlands and once more found Grayle among 
 my fellow-guests. Until that moment I had not tried to 
 think what line of conduct I should follow on meeting him; 
 I do not yet know what is the conventional course. When 
 
198 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 Lady Maitland went to the drawing-room, however, and 
 he moved unconcernedly into the chair next mine, I had 
 no difficulty in arriving at a decision. Grayle was middle- 
 aged, rich, of unimpaired physique; he had tasted most 
 kinds of enjoyment, his life had been brutishly happy and 
 brutally successful; this last intrigue meant as little to him 
 as a kiss snatched from an unreluctant dairymaid. It 
 meant more to O'Rane. 
 
 I waved away the decanter which Maurice Maitland was 
 pressing upon me and asked if he would make my apologies 
 to his wife and allow me to slip away unobserved to finish 
 some work which I had been compelled to take home. A 
 day or two later I entered the House as Grayle was leav- 
 ing it. He turned back and requested the favour of three 
 minutes' conversation with me. 
 
 "I just want to understand," he began with an outward 
 show of reason and an underlying menace. "I knew you 
 knew, of course, but I didn't suspect you of so much melo- 
 drama. Am I to take it that you don't want to meet me ?" 
 
 I am afraid that the threatening high voice left me un- 
 daunted. 
 
 "Grayle," I said, "you must admit youVe been a pitiful, 
 heartless cad over this." 
 
 "You don't want to meet me?" he repeated. "I only 
 want to be sure of my ground." 
 
 "You remembered, of course, that O'Rane was blind?" 
 I went on. 
 
 He dropped the menace and assumed an expression of 
 mild perplexity. 
 
 "I'm afraid I don't follow where you come in in all this," 
 he said, running his fingers through his luxuriant flaxen 
 hair. "I'm quite ready to meet O'Rane here or else- 
 where. If he likes to plead blindness as an excuse, he 
 can." 
 
 "And you will only plead it as an opportunity," I said. 
 "Frankly, Grayle, I never want to see you or hear of you 
 or speak to you again. And I wish I could find someone 
 less fat and flabby to horsewhip you." 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 199 
 
 So a forty years' acquaintance ended. We spoke as and 
 when we found ourselves members of the same company, 
 but I was only to meet him once again in private and only 
 to hold private communication with him twice. Perhaps 
 I was too busy to frequent the places where I was likely to 
 see him ; perhaps, and more probably, he was living in com- 
 parative retirement. 
 
 During October and November I was constrained to 
 watch the fulfilment of Bertrand's prophecy. The fact that 
 Mrs. O'Rane was living apart from her husband, if not the 
 fact that she was living with someone else, could not be 
 concealed indefinitely. I had entered their social group 
 so recently that I could not count more than half a dozen 
 or a dozen friends in common, but in the course of those 
 two months I heard many references that indicated sus- 
 picion or at least curiosity. Lady Maitland, I remember, 
 shook her massive head and told me that it was a great 
 pity for Colonel Grayle and Mrs. O'Rane to be still going 
 about together so much; she had hoped that all that non- 
 sense was over. . . . Lady Pentyre had heard that there 
 was some estrangement . . . And one night, when I was 
 dining at Bodmin Lodge, young Deganway, who prided 
 himself on the range of his social information, peered 
 knowingly through his eyeglass and asked our host 
 whether the famous Mrs. O'Rane did not hail from his part 
 of the country. I forget what answer Pebbleridge made, 
 but Deganway started talking with fine mystery about a 
 certain member of Parliament who should be nameless. 
 . . . George Oakleigh interrupted him by asking if he knew 
 her. 
 
 "I do" he added significantly. 
 
 "Well, but is it true ?" Deganway demanded resiliently. 
 
 "I haven't heard the story yet," George answered. "I 
 don't know that I particularly want to." 
 
 His tone was not sufficiently discouraging to closure the 
 discussion, and Pebbleridge observed that he had not heard 
 the story either. I felt that it was time to intervene. 
 
 "I've heard a story," I said. "If Deganway and I mean 
 
200 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 the same thing, there's nothing in it. She used to be rather 
 a friend of yours, usen't she, Deganway?" 
 
 "Oh, I've known her for years," he answered impervious- 
 ly and impenitently. 
 
 George and I walked part of the way home together 
 along Knightsbridge. 
 
 "It can't go on, you know," he exclaimed. "We had a 
 frontal attack from Lady Dainton to-day. She called at 
 'The Sanctuary' on her way to Waterloo and was mildly 
 surprised to find me in possession and very fairly staggered 
 when I said Sonia was away and that I didn't know her 
 address. Between us we managed to shut Deganway up 
 to-night, but the story's being circulated by other people 
 as well. I deny it, of course. . . . And I've seen Sonia 
 with him three times in ten days." 
 
 I wondered whether she was trying to force his hand 
 and her husband's. 
 
 "Grayle's probably meeting the story, too," I said. "I 
 wonder how he likes it." 
 
 "He must have been through this sort of thing so many 
 times !" George sighed. 
 
 "But I doubt if he wants to be the hero of a cause 
 celebre at this moment," I suggested. "The political po- 
 sition is becoming very interesting." 
 
 A few days before I had found myself at a political 
 meeting in the City. We were assembled to demand a 
 "ton-for-ton" policy of compensation for the merchant 
 shipping which was being sunk by German submarines, 
 and my seat on the platform was next to Guy Banner- 
 man's. 
 
 "Grayle couldn't come, so I'm representing him," he ex- 
 plained. "You may imagine his hands are pretty full at 
 present." 
 
 "I can well imagine it," I said, "though I don't go out 
 of my way to meet him nowadays." Guy looked at me 
 enquiringly to see how much I knew. "The last time I 
 was at Mil ford Square I was told that you'd moved into 
 quarters of your own." 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 201 
 
 Guy nodded abstractedly. 
 
 "You know, I don't think you've heard the whole story," 
 he said. 
 
 "I've heard more than I want to," I replied, as I began 
 to consult the programme of the afternoon's proceedings. 
 
 "Ah, but only on one side. There was such provoca- 
 tion " 
 
 I laid my hand on Guy's knee. 
 
 "That was good enough for her, but it won't do for 
 me," I said. "I've no doubt Grayle worked it up very 
 convincingly, but you're far too clever to be taken in by it 
 and not half clever enough to impose on me. We both 
 of us know that it's impossible to say a single word for 
 either of them. There we'd better leave it. It can't be 
 undone now." 
 
 We were interrupted by the chairman's introductory 
 speech, but at the end of the meeting Guy took my arm 
 and walked with me to Cannon Street Station. 
 
 "I'm not trying to defend them," he said. "In a thing 
 like this no outsider can give an opinion worth having. I'm 
 only saying that you might be a bit more* lenient, if you'd 
 heard both sides." 
 
 "It can't be undone now," I repeated. 
 
 As we seated ourselves in the train, he asked me if I 
 had any idea what O'Rane proposed to do. 
 
 "Did Grayle tell you to find out?" I enquired. 
 
 "Of course he didn't," was the indignant rejoinder. 
 
 "But he would be interested to know," I suggested. 
 "Well, I can't help you, Guy. O'Rane has not told me ; he 
 has not told anyone, so far as I am aware. Why don't 
 you interview him on the subject?" 
 
 Though Guy is a friend, I could not help being a little 
 brutal to him in manner; I have always admired his loyalty 
 to Grayle, but at this moment it was a quality which 
 alienated me from him. 
 
 "It's no business of mine," said the faithful squire. 
 "I don't know O'Rane, but I can't imagine any man sitting 
 down under this sort of thing." 
 
202 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "Is Grayle so desperately keen on a divorce?" 
 "I've never met anyone who went through the Divorce 
 Court for love of the thing," he answered. 
 
 Half-way through November O'Rane returned to Lon- 
 don for the mid-term Leave Out. I was apprised of his 
 arrival by a telephone message begging me to cancel any 
 other engagements and dine with him informally at 'The 
 Sanctuary." 
 
 It was Saturday night, and I stayed in London to meet 
 him. George and Bertrand were his other guests, and we 
 dined at one end of the long refectory table on the dais, 
 with the rest of the room lit up only by the flicker of the 
 two fires, which sent shapeless, indeterminate shadows 
 dancing up and down the panelled walls. It is usually as 
 easy to detect when a woman lives in a house as when a 
 house has been unoccupied for months. The library was 
 perhaps tidier than Mrs. O'Rane used to leave it; other- 
 wise it was unchanged, but it had become indefinably mas- 
 culine. O'Rane was as quiet and self-possessed as I had 
 always found him, but now without the noticeable effort 
 which I had observed at our last two or three meetings. As 
 might be expected, we talked throughout dinner of the war 
 and of political changes in the House of Commons. Only 
 when we were gathered round one fire with our coffee and 
 cigars did he turn the conversation on to himself. 
 
 "I must apologise for spoiling your week-end," he said, 
 addressing himself to me, "I had to take the opportunity 
 of seeing you when I could. All three of you have been 
 amazingly kind and amazingly discreet and sympathetic. 
 It's my funeral, of course, but I wanted you to be present. 
 George, perhaps you're the best person " 
 
 There was a silence of some moments, while George 
 turned his cigar round in his mouth and stared at his 
 boots. 
 
 "I only know what you asked me to do, Raney," he 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 203 
 
 began diffidently. And then to us, "O'Rane told me to fix 
 up a meeting with Sonia. I went round to Milford Square 
 last night and told her that he wanted to discuss the 
 future, I think I said. Grayle was present. She said she'd 
 come, if he came with her; and I arranged for half-past ten 
 to-night." 
 
 He stopped with obvious relief. O'Rane was standing 
 with his back to the fire, rocking gently from heel to toe, 
 with his hands in his trouser pockets. I saw him put his 
 watch to his ear, touch the repeater and smile. 
 
 "It's not ten yet," he said to Bertrand and me. "If you'd 
 rather be out of it. . . .1 got George to attend as my sec- 
 ond and I wanted you two to be well, to hear what we 
 said and keep us cool. I've been thinking over this busi- 
 ness pretty steadily for some months and I feel it can't go 
 on. My idea about marriage well, to begin with, people 
 mustn't marry unless they feel they can't get on without 
 each other. ... If they find they've made a hopeless 
 mistake, nothing to my way of thinking justifies spoiling 
 two lives by keeping them coupled together. Sonia knows 
 that, I've always told her so. ... Well, no one could find 
 anything to say for our present position, it's neither one 
 thing nor the other. If Sonia's made her choice " 
 
 He broke off and shrugged his shoulders. Bertrand 
 turned his eyes away from the boy's face and gazed slowly 
 round the long, warm, softly-lighted room. George had 
 discovered a spot of grease on the sleeve of his uniform 
 and was industriously scraping it with the end of a wooden 
 match. 
 
 "Go on, O'Rane," I said as gently as I could. "We 
 haven't got much time. She's coming here, and you're go- 
 ing to ask her what she means to do." 
 
 He nodded almost gratefully. 
 
 "Yes. If she tells me coolly and dispassionately that's 
 why IVe got you men here; I don't want a scene that 
 
 she'll be happier with Grayle " I saw his underlip 
 
 tremble before he could get out the name "After all, it's 
 her happiness . . . isn't it?" 
 
204 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 There was another pause. 
 
 "You'll set her free?" I suggested. 
 
 "I suppose so," he whispered. 
 
 I looked at Bertrand, and he first shrugged his shoulders 
 and then shook his head. The first gesture seemed to mean 
 that he did not mind what was said, the second that he 
 himself did not propose to say it. 
 
 "You will divorce her?" I went on to O'Rane. "I only 
 want you to see all sides of the question. It's not pleas- 
 ant, but if she wants it and you're ready to face it on 
 both your accounts . . . There will be a big scandal, 
 O'Rane. She's very well known in society. And any Mem- 
 ber of Parliament, even if he wasn't as notorious as 
 Grayle ... It will make good copy for the papers, I'm 
 afraid." 
 
 "I'd save Sonia from it, if I could," said O'Rane, moisten- 
 ing his lips. "Of course, if Grayle doesn't mind " 
 
 "I should think he'd mind very much," I interrupted. "If 
 he doesn't want to appear in the Divorce Court just now 
 
 "He should have thought of that before," said O'Rane 
 grimly. Then he held out his hands in entreaty. "You 
 don't suggest I can let it go on any longer? Most people 
 would say it had gone on too long, that if I'd had a spark 
 |of pride / cwi't. Try to imagine if your wife . . . 
 Thinking of it night and day, night and day, forgetting for 
 a moment when you're asleep and then waking up fresh 
 to it every morning . . ." His hands stole up and pressed 
 his temples as though they were bursting. "You lie for a 
 moment wondering what it is that's hanging over you," he 
 whispered, "and then you remember. . . . And you for- 
 get again for a moment when you're working or people 
 are talking to you . . . but you always know it's there . . . 
 and it comes back comes back with a stab in the middle 
 of whatever you're doing. . . . And they mustn't see. 
 . . . God knows, a divorce won't alter things much, but 
 at least it's a definite break, I've given her up, I've got no 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 205 
 
 claim, no rights. ... It can't go on any longer. Have 
 have all you men got something to smoke ?" 
 
 He came quickly forward from the fire-place and touched 
 his way to a table behind our chairs. Though his back was 
 turned, I could see out of the corner of one eye that he was 
 furtively wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. 
 
 "If by any chance they don't want a divorce, will you 
 insist on it?" I went on unsparingly. 
 
 "Of course not. Provided they separate. You don't 
 imagine " 
 
 "If they do? If your wife asks you to forgive her and 
 have her back?" 
 
 O'Rane had never smoked, I have been told, since his 
 blindness ; he could no longer taste the tobacco nor keep it 
 alight. I observed him now putting a cigar in his mouth 
 and chewing the end. 
 
 "It's not very likely to arise," he said. 
 
 "But if it did?" 
 
 "I'll wait till it arises." 
 
 He came back to his old place on the hearth-rug, and we 
 remained silent until the clock struck half-past ten. At 
 the sound I could see the others growing tense and ex- 
 pectant, as I was doing. O'Rane had been whistling 
 through his teeth, but he abandoned even this distraction. 
 For myself, uncomfortable as I knew us all to be, I could 
 not help thinking that Mrs. O'Rane and Grayle could be 
 hardly free from all feelings of embarrassment. To re- 
 turn to the house, which had been given as a wedding 
 present sixteen months before, accompanied by the lover 
 with whom she had left it, to meet her husband and dis- 
 cuss how he proposed to deal with her infidelity the bare 
 bones were enough without clothing them in imagination. 
 I pictured Mrs. O'Rane giving the familiar directions to 
 the driver, tapping on the window when he lost himself in 
 trying to take short cuts through the streets of West- 
 minster, stopping him at the door and being helped out by 
 Grayle. . . . And Grayle, for all his seasoning, had never, 
 
206 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 I was very sure, been led by the wife into her husband's 
 house and presence. . . . 
 
 I scribbled on an envelope and handed it to George : 
 
 "Couldn't they have pitched on some other place ?" 
 
 "I wanted a private room in an hotel neutral ground," 
 he wrote back. "Raney insisted on this. Moral effect, I 
 suppose." 
 
 As I crushed the paper into my pocket, I reflected that 
 O'Rane was taking risks. The sight of the room and of 
 himself might act on his wife like the smell of blood on an 
 animal. 
 
 The clock struck again, and I exchanged glances with 
 Bertrand. It was so characteristic of Mrs. O'Rane, even in 
 my short acquaintance with her, that she should be late on 
 such an occasion. 
 
 "You did say to-night, didn't you?" O'Rane asked, try- 
 ing to keep his tone unconcerned. 
 
 "I don't suppose they've been able to get a taxi," George 
 answered. "It was raining before dinner." 
 
 A moment later we grew tense and expectant once more 
 at the sound of an engine. I heard the slam of a door 
 and Grayle's voice saying, "Will you wait a bit?" Then 
 Bertrand, George and I rose from our chairs, as the flame- 
 coloured curtain was drawn aside and Mrs. O'Rane walked 
 composedly into the room, with Grayle in his staff uniform 
 a pace behind. She narrowed her eyes and then raised her 
 brows almost imperceptibly when she saw who was present. 
 
 "I'm sorry if we've kept you all waiting," she said, as 
 she slipped her arms out of her coat and handed it to 
 Grayle. 
 
 O'Rane swallowed. 
 
 "Won't you sit down ?" he murmured. 
 
 George and I each pulled an extra chair into the half- 
 circle, and I watched Mrs. O'Rane settling herself. Pre- 
 sumably she must have started the evening pale, for her' 
 cheeks were slightly rouged and I had not observed her 
 to use rouge before. Her eyes, too, looked tired, as I had 
 seen them at our chance meeting in Hyde Park several 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 207 
 
 months before, but she was perfectly controlled, and I 
 could trace no sign of nervousness or embarrassment. As 
 though she were shewing herself off to young Beresford 
 or any other of her admirers, I saw her look down at the 
 pink dress which she was wearing, smooth a crease out of 
 one glove, lift one transparent sleeve higher on to her 
 shoulder and settle the folds of her skirt. Grayle spent 
 some moments laying her coat carefully across the back 
 of a chair; then dropped on to the end of a sofa with his 
 stiff leg rigid in front of him and began peeling off his 
 gloves and tossing them into his cap. He, at least, was 
 not at ease; and, when George picked up the cigar-box 
 and offered it him, he stammered in his refusal. 
 
 There was a moment more of silence, and then we 
 turned slowly and with one accord towards O'Rane. As 
 though he felt our eyes upon him, he tossed the cigar 
 behind him into the fire and faced his wife. 
 
 "I George probably told you, Sonia I'm spending the 
 week-end in London. I thought we might discuss things 
 a bit." 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane looked unhurriedly to left and right. 
 
 "By all means." she acauiesced. "Do we want quite all 
 these ?" 
 
 "I should have preferred to meet you alone. As Colonel 
 Grayle said he was coming " 
 
 "He had a right to come. Of course, if you prefer 
 everything dragged up in public . . ." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders and began to play with the 
 watch on her wrist. 
 
 "I think everyone here is acquainted with most of the 
 facts," said O'Rane. "But I'm not proposing to drag up 
 anything that's happened. I asked you to come here be- 
 cause I wanted to talk about the future. I expect every- 
 one will agree that the present position can't continue." 
 
 He waited for a sign of assent. Mrs. O'Rane took off 
 one glove and helped herself to a cigarette from the gold 
 case at her wrist. 
 
 "I told Mr. Stornaway that you were at liberty to di- 
 
208 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 vorce me," she said with a glance in my direction. "I 
 said I was willing to face it. I don't know whether you 
 ever got the message." 
 
 I decided to watch Grayle, but he was sitting with his 
 head back, staring at the ceiling and occasionally blowing 
 elongated smoke-rings. 
 
 "The Divorce Court is an unsavoury place," O'Rane ob- 
 served. "I want you to believe, Sonia, that what I've al- 
 ways said is as true now as when I first said it. I put your 
 happiness higher than anything in the world, I'm trying to 
 leave myself out of this." 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane looked once at her husband, and her eyes 
 seemed to harden; then she glanced without apparent pur- 
 pose at the half of the room which was within her field 
 of vision. I noticed for the first time that the flower- 
 vases were empty; I fancy that she noticed it, too. Her 
 mouth began to purse, and I knew that O'Rane would have 
 done better to hold his meeting elsewhere. 
 
 "It's very kind of you," she said stiffly. "Isn't it rather 
 late in the day for you to be thinking of my happiness? 
 
 When I lived here But you said you didn't want to go 
 
 into what was past. The future's simply in your hands. 
 I've told you I'm willing to face it. I don't believe in this 
 modern business of the man always letting himself be di- 
 vorced by the woman. I'm willing to face it. You've 
 got your witnesses; they'll stand by you, if anybody criti- 
 cises you." 
 
 "But if I don't want to see you in the Divorce Court, 
 Sonia?" 
 
 "I'm afraid that's one of the things you can't help." 
 
 O'Rane's chin dropped on to his chest, and he began to 
 pace up and down the ten-foot rug in front of the fire with 
 his hands plunged into his pockets and his fists so tightly 
 clenched that the knuckles of either hand stood out in 
 four sharp lumps against the sides of his trousers. Grayle 
 still sat like a husband reluctantly dragged to hear a dull 
 sermon; Mrs. O'Rane set herself to light a second cigarette 
 from the glowing stump of the first, leaning forward so 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 
 
 that the ash should not scatter over the pink dress. A 
 quarter past eleven struck, and I remember that Bertrand 
 and I gravely consulted our watches and pretended to com- 
 pare them by the clock on the mantel-piece. 
 
 At last O'Rane halted by Grayle's chair. 
 
 "You're in this, too, Colonel Grayle," he said. "Once 
 more we need concern ourselves only with the future. I 
 should like to hear your views." 
 
 Grayle brought his head forward with a sharp jerk. 
 
 "It's her happiness we're considering," he agreed slowly, 
 with his eyes on O'Rane's waist. "I well, it's for her to 
 say ; I obviously can't tell you what will make her happiest, 
 she's the only person who can do that. You've not put 
 forward any case for yourself, I musn't put forward any 
 for myself. She must tell us both whether she's been happy 
 enough these last months to want to go on. . . .1 may 
 say you haven't attacked me, so perhaps I don't need to 
 defend myself I may say that, when a woman's unhappily 
 married, I don't regard her as being under any obligation 
 to her husband ; she's free to start her life again ; and any 
 man is free to share that life, if she sees fit. That that's 
 my theory, in case you feel there's any question of rights 
 involved." 
 
 His tone was becoming truculent, but O'Rane nodded 
 gravely. 
 
 "Yes. But we agreed to leave the past alone," he said. 
 "I've knocked about a good bit the last thirty years and 
 I can assure you that I never want to be put on my trial for 
 anything. Let's stick to the future. Do you wish my 
 wife to go through the Divorce Court?" 
 
 I looked at Mrs. O'Rane to see if the offending word 
 would rouse her, but she seemed not to have heard it. 
 The hard composure of her entrance had broken down, she 
 seemed ready to faint with fatigue, and the patches of 
 rouge on cheeks that were grown suddenly white gave her 
 an absurd something of a Dutch doll's appearance. I 
 fetched her a tumbler of soda-water, and her smile of 
 thanks was the first human thing that I had seen about her 
 
zio SONIA MARRIED 
 
 that night. As she began to sip it, I saw her glance over 
 the brim at Grayle. 
 
 "I don't wish it," he said at length. "Whatwhat else is 
 possible?" 
 
 "You can say good-bye to her," O'Rane suggested 
 quietly. 
 
 Grayle looked up uncomprehendingly ; and Mrs. O'Rane's 
 eyes flashed in sympathy. 
 
 "Desert her, you mean?" 
 
 "It's hardly the word I should have chosen, but we 
 needn't go into that. Colonel Grayle, neither you nor I 
 want a scandal. By the mercy of God, there's only one 
 man outside this room who knows what's been taking place 
 all these months. We've agreed that my wife's happiness 
 is the thing that we're both unselfishly seeking, we won't 
 bandy rights and wrongs or grievances or justifications 
 we won't even try to put our love for her into a scale. 
 If you give me your word of honour that you'll never see 
 or speak to my wife again, I will take no further steps; 
 I'm not trying to steal her away from you so that I may 
 get her back myself she must determine her own hap- 
 piness. You and I can at least spare her the unhappiness, 
 the vulgarity, the morbid, sniggering curiosity of a public 
 scandal. She can live in another part of the house, live 
 away from me, let it be known confidentially that we 
 somehow didn't manage to get on very well together. . . . 
 Are you prepared to make that sacrifice for her happiness ?" 
 
 Grayle lit another cigarette, coughed and fetched himself 
 a syphon and tumbler. 
 
 "You're begging the question," he said at length. "You 
 can't define the conditions of Sonia's happiness." 
 
 "I know what will make her unhappy. That's good 
 enough as a negative definition." 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane pushed her chair back a few inches and 
 rose to her feet. She looked round for her coat and 
 walked to the chair where Grayle had laid it. 
 
 "I've said I'm ready to face everything and everybody," 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 211 
 
 she said over her shoulder, as she slipped her arms into the 
 sleeves. 
 
 "But, please God! you don't know what you're facing!" 
 O'Rane cried with an outburst of emotion which he was no 
 longer able to contain. "Grayle, you say you love her! If 
 you care a snap of the fingers for her, if you've any hu- 
 manity, any decent feeling in the whole of your composi- 
 tion, if you hope for mercy in this world or the next, you've 
 got your opportunity now ! The one thing you can do for 
 her abiding happiness is to take my hand and swear you'll 
 never see her again. You know it is! You can walk out 
 of this house and leave her so that no one will dare to 
 say a word against her for fear of being thrashed within 
 an inch of his life. If she doesn't get on well with me, 
 if we part by common consent, that's my fault; everyone 
 will say that I was always eccentric, that she was a fool 
 to marry me, that I've spoiled her life. . . . Will you do 
 that, Grayle? Will you shew that what you call your love 
 for her means something ?" 
 
 As he ended, I heard a muffled banging on the front 
 door. George hurried away, and a moment later there 
 came the sound of an engine starting. 
 
 "It was only the taximan," he explained, as he came 
 back. "He's got a train to catch at Victoria, so I paid him 
 off. We can telephone for another one when it's wanted." 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane looked at her watch and frowned. 
 
 "I wish you hadn't done that, George," she cried petu- 
 lantly. "It was pouring when we came, and now we shall 
 probably have to walk home. ... I don't see that there's 
 anything more to be said. It's very kind of everyone to 
 take so much trouble about me, but, if I'm prepared to go 
 through with it, that ends the matter." 
 
 "But you're talking about something you don't under- 
 stand, Sonia!' cried O'Rane. 
 
 "Perhaps I understand better than you think," she an- 
 swered. "It's just conceivable that Vincent and I both 
 thought about the consequences beforehand. Good-bye." 
 
 She turned to the door, and Grayle followed her. George 
 
212 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 moved mechanically forward to open it for them. Bertrand 
 and I remained where we were, watching O'Rane smooth 
 back a wisp of black hair that was glued to his forehead. 
 
 It was characteristic of O'Rane that he went back to Mel- 
 ton at the end of his leave without hinting to anyone what 
 he was going to do. After his wife and Grayle left "The 
 Sanctuary," I waited for perhaps ten minutes to see 
 whether he wanted my opinion or advice, but he made no 
 reference to the scene at which we had all been present. 
 All that he said to the Oakleighs was, "Well, I'm rather 
 tired. I think I shall go to bed." He disappeared as quietly 
 and suddenly as he had come; perhaps we were to see 
 him back in six weeks' time at the end of term, but even 
 this was uncertain. 
 
 The advent of autumn, bringing with it the recognition 
 that there must be another winter in the trenches, roused 
 the country from the uncaring optimism or placid resigna- 
 tion in which the summer had been passed. In the London 
 press, at the Club, in the House and at private dinner 
 tables, I found very general agreement that the war had 
 entered upon a new phase. A timid minority earnestly 
 confided to discreetly chosen audiences that the people who 
 talked about a deadlock and a stale-mate peace were prov- 
 ing right after all. With the exception of Beresford, who 
 thought no opinion worth holding unless he shouted it from 
 the house-tops, the new peace-school was obviously fright- 
 ened of being called unpatriotic or pro-German. Bertrand 
 would shake his head gloomily and begin sentences half- 
 j ocularly with "I suppose I shall be called the Hidden 
 Hand next, but all I can say is. . . ." Whatever it was, he 
 said it in an undertone and made sure of his man before 
 saying it. Others tried to avert personal attacks by dis- 
 cussing war and peace in the abstract, adducing uncertain 
 historical parallels and wondering academically whether it 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 213 
 
 was wise to aim at humiliating a great country too much ; 
 were we not sowing the seeds of future wars ? 
 
 The discussion seldom continued to be academic, and 
 the peace school by its furtiveness and timidity invited per- 
 secution, as does the mild urchin at school who never stands 
 up for himself and becomes a legitimate target for his 
 fellows' kicks. Early in December there was much talk of 
 the American "peace-kite." President Wilson had been re- 
 elected, his hands were free, and for four years he could 
 mould the policy of the United States without fear of an 
 election. It was said that his patience was nearing its 
 limits, that he was ready to break off diplomatic relations 
 with Germany and that the "peace-kite" was a last at- 
 tempt to arrive at terms of settlement before deciding to 
 plunge his country into war. 
 
 The rumours of peace discussions and possible terms 
 produced an immediate repercussion in London and de- 
 veloped a greater intensity of political feeling than had 
 been known since the war began. There was said to be 
 a peace-party in the Cabinet; the blunders and catastro- 
 phes of more than two years were set down to the malevo- 
 lence of Ministers who had been driven to war against 
 their will and were only anxious for an immediate end, 
 even if such an end meant victory for the enemy ; I heard 
 once again Lady Maitland's confident assertion that the 
 Government was in German pay. . . . There could be 
 little academic discussion in such an atmosphere, and the 
 one public attempt which I heard Bertrand make was lit- 
 erally shouted down. 
 
 "All I say," he kept repeating one night at Ross House, 
 "is that I see no reason why we should be successful in 
 1917, when we've failed in 1916. I may be wrong; I don't 
 pretend to have sufficient data. I only warn you that in 
 six months' time you may have to accept worse terms than 
 you could get now with a balance of half a million or 
 a million lives the wrong way. That's a big responsibility." 
 
 "You'd let Germany keep all she's got," Lady Maitland 
 asked, "as an instalment?" 
 
214 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "Germany's broken, as it is," Bertrand answered. "She 
 can never make good her losses and she'd gladly discuss 
 terms. But, good Heavens! even if we didn't accept the 
 terms, there's surely no harm in discussing them !" 
 
 Maitland shook his head sagely. 
 
 "When I'm dealing with the burglar who's collared my 
 silver/' he said, "I prefer not to argue until he's divested 
 himself of what I believe is called the swag." 
 
 "You may prefer not to. Can you enforce your prefer- 
 ence?" Bertrand asked rather curtly. 
 
 "Then let's go down fighting," Lady Maitland proposed 
 valiantly. 
 
 "With great submission, a live dog's better than a dead 
 lion," said Bertrand. "I've so much faith in the poten- 
 tialities of my country that I want to preserve her." 
 
 Lady Maitland turned on him with unaffected ferocity. 
 
 "If you make peace now, you'll disgrace her!" she cried. 
 "We shall never be able to hold up our heads again !" 
 
 Young Lady Loring, who was between Bertrand and 
 me, was no less strong. 
 
 "Uncle Bertrand, you can't be serious !" she exclaimed. 
 "We should be faithless to those who've died, if we didn't 
 hold on. I I would sooner have my husband killed a 
 second time than go back on the dead !" 
 
 Her intensity of feeling caused a stir, followed by an 
 embarrassed pause. Maitland brought it to an end by 
 shaking his head good-humouredly. 
 
 "I say, Oakleigh, old man, if I may say so, you oughtn't 
 to talk like that, you know. You're a man in a responsi- 
 ble position, people quote what you say. It produces a 
 devilish bad impression." 
 
 My instinctive sympathy is always with the minority, and 
 I came mildly to Bertrand's support. 
 
 "I agree with Oakleigh to this extent," I said. "All of 
 us here are either women or men over military age. We 
 ought to check the easy impulse to make other people fight 
 to the bitter end." 
 
 "You won't hear any peace-talk at the Front," inter- 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 215 
 
 posed Maitland. "I've just come back from G.H.Q., you 
 know." 
 
 Bertrand gave a snort of impatience. 
 
 "You won't find people lighting pipes in high-explosive 
 factories," he answered. "It's against the rules. At the 
 present time the policy of the war is dictated by people 
 who can't conceivably be sent to carry it out. Stornaway's 
 quite right. We fat old men sit at home and water the 
 fields of Flanders with other people's blood. We say that, 
 if they don't go on to the bitter end, there'll be another war 
 in ten years. It's wrong, and we've been wrong every 
 day we've gone on after we shewed the Germans that they 
 couldn't overrun Europe at will. / went through the phase 
 of (dismembering Germany, deposing the Kaiser, com- 
 mandeering the Fleet." 
 
 There was an unfortunate note of intellectual superiority 
 in his voice, as though he alone had waded through the 
 depths and shallows of folly and was at last (and alone) 
 on dry land. His reward was immediate interruption by a 
 chorus from every quarter of the table at once. 
 
 "Perhaps if you'd had a brother in solitary confinement 
 for eight months because he called the guard a Schwein- 
 hund, which was the only word they'd given him a chance 
 
 of learning " began little Agnes Waring on my left 
 
 with considerable heat. 
 
 "You wouldn't stir a finger to avenge Belgium?" de- 
 manded Lady Maitland. 
 
 "Oakleigh ! Oakleigh !" her husband expostulated. 
 "You're too old to fight yourself; for God's sake don't 
 damp the ardour of those who can, those who'll go on till 
 they've dictated their own peace terms in Berlin," he 
 ended proudly. 
 
 As the chorus subsided for want of breath, Frank Jella- 
 by, who was now one of the Liberal Whips in the Coalition, 
 allowed his incisive, nasal drawl to rise and dominate the 
 table. 
 
 "The trouble about you, Oakleigh, is that you go through 
 so many phases; we poor, benighted folk can't keep up 
 
2i6 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 with you. There was a phase quite a long one, for you 
 when any war with Germany was impossible, unthink- 
 able. Didn't you run a paper to prove it? When the war 
 came, someone twitted you in the House, and you made a 
 personal statement and a pretty complete recantation. 
 You've been wrong here, wrong there. . . . If I may put 
 it quite brutally, how are we to know you're not just as 
 wrong now, how soon may we expect another personal 
 statement?" 
 
 "Have all your prophecies been right?" Bertrand en- 
 quired. 
 
 "What prophecies have I made?" was the bland and 
 temporarily safe rejoinder. 
 
 It was the one articulate effort which I heard at this 
 time to determine the limits of military effort. It was 
 derided and drowned; and from that as we had to go on 
 fighting there was a short and easy road to criticism of 
 present methods. 
 
 "We've put our hands to the plough," said Maitland 
 placatingly, when the ladies had left us. "We can't turn 
 back, Oakleigh. And I'm afraid I believe that the biggest 
 trial's still ahead of us." 
 
 "And you're satisfied we shall come out of that any bet- 
 ter?" Bertrand answered. "Your experience of the war 
 leads you to expect that? God knows, the men don't lack 
 courage or sticking-power, but can you find them general- 
 ship?" 
 
 "We must go on till we do." 
 
 Bertrand smoked for some moments in a reflective si- 
 lence. 
 
 "It's a curious thing," he observed at length, "that a war 
 of this size hasn't thrown up a single soldier of first-rate 
 genius." 
 
 Maitland, for all that he had made the cleanest possible 
 job of an Afghan raid and was now counter-initialling 
 minutes in an extension of the War Office, took the criti- 
 cism as personal. 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 217 
 
 "That is precisely what the soldiers say of you politi- 
 cians/' he retorted. 
 
 "The soldiers' job is to understand warfare and run a 
 war," Bertrand propounded. 
 
 "The statesman's job is to govern," Maitland retaliated. 
 "That's just what the Cabinet doesn't do and just what 
 you M.P.'s don't make it do." 
 
 In the altercation which followed I listened to Maitland 
 and watched Jellaby. The first acted as a barometer to 
 mark the variations of average, prejudiced, unthinking 
 opinion; it was the business of the second to follow the 
 daily movement of the barometer. I did not need a second 
 look at Jellaby to know that he was worried. He and I 
 had talked in odd half-hours at the House about the pos- 
 sibility of attaining the objects for which we had entered 
 the war ; when our prospects were far brighter, Jellaby had 
 been more rationally despondent, and I chose to think that 
 his attack on Bertrand was an inspired attempt to suggest 
 that any consideration of peace was at present out of the 
 question and that a hard-pressed Government had better 
 use for its time and energies than debating-society reso- 
 lutions. He made no defence or comment, however, when 
 Maitland developed a damaging attack on the Cabinet, and 
 I fancied that he could not speak without indiscretion. 
 Whether the Press reflected the public or the public reflected 
 the Press, there was a widespread feeling that an ungainly 
 cabinet of twenty-two talked incessantly and decided noth- 
 ing, that countries were overrun and opportunities thrown 
 away, because no one acted in time and that, paralysing as 
 this collective lethargy so often and so tragically proved, it 
 was still no check on the spasmodic and misdirected energy 
 of individual members. Bertrand was one of a school 
 which scented Press intrigue in every political develop- 
 ment, but, as Grayle was credited with having said, "A 
 Government which can't down Northclifre can't down the 
 Germans." 
 
 Of Grayle I saw nothing at this time, though a fresh crop 
 of rumours told me that he was engaged once more on the 
 
218 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 task which he had begun a year and a half before, after 
 the battle of Neuve Chapelle. Watchful friends discov- 
 ered him slipping in and out of the houses of Unionist 
 ministers; there were tales of informal gatherings and 
 chance week-end meetings at Brighton or on Shannon 
 Wood golf-course. 
 
 "He wants a new coalition under Lloyd-George," Ber- 
 trand explained, "but the Tories aren't nibbling. You see, 
 there's no popular cry that they can put up. George is at 
 the War Office; if he and they can't make their will ef- 
 fective, they'd better resign like Carson, they mustn't pro- 
 claim their own impotence by whimpering. But they can't 
 resign on the ground that the war's being mismanaged, be- 
 cause they're jointly and severally responsible for the mis- 
 management. There's no issue." 
 
 Later on he talked to me with a mixture of resigna- 
 tion and disappointment. 
 
 "If the Government falls, it will be simply because it 
 doesn't know its own strength. It runs away every time 
 anyone shakes a stick at it; it never says, 'Turn us out 
 and be damned!' Meanwhile its authority is being sapped 
 daily. . . . It's the old complaint I brought against it for 
 eight years before the war. Ministers are so high and 
 mighty that they never remember who it is that keeps 'em 
 in power. 'Never* explain, never complain !' It won't do ! 
 For months the Press has been urging that something must 
 be done to raise fresh drafts after the Somme slaughter, 
 that food prices must be controlled, that Ireland can't be 
 left where she is. The Government goes about like 
 Caesar's wife. . . . And everyone thinks it's doing nothing, 
 and where should we be without Lord Northcliffe ? And 
 give us a Man! I don't know when or where the break 
 will come, but I hear most ominous cracks." 
 
 The break came unexpectedly, so far as I was con- 
 cerned in the first week of December. I say "unexpected- 
 ly," because I have yet to discover why the Government 
 did not fall three months earlier or endure until three 
 months later. Bertrand, who took on a new lease of life 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 219 
 
 when the days of crisis approached, told me that the point 
 of cleavage was the question whether more troops should 
 be sent to Salonica. True or false, this was obscured by 
 an ultimatum in which the Secretary of State for War 
 called for a Merovingian War Cabinet in which the Prime 
 Minister was to have no place. 
 
 As I walked home from my office, the contents bills bore 
 the legend, "England's Strong Man to Go." George Oak- 
 leigh and one or two others were dining with me, and by 
 the time that I was dressed the news was being shouted in 
 the streets that the Government had resigned. I suppose 
 that I am as near to an Independent as the caucuses and the 
 House of Commons will allow, but, though I had opposed 
 the old Liberal administration in fully half of its meas- 
 ures, I felt a sentimental regret that the long rule was over. 
 It closed an epoch to me at a time of life when I did not 
 want to close epochs. 
 
 "I had four years of it at the beginning," said George 
 unenthusiastically. "I'm afraid that in my youth and inex- 
 perience I hoped more of it than it was capable of giving. 
 And I was rather glad to be out when the war came 
 along. Beresford's quite right, you know; for seven or 
 eight years the fate of this country was in the hands of 
 three or four men who accepted our support and never 
 gave us an inkling where they were taking us. Are all 
 political rank-and-filers treated as cavalierly as we've been ? 
 It goes on right to the end. The Coalition came into 
 existence without consulting the Liberal Party and now it's 
 gone out every bit as much on its own. You and I don't 
 know why; there was no vote, no trial of strength. No- 
 body can say how many supporters anyone else can claim ; 
 there isn't even the usual man who's defeated the Govern- 
 ment for the King to send for. They have treated the 
 party like dirt! Now it remains to be seen whether an 
 alternative Government can be formed." 
 
 That night and for a day or two afterwards London 
 was filled with a greater political excitement than I can 
 ever remember at any other time. Bertrand told me that, 
 
220 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 in the interests of governmental and national unity, there 
 had been a disposition to accept the terms of the ultimatum, 
 but that a majority had decided that here at least a stand 
 must be made. 
 
 "Now you simply must tell me what's happening !" young 
 Deganway exclaimed when I met him dining late at the 
 Club. "Bonar Law's been sent for, as you know, but I 
 hear he's told the King he can't form a Government. That 
 leaves only George. How much life do you give him? 
 Three weeks? I want you to say three weeks, because 
 I've got a fortnight bet on the other way with a man in 
 the War Office and I'm rather inclined to hedge." 
 
 The next day it was announced officially that Mr. Bonar 
 Law was unable to form a Government and that the King 
 had sent for the Secretary of State for War. There was 
 fresh furious speculation how short a time would suffice 
 to shew that he would fail, as his predecessor had failed, 
 but the speculation was incommoded by the intrusion of 
 fact. Bertrand informed me that the Prime Minister-Elect 
 had struck a bargain with Labour, but that the Liberal and 
 Unionist members of the Coalition were refusing to serve 
 under a man who had slain his master. I next heard that 
 the Unionist attitude was modified, that it was felt the 
 King's Government must be carried on, that pressure had 
 been brought. . . . 
 
 "Of course, when once the rot sets in!" cried George 
 Oakleigh, when we met by the tape-machine at the Club. 
 He was undisguisedly disappointed, which was interesting. 
 For eight or nine years I had heard from him plain and 
 bitter criticism of the Government, but the old faith in his 
 political idols had survived unexpectedly to make him forget 
 the war and become the most excited of partisans. No 
 terms were too strong to describe the treachery which had 
 laid the Government low; his new-born good-will towards 
 the dead Ministry was only exceeded by his blind an- 
 tagonism to any alternative. "There was a day when Lloyd 
 George could not get a man near him ; then the Tories be- 
 gan to rat and everyone tried to elbow his way in before 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 221 
 
 his neighbour. . . . He'd got the liver in his pocket, every- 
 one was afraid of being left out, the doors of the War 
 Office weren't wide enough to let them all in. This latest 
 development has rather disgusted me with politics. I 
 shouldn't have minded, if it had been an ordinary peace- 
 time political intrigue. I suppose I've been hoping for a 
 higher standard since the war . . . gratitude things of 
 that kind. How are you going to vote, Stornaway? 
 Bertrand keeps saying that he must support the de facto 
 Government. Is that your view?" 
 
 "I want to see the de facto Government first," I said. 
 
 "You've an intelligent anticipation here," he answered, 
 handing me a copy of the "Night Gazette." "Sir John 
 Woburn can be relied on to have good stable information." 
 
 The first page of the paper contained a streaming head- 
 line "Do It Now" or "Wait and See?" Underneath 
 came an obviously inspired forecast of the new ministry 
 with the old Unionist and Labour members back in place 
 as to some eighty per centum of their numbers; the old 
 Liberal office-holders were collectively abstaining, and their 
 place in the party scale was filled by consequential no- 
 bodies and by the leaders of the Liberal "ginger group." 
 
 "If they've got rid of the brains, at least they've kept 
 the dead-heads," George observed. "I don't see stability 
 or long life here, Stornaway. Everyone knows that 
 Woburn and the Press Combine turned the Coalition out, 
 and now, before a single name has been submitted to the 
 King, the Press Combine's at work devouring its own 
 child. The new Ministry's too much tarred with the brush 
 of the old, Balfour and Robert Cecil and the less feather- 
 brained are to be pushed out of their offices some time be- 
 fore they get into them. It's going to be a very clean 
 sweep." 
 
 I heard later that the attack on the elder Unionist states- 
 men was abandoned on the day when the Unionist party 
 threatened to withdraw its support from the new Coalition 
 unless newspaper attacks on its members ceased imme- 
 diately. 
 
222 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "Is Grayle included?" I asked, as George drew an ex- 
 pressive finger down the draft list. 
 
 "He gets a new Ministry of Recruiting. At least, when 
 I say that he gets it," George corrected himself, "this is 
 quite unofficial, of course. He's suggested for it." 
 
 "I wonder if he'll get it," I said. 
 
 In London, more even than in the fabled Indian bazaar, 
 the secret of to-day is the thrice-told tale of to-morrow. 
 The same few thousand men and women migrate so regu- 
 larly from one to another of the same few hundred houses 
 that, if you let fall a piece of gossip at luncheon in Chester- 
 field Gardens, it will have taken wing to Portman Square 
 and Hans Place by tea-time and will set tongues wagging 
 over the dinner-tables of Westminster, Pall Mall and Pic- 
 cadilly. By Saturday night the germ-carrfers have spread 
 themselves for a hundred miles to the west, north and 
 south; before the week-end is over, the news may reason- 
 ably be expected to have reached Paris and, in these latter 
 days, General Headquarters; and there has probably been 
 more than one sly hint in the personal columns of the Sun- 
 day papers. Lady Maitland hears the story that very day 
 at luncheon from the Duchess of Ross, who has met Gerald 
 Deganway the night before at the Opera ; he had been din- 
 ing with Lady Pentyre, who had spent the week-end at 
 Oxford with the Cutler-Blythes ; young Haviland had come 
 over to lunch on Sunday and had brought the story from 
 All Souls'. . . . 
 
 Deganway's name appeared most regularly in these lists, 
 but I doubt if he had the wit to invent scandal ; he was con- 
 tent to collect and hand it on during the hours when his 
 energies might have been more disastrously employed at the 
 Foreign Office. It was from him that I first publicly heard 
 even a rumour of Mrs. O'Rane's escapade ; George Oak- 
 leigh and I succeeded in stopping his mouth, and for a 
 few more precarious weeks Milford Square sank back to 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 223 
 
 its former insecure silence. Then the busy tongues got to 
 work again, and within thirty-six hours I had heard six 
 various accounts in as many places, starting with an early 
 morning encounter in Hyde Park with my niece, who ob- 
 served triumphantly, "Now I know why you haven't been 
 talking about the great Sonia O'Rane the last few months." 
 
 "How much do you know, Yolande?" I asked. 
 
 "I heard yesterday that she'd run away," was the an- 
 swer. "I wasn't told who with. ... I can't say I was 
 surprised." 
 
 At luncheon the name was supplied, unsupported by de- 
 tails, however. I was sitting next to Lady Pentyre, who 
 welcomed me with even greater fervour than our old friend- 
 ship warranted. 
 
 "I've been longing to see you !" she began eagerly. "You 
 know Mrs. O'Rane, don't you? And you know Colonel 
 Grayle. Well, is it true. . . . ?" 
 
 "Is what true?" I asked, as she paused delicately. 
 
 Her full question was inaudible, but I caught the words 
 "chere amie." 
 
 "Ask someone who knows them better," I suggested. 
 "I've hardly seen either for months." 
 
 There was less delicacy about Pebbleridge, when I dined 
 with him; less still about Frank Jellaby, when I met him 
 at the Club. To the party organiser moral depravity is of 
 interest only in so far as it contributes to damage a hostile 
 cause. 
 
 "Grayle's hardly chosen a fortunate moment for the 
 double event," he observed gleefully. 
 
 I made it a rule in these days never to admit knowledge 
 of the facts until I had discovered how much my antag- 
 onist knew. The House of Commons on this occasion was 
 better informed than Pont Street, the County Club or Eaton 
 Place. 
 
 "Well, you know, he's been living for months, appar- 
 ently with Mrs. O'Rane? I'm told O'Rane is bringing a 
 petition. It will rather cook Grayle's goose, if this all 
 comes out just when he's waiting to be sent for. It'll be a 
 
224 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 pretty bad case, from all accounts. You know O'Rane, 
 don't you? Well, he lost his sight early in the war, which 
 won't get Grayle much sympathy ; and he was pretty newly 
 married, which will appeal to the sentimental; and the 
 whole business seems to have been conducted without any 
 regard for human decency. Grayle used to go to the house 
 as a friend, have them to his house, meet O'Rane in the 
 Smoking-Room. . . . If he goes into the witness box, he'll 
 be broken for all time, but, whether he goes in or not, he's 
 dished himself for the present; even in war-time the Non- 
 conformist Conscience wouldn't swallow a scandal of that 
 kind. It's a bit ironical, isn't it? Like Parnell when he'd 
 got Home Rule in the hollow of his hand. Grayle has done 
 more to bring about this crisis than any six other men 
 including Northcliff e. He worked the Tories ; he could call 
 for anything he liked ; and now you and I have only to wait 
 for the story to get round a bit, and you'll find that Grayle's 
 duties at the War Office are so important that he won't have 
 time to attend the House, let alone taking a job." He 
 laughed jubilantly. "Nemesis! Nemesis!" 
 
 "// the story is true," I said. "Where did you hear it?" 
 
 "Oh, everybody's talking about it ! You don't suggest it's 
 untrue ?" 
 
 "I agree that everybody's talking about it, though that 
 by itself doesn't make it true. Indeed, I've heard so many 
 versions that I'm beginning to get confused. You say that 
 O'Rane is bringing a petition? That's quite well-estab- 
 lished? If so, this is the most convincing version that I've 
 heard since lunch, because I don't suppose he would act on 
 mere suspicion." 
 
 Jellaby looked up to the ceiling and pinched his chin 
 thoughtfully between thumb and finger. 
 
 "I can give you my authority, I think. I was talking to 
 several of the Lobby correspondents it was that little man 
 Palfrey, the fellow from the 'Night Gazette.' He told me 
 that Grayle had been sent for all right, but not to be 
 sounded for an office. This story was going about, and 
 they wanted to know if it was true. I don't know where 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 225 
 
 Palfrey got his facts from, but he's usually very well in- 
 formed. He told me quite definitely that O'Rane was ap- 
 plying for a divorce." 
 
 I hardly knew whether to be surprised or not. When 
 I last saw O'Rane he did not seem to have made up his own 
 mind. At first he had told us unmistakably that he would 
 be driven to bring the marriage to an end, unless his wife 
 and Grayle separated; later, when she was for a moment 
 once more in his house, he forgot to threaten and expended 
 himself in pleading, with an appeal to Grayle which I 
 should have been unable to resist, if I had been in his 
 place. Her voice and bodily presence, the memories of the 
 few weeks when they had lived together there seemed to 
 have killed any feeling of resentment and of personal in- 
 terest; O'Rane was begging the two of them to spare him 
 the necessity of an extreme step. He did not convince 
 them, but, when I left, I was not sure that he had not con- 
 vinced himself. 
 
 Jellaby was about to leave me, when I called him back. 
 
 "I want to ask a favour of you," I said. "Don't make 
 party capital out of this yet awhile, at least. I know all 
 these people; and I should like you to hold your hand for 
 the present. If the story's true, if the case comes into 
 court, it's public property for the world to discuss. But, 
 until then, don't spread a story which may not be true and, 
 true or not, must be tolerably unpleasant for young 
 O'Rane." 
 
 "But I'm not spreading it !" Jellaby protested. "Every- 
 body seems to have heard of it except you." 
 
 "Everyone's heard of it at about fifteenth hand. Whether 
 it's true or not is very simply tested by events. O'Rane's 
 not likely to let his wife go on living with Grayle, if that's 
 what she's doing now ; if he takes action, you'll know your 
 story's true ; if he doesn't well, for pity's sake don't even 
 repeat such charges against a perfectly innocent woman." 
 
 The epithet made Jellaby wag his head at me very know- 
 ingly. 
 
226 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "There's no smoke without fire, you know, Stornaway," 
 he said. 
 
 I cannot deal with debilitated minds which employ prov- 
 erbs in place of arguments; Jellaby remained unanswered. 
 
 I had hardly got rid of him and ordered myself a glass 
 of port wine, when a page-boy brought me a card and 
 stated that Sir Roger Dainton was waiting in the hall and 
 would like to see me for a moment. Now, I had been on 
 nodding terms with Dainton a dozen years in and out of 
 the House, but we had never attained greater intimacy, as 
 I am temperamentally unable to suffer bores gladly. A call 
 from such a man at nine o'clock in the evening could mean 
 only one thing. 
 
 "Ask him, with my compliments, if he will join me in a 
 glass of wine," I said. 
 
 Under his usual garb of awkward diffidence and universal 
 apology, I could see that my visitor was perplexed and wor- 
 ried. For several moments I entirely failed to check his 
 flow of regret at disturbing my dinner ; when I silenced him 
 with three interruptions and as many invitations to taste his 
 wine and try some of my nuts, he planted his elbows im- 
 pressively on the table, leaned forward, opened his lips and 
 then flung himself back and swept our corner of the Coffee- 
 Room for eavesdroppers. 
 
 "I hope there's nothing wrong," I said. 
 
 He planted his elbows in position a second time and 
 abruptly covered his face with his haads. 
 
 "It's incredible," he began. "My little girl Sonia, you 
 know Sonia ? Have you heard about it ?" 
 
 "I don't know what you're referring to yet," I pointed 
 out. 
 
 "Sonia's run away from her husband !" he whispered un- 
 comprehendingly. "She's gone off with another man. They 
 say they say David's going to divorce her." 
 
 He lowered his hands, and the round, child's eyes, har- 
 monising perfectly with the chubby, boyish face, were as 
 full of horror and incredulity as his voice had been. I 
 knew, of course, that Dainton had lost his elder son in the 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 227 
 
 first year of the war and I believe that the younger had 
 been wounded at least twice; this was the first time, how- 
 ever, that he had been flung against the sharp rocks of life, 
 and he was as helplessly and bewilderedly scared and re- 
 sentful as a child who has fallen among the breakers on a 
 rugged coast. 
 
 "You had better tell me all about it," I said. 
 
 His stammering, self-interrupted narrative added nothing 
 to the three sentences which he had already spoken. The 
 blow had fallen that day at luncheon. Dainton found him- 
 self one of a large party which was for the most part un- 
 known to him. Half-way through the meal he caught the 
 sound of his daughter's name with some comment which 
 would have been grotesque, if it had not been uttered with 
 so much assurance. There followed the silence which 
 drives home to a speaker that he has said something un- 
 pardonable and that he alone is unaware what it is. Dain- 
 ton's neighbours rallied simultaneously and doused him 
 with two conflicting jets of conversation, only to find that 
 he was not listening and that, when they paused, he asked 
 in an amazed whisper whether they had heard what was 
 said. 
 
 "I may not have caught it right," he explained hopefully. 
 
 But both denied that they had heard the words in ques- 
 tion. 
 
 When luncheon was over, an unknown woman with a 
 scarlet face came up to him and apologised with tears in 
 her eyes. What he must think. . . . She wouldn't have done 
 such a thing for the world. . . . Really it was partly their 
 hostess's fault for not introducing them properly. Hon- 
 estly, she had no idea . . . 
 
 "I asked her to say it again," Dainton told me dully. "It 
 was the very first I'd heard, the first I'd suspected. ... I 
 can't believe it now not Sonia. . . . She she said it was 
 only a rumour, she couldn't vouch for it, but there was a 
 report that David was going to . . ." 
 
 He paused to raise his glass, spilling the wine generously. 
 "I didn't know what to do. I couldn't go about asking every 
 
228 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 Tom, Dick and Harry whether my daughter When I got 
 away from the office to-night, I went round to her house to 
 see if I could find out anything from Oakleigh or George 
 I could talk to them fairly freely. ... I remember my wife 
 told me, I forget when it was, that Sonia was away and that 
 George had moved in there to look after his uncle ; neither 
 of us ever dreamed then . . . They were both out, so I 
 thought I'd come and bother you. I knew you were pretty 
 intimate with them. I quite frankly I want you to tell 
 me if what that woman said was true." 
 
 I did not find it easy to face Dainton's troubled, boyish 
 eyes. 
 
 "I'm afraid it is," I said. "She's left O'Rane, she did 
 go off with another man. I'm sorry to say that your lunch- 
 eon-party wasn't the only place where it was being dis- 
 cussed, and several people have told me that the petition's 
 actually been filed." 
 
 Dainton picked up a pair of nut-crackers and twisted 
 them nervously open and shut. 
 
 "This will kill Catherine," he muttered. "We've both 
 of us always been so proud of her, she was always so won- 
 derful, even when she was a little child. . . . Stornaway, is 
 this true? Is there no doubt of any kind? You don't know 
 what she is to us !" he cried fiercely, as though I had been 
 responsible for the shipwreck of their pride. 
 
 "There seems to be no doubt at all." 
 
 "I wonder if I may have another glass of wine," he said 
 absently. "I'm afraid I've spilt most of this." 
 
 We must have sat for another hour in the deserted Cof- 
 fee-Room, now silent as Dainton yielded inch by reluctant 
 inch to the slow penetration of inevitable truth, now dis- 
 cussing explanations and canvassing expedients for retriev- 
 ing a lost position. Beyond giving Grayle's name and men- 
 tioning that I had been present when an attempt was made 
 to obviate divorce proceedings, I volunteered no details and 
 did my best to give patient hearing to schemes which the 
 rest of us had either rejected already or refused to con- 
 sider. He would force Sonia to return to her husband, 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 229 
 
 force O'Rane to take her back, force Grayle to give her 
 up. ... 
 
 "There's no kind of force you can use," I had to tell 
 him. "We've tried argument and entreaty, and that's 
 failed." 
 
 "Her mother can make her !" 
 
 "No one can make her!" 
 
 Dainton looked at me as though I had contrived the 
 catastrophe and were pluming myself on its completeness. 
 
 "But do you mean we've got to stand by and see our 
 Sonia in the Divorce Court, to have her examined and 
 cross-examined our own child, with reporters scribbling it 
 all down and everybody reading about it next day in the 
 papers? It's unthinkable, Stornaway, it's unthinkable!" 
 
 "Tell me any way of avoiding it, and you may count on 
 any help I can give you. By all means see her yourself or 
 get Lady Dainton to see her. Of course, assuming that 
 O'Rane has started proceedings, I don't know that you'll 
 stop him. He's behaved with the greatest love and loy- 
 alty, and, if I may say so, your daughter exceeded them 
 when she went back with Grayle after we'd tried to per- 
 suade her. But get Lady Dainton to see her. It can do 
 no harm, but I advise you not to build too great hopes on 
 it. Your daughter's last words, pretty well, were that she'd 
 thought it all over beforehand and was prepared to face 
 everything. Conceivable she may be frightened when she's 
 taken at her word, but I'm inclined to think it will only 
 make her set her teeth the harder." 
 
 Dainton looked at me dazedly, as though his mind had 
 lagged a sentence and a half behind everything that I 
 was saying and he were trying to overtake me. With 
 marked indecision he raised his glass, lowered it, raised it 
 again and gulped down the last mouthful of wine. Then 
 he rose to his feet and beckoned me to do the same. 
 
 "There's not a moment to lose," he said gravely. "I'm 
 going round to see Sonia at once. If you'll shew me where 
 the telephone is " 
 
 I led him to one of the boxes by the porter's office and 
 
230 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 dawdled in front of the tape-machine while he searched 
 for Grayle's number and awaited his call. There was little 
 news, but numerous prophets were helping the new Prime 
 Minister with a wealth of conflicting suggestions to con- 
 struct his cabinet. I had not succeeded in finding Grayle's 
 name mentioned more than once when Dainton emerged 
 and led me to a sofa. 
 
 "She's not in," he said. "I don't quite know what to 
 do. I must tell my wife at the earliest possible moment. . . . 
 My God, if she came up here and had it broken to her as 
 I did to-day. ... I should like to catch the 11.10 to-night 
 . . . and I could go and see David to-morrow. Poor boy! 
 I'm not blaming him, but he can't understand what he's do- 
 ing, what this means to us Sonia! If only I knew about 
 it! . . ." He turned to lay his hand timidly on my knee. 
 "She seemed very determined, when you saw her?" 
 
 "Immovable," I answered. 
 
 "You think she'd disregard her own father and mother? 
 Stornaway, you don't know what she is to us !" 
 
 His voice gave me the answer, but I saw no way of 
 bringing home to him that he and his wife were less than 
 nothing to her at this moment. 
 
 "You can only try," I said. "I've seen her at The Sanc- 
 tuary' with O'Rane and Grayle, I've seen her in Milford 
 Square by herself " 
 
 He looked at his watch and turned to me excitedly. 
 
 "Look here, I can't be in two places at once and I must 
 get down to my wife. Will you I've no claim on you; I 
 ask it, because I can't help myself will you go to Sonia. 
 insist on seeing her, tell her of our meeting to-night and 
 beg her in her mother's name and mine " 
 
 His faltering sentences lagged and halted until they 
 stopped altogether. 
 
 "If you wish me to," I said. 
 
 "I can never thank you enough ! I pray you'll never be in 
 a similar position, but if you are " 
 
 "Don't build extravagant hopes on it," I warned him 
 again. 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 231 
 
 When I had seen him into a taxi, I drove to Milford 
 Square with profound and momentarily increasing distaste 
 for my mission. I felt instinctively that it was foredoomed 
 to failure; I knew that, two hours after I had failed, the 
 Daintons would be staring blankly at each other or pacing 
 nervously up and down the room, refusing despite my re- 
 peated warning to abandon hope until my failure had been 
 confessed. And I knew that I must see Mrs. O'Rane alone 
 which Grayle would try to prevent and make an emo- 
 tional appeal which I was ill-equipped for doing. . . . 
 
 My taxi drew up at the door. I rang and enquired of my 
 old, smooth-faced antagonist whether Mrs. O'Rane was at 
 home. I was told that she was not. 
 
 "Then I'll wait for her," I said, squeezing past him into 
 the hall and taking off my coat and gloves. "Is Colonel 
 Grayle in?" 
 
 "Not yet, sir ; Mr. Bannerman's in the smoking-room." 
 
 "I should like to see him," I said, "if he's not engaged." 
 
 Guy dragged himself out of an arm-chair with a mixture 
 of surprise and distrust. 
 
 "Hullo! what brings you here?" he enquired. "I never 
 expected to see you." 
 
 "Well, I never expected to see you," I answered. "I 
 thought you'd been banished." 
 
 He looked at me with cautious absence of expression 
 and then applied himself to treading a little mound of cigar- 
 ash into the carpet. 
 
 "Grayle ought to be in soon," he voluntered. "He said 
 he wouldn't be late." 
 
 "It was Mrs. O'Rane I came to see." 
 
 Guy looked at me closely and raised his eyebrows slightly. 
 Then he buried the lower half of his face in a tumbler 
 of whiskey and soda, glanced at me again over the brim, 
 swallowed and set the glass down empty. 
 
 "What d'you want with her, if I may ask?" he en- 
 quired. 
 
 Guy has a dual personality compounded of loyalty to his 
 master and love for humanity at large. The combination 
 
232 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 is not an easy one to imagine, but he contrived at once to 
 blend the qualities and yet keep them distinct. I told him 
 frankly and fully of my conversation with Dainton. 
 
 "I warned him that he was sending me on a fool's er- 
 rand," I said. "But how could I refuse? I'd submit to 
 being sent on a dozen fool's errands each day, if I thought 
 I could spare him and his wife and O'Rane and his 
 wife " 
 
 Guy raised his hand to interrupt me. 
 
 "Look here, how much do you know?" he asked, as I 
 had been asking every second person that day. "Not the 
 early part ; what I mean is, are you up to date ?" 
 
 "Two or three people have told me that O 'Kane's actually 
 filed his petition," I said. "Is that true?" 
 
 "I don't know. Is that all you know?" 
 
 "My dear Guy, the whole of London's discussing the 
 thing, I've heard an approach to the truth and most kinds 
 of variants." 
 
 "But is that all you know ?" he repeated. 
 
 "I imagine so," I answered. 
 
 Guy shrugged his shoulders helplessly. 
 
 "Then you're not up to date," he said. "I got Dainton's 
 enquiry on the telephone and I told him that she wasn't 
 in. It was true as far as it went. She's gone, Storn- 
 away. I've not the faintest idea what happened, but there 
 was a big row of some kind not the first by any means, 
 I may tell you, and she walked out of the house." 
 
 "But where's she gone to ?" I asked, as soon as I was suf- 
 ficiently recovered from my surprise to ask anything. 
 
 "I've no idea," he answered. 
 
 I wanted to ask so many questions that I hardly knew 
 where to begin, but Guy with the best possible intentions 
 was not in a position to tell me anything worth hearing. 
 Mrs. O'Rane, at the end of an hour-long altercation behind 
 closed doors, had come into the hall with a pearly-white 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 233 
 
 face, collected a fur-coat and umbrella and walked into the 
 Square. 
 
 "She stopped for a moment on the top step and un- 
 fastened her latch-key she used to carry it tied to her bag 
 with a bit of ribbon ; I found it in my hand the next mo- 
 ment, and she was saying good-bye and telling me quite 
 casually that she wasn't coming back. Grayle he didn't 
 even trouble to come out of the smoking-room. What it 
 was about I can't say, but they must have had an unholy 
 row." Guy looked at me dubiously, weighing my discre- 
 tion. "I suppose, now that it's all over, there's no harm 
 in saying that rows were the rule rather than the exception. 
 . . . Right from the earliest days, when she used to come 
 and dine here or he took her out. I don't know how either 
 thought they could possibly live in the same house. Of 
 course, she fascinated him," he conceded with the gusto of 
 a Promenade habitue, "but she never cared for him. I'm 
 as certain of that as I am of my own existence. She's a 
 curious woman ; it used to make me go hot and cold some- 
 times to see and hear Grayle with her he was cruel, but, 
 the more he bullied her, the more she respected him. If 
 he shewed her the sort of deference a man does shew a 
 woman, he seemed to lose his grip. I don't know how much 
 you saw of them before she came here, but she was playing 
 cat and mouse with Grayle. Or trying to. He soon put a 
 stop to that. He's had a good many ordinary affaires, but 
 he was really fond of this woman, and, when he found that 
 O'Rane was openly living with someone else " 
 
 "That's well-established, is it?" I interrupted. 
 
 "I believe so. Well, he naturally wanted to protect Mrs. 
 O'Rane. She treated it as a joke, until he swore he'd never 
 see her again. (He was always saying it, but this time he 
 meant it.) Then she got frightened. First she rang up, 
 and he ignored her; she wrote, and he didn't answer her 
 letters ; called, and he refused to see her. The next thing 
 was complete surrender." Guy Bannerman spread out his 
 hands and shrugged his shoulders. "You can't compound a 
 common life of that sort of storm and sunshine. Grayle 
 
'234 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 found that, if he wanted to get his way, well, he didn't 
 actually take a stick to her, but it was the next best thing." 
 
 Guy paused to sigh in perplexity, trying vainly to rec- 
 oncile his idol's behaviour with his own romantic canons 
 of chivalry. 
 
 "Go on/' I said. 
 
 "Well, he was gradually breaking her spirit, killing all 
 her charm; and then I really think that he began to get 
 tired of her. They were wearing each other out, and you 
 couldn't expect her to be mewed up inside the house, and 
 people were beginning to talk. ... I've told you pretty well 
 all I know." 
 
 I digested Guy's story in silence until I heard the jingle 
 of a hansom cab outside, followed by a word or two in 
 Grayle's voice. A moment later he was standing in the 
 dgDr-way, scowling in surprise at seeing me there. 
 
 "Hast thou found me, oh mine enemy?" he sneered. "I 
 seem to remember your giving it as your considered opinion 
 that you never wanted to see me or speak to me again. 
 I'm honoured by your visit, of course, but you can just 
 clear out!" 
 
 He pushed the door open to its widest extent and stood 
 aside as though nothing would give him greater pleasure 
 than to assist my departure with a kick. In his present 
 mood he would have done it without much further provoca- 
 tion, but I am no more of a physical coward than my neigh- 
 bour and I was .not going to let him threaten me. 
 
 "I came to see Mrs. O'Rane," I told him without getting 
 up. 
 
 "Well, no doubt Bannerman's informed you that she's not 
 here." 
 
 "I want to know where she is. I may mention that I've 
 seen her father to-night. He'd heard nothing till lunch- 
 time to-day, and, though it's no affair of his, I thought 
 he was rather upset. He's gone down to Hampshire to 
 break the news to his wife, and I promised to see if I 
 could arrange a meeting with his daughter." 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 235 
 
 Grayle walked to the sofa, picked up my coat and tossed 
 it to me. 
 
 "I don't know where she is," he said shortly. "And I 
 don't care." 
 
 My hat followed the coat through the air and dropped 
 on to my knees. 
 
 "Dainton wants to stop the divorce," I said. "That must 
 have a certain academic interest for you, Grayle. He's see- 
 ing O'Rane to-morrow morning." 
 
 I looked in vain for any sign of pleasure, relief or con- 
 cern. 
 
 "I tell you, I don't know where she is," he repeated. 
 "She left this place to-day and she's not coming 
 back." 
 
 "You mean you turned her out," I suggested. 
 
 "Oh, I'm sick of this!" He limped to my chair and 
 caught my wrist in one hand, bending it back until I had 
 to get up to prevent his breaking my arm off at the elbow. 
 "As a matter of courtesy I told you she'd gone, and the best 
 thing you can do is to follow her. You've found time to 
 meddle with my affairs for a good many months, but I'm. 
 tired of it now; it's got to end. I give you fair warning, 
 Stornaway, that I am instructing my servants not to admit 
 you, if you come here again; and, by God! if you try to 
 force your way in, I'll thrash you out with a crop. Now 
 march!" 
 
 My exit was painless, though I will not pretend that it 
 was dignified. I walked a few yards along the Brompton 
 Road, wondering what to do next. It was futile to specu- 
 late where Mrs. O'Rane was gone ; she could not return to 
 "The Sanctuary," she could not go home to her parents; 
 after abandoning her husband and being abandoned by her 
 lover within six months, she could hardly with her pride 
 and temper ask a friend to take her in. Any grandeur 
 with which she had tried to invest her recklessness and in- 
 fidelity at our last meeting was sorely draggled. And she 
 was about thirty a year or two more, a year or two less 
 in the full bloom and beauty of her life, with some hun- 
 
236 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 dreds from her father to pay her hotel bills, debarred by 
 the war even from hiding herself for a few months abroad. 
 I stood still to wonder where she was at that moment, how 
 she was facing the future. 
 
 Then I turned down Sloane Street and made for the 
 Underground station. I had meant to go home and, per- 
 haps, to telephone to Dainton, but it could do no good, and 
 I wanted to hold a council of war with the Oakleighs. In 
 Sloane Square I met Beresford hobbling along on a stick 
 and made him turn round and keep me company. In some 
 way I felt that he deserved to be present. Bertrand was 
 in bed when we reached "The Sanctuary," but I found 
 George reading a book with his feet up on a sofa, and, 
 when I told him that my business was urgent, we adjourned 
 upstairs to the scene of more than one early morning ses- 
 sion. I told them as shortly as I could of my interviews 
 with Dainton, Bannerman and Grayle and left the facts to 
 sink in. The ensuing silence was broken by Beresford, 
 speaking more to himself than to the room. 
 
 "The cad!" he muttered. "Oh, my God! the cad! And 
 you don't know where she is now?" 
 
 "No. I've given you all the facts." 
 
 After the one outburst Beresford remained quiet, and the 
 other three of us started a rambling debate to decide what 
 we wanted done and what was practicable. Bertrand acted 
 as chairman and put the questions. We agreed that for the 
 sake of O'Rane and the Daintons the proceedings should be 
 stopped, if possible; it was established that Mrs. O'Rane 
 and Grayle were unlikely to meet again, and, if we could get 
 back to the terms discussed a few weeks earlier, it was still 
 conceivable that the scandal might be suppressed. 
 
 "But O'Rane doesn't know they've parted," I reminded 
 Bertrand. "Someone must tell him. I'll go down, if neces- 
 sary, as I had the news at first-hand. Of course, if he 
 refuses and says they had their chance and missed it " 
 
 "He won't refuse," said Bertrand. "You'll go ? I believe 
 we can stop it even now. He's not particularly vindictive 
 he shewed that the other night and he'd sooner spare his 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 237 
 
 wife than punish Grayle." He grimaced with disfavour. 
 "Stornaway, I've never liked that man, but I didn't think 
 he was capable of this." 
 
 "Nor did she, poor soul!" 
 
 We had reached our decision, and, if I had to leave for 
 the country by an early train, I wanted to get home to bed. 
 George and his uncle were chewing the cud of my story, 
 and I saw no end to that. I was putting on my coat, when 
 Beresford begged me to stay a moment longer. 
 
 "You're not leaving it at this, are you ?" he asked, with a 
 white face. 
 
 "Have you anything to suggest ?" I asked. 
 
 "You're going to let Grayle ride off? Merciful Christ! 
 And I thought some of you were Sonia's friends !" 
 
 He struggled to his feet and in another moment, bumping 
 past me, was half-way to the door. George sprang from 
 his chair and had one foot planted solidly in the way be- 
 fore Beresford could reach the handle. 
 
 "Here, where are you off to?" he demanded. 
 
 "Something's got to be done about Grayle," was the reply. 
 
 "What do you mean?" I asked, for Beresford had the 
 voice, the eyes and the bearing of homicidal mania. 
 
 "I'm going to have a word with him," he answered be- 
 tween clenched teeth. "Let me go!" 
 
 There was something pitifully incongruous between the 
 purposeful language and the emaciated, consumptive speak- 
 er. Grayle, for all his unsound leg, could pluck him up by 
 the ankles and crush in his head against the wall like the 
 shell of an egg. 
 
 "Let's hear some more about it first," I said, taking his 
 arm despite a quiver and jerk of protest. "I know Grayle 
 fairly well, and, if you're going to match yourself against 
 him in physical strength, you might just as well try to knock 
 holes in the side of a battleship with your naked fists." 
 
 Beresford wriggled against my grip. 
 
 "I can have a go at spoiling him first," he cried. "After 
 that, I don't mind what happens." 
 
 Their motives were different, but I was vividly reminded 
 
238 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 of the Cockney Huish preparing to advance, vitriol jar in 
 hand, against the unerring rifle of Attwater. I looked over 
 Beresford's head and lifted my eyebrows at Bertrand, who 
 raised himself in bed and called him twice by name. 
 
 "You mustn't do anything hasty," he urged, wagging his 
 forefinger with great parade of reasonableness. "Any kind 
 of attack on Grayle is bound to recoil on Sonia, and that's 
 the last thing you want. I assure you that twenty-four 
 hours after you'd gone for him " 
 
 Beresford shook free of my arm and limped menacingly 
 up to the bed. 
 
 "You don't care a curse for her," he cried, "but you pre- 
 tend to care for O'Rane. You're going to let Grayle break 
 up O'Rane's life, take away Sonia from him, throw her 
 out of doors " 
 
 Bertrand spread out his hands with a gesture of bland 
 expostulation. 
 
 "My dear boy, we can't prevent it. It's done, and any 
 act of private vengeance will hit David and Sonia hardest 
 of all. Haven't we been scheming and contriving to pre- 
 vent the divorce for that very reason? We all know that 
 it would dish Grayle's political career to be cited as a co- 
 respondent at the present time; it would keep him out of 
 the Cabinet or compel him to resign. But I can tell you 
 that it would dish the O'Ranes very much more completely. 
 Dear boy, when we're hoping to close down one scandal, 
 for Heaven's sake don't open up another." 
 
 If not impressed, Beresford was at least interested and 
 temporarily checked. He stood reflecting with a scowl on 
 his face and his underlip thrust forward. 
 
 "Is that brute going to be taken into the Government ?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "According to the papers there's every possibility," Ber- 
 trand answered. "No one will ever know, but I choose to 
 believe that he tired of Sonia from the moment when his 
 plans were threatened by the possibility of a scandal." 
 
 Beresford looked at him wonderingly and then turned 
 to me. 
 
THE LIMITS OF LOYALTY 239 
 
 "Do you bear that out ?" he asked. "I don't know enough 
 of public life to say if it's true. Do you mean that, if Grayle 
 went into the Divorce Court, he'd be broken ?" 
 
 The eagerness of his tone frightened us a little, for we 
 thought that we had talked him out of danger. Bertrand 
 assumed great determination of manner. 
 
 "Grayle's not going into the Divorce Court, if we can 
 help it," he said. 
 
 "Grayle's going to be broken, if I can work it," was the 
 retort. 
 
 "But you can't. No one would support you more readily, 
 if it were possible." 
 
 Beresford dropped into his former chair without an- 
 swering and propped his chin 'on his fists. Bertrand 
 watched him uneasily; George came back from the door 
 and led me away to the window. Tentatively he asked me 
 how far I thought the threat of proceedings could be used 
 to block Grayle's path of office. 
 
 "I don't know how far you can blackmail a man," George 
 admitted. "Particularly a man like Grayle. It's only an 
 idea, I've just thought of it. If we could make him sign 
 an undertaking something that we could use against him 
 and that he^ couldn't turn and use against us. It all wants 
 the devil of a lot of thinking out. ... If Raney doesn't di- 
 vorce Sonia now, when the offence is still fresh, I suppose 
 he weakens his position ; he may not be able to get a divorce 
 later, and then our barrier's kicked to matchwood. I'm not 
 a lawyer; perhaps Bertrand. ..." 
 
 We walked to the bed, where Bertrand was sitting with 
 his eyes on us. I cannot say whether my friends have been 
 more unfortunate than the generality, but one has bound 
 himself by a similar undertaking not to play cards, two 
 more not to enter certain cities, and four or five to resign 
 certain positions and to live abroad. As a rule, however, 
 a felony was being compounded, or the offence was one 
 against honour wherein there was no statute of limitations. 
 
 "It's mere bluff, and he'll beat you at that game," Ber- 
 trand said without hesitation. "What Grayle's done is to 
 
2 4 o SONIA MARRIED 
 
 outrage public opinion, and the public has a short memory. 
 You could break him now, but in two, three years' time 
 people would say, 'This is very ancient history, we've heard 
 her story, but not his ; probably he wasn't so much to blame 
 as she makes out; she couldn't live with one man, so it's 
 conceivable that she couldn't live with another. But, any- 
 way, it's ancient history/ In three years' time your man 
 of the world would think none the worse of him ; and you 
 can't tell how far she may have travelled in three years. 
 Time's on his side." 
 
 "But this is the opportunity of his political life," George 
 persisted. "In three years' time it may have gone beyond 
 hope of returning." 
 
 "But he knows that David wouldn't sacrifice his wife 
 to punish him. Haven't we talked ourselves hoarse to find 
 a way of stopping the proceedings ? Grayle's a level-headed 
 fellow " 
 
 "Hardly at this moment," I interrupted. 
 
 Bertrand looked at me in some surprise. 
 
 "Well, discuss it with David," he said unenthusiastically. 
 "If he agrees, go to Grayle and try your luck. I never 
 like brandishing weapons that I'm not prepared to use. / 
 tell you it's an empty threat and that Grayle will see through 
 it. You know, you're all carried away by some idea of poetic 
 justice, you think you've got a pocket retribution packed 
 up and ready for him ; you imagine that people are punished 
 for their crimes in this world. I've outgrown that phase." 
 
 The superfluous touch of cynicism flicked us all and Ber- 
 esford most of all. 
 
 "Somebody's going to punish that man," he cried. "I 
 don't know who and I don't know how, but it's going to 
 be done. I'll drop everything else and sacrifice all I've got 
 to it." 
 
 Bertrand sighed and lay back on his pillows. 
 
 "Grayle's not worth it," he said. 
 
 "But Sonia is!" Beresford cried passionately. 
 
CHAPTER SIX 
 
 THE UNWRITTEN LAW 
 
 'She said, 'Be good with me; I grow 
 
 So tired for shame's sake, I shall die 
 If you say nothing:' . . ." 
 
 A. C. SWINBURNE: The Leper. 
 
 FOR a fugitive from justice London is either the best 
 hiding-place in the world, or else the worst; I have never 
 had an opportunity of deciding, and Mrs. O'Rane's experi- 
 ence has not helped me. 
 
 She left Milford Square in the first week of December; 
 in the middle of January her husband and friends gleaned 
 their first news of her. So both succeeded and both failed. 
 
 She has told me that her first action after leaving Grayle 
 was to enter a tube station and to study a railway map of 
 London. Her knees were trembling violently, and her brain 
 was numbed so that she stared at names without reading 
 them until something inside her head like the ticking of a 
 watch, now silent, now intrusive, as her attention was cap- 
 tured or left free, warned her to concentrate her thoughts ; 
 she had to get away, and time was being lost, time was 
 being lost. . . . 
 
 The "inner city" was ex hypothesi closed to her; Chelsea, 
 Kensington and Hampstead each contained a sprinkling of 
 friends; beyond them she spelled out the names of places 
 on the outer fringe through which she had passed on her 
 way north, west or south from London. Willesden you 
 met Willesden on your way to Holyhead or the west of 
 Scotland; Wimbledon that was an old friend, encoun- 
 
 241 
 
242 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 tered every time that you went by the London and South 
 Western to Melton; Croydon surely Croydon lay on the 
 way to Dover? But nobody lived there. . . . Certainly 
 no woman in her senses journeyed to Croydon and inex- 
 plicably put up at an hotel. What was one to do during the 
 day? Invent excuses to get away from the hotel between 
 meals? But one must not stray towards London. For 
 three hours, morning and afternoon, one could walk be- 
 tween interminable rows of villas .... 
 
 Yet why confine herself to London, when the whole of 
 England lay before her? She had only to drive to King's 
 Cross, Euston, Waterloo, Paddington. . . . But she stood in 
 a blouse, skirt and fur-coat ; and all her other clothes were 
 at "The Sanctuary" or in Milford Square. She could buy 
 others, of course, but her one prayer was to avoid meeting 
 people. They were talking about her, they would stare past 
 her, when they met, or else worthy souls! warn her for 
 her good that Colonel Grayle's name was being coupled 
 with hers, when he had flung her out of the house! An 
 hour before she had her speeches ready ; she was nervously 
 anxious, after the long strain of waiting, to defend herself 
 and defy society in the same breath, but there was now 
 nothing to defend. She had bought her last dress a fort- 
 night ago at Worth's, and Grayle had accompanied her to 
 the shop. . . . 
 
 But the clothes were a trifle though she would have to 
 start from the beginning, buy a portmanteau, have it sent to 
 well, to her temporary headquarters, paying for her room 
 in advance, assuming that the management would take 
 her in awaiting the brand-new trunk and the succession 
 of parcels and milliners' boxes. There was not very much 
 privacy about such an escape. . . . And, if you got your 
 clothes and got away, you were compelled since the war to 
 give your true name wherever you went ; anyone who chose 
 to enquire of the police anywhere . . . And you could not 
 get even to Ireland without a permit. It was natural 
 enough, but hard on her, when she was so bruised and 
 beaten, when she wanted so desperately to hide. . . . 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 243 
 
 No weakness or self-pity! Back to the map, though it 
 were but the map of London. All England might lie 
 stretched in a welcoming expanse, but it was lamentably 
 true that one knew very little of England. One had stayed 
 in country houses here, there and everywhere; one had 
 gone to an hotel in Harrogate, an hotel in Brighton, per- 
 haps three more; one had never explored England like a 
 Cook's tourist or a commercial traveller. One's imagina- 
 tion would not venture beyond a familiar ring Brighton, 
 Harrogate, Oxford or London. 
 
 She stared at the map until a furtive young man who 
 had passed and repassed, slily trying to catch sight of her 
 face, asked whether he could be of any assistance. The 
 shock of being addressed by a strange voice and the need 
 of collecting herself to answer it cleared her brain. 
 
 "I want to get to Euston," she said and was surprised 
 by the ease and assurance of her tone, steady and authorita- 
 tive. 
 
 "You change into the Hampstead Tube at Leicester 
 Square," he told her. 
 
 She waited until he had turned his back and then went 
 upstairs to a public telephone and rang up Grayle's house. 
 It was prostitution of her pride to communicate with the 
 house even from a distance, but she had to have clothes. 
 The butler answered the telephone, and, in the same steady, 
 authoritative voice she asked him to send everything to the 
 Grosvenor Hotel. There was no difficulty about engaging a 
 room, if she could say that her luggage was coming later; 
 no difficulty about anything, if she kept her head. . . . And 
 then she could look round at her leisure, though she would 
 have to change her hotel next day, since she had revealed 
 where she was going. 
 
 The next thing? Money. She drove to her bank, drew 
 twenty pounds and enquired the balance. For some weeks 
 she could be easy in her mind on the score of money. Of 
 course, if her father heard anything and thought fit to stop 
 paying her allowance . . . The drive from the bank to the 
 hotel was the worst ten minutes of her life. Hitherto she 
 
244 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 had only wanted an asylum where she could shelter until she 
 was strong enough to face the world disdainfully ; now she 
 knew that she could never face the world and that she 
 must prowl from one hiding-place to another, lingering ap- 
 prehensively until she was identified and then wearily slink- 
 ing away into greater seclusion. ... Of course her father 
 would hear, everyone would hear. And it would give such 
 pleasure to her enemies when they saw that they could 
 put her out of countenance! Everyone had enemies; the 
 most popular and beloved girl of her acquaintance had been 
 prosecuted for some fraud over the insurance of jewellery, 
 and a chorus of jubilation had gone up from these smooth- 
 faced, false friends. And, when she herself had broken off 
 her engagement with Jim Loring, the vilest things were 
 said; she heard them years later from other friends who 
 wanted to make mischief. Women were contemptible crea- 
 tures. And there would be a thunder of exultation at her 
 downfall. They hated her because she told them frankly 
 that women bored her; they were jealous because she was 
 admittedly one of the greatest beauties in London ; for years 
 men had been falling in love with her and begging her to 
 marry them ; she could have had her choice. . . . 
 
 And now she had been turned out of her lover's house! 
 And the world would know it any day. Already her hus- 
 band's solicitors had written to Grayle, asking for his solici- 
 tor's name and address. The letter had been on the Buhl 
 cabinet, and she had opened it in his presence. From the 
 very first she had always opened his letters like that; he 
 had enjoyed it ; it had seemed to bring them closer. . . . But 
 this time he was furious. That was the first of the big 
 scenes which had ended with her leaving the house. . . . She 
 did not know when the case would be heard, but the story 
 would race round London ; and other stories would be rem- 
 iniscently tacked on to it her two broken engagements be- 
 fore she married; it would be said that no man could en- 
 dure her for more than six months. . . . She found herself 
 shaken with quivering, dry sobs. 
 
 In the hall of the hotel a man bowed to her, and she 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 245 
 
 tried not to see him, as though she had no right to be there. 
 And, when the room had been allotted her, she hurried to 
 it and locked herself in; no one could stare at her there, 
 no one could begin to speak and then recollect and break off. 
 She looked at her watch, dreading the descent to the dining- 
 room, though it was not yet four o'clock ; and suddenly she 
 remembered that she had promised to dine with Lord Pen- 
 tyre and go to a play. He was home on short leave, they 
 had met at luncheon two days before, and she had chosen 
 the restaurant and the theatre. . . . 
 
 It was a test case. Since leaving "The Sanctuary" she 
 had occasionally dined out with Grayle, occasionally met 
 him by chance at other houses and often dined with him at 
 home; they had also dined separately with their respective 
 friends, trying to reveal no outward change in their lives 
 until it was forced upon them. Soon people would refuse 
 to meet her, for, whatever else the altercation with Grayle 
 had made clear, they were being of a sudden universally 
 discussed. Bobbie Pentyre had said something about bring- 
 ing his mother, who had come to London for his leave and 
 wanted to see as much of him as possible. If Lady Pen- 
 tyre refused to come ... if her absence had to be labori- 
 ously explained . . . 
 
 The telephone meant questions. She wrote out a tele- 
 gram and sent it down by the hand of her chambermaid; 
 then she lay down on the bed and tried first to make her 
 mind a blank, but Grayle's voice was echoing in her ears, 
 then to surrender to her headache, but it absorbed only half 
 her attention. If she could explain and cry to someone . . . 
 a man . . . Staring dully at the clock, she told herself 
 that now she would have been dressing, now telling the 
 butler to get her a taxi ; now, when her dinner was brought 
 in on a tray, Lord Pentyre would be waiting in the lounge 
 at Claridge's; another moment, and he would have been 
 hurrying forward to shake her hand, order her a cocktail, 
 offer her a cigarette. . . . 
 
 The hotel would be filled with people that she knew 
 and wanted to see not that she cared about them, but be- 
 
246 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 cause thfere was something friendly about knowing and be- 
 ing known. She loved living in a crowd. In her first sea- 
 son, when she came up from the country and was uncertain 
 of herself, she could have cried with mortification when 
 everyone else was so much at ease and she was left in the 
 cold until she spoke of comparative strangers by their Chris- 
 tian names, like the others, to pretend that she, too, had 
 known them since she was a child. Instead of which . . . 
 She was extraordinarily attractive, her father never grudged 
 money, her mother worked indef atigably ; and there was 
 no harm in saying it, when it was all over, she had been 
 taken at her own valuation, socially boomed. . . . When she 
 was engaged to Jim Loring she could see it now what a 
 mesalliance the old marchioness must have thought her be- 
 loved boy was making ! It was all over now, but, when she 
 dined with Bobby Pentyre, she did rather like seeing two- 
 thirds of the people bowing to her and knowing that the 
 rest were whispering, "Isn't that Sonia Dainton? Sonia 
 O'Rane, I should say. Who's she with?" In her first sea- 
 son someone would only have said "Pentyre's got a very 
 pretty girl with him." 
 
 But it was all over with that night. And how petty, 
 when you were flung against realities ! To-morrow, if Pen- 
 tyre dined at Claridge's, the idlers would nod to him and say 
 to one another, "Pentyre reminds me. Usen't he to be 
 rather lie with Sonia O'Rane? Someone was saying at 
 lunch . . ." And it would all come out! At least, it 
 wouldn't . . . She didn't care a damn, if anyone knew 
 the truth, but, when they whispered and the women pre- 
 tended not to be listening for fear it was improper listen- 
 ing all the time till their ears flopped out of their heads . . . ! 
 
 To-morrow She started guiltily. To-morrow they would 
 be expecting her at ten for the Belgian Refugee Commit- 
 tee. And she was lunching out with someone her head 
 ached too much to recollect who it was ; she had promised 
 to lunch and dine out for a fortnight, as she always did; 
 luncheon was arranged for one o'clock at the Piccadilly 
 Grill Room (so it must be some very young admirer!), be- 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 247 
 
 cause she had to go on to a charity performance at the 
 Alhambra, where she was appearing in a tableau with Lady 
 Sally Farwell and a crowd of other people something 
 eighteenth-centuryish, but she had never found out pre- 
 cisely what they were supposed to represent. . . . And the 
 day after she was starting a great housing scheme for the 
 refugees in London, begging for unoccupied houses with 
 one hand and superfluous furniture with the other, bringing 
 the two together. That was the kind of war-work she 
 liked. . . . Sir Adolphus Erskine had promised her one of 
 his cars, and she was going round to call on house agents 
 in a new green and black hat with broad green ribbons at 
 the back and a silk cloak bordered with Valenciennes lace. 
 . . . Grayle had sat, beating a stick against his leg, while 
 she chose it. ... 
 
 That was all over, too. A bigger woman, she supposed, 
 would have gone on her way unperturbed, refusing to be 
 frowned out of existence and regally contriving to place 
 everyone else in the wrong "The Second Mrs. Tanqueray" 
 in her rehabilitation. Though that was on the stage, of 
 course ; she had never seen it in real life. . . . Anyway, she 
 could not sit on a committee with Violet Loring and know 
 that she was saying to herself, "I can't make out why Jim 
 didn't see through her." Jim never had seen through her, 
 he would have cut off his hand to marry her, cut off both 
 hands when she broke the engagement. But Violet Loring 
 would think that God had stepped in just in time to save 
 him "You're well out of it, my dear! Rather even poor 
 David than you." 
 
 It was a long time since she had concentrated her 
 thoughts on David, but it was too late in the evening to 
 fit him into his place. At least it was only half-past nine, 
 but she was too tired to think. It was not much use going 
 to bed, because she obviously could not sleep, but it would 
 be something to turn the lights out. Undressing slowly, 
 she discovered that she had not begun to unpack; all the 
 things that she did not want would be at the top, and all 
 the things that she wanted at the bottom. It really was 
 
248 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 not worth it. ... She climbed into bed, wondering for a 
 moment why the sheets were so warm and discovering that 
 she had not taken off her stockings. As she pulled the pil- 
 low into the nape of her neck, a comb pressed hard against 
 her head, and she found that she had not brushed her hair. 
 "I suppose a man's like this, when he goes to bed drunk," 
 she told herself. Then her eyes closed, and she fell asleep. 
 
 At two, five and seven she woke suddenly, wondering 
 what the vague menace was that had frightened her. It 
 stabbed her mind ; her heart quickened its beat, and she lay 
 panting until gradually she passed into a waking dream. 
 At nine she was roused by the chambermaid, who said that 
 a gentleman had called to know if Mrs. David O'Rane was 
 staying in the hotel. He gave no name of his own, but hers 
 was set out in printed capitals. 
 
 "Mrs. David O'Rane," she murmured, taking the paper 
 and trying at once to seem unconcerned and yet to identify 
 the writing of the printed letters. "No, it can't be for me. 
 Who did you say brought it?" 
 
 "He didn't give any name, ma'am." 
 
 "But what was he like?" she asked, conscious that she 
 was speaking too quickly for perfect composure. 
 
 "I didn't see him, ma'am. One of the porters brought 
 it up. I'll enquire, if you like." 
 
 "Oh, it doesn't matter," Mrs. O'Rane answered. "I was 
 only wondering. . . . Mrs. David O'Rane. ... It can't be 
 meant for me. . . ." 
 
 It was well that she had registered without a Christian 
 name, though she had been compelled to give "The Sanc- 
 tuary" as her address she had no other; her unknown 
 visitor had apparently not troubled to carry his investiga- 
 tions so far. It was an escape ; it was also the first verbal 
 lie that she had ever told. 
 
 Then for the day's engagements. . . . Perhaps nothing 
 would be known as yet; but to-morrow or the next day it 
 would be known, she would not be expected at her Com- 
 mittee ; at least, they would wait wondering whether to ex- 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 249 
 
 pect her or not. ... It was better to telegraph and say that 
 she was slightly indisposed. . . . 
 
 The past was closed as she left the telegraph office. She 
 had to dodge back, as she caught sight of Lady Loring and 
 the Dowager walking away from the Cathedral, no doubt 
 going through the Park on foot to kill time before their 
 joint committee meeting. She must get far away from all 
 these associations and reminders; and she must find some- 
 thing to do. All her life she was so restless, she had tried to 
 do too much, she was always looking for new excitements; 
 motherly souls like Lady Maitland always told her that 
 and then asked her to sell flags outside the War Office. And 
 with every man who fell in love with her there was a phase 
 in which he implored her tenderly and unselfishly to take 
 better care of herself and then robbed her of her afternoon 
 rest in order to dine early and go to a play. People were 
 wonderfully selfish at heart, especially those like David and 
 Vincent, who made most parade of their unselfishness and 
 devotion. . . . Even when she stayed away in the country 
 and was supposed to be doing nothing, she was never happy 
 without some diversion; she could not sit down and read 
 or wander about a garden, or go for aimless, dreary walks ; 
 she had always needed the stimulus of something to shew 
 her off, to polish and sharpen her, something rival and com- 
 peting, an audience. . . . 
 
 It was not going to be easy to fill her endless day, her 
 life of endless days. When war first broke out, she found 
 that her world was come to an end, that the men were tak- 
 ing commissions and the women training themselves to 
 nurse. She, too, had tried to nurse and had given it up 
 because the physical strain was too great. Then after her 
 marriage she had collected these committees and acted and 
 sung for charity, but there were very few things that she 
 could do. And she had not learnt to do anything in the 
 interval. A government office might engage her, if she 
 chose to furnish satisfactory references, on unskilled, me- 
 chanical work. She would go unrecommended, without 
 qualification. . . . No. That could be dismissed. She was 
 
250 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 not going to the Foreign Office, say, to have Gerald Degan- 
 way sniggering to his friends about her; or to find herself 
 unexpectedly carrying an armful of papers to Sir Harry 
 Merefield, or Lord John Carstairs, who had been trans- 
 ferred from the Diplomatic. She knew people in all these 
 offices. Before the war she had met them every night at 
 dances. . . . 
 
 Of course, a man like Sir Adolphus Erskine with his 
 spider's web of commercial interests would find her work, 
 but she was not going to take him into her confidence ; he 
 had known her in her glory, when London was at her feet. 
 If she had been in the mood to discuss herself or ask 
 for sympathy, she would have gone the day before to Crow- 
 ley Court and braved her mother. She had not gone, she 
 would never go; if she had brought this kind of thing 
 on herself, she would go through with it single-handed. 
 
 As soon as the Lorings were safely out of sight, she 
 walked into Ashley Gardens on her way back to the hotel. 
 Opposite the Cathedral a car, driven by a girl in livery, 
 was awaiting its owner. Mrs. O'Rane suddenly decided to 
 go up and speak to her. 
 
 "I wonder if you'll give me some information," she began 
 with a smile. "I want to know where you have to go to 
 get taken on for a job like that." 
 
 "Can you drive a car ?" the girl asked. 
 
 'Tve driven a Fiat and an Argyle and a Mercedes." 
 
 "Repairs?" the girl asked in a business-like voice. 
 
 "I took the Mercedes up to Scotland single-handed once. 
 I don't say I could take an engine down, but I'm equal to 
 the ordinary things." 
 
 The girl considered. 
 
 "The General I drive for General Calverly, you 
 know " Mrs. O'Rane nodded and turned apprehensively 
 to see whether the General was in sight. They had met 
 a week before at dinner with the Duchess of Ross. "He 
 was asking me the other day if I could find anyone for 
 a friend of his, some man in the Admiralty. I suppose 
 you know your way about London? If you like to give 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 251 
 
 me your address, I'll mention it to the General. Or, of 
 course, you can go to the school where I went, get yourself 
 tested and then choose for yourself when someone applies. 
 It's the 'Emergency Motor Drivers' in Long Acre. Aren't 
 you Mrs. O'Rane ?" 
 
 "I am. How did you know that ?" 
 
 "I thought you must be," the girl answered with a laugh. 
 "I've seen your photograph in the papers so much. The 
 General will probably want you to come and drive for 
 him." 
 
 Mrs. O'Rane tried to seem pleased by the compliment 
 when she was only thankful for the warning. 
 
 "I'd better go to the school, I think," she said. "They 
 may say I'm not good enough, and I don't like disappoint- 
 ing people. Thanks most awfully. Good-bye." 
 
 She hurried away as a portly figure in uniform clattered 
 down the steps, screwing an eye-glass in place, while his 
 driver stiffened to attention. 
 
 On the morning after my council of war with the Oak- 
 leighs, I telegraphed to Dainton that I was motoring down 
 and suggested that I should pick him up at Crowley Court 
 and drive him into Melton for an interview with O'Rane. 
 He must have guessed, I should have thought, that my mis- 
 sion overnight had failed, but I could see, when we met, 
 that he and his wife were emptily hoping. Both were 
 waiting at the door when I arrived; both looked past me 
 into the empty car, as I got out. 
 
 "You couldn't get her to come?" Dainton enquired anx- 
 iously. "Ah!" 
 
 He was a flabby, ineffectual little man at the best of times, 
 and the shock had made him pathetically more flabby. 
 God knows ! it was not my tragedy, and I cannot boast that 
 I am capable of an unusually brave show under affliction, 
 but I wanted to make Dainton throw out his chest and hold 
 his head up and do some hard manual work and a few 
 
252 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 physical exercises. I wished, for her elevation, too, that 
 his daughter could see the state to which she had reduced 
 him; she was not sufficiently clever or detached to realise 
 how much his limp indulgence had contributed to her pam- 
 pered, neurotic wilfulness, but the consequences were there 
 for all to mark. Lady Dainton shewed no sign of weakness. 
 She had not slept much, I dare swear, since her husband 
 returned, but she was collected and equal to every demand. 
 
 "I expect we shall find lunch waiting," she said, as I came 
 in. "We can only give you cold comfort, I'm afraid. When 
 we turned the house into a hospital, Roger and I only kept 
 two rooms for ourselves, so, if you find my nurses running 
 in to see me every two minutes, don't you know? . . . I'm 
 glad you were able to come, because we're spending your 
 money here and I want you to see that we're spending it 
 properly." 
 
 A table had been laid for us in a room which from its 
 "Vanity Fair" cartoons, gun-cases, "Badminton Library" 
 and estate-maps, I judged to be Dainton's study. The serv- 
 ants were hardly out of the room before he turned to me. 
 
 "What happened?" he demanded anxiously. "Catherine 
 knows everything." 
 
 "I'm afraid it's rather more and perhaps rather worse 
 than either of you know," I warned him. "I called at the 
 house, and she wasn't there. They'd had a quarrel, and 
 she'd left him. I've no idea where she is, though George 
 Oakleigh was going to make all possible enquiries to-day. 
 You've not seen O'Rane since last night?" 
 
 He shook his head, turning his face away abruptly so 
 that I should not see it, and seemed unable to speak. 
 
 "We thought it bettter to wait till we'd heard from you," 
 explained Lady Dainton. "She's left this man, you say? 
 I shall want a moment to consider this." 
 
 I only broke a long silence because I observed her hus- 
 band preparing to speak and knew that he would contribute 
 nothing worth hearing. 
 
 "As I see it, Lady Dainton," I said, "there's an element 
 of hope. We can never set things as they were before, but 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 253 
 
 we may prevent them from growing worse. On the one 
 hand, O'Rane may now consent to stop proceedings. I've 
 not seen him since he made up his mind to move, I can't 
 say what decided him, but, if we're all agreed that we don't 
 want the scandal of a divorce, you may be able to stop it. 
 On the other hand, I've been thinking this over the whole 
 way down and I'm not sure that a divorce isn't the neces- 
 sary and the best thing for both of them, however painful 
 it may be at the time. Quite clearly your daughter and 
 O'Rane can never take up their old life; you see, there 
 are no children to keep them together, even in appearance ; 
 they're both quite young, and I question whether it's fair 
 on either to condemn them to their present state. O'Rane 
 can't wake up in ten years' time and discover that it would 
 be a good thing for both of them to resume their liberty." 
 Neither spoke for some time. Then Lady Dainton said 
 "It's all come so suddenly, don't you know? that one is 
 quite bewildered and stupid. First a divorce and then an 
 idea of stopping it and now an idea of not stopping it. ... 
 All of you have known about it so much longer ... By the 
 way, why did you never tell us, Mr. Stornaway? I'm not 
 
 reproaching you, of course, but as Sonia's mother " 
 
 "I thought about it a great many times," I answered. 
 "Our lips were really sealed by O'Rane. As long as he 
 hoped to get her back, we wanted to spare you all knowl- 
 edge of it ; we wanted to make it easier for her by keeping 
 down the number of people who did know." 
 
 "You didn't think that I could help to persuade her?" 
 Lady Dainton might say that she was not reproaching me, 
 but her voice was the embodiment of reproach directed not 
 only at me or the Oakleighs or O'Rane himself, but at our 
 whole sex for presuming to interfere between mother and 
 daughter. I could see that she was confident of her power 
 to restore peace, if only we had not ignored her until it was 
 too late. My nerves were in tatters, I could feel the blood 
 rushing to my head and in my turn I began to grow impa- 
 tient with her, not for myself or my sex, but for her 
 daughter. If ever the sins of the fathers were visited on 
 
254 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 the children, poor Sonia O'Rane was being punished for the 
 lax indulgence and pretentious ambition of her mother; 
 had she once been checked or chidden, had she been allowed 
 to marry some man in her own walk of life instead of being 
 fed with flattery and encouraged to look for what her 
 mother considered a "good match," I should have been 
 spared many months of worry and my present extremely 
 painful interview. 
 
 "With great respect, I don't think anyone could have 
 persuaded her," I said. "She started with a preposterous 
 but sincere belief that her husband was unfaithful to her, 
 their life was fantastically impossible, both had strong wills, 
 O'Rane was culpably trustful and Grayle was a man who 
 had been uniformly successful, as it is called, with women. 
 You had all the ingredients of disaster there, though it's 
 always a big thing for a woman to compound them. Once 
 she'd done it, there was no recalling her. I've seen her 
 twice since, Lady Dainton; no power on earth would have 
 sent her back to her husband, even if she'd wanted to go." 
 
 She finished her meal in silence, only shrugging her shoul- 
 ders gently as if to suggest that, however wrong I might 
 be, there was no profit in discussing the past. Dainton kept 
 asking me what I thought O'Rane would do and what we 
 must insist on his doing; I retaliated each time by asking 
 him whether he wanted a divorce or not; and there was 
 never any answer. 
 
 I had warned O'Rane that I was coming, but he stif- 
 fened perceptibly when the Daintons came in with me. In 
 a moment, however, he was calm, dispassionate and life- 
 less as I had always found him since the estrangement 
 began. And then for the third time, with the knowledge 
 that our nerves were raw and quivering, I had to tell him 
 of my visit to Milford Square and my meeting with Ban- 
 nerman and Grayle. We talked as if we were solicitors 
 attending a consultation with counsel, treating O'Rane. and 
 O'Rane treating himself, as the lay client. 
 
 "I saw she wasn't coming back to me," he explained, 
 "so I thought the kindest thing was to let her lead her new 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 255 
 
 life unembarrassed by ties with me. I could have let her 
 bring the petition, I suppose, but I rather draw the line at 
 that. I didn't see, however much I loved her, why I should 
 get Jp and lie and say I'd been disloyal to her." 
 
 The Daintons looked at me, as though they wanted me 
 to be spokesman, and I reminded O'Rane of his offer to 
 stay proceedings, if his wife and Grayle separated. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and smiled mirthlessly. 
 
 "It started as blackmail, I'm afraid. Afterwards I did 
 
 want to spare her, if I could I hoped she'd come back 
 
 to me. When she refused . . ." 
 
 "I was telling Lady Dainton," I said, "that, if you don't 
 expect her to come back, you probably ought in the inter- 
 ests of you both to let the proceedings take their course. 
 I know you don't like the idea of it, we none of us do but 
 you wouldn't like the idea of her being tied in any way for 
 the rest of her life. Of course, this isn't a thing that you 
 can decide offhand, but, when you consider it, there's one 
 factor you musn't leave out, and that is Grayle." 
 
 O'Rane raised his head slowly. 
 
 "He doesn't come in now." 
 
 "To this extent he does," I said. "If he's cited as co- 
 respondent at the present time, he'll have to retire from 
 public life. You and Dainton and I know that quite posi- 
 tively " 
 
 "I don't much mind who retires from public life," he in- 
 terrupted with a thin-lipped smile. 
 
 "But that man's quite capable of quarrelling with your 
 wife well, not to put too fine a point on it to get rid of 
 her, to avoid a scandal, to accept your terms. I believe 
 he'd have accepted them that night. I confess I can't make 
 up my own mind what to do. . . ." 
 
 O'Rane's head drooped forward for a moment; then he 
 raised it and faced us. 
 
 "I can't decide anything, either," he said. "My brain 
 seems to have gone to pulp." 
 
 One glance at him was enough. I got up, and he did 
 the same. The Daintons looked at each other and at me, 
 
256 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 refusing to move, as though they could force a decision 
 by staying there. I shook my head and opened the door 
 into the Cloisters. 
 
 "But before we go " began Lady Dainton, half- 
 rising. 
 
 "The difficulty is that we don't know what we want," I 
 pointed out. 
 
 Sir Roger became stammeringly urgent. 
 
 "We do know !" he cried. "We want to avoid a scandal, 
 we want to keep our poor Sonia from you know, all the 
 talk and the papers " 
 
 "But after that?" I asked. 
 
 Lady Dainton slipped her hand through her husband's 
 arm and led him through the door. I said good-bye to 
 O'Rane, but he insisted on accompanying us to my car and, 
 when the Daintons were out of ear-shot, enquired whether 
 the news had been a great blow to them. 
 
 "I ask, because I should have thought they must have 
 had some suspicion of it," he said. "People here don't say 
 anything to me, of course, but I'm sure they know. There's 
 a sort of bed-side manner about them; you notice these 
 things, if you're blind; it's as if you were calling on a fel- 
 low in hospital, when he's had his leg off, and you're being 
 awfully bright and not seeing any difference. ... Is it being 
 discussed in London?" 
 
 "I'm afraid it is." 
 
 He walked with his face averted. 
 
 "What do they say ?" he asked, steadily enough. 
 
 "That she's living with Grayle and that you're going to 
 divorce her." 
 
 O 'Kane's pace slackened. 
 
 "H'm. The first part's no longer true, the second part 
 isn't true yet. Stornaway, you've been uncommon kind to 
 me; d'you feel disposed to throw good money after bad 
 and help me a bit more ? We've been discussing what's the 
 best thing to do and how we ought to treat Grayle and that 
 sort of thing, but so far we haven't taken Sonia into ac- 
 count much. I want you to find her for me. Do anything 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 257 
 
 you like and, when you've found her, discuss with her what 
 she wants done. I'll generally speaking, you may tell her 
 I'll do anything. If I drop the petition now and some time 
 later on she wants to be free again, I don't like it, but I 
 suppose it can be managed; these things have been done 
 
 before. ... As for Grayle " He shook his head wearily. 
 
 "I feel our tariff of punishment in this world is so inade- 
 quate. You can hang a man who commits a murder, but 
 you can't hang him twice, when he murders two people. 
 He's broken up our two lives pretty much, and I dare 
 say we weren't the first; if I could make him suffer as 
 much as I'd suffered through him, we still couldn't cry 
 'quits.' If he loved Sonia God in Heaven! we all make 
 mistakes! Think how ridiculously few people we have to 
 choose from before we marry! We may think it's the 
 real thing and afterwards find we were wrong; I was pre- 
 pared to think that with them, and if she was going to be 
 happier with him . . ." He stopped abruptly and gripped 
 my arm with fingers of steel. "Do you honestly think he 
 behaved like this, because he was afraid of having his pros- 
 pects injured by the scandal?" 
 
 "That's Bertrand's view," I answered. "He's a very fair 
 ruffian, you know. He would always have an intrigue with 
 a woman, if he thought there was anything to be got out 
 of it; it doesn't require a great stretch of imagination to 
 assume the converse." 
 
 We were approaching Big Gate, and he pulled gently 
 at my arm to stop me. 
 
 "If that's true, we can't leave it where it is," he sighed. 
 "Grayle can't have it both ways. If he doesn't resign his 
 seat in a week, I shall go on with the proceedings." 
 
 "But if you decide to go on in any event?" 
 
 "Well, he's no worse off. He'll be in private life then, 
 with no political career to bother about." 
 
 "And if he refuses and you find you can't enforce the 
 threat? I mean, if your wife asks you not to ?" 
 
 "I shall find some other way of breaking him. This is 
 not a time for thinking about niceties of law." 
 
258 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "He's not the man to surrender easily/' I warned O'Rane. 
 
 "I don't know that I am," he answered, and the muscles 
 of his cheeks twitched. "Well, my solicitors are in com- 
 munication with his " 
 
 "But */ he refuses to be bluffed?" I persisted. 
 
 "We'll try some other means," he repeated. "Will you 
 be kind enough to convey my message you're sure to see 
 him at the House " 
 
 "We're at some pains to avoid each other," I said. 
 
 "But you could meet him for my sake just to give him 
 the message?" O'Rane begged. 
 
 I assented without more reluctance than was unavoidable 
 and said good-bye. We drove in silence to Crowley Court, 
 Sir Roger staring with troubled brown eyes out of one win- 
 dow and Lady Dainton, set and unrevealing, out of the 
 other. At the door she offered me tea, but for a hundred 
 reasons I wanted to get away as soon as possible. 
 
 "For the present I suppose we can do nothing," she said, 
 as we shook hands. "I rely on you to tell us when you have 
 any news." For the first time she was unable to keep an 
 expression of physical exhaustion out of her eyes. "I 
 don't know what any of you are doing, of course; what 
 steps are being taken to find Sonia." 
 
 "I'm making myself personally responsible," I prom- 
 ised her. 
 
 Then I drove back to London and arranged with George 
 to dine with me at the Club. After a restless night he had 
 called at eighteen of the likeliest hotels in the hope of ar- 
 riving at news of Mrs. O'Rane for the comfort of her hus- 
 band and parents. Someone of the same surname was stay- 
 ing at the Grosvenor, but it was not Sonia. I described my 
 visits to Crowley Court and Melton, and we concerted a 
 plan for tracking her to her hiding-place. 
 
 Two years and a quarter in the government service had 
 made George more of a "handy-man" than I have ever met 
 before or since. He knew the right official in every depart- 
 ment for hurrying through the most diverse business for the 
 largest number of friends. If news were required of a 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 259 
 
 prisoner-of-war, if cigars were wanted out of bond for the 
 use of a neutral Legation, if a German governess had to 
 be repatriated, a passport obtained, naturalisation papers 
 taken out, export permits secured, George would triumph 
 in the quickest possible time over the greatest possible ob- 
 stacles. It was absurd, he told me, to advertise or insert 
 cryptic messages in the "agony" column of the "Times"; 
 absurder still to employ detectives. For what other pur- 
 pose did Hugh Mannerly and the Alien Control Depart- 
 ment exist? He telephoned to the Home Office forthwith, 
 but Mr. Mannerly had praetermitted his control of aliens 
 in the interests of dinner. 
 
 'Til get on to him to-morrow," he promised. "We'll have 
 every hotel and boarding house in London searched for her ; 
 and, if she's not in town, we'll go to work in the country. 
 It will take a day or two, but Hugh Mannerly is unfailing 
 and perfectly discreet." 
 
 After my tribute to George and his to Mannerly, I am 
 sorry to record that the first three days of the hunt were 
 blank. It was ascertained, indeed, that Mrs. O'Rane had 
 stayed at the Grosvenor for the night, and that her address 
 was fully inscribed in the Visitors' Book. ("Damned fool 
 I was not to call for the book !" George exclaimed. "I felt 
 certain it must be her and then, when they said it wasn't, 
 I felt equally certain that it couldn't be.") Where she had 
 gone from the hotel no one knew. 
 
 "She's staying with friends somewhere in town," George 
 decided, "or else she's gone out of London. I'll get Man- 
 nerly to work again outside. I've spoken to a friend of 
 mine in the Permit Office, so she can't leave the country, 
 and I've found out from Raney that she banks with Phil- 
 pott's in Victoria Street. Mannerly's told the manager to 
 watch the account and report all lodgements and drawings ; 
 if she deals by post, we may find out whereabouts she is 
 and, if she comes to the bank in person, we can arrange for 
 the manager to keep her there till we arrive." 
 
 I confess that, however efficient George might be, I found 
 him a little high-handed. 
 
260 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "I'm the complete bureaucrat," he assented grimly, pol- 
 ishing his pipe on the sleeve of his uniform. "And I may 
 tell you that, when I consider the opportunities for oppres- 
 sion afforded by the public service, I'm amazed at my own 
 moderation. Anyone would start a revolution to-morrow, 
 if he knew the black conspiracy against personal liberty 
 which a few thousand of us are carrying out." 
 
 Once again, after being promised the full sinister support 
 of all the conspirators, I feel ungracious in having to re- 
 cord that the utmost efforts of Mr. Hugh Mannerly failed 
 to produce any result. His department, let me say, was 
 admirably organised, and a ridiculously short time passed 
 before I was informed that no one giving the name of 
 Sonia O'Rane or Mrs. David O'Rane was registered in 
 any hotel or licensed lodging-house throughout England, 
 Scotland or Wales. The manager of the Victoria Street 
 branch of Philpott's Bank, with a disregard for the con- 
 fidential relations between a bank and its customers which 
 would have amazed me in peace-time, stated that Mrs. 
 O'Rane had personally cashed a cheque for twenty pounds 
 three days before, that her balance unusually large, I im- 
 agined, for her was one hundred and eighty-seven pounds 
 fourteen shillings and five pence, that no lodgements had 
 been made since the beginning of the month, but that he 
 would promptly report all future transactions so long as 
 Mr. Mannerly desired him to do so. 
 
 "I telegraphed to Dainton, after I'd been to see Hugh," 
 George told me. "As we haven't struck oil so far, I thought 
 it would be useful to apply a little more pressure. I im- 
 agine Sonia must be living now solely on her father's al- 
 lowance, so I suggested that he should stop it and see what 
 happened when she'd exhausted her present funds. It's 
 funny about Hugh; he's usually so good. ... A nuisance, 
 too, because time's so important. You see Lloyd-George 
 is getting out his Ministry ? About two-thirds of the offices 
 seem to be allocated with some certainty." 
 
 "Have they found a place for Grayle yet ?" I asked. 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 261 
 
 "He's mentioned for all sorts of places," was the an- 
 swer. 
 
 I felt that the Government might not want to include 
 Grayle until he had cleared himself. People were still ask- 
 ing vaguely whether it was true about Grayle, but no one 
 could find flesh wherewith to clothe the bones of the scan- 
 dal. Grayle himself had not crossed my path since our 
 warm parting in Milford Square; indeed, everyone who 
 button-holed me to discuss appointments or ask my view 
 of the rumour admitted by implication that he had not seen 
 Grayle. Someone I cannot remember who told me that 
 he had left London on one of the surprise visits to G.H.Q., 
 which with Grayle played the same part as the old "diplo- 
 matic chill" of other days. As the government of the coun- 
 try and the conduct of the war were at a standstill, as mem- 
 bers of both houses were flocking back to Westminster 
 from all quarters to join in the scramble for office, I found 
 this explanation unconvincing. 
 
 I was soon to find it baseless. In fulfilment of my prom- 
 ise, I sent a note by hand to Grayle's house, asking him to 
 meet me on urgent business at a time and place to be ar- 
 ranged by him. My messenger, who had been instructed to 
 enquire whether Grayle was at home, reported that he had 
 received my note with his own hands and had replied that 
 there was no answer. 
 
 As Grayle would not come to see me, I had to go and 
 see Grayle. 
 
 I did not want to call in Milford Square unattended, 
 for Grayle had said in his haste that he would thrash me 
 out of the house with a crop, and I knew that he would only 
 disappoint me from motives of prudence. Had he been 
 accessible, I should have liked to have George at hand to 
 ring the bell and, if necessary, to send for the police ; and, 
 if prudence so far triumphed over natural impulse as to 
 allow Grayle to discuss terms, George would once more be 
 a useful witness to balance Bannerman. 
 
262 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 Failing George, I was at a loss to know whom to in- 
 vite, for Bertrand was too old to be embroiled in such an 
 undertaking. Beresford, of course, was in the secret and 
 I was wondering whether he would really conduce to the 
 harmony of debate, when his card was brought in with a 
 request for five minutes' conversation on private busi- 
 ness. 
 
 "I came to see if you'd had any news of Sonia," he 
 began, as the door closed. "I've been on the look-out so 
 far as my leg would let me. You see, in the ~ld days, when 
 we were together so much, I knew something of her haunts 
 and habits. I haven't found a trace. At least, not of 
 her." 
 
 "What do you mean ?" I asked. 
 
 He pulled forward a deed-box and rested his leg on 
 it, smiling grimly to himself. 
 
 "Do you remember the first and only time you honoured 
 me with a call?" he asked. "It was to say that the au- 
 thorities were watching my articles very closely, one night 
 
 when Sonia came to see me, and you naturally assumed 
 
 
 "Appearances were against you," I said, "and it was 
 criminally foolish, anyway." 
 
 "Well, well !" He smiled with sardonic indulgence. "We 
 won't waste time on that. Appearances have been pretty 
 consistently against me before and after, until the night 
 when O'Rane tried to strangle me. Has it ever occurred 
 to you that appearances were fabricated against me? We 
 know that Grayle let you all think and Sonia, too, but 
 she'd lost her head ... I find that the thing goes much 
 further back. I never told you about my exploits when 
 you were in America, did I?" he went on, nursing his in- 
 jured leg. "The first time they imprisoned me? There 
 isn't much to tell, but it's illuminating. I'd been writing 
 for weeks in the Watchman' all above board and over 
 my own name. You, no doubt, would call it pernicious 
 stuff or you would have then; people are coming round 
 to my views a bit more now I just told the truth. ..." 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 263 
 
 His eyes suddenly flashed, reviving my sense that I was 
 dealing with a man who might any day be certified in- 
 sane. "The whole truth and nothing but the truth! The 
 magistrate nearly choked when bits of my articles were 
 read aloud in court. . . . Well, all copy has to be in by 
 Tuesday morning, we go to press on Thursday, and the 
 paper comes out on Friday. I had my usual two sets of 
 proofs delivered on the Wednesday; I corrected one and 
 sent it back, the other I tore in two and threw into the 
 waste-paper basket. The next day " 
 
 "Where did this take place ?" I interrupted. 
 
 "At The Sanctuary/ Didn't I say that ? The next day, 
 when our housekeeper opened the office, he found an as- 
 sortment of the police with the usual warrants to search 
 the place and confiscate anything that took their fancy. 
 By the time they'd taken our ledgers, our subscribers' reg- 
 ister, our letter-books, file copies and the whole of that 
 week's issue, there wasn't much for the delivery vans, when 
 they turned up at nine, and literally nothing at all for the 
 editor and me at half -past ten except two nice, kind gentle- 
 men who put us under immediate arrest. Quick work, 
 wasn't it ? You'd have thought that not a soul outside that 
 office could have known for certain that I was even writing 
 that week, still less that I'd written anything stronger than 
 the usual articles. I suspected at the time, but I couldn't 
 bring myself to believe that Grayle would go to that length 
 to get me out of the way ; I knew it bored him to see Sonia 
 talking to me, but he had a fair slice of her time, and I 
 didn't think then that he was more than flirting with her. 
 Well, that was the first step." 
 
 He paused to beg a cigarette. 
 
 "Go on," I said, as I threw over my case. 
 
 "Well, that broke down, because I did a hunger-strike, 
 and they had to let me out. There was another misfire 
 about the army " 
 
 "I heard about that," I interrupted. 
 
 "About the misfire ? I wonder if you did the early part, 
 I mean. Do you know that I attested in the old voluntary 
 
264 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 days? Ah, I thought not. I kept that to myself for fear 
 of seeming patriotic," he added with a sneer. "Well, 
 when the Derby recruiting scheme came on, there was 
 enough hanky-panky to sicken you. I don't need to tell 
 you that I'm not in love with war or the idea of driving 
 people out like sheep to be slaughtered, but, if you have it, 
 let it hit all classes alike. From the very first, anyone who 
 was strong enough to resist could be sure of getting off. 
 The miners said they'd strike, if anyone tried to conscribe 
 them; the Civil Service decided for itself that no one could 
 get on without it. Well, I thought this wanted shewing 
 up, so I went along to Great Scotland Yard to collect evi- 
 dence at first hand. I got it right enough. The first men I 
 saw were a hulking lot with a crowd of papers in their 
 hands to declare that they were indispensable to the satis- 
 factory working of their departments people like that 
 young sot Maitland; they'd been forbidden even to attest 
 till that day, but the numbers weren't keeping up, so they 
 were turned on to keep things going. (I believe the police 
 and the Merchant Marine were dragged in, too, just to 
 give the thing a fillip.) The doctors hardly troubled to 
 look at me before I was rejected; which was a pity, be- 
 cause I wanted copy about the medical examination ; but re- 
 jected I was, fair and square, with a certificate and, I sup- 
 pose, some tecord on their books. In time the Military 
 Service Bill was passed, and I found myself called up. 
 Now, it may have been an honest blunder. . . . It's cer- 
 tainly a damned odd coincidence." 
 
 As he paused to laugh, I was more than ever struck by 
 his likeness to a grinning skull with a wig on it. 
 
 "But the coincidences were only just beginning," he 
 went on. "It was a coincidence that someone should have 
 been nosing round among my papers I don't know who it 
 was, I hardly ever lock anything, least of all my own front 
 door. But I thought one night that things looked unusual. 
 I have my own taste in untidiness. Then someone let 
 out to O'Rane that I was being watched once more. (If 
 I didn't seem grateful that night, it was because you were 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 265 
 
 devilishly in the way and weren't telling me anything I 
 didn't know before.) Then came another warrant, another 
 search and another arrest. By one of these curious coin- 
 cidences it was all on the day when O'Rane was due back 
 at Melton, the day when, by one last coincidence, Grayle 
 got back from France earlier than he'd been expected." 
 Beresford raised his hand and brought it resoundingly 
 down on the table. "I can prove nothing!" he cried. "I 
 only say that this succession of coincidences it's queer. 
 And, if I was a nuisance to Grayle in the early days, he 
 found me very useful later on. My God! what would I 
 not do to get level with that man ! Thank the Lord ! there's 
 no Christian forgiveness about me. I'll leave that to people 
 with more time on their hands. I've a great deal to get 
 through in a very short space and I'd like to do him in 
 once for myself and three times for Sonia. Is O'Rane tak- 
 ing any steps?" 
 
 "There are limits to his powers of forgiveness," I an- 
 swered reassuringly. "I'm calling on Grayle to-night to 
 suggest that he should retire from the House." 
 
 The same light of fanatical hatred came into Beresford's 
 eyes. 
 
 "I'd give something to be there!" he cried. 
 
 I looked at him and resumed the train of thought which 
 his entrance had interrupted. I knew that he could control 
 himself, if he tried, but I did not know whether he would 
 try. 
 
 "I was thinking of asking you, when you came in," I 
 said. "You're in the secret, and I don't want to admit any- 
 one else. You know what happens ! Everyone tells every- 
 one else on condition that it doesn't go any farther. But 
 can you be trusted to behave yourself? I want you as a 
 witness, and you may have to call for help, if Grayle tries 
 to fulfil his promise of thrashing me out of the house. But 
 you're not to speak, you're not to attempt any violence, 
 you're not to bring even an umbrella with you. Frankly, 
 you see, I'm not inviting you for your amusement, but 
 for my convenience." 
 
266 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 I could see his teeth grating. 
 
 "I expect I shall get my amusement out of it," he an- 
 swered. 
 
 "Of course, we may not be able to get into the house, but 
 we'll go together. But you promise not to open your 
 mouth or raise a finger?" 
 
 Beresford pushed away the deed-box and held out his 
 hand. 
 
 "I promise," he said. 
 
 It was a wet, starless night when we arrived in Milford 
 Square at ten o'clock. I dismissed my taxi, rang the bell 
 and waited. There was no answer, and I rang again. It 
 was inconceivable that, to keep me out of the house, Grayle 
 had disconnected the front door bell or given instructions 
 that it was to be disregarded on principle. 
 
 "I'm afraid I've brought you on a fool's errand," I said 
 to Beresford, as I rang a third time. 
 
 We looked to right and left for a second bell, an area 
 door or any other promise of admission. Two interested 
 maids from a neighbouring house joined our search-party, 
 and a constable flashed his bull's-eye impartially on us all 
 and asked if we had lost anything. 
 
 "I'm trying to get into this house," I said, pointing to 
 Grayle's door, "and I can't make anyone hear." 
 
 He pondered for a moment and then led us into the 
 Brompton Road. 
 
 "There was a light in the studio, when I came on duty. 
 You may be able to get in that way." 
 
 We groped through a narrow passage to a wooden door 
 set in a high brick wall. Over our heads I could see the 
 outline of two windows, securely curtained but with a 
 phosphorescent border. There was neither bell nor knocker 
 to the door, but I battered resonantly on the thick, blistered 
 panels with my umbrella. For perhaps two minutes there 
 was no answering sound, and I banged again. This time 
 I was rewarded by the slam of a door, the noise of feet 
 on a stone passage and the rasp of a heavy key. The 
 door opened, and my eyes, which were grown used by now 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 267 
 
 to the darkness, recognised the massive outlines of Guy 
 Bannerman. 
 
 "Hullo? Who are you? What d'you want?" he de- 
 manded sharply. 
 
 I slipped the end of my umbrella into the doorway. 
 
 "Is Grayle at home, Guy?" I asked. "I'm Raymond 
 Stornaway, if you don't recognise my voice. I have to see 
 him on very important business." 
 
 There can be few minor humiliations so disconcerting as 
 to slam a door and find that it will not close. 
 
 "You'll only ruin a good umbrella, Guy," I said. "Listen 
 to reason, man. You remember our talk the last time I 
 was here? You know that Grayle's by way of being cited 
 as a co-respondent?" 
 
 "Take your umbrella out!" Guy whispered angrily, feel- 
 ing for it with his foot, but not daring to detach either 
 hand from the door. 
 
 "I've come with a proposal from O'Rane," I said. 
 
 The energetic foot relaxed its industry. 
 
 "Grayle's given orders that you're not to be admitted," 
 he said. 
 
 "I know. And you're enough in his confidence to say 
 whether he's likely to be interested by hearing O'Rane's 
 proposal. I sent him a note this morning, but he didn't see 
 fit to acknowledge it. If he's going to take the same line 
 now, tell me at once, and I'll go away. If, on the other 
 hand, he'll let us in and behave himself, we'll come. I may 
 tell you, as I've already told Grayle, that I don't come to see 
 him for any morbid pleasure which I may derive from our 
 meetings !" 
 
 Discretion and discipline did battle within Guy's spirit, 
 and at length he asked, "Who's 'us'?" 
 
 "I have Beresford with me," I said. 
 
 "I can't let him in," was the prompt reply. 
 
 "Then we'll go home, Beresford," I said. "Good-night, 
 Guy. Open the door a fraction of an inch so that I can 
 get my umbrella out, there's a good fellow." 
 
 He did as I asked him, though guardedly. I pulled at the 
 
268 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 umbrella, turned my back and started down the passage, 
 followed reluctantly by Beresford. I walked briskly for 
 fear of spoiling the effect, and, before I had gone ten yards, 
 Guy was running heavily after me. 
 
 "If you care to leave a message/' he began, bringing 
 a massive hand to rest on my shoulder. 
 
 "I don't," I interrupted. 
 
 "But, look here, Stornaway !" 
 
 I walked on and, omitting certain obvious intermediate 
 stages, found Beresford and myself shortly afterwards en- 
 sconced in arm-chairs before the fire in Bannerman's match- 
 boarded, paper-strewn work-room over the garage at the 
 end of Grayle's garden. Our surroundings were serviceable 
 rather than sybaritic. Oil-cloth, a fur hearth-rug and a 
 couple of Japanese mats covered the floor; the walls were 
 concealed, half by stout blue volumes of the Parliamentary 
 Debates, half by a map of Canada, another of British South 
 Africa and a third of the Western Front. A double writ- 
 ing-table stood in the middle of the room with a sloping 
 desk, an oil reading-lamp and three numbered deed-boxes. 
 There was a reek of petrol from a private and probably 
 illegitimate pyramid of leaking tins, which had projected 
 themselves upstairs from the garage. 
 
 Guy produced some cigars and left us to take care of 
 ourselves while he reconnoitred the house. 
 
 "I've let you in on my own responsibility," he said, as 
 he opened the door leading into the garden. "Whether 
 he'll see you or not I can't tell." 
 
 "I think he will see us," I murmured to Beresford, when 
 we were alone. 
 
 I for one had satisfied my intellectual cravings for Cana- 
 dian geography, when we heard steps approaching on the 
 gravel. A moment later Grayle was framed, though he 
 had to stoop for it, in the doorway. He looked at me with 
 a frown which deepened at sight of Beresford. 
 
 "Well?" he demanded. 
 
 "Good evening, Grayle," I said. "I've come with a mes- 
 sage from O'Rane." 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 269 
 
 "What are you doing here ?" he asked Beresf ord. 
 
 The promise was honourably observed, and there was no 
 answer. 
 
 "I brought him as a witness in case you shewed any 
 tendency to be violent/' I said. "Grayle, O'Rane thinks 
 that, the sooner you give up your seat in the House, the 
 better. For what it's worth, I agree with him." 
 
 He was still standing in the doorway with his fingers on 
 the handle. Clearly he expected something more. 
 
 "Is that all?" he asked. 
 
 "All," I said, as I got up from my chair. 
 
 "Then what the hell d'y u want to come here for, wast- 
 ing my time ?" he thundered. "You told Bannerman you'd 
 got a proposal to make!" 
 
 "O'Rane proposes that you should retire from public 
 life," I explained. "I always think it's better to do a thing 
 voluntarily than under compulsion." 
 
 On that he left the doorway and came into the room. 
 
 "This is a threat, is it?" he asked, looking down on me 
 with arms akimbo. 
 
 "A forecast," I substituted. "I see from the papers that 
 you may be invited to join the Government. You will never 
 join the Government, Grayle, or, if you do, you'll leave it 
 before you have time to find out where your office is. If 
 you retire voluntarily, you may live to an honoured old 
 age; if you force O'Rane to go through with his petition, 
 I'm afraid you'll have a very ugly fall." 
 
 Grayle loosened his belt, though with too much deliberate 
 preoccupation to suggest that he was about to use it as 
 an argument in favour of our retirement; then he unbut- 
 toned his tunic, removed a bundle of papers from a woollen 
 khaki waistcoat and transferred them to one of his outside 
 breast-pockets. 
 
 "Do you know? your forecast does not strike me as ex- 
 haustive," he observed, as he settled his belt in place once 
 more. "As a preliminary, however, does O'Rane propose 
 to go on with the divorce?" 
 
 "Frankly, I can't tell you," I said. "He would like to 
 
270 SON! A MARRIED 
 
 consult his wife's wishes. I make no bones about telling 
 you, Grayle, that you get very little out of any proposed 
 arrangement. If she wants a divorce, your fair name, 
 shall we call it? is smirched, whatever you do; but I 
 fancy, unless you find your parliamentary duties too exact- 
 ing for your enfeebled health and that within one week 
 from to-night, your fair name will be smirched whether 
 she wants a divorce or not. I can't say what's in her mind, 
 of course, but, if you accept defeat at 'once, there's a fifty 
 per cent, chance that you'll escape a scandal in which, when 
 all's said and done, you don't cut a very gallant figure. By 
 the way, I have to have your answer to-night." 
 
 "My answer's 'no.' " 
 
 It was given without hesitation and, so far as I could see, 
 without bluff. I have been connected with large commer- 
 cial enterprises long enough to be a tolerable judge. 
 
 "I'll let O'Rane know at once," I said, getting up again 
 and motioning Beresford to do the same. "It will be an 
 unsavoury case, Grayle." 
 
 "Which is presumably the reason he's so unwilling to 
 go on with it," Grayle sneered. "But make no mistake who 
 comes out of it worst. He hasn't bothered to think. Your 
 proposal I reject with thanks, but I'll make another. 
 You're quite right in thinking that I would sooner not be 
 mixed up in these proceedings any more; if O'Rane will 
 give me a written undertaking to drop them here and 
 now and never to revive them, we can let it rest at that." 
 
 Beresford had not promised to refrain from laughter, 
 and I excused it as the only possible comment on the offer. 
 
 "Come along," I said to him. "We're wasting the na- 
 tion's time ; and the nation won't have the benefit of it much 
 longer." 
 
 Grayle shrugged his shoulders and led the way to the 
 door on the lane. 
 
 "So be it !" he said. "Yet mine was a fairer bargain than 
 yours. There was at least a quid pro quo" 
 
 "I'm afraid I don't see it." 
 
 "Then I'm afraid your principals haven't instructed you 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 271 
 
 very thoroughly/' he answered impatiently. "From your 
 general tone to me, you evidently think that I've behaved 
 very badly, that it was my fault, that the sympathy of the 
 court will be entirely with O'Rane and his wife. It may 
 be with O'Rane," he added meaningly. 'Til tell you at 
 once that I propose to defend the action and, though it's 
 only guess-work, I shall be very much surprised if O'Rane 
 gets a decree. . . . If he likes washing his wife's dirty 
 linen in public, that's his affair, but what seems to have been 
 overlooked is the attitude of Mrs. O'Rane throughout. To 
 begin with, I can call witnesses to prove that O'Rane re- 
 peatedly proclaimed that he wouldn't raise a finger to keep 
 his wife, if she preferred to risk her happiness with an- 
 other man. She used to say she wouldn't stay with him, 
 if she was unhappy; I can produce witnesses who'll testify 
 to that, too. Any pretence, therefore, that I burst in on a 
 happily married couple and forced them apart is historically 
 untrue. And this will come out in court. But what mat- 
 ters more from the point of view of Mrs. O'Rane's repu- 
 tation is the evidence I think you were with me, Storna- 
 way, when she rang me up one night at the House. What 
 you've overlooked in your haste to condemn me, what 
 O'Rane's overlooked in his haste to save his wife's repu- 
 tation is the part played by his wife. I'll accept full re- 
 sponsibility for my share of whatever's happened, but I'm 
 afraid you'll find it won't ease your position. Mrs. O'Rane's 
 letters to me, which will, of course, be read in court, prove 
 that it was she and she alone " 
 
 It was not difficult to imagine the end of the sentence. 
 Grayle spoke with the bored indifference of a man who has 
 had unwelcome attentions thrust upon him, who has tol- 
 erated them as long as he can, but who at last and at the 
 risk of wounding an importunate mistress ... I never 
 heard it, though, because Beresford, unpardonably if excus- 
 ably forgetting his promise of silence and immobility, had 
 twitched my umbrella from my grasp and whirled it back- 
 handed into Grayle's face with a cry of, 
 
 "You cad ! you cad ! you bloody cad !" 
 
272 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 The moment that the blow was struck I felt that lives 
 would be lost before we parted. Beresford had come to the 
 house clamorous for blood, I will admit at once that I 
 had wrapped a taunt round every word that I had spoken, 
 and for weeks Grayle had been in a state only describable 
 as eruptive. I found time, however, with that curious de- 
 tachment which a brain shews when it is working with 
 twice its usual clarity and speed to reflect what an absurd 
 and incongruous trio we made; Beresford dying of con- 
 sumption, all skin and bones held together by will-power 
 lame, shabby, ill-groomed, with two blazing eyes in a 
 parchment-coloured face; Grayle towering over the pair 
 of us, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked with a thread of blood run- 
 ning from one corner of his mouth, yellow-haired, like 
 some giant's child in uniform; and, if I could have seen 
 myself, I should have looked on a plump, middle-aged man 
 with, I believe, a benevolent expression, a good many wrin- 
 kles on the forehead and round the eyes and a thick crop 
 of prematurely white hair. 
 
 Beresford's action was so unexpected and sudden that 
 we and I include him were temporarily paralysed. After 
 the brief outburst there followed a silence in which we 
 seemed to be waiting for the end of the world to be pro- 
 claimed. Then Grayle put his hand to his face and brought 
 it away wet. I watched him raise his eyebrows at the 
 sight, walk to the door opening on to the garden, turn the 
 key and pocket it. (I suddenly remembered being bullied 
 at Eton.) 
 
 "He brought this on himself," he observed quietly to me ; 
 and, before I had leisure to guess what he intended or see 
 what he was doing, he had gripped Beresford by the col- 
 lar, lifted him off his feet and was belabouring him with 
 his stick until the ribs cracked like dry wood in a hot fire. 
 At the end of six swift blows the itick broke in two, and he 
 looked round for another weapon. A round office ruler 
 met our gaze at the same moment, and from opposite sides 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 273 
 
 we pounced on it simultaneously and simultaneously caught 
 hold of it. I had two hands to his one, however, and with 
 a wrench I contrived to twist it out of his grasp. 
 
 "Drop him!" I cried, but Grayle only looked round for 
 means to renew the attack. "I'll break your arm, if you 
 don't." 
 
 His grip on Berejsford, who was still dangling and 
 writhing in the air with his face purple and his feet rapping 
 out a tattoo on the oil-cloth, never relaxed. I raised the 
 ruler above my head and brought it down on Grayle's fore- 
 arm with all the strength that I could muster. I had aimed at 
 his wrist, but a plunge by Beresford spoiled my aim. Grayle 
 gave some body-twist, which I was too much preoccupied 
 to see, and an instant later I felt his powerful fingers in- 
 side my collar and my head being savagely bumped against 
 Beresford's. Every other time my ear was crushed against 
 his fleshless skull, and the pain was excruciating. I made 
 ineffectual backward sweeps with the ruler, hitting Beres- 
 ford as often as I hit Grayle ; I battered on his fingers and 
 tried to drag them away from his collar, but every effort 
 that I made and every new injury that I inflicted made him 
 the drunker with lust of battle. The side of my head felt 
 bruised to pulp, and, when I put my hand up to protect 
 it, Grayle only laughed like a maniac and changed his hold 
 so that he could avoid the buffer and bang us on our un- 
 protected brows. 
 
 Beresford was limp and crowing, I breathless and sweat- 
 ing before it occurred to me to use my feet. Exploring for 
 Grayle's shins with my heel, I made sure of my mark and 
 lashed out and up as hard as I could kick. It is to be pre- 
 sumed that I caught him on his injured knee, for I heard 
 a gasp of pain, we were jerked abruptly backwards, and 
 Grayle slowly subsided, like a wounded bull in the ring, 
 dragging us on top of him. For a moment we lay mo- 
 tionless; then I heard Beresford's struggles for breath be- 
 ginning again with feverish, rumbling acceleration. He 
 had fallen on the mat in front of the fire, and his face was 
 pressed so close to the bars that the heat must have been 
 
274 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 blinding and insupportable. I saw him trying to make a 
 screen of his hands and heard a diabolical laugh from 
 Grayle. The sound gave me new strength, and I tugged at 
 my collar till it burst away from the stud and remained 
 emptily in Grayle's hands while I struggled to my feet. 
 
 I had always imagined that, however desperate my plight, 
 I should refrain from some methods of warfare, yet now 
 I struck again and again at the wounded knee, I kicked him 
 in the wind and, if this last had not sent him rolling and 
 gasping on to his side, I believe I might have tried to gouge 
 his eyes out. It was the only time that I had ever had to 
 fight for my life; the instinct to live was stronger and 
 more resourceful than I had imagined. 
 
 As Grayle's fingers relaxed, I pulled Beresford away 
 from the fire and set him on his feet with his back to the 
 wall. He was not seriously injured, despite the drubbing 
 from Grayle's stick, and, as soon as he could breathe again, 
 I saw him preparing to meet a fresh attack. My one hope 
 was to escape before Bannerman broke down the locked 
 door and redressed the balance in our numbers, before, too, 
 Grayle had collected enough wind to resume hostilities. 
 Without waiting for my hat and coat, I hurried to the door 
 leading by the stone passage to the lane and flung it open, 
 calling on Beresford to follow me. As I turned on the 
 threshold, he made no sign of moving. I called again, tell- 
 ing him that there was no time to be lost, for Grayle had 
 taken his hands away from the pit of his stomach and was 
 testing his leg before getting up. Beresford also saw that 
 no time was to be lost, but, instead of making for the door, 
 he threw himself on top of his antagonist and dug furiously 
 in the pocket where Grayle had so ostentatiously secreted 
 his bundle of papers. 
 
 Though the struggle was resumed with more than all of 
 its old fury, I remember having another interval of lucid 
 detachment. I had intervened before, because Beresford 
 was being murdered, but I had not come there to steal 
 papers which did not belong to me and I could not come 
 to his assistance again. 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 275 
 
 "Break away!" I roared at them, picking up my ruler 
 again and hitting both impartially. 
 
 I might as usefully have expended my energies on beat- 
 ing the floor. Both were too busily engaged to heed me 
 until with a short-arm blow of well-nigh incredible force 
 Grayle lifted his assailant into the air and dropped him 
 again into the fireplace. Then he scrambled on to one 
 knee and faced me. 
 
 "Stay where you are, or I'll brain you !" I cried. 
 
 He dragged himself forward, and at that I struck. I 
 was more frightened than I have ever been in my life 
 before or since, for, if the phrase have a meaning, there 
 was murder in Grayle's eyes at that moment. The ruler 
 came down on the top of his head with an echoing crack, 
 and his trunk reeled. I hit again, though my first blow was 
 dyeing his hair crimson. This time a hand shot up in de- 
 fence and grasped the ruler. I pulled until I had dragged 
 him forward on his face, but he only added a second hand 
 and twisted against me, as I had twisted against him three 
 minutes earlier. It was a question of seconds before I 
 was disarmed, and I contrived that, as he possessed himself 
 of the weapon, I could spring to the far side of the writing- 
 table, ready to feint and dodge when he began the attack. 
 
 There was a second pause, a second silence. With the 
 same movement we looked towards the fireplace, but Beres- 
 ford was lying huddled and motionless. Grayle once more 
 put his hand to his head, once more raised his eyebrows 
 when he brought it away covered with blood. Dragging a 
 chair by his side and using its back as a prop, he limped 
 to the second door, pushed it closed and locked it. 
 
 "You brought this on yourself," he whispered in a voice 
 that choked with rage. 
 
 In equipment, physical power, training, endurance, even 
 in length of reach, Grayle was my superior. His one weak 
 point was the injured knee, and I concentrated my attack 
 on that before he could reduce the distance between us. 
 Picking up the first of the deed-boxes from the table, I 
 raised it above my head and discharged it at his legs. It 
 
276 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 struck his feet, I believe; certainly he staggered. Either 
 the second was lighter or I was over-anxious not to throw 
 short again, for this time I hit him in the chest and sent 
 him stumbling and cursing until his back met the door. 
 He stooped as though he would return my fire, but evi- 
 dently saw the wisdom of not replenishing my ammunition. 
 I picked up the third box, waited until he was back in his 
 old position and then let fly with all the strength that I 
 could put into an overhand swing. The missile was too 
 big and swift to avoid easily at so close a range, but Grayle 
 contrived to make a bend in his body, the box flicked his 
 tunic over one hip and slid along the floor until it bumped 
 into its fellows at the door. 
 
 "And now' 9 said Grayle. "Bannerman's out of ear-shot, 
 and even the fiendish noise you've been making won't bring 
 anyone to save you. Before I've done with you, I think 
 you'll be sorry you interfered quite so much/' 
 
 He dragged himself and his chair to the edge of the table 
 and leaned upon it with his fists, gripping the ruler. The 
 next moment I had sprung back, as he threw himself for- 
 ward and aimed a blow at my head with the full reach and 
 swing of his long body and arm behind it. The point of 
 the ruler glanced off the welt of my boot and dented the 
 oil-cloth. Grayle pulled himself back, rested his hands 
 again on the table and waited, eyeing me reflectively. I 
 was coming cautiously back to my place, when he projected 
 himself suddenly to the right; I jumped in the opposite 
 direction, he stopped, and we gradually came back to our 
 old positions. A moment later he dived to the left, but I 
 had hardly to move, for he was throwing his weight on to 
 a leg which would not bear it. The next plunge was to 
 the right, and this time he made a half-circle of the table 
 until each of us was occupying the other's stance. With 
 these tactics I could keep him at bay for as long as I liked ; 
 and I have no doubt that he realised it. While he panted 
 and looked round him, I turned my head for an instant to 
 see whether he had left the key in the door. The one 
 table-lamp, however, threw a yellow circle of quavering 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 277 
 
 light over the middle of the room and left the extremities 
 in shadow. Whether Grayle divined my thoughts, whether 
 he even noticed or understood my action, I cannot say, but 
 the next moment I received a violent blow on the thighs 
 and was hard put to it to keep my balance, as the table, 
 furiously impelled by him, careered madly towards the 
 door, pinning my legs and holding me, as though I were 
 buried to the waist, to await his attack. 
 
 He gave himself a moment to draw breath and enjoy his 
 triumph. The murderous blow which had just missed me 
 never left his intentions in doubt, but in that moment he 
 gave me time to use the last and only weapon left to me. 
 Snatching the big lamp, which flared afresh at my grasp, 
 I raised it aloft and brought it with a crash and tinkle 
 on to his head. For some time I could not understand 
 what had happened, for the room seemed in darkness and 
 yet brighter than before. By the dancing light of the 
 fire I saw that Grayle had disappeared ; and the table yielded 
 when I pushed against it. Then a blaze of yellow sprang 
 up in front of me, and I caught sight of him lying on his 
 back with a flood of burning oil spreading over his clothes, 
 lapping the disorder of books and papers which we had 
 tumbled on to the floor and licking the border of the 
 Japanese mats. How much I had injured him with the 
 lamp I could not see ; he was clasping his head with one 
 hand and still gripping the ruler with the other. 
 
 "Grayle, pull yourself together, man!" I cried, as though 
 by raising my voice I could penetrate his unconsciousness. 
 
 In a moment the flames would be pouring over his neck 
 and face; in five minutes, if the petrol cans were reached, 
 the whole lath-and-plaster shanty would be a roaring and 
 crackling furnace. I had to extricate Beresford and Grayle 
 or rouse them to extricate themselves and I discovered 
 that my body was trembling from the excitement of the 
 duel and that my head was aching savagely. I had hardly 
 found time to think of my injuries until then ; to think of 
 anything, indeed, but the next thrust or parry; I had no 
 idea how long the engagement had lasted and was aston- 
 
278 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 ished to find that less than twelve minutes had passed since 
 Grayle first entered the room. 
 
 "Pull yourself together!" I cried again, looking for my 
 overcoat to wrap round him and smother the flames. In 
 the unevenly distributed light I could not see it. The oil 
 was sinking into the closely woven tunic instead of flaring 
 itself out on the surface, and above the pungent smell of 
 hot petroleum rose the more pungent smell of singeing 
 cloth. I caught him by the arm and tried to drag him 
 towards the door, but at my touch the body subconsciously 
 grew rigid. I pulled again, and this time he opened his 
 eyes, frowned uncomprehendingly at me and then stared 
 at his blazing clothes with the stupid wonder of a drunken 
 man trying to remember how he came to his present 
 plight. 
 
 "Water !" I roared. "Where shall I find water ?" 
 
 He looked up at me and the expression of wonder gave 
 place to dawning recollection. In another moment his face 
 was transformed. I was still holding one arm, and he 
 allowed himself to be pulled to a sitting posture. Then 
 leaving the flames to shoot vertically on to his neck and face, 
 he swung the ruler for a last blow on the side of my head. 
 I remember that I saw it coming; one's moods change so 
 quickly that I was aghast to find Grayle still intent on mur- 
 der when I had forgotten all that nonsense and only wanted 
 to help him. It was so ungrateful. . . . And it was so 
 incredible! I did not even let go his arm or relax my 
 efforts. . . . 
 
 The ruler struck where my head was already soft and 
 bruised from its late banging against Beresford's. I felt 
 my knees slowly bending, my body gently collapsing. Five 
 and thirty years before a party of second-year men had 
 decided that no one's education was complete until he had 
 once at least had experience of intoxication. I was plied 
 with a very great deal of liquor, very scientifically mixed ; 
 and I remember watching for the danger-signals of on- 
 coming inebriation. Throughout the evening I could think 
 rationally and speak clearly; I was neither excited nor 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 279 
 
 noisy, neither elated nor depressed. I even played a game 
 of whist, I believe, and won a few shillings from my host. 
 The parting brandy and soda, however, hit me like a bat- 
 tering-ram; I subsided on the ground with every muscle 
 limp and, to my shame, crawled downstairs and across the 
 court on hands and knees. When Grayle's ruler brought 
 me down, the same partial paralysis of brain and body 
 must have taken place. I remember lying on my back with 
 my knees in the air, I remember turning on one side and 
 raising myself on my hands; I remember crawling with 
 vast preoccupation to the door, feeling for the key, turn- 
 ing it and, as I hope to be saved, noticing my skill in going 
 down the short flight of steps on all fours without pitch- 
 ing forward on to my head in the passage. 
 
 Outside in the lane I paused to take breath and test my 
 strength. By leaning against the wall I could draw myself 
 upright and follow a stumbling course into the Brompton 
 Road. A girl walking by on a soldier's arm pointed at me 
 and tittered; an elderly woman paused to exclaim "Dis- 
 gusting!" Otherwise no one took any interest in the 
 absorbing story which I could have told him the fight, 
 the fire. ... I turned round, all but over-balancing, to 
 see whether the wooden work-room was yet burned down ; 
 to my amazement there was no sign of a single flame. Was 
 that because you were not allowed to shew lights owing 
 to the war? There was a war; someone had told me, or 
 I had dreamed it or else I was astonishingly drunk. . . . 
 Was I really trying to crawl home from Mark Golds- 
 worthy's rooms in King's? If so, I must have been drunk 
 for a very long time, for I had been dreaming all sorts of 
 things dreaming that I had gone down from Cambridge, 
 that I had done this and that, that I was an elderly man. 
 ... It had been so vivid, this life-story which I had 
 dreamed in a few seconds, that I could see again the bluest 
 water in the world, which I knew to be the Caribbean Sea, 
 though no one could possibly have told me; and the ap- 
 proach to Colon (what other name could it have?) . . . 
 
 Then I felt overpoweringly sick, but what else was to 
 
280 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 be expected when Mark Goldsworthy had laid himself 
 out to make me drunk ? It was curious that I should have 
 been dining with him that night, because I knew that he 
 had been killed years later at Omdurman; or would be. 
 Did he know? It was an astounding piece of second-sight, 
 if I knew the name of the battle before it took place. . . . 
 And how dreadful for poor Mark, who had been at my 
 tutor's ! He was going to be killed accidentally, shot in the 
 back by one of his own men who had been wounded. I 
 must never tell him of course. . . . And how absurd it 
 would all seem when I awoke, but at the moment it was so 
 real that I could not help believing it. ... Could I or 
 could I not get on to my feet before I came to the gate? 
 It would look so bad if I were found bestially drunk before 
 I had been a week at Cambridge. Perhaps, if I hailed a 
 taxi and got inside and curled myself up on the floor, we 
 could drive out of college unseen. It was worth try- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 "Take me to the House of Commons, please," I said. 
 
 The man stared at me and laughed insolently. I was 
 so tired that I could hardly resent his manner. 
 
 "I'll pay you now, if that's what you mean/' I said; and, 
 feeling in my pocket, I took out two half-crowns and 
 closed the discussion by entering the cab. He shrugged 
 his shoulders, laughed again and pulled down the flag 
 of his meter; it was the last movement of which I was 
 conscious until he opened the door and jerked out over his 
 shoulder, 
 
 "Here's the House of Commons." 
 
 We were by the entrance to the yard. I got out and 
 asked him how much the fare was. 
 
 "You've paid me once," he answered with a mixture of 
 sympathy, cynical amusement and sluggish concern. 
 "You've been knocking about a bit, you have." 
 
 I turned away and walked unsteadily along Millbank. I 
 suppose my brain was about three parts clear by now; I 
 no longer fancied myself to be leaving an undergraduate 
 debauch of thirty-five years before. Somewhere and some- 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 281 
 
 how that night I had met with severe physical injuries; 
 Grayle was involved in it and Beresford and a strong 
 smell of singeing, but my head was aching too much to 
 let me think consecutively. I wanted to lie down and close 
 my eyes, I would have lain down on the pavement but for 
 the rain (and I had lost hat, collar and coat at some point 
 in this nightmare evening) . . . but for the rain and the 
 risk of being thought drunk. Anyone but a fool would 
 have turned the head of the taxi and driven home ; I knew 
 the hotel though I could not give it a name, and the num- 
 ber of my room ; but I could only think of one thing at a 
 time and I longed before everything else to lie down on one 
 of those long sofas in "The Sanctuary" . . . which was 
 so near, too. 
 
 Some time later I remember standing with my watch in 
 my hand, trying to strike a match against a wet lamp- 
 post. 
 
 Later still George Oakleigh was bending over me and try- 
 ing to carry me from the door-step into the house. He was 
 in pyjamas, an overcoat and slippers ; I cracked some feeble 
 joke about his hair, which was unwontedly disordered ; then 
 I saw that I was speaking in atrocious taste, because poor 
 George had been in bed and asleep, and I had unfeelingly 
 disturbed him. I apologised, and he said that it was of no 
 consequence, but I had to apologise again and again, be- 
 cause I could not let him be so magnanimous and, moreover, 
 I was not at all sure that he was accepting the apology. 
 . . . He told me that I was ill and must not excite myself. 
 To shew him that I was not ill, I struggled to my feet and 
 walked into the house. 
 
 "No bones broken," he muttered. "Lie down, while I get 
 you some brandy. Is Matthews still your doctor?" 
 
 "I don't want a doctor, George," I said. "I shall be all 
 right when I've rested a bit." 
 
 He gave me nearly half a tumbler of neat brandy. As 
 I drank it, I experienced the most curious sensation of 
 my life; as though a thick cloth had been tied round my 
 brain, I now felt it being gently withdrawn. I saw the room 
 
282 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 steadily and could tell George not to look so anxious ; I re- 
 membered the forgotten chapters of the night, even to 
 the last stumble when I fell on the door-step and beat on 
 the panels with my fists until I became unconscious. Piece 
 by piece my memory reconstructed the changing scene; I 
 wondered what had happened to Grayle and Beresford, 
 whether the fire had been put out, what people were think- 
 ing. . . . 
 
 I was too warm and drowsy to wonder long, but I re- 
 member saying very distinctly and, as I thought, impres- 
 sively, 
 
 "Don't get a doctor to me, George; and don't let any- 
 one know I'm here." 
 
 Then I dropped asleep. 
 
 George came into the library next morning on his way 
 to the Admiralty. I was awake, because after an hour or 
 two of sleep the physical exhaustion which made it pos- 
 sible gave place to physical discomfort which effectually 
 banished it. My head had a collection of dull, throbbing 
 pains which played for a while, each by itself on its ap- 
 pointed spot, and then joined hands and danced in a ring 
 with an initial kick-off under my swollen right ear; over 
 the forehead they went and under the back of the eyes, 
 scampering to the nape of the neck, drawing breath and 
 toe-ing and heeling it to the starting place once more. I had 
 a basin of water by my sofa and relays of handkerchiefs 
 which I dipped and spread over my temples, but by three 
 o'clock my arms had stiffened until I could not bear to 
 move them, and I spent the remainder of the night turn- 
 ing from side to back and from back to side, trying to find 
 some surface of my body which did not feel as if the 
 bones were running through the flesh. 
 
 "I told Bertrand you were here," George said, "and the 
 housekeeper, of course. But she won't say anything. How 
 you got yourself into that condition " 
 
 He broke off and smiled at my cuts and bruises. Later 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 283 
 
 in the day, when I got a chance of looking at myself in a 
 mirror, I could forgive his smile. 
 
 "It's a long story, George/' I said. "Leave it till my 
 liead feels a bit clearer. And, once more, don't tell any- 
 one I'm here. At the present time I don't quite know what 
 my civic status is, whether I'm a fugitive from justice or 
 what. Have you seen the papers? Is there anything that 
 you can fit me into?" 
 
 "I only had time to read the war news," he answered. 
 "Look here, I've given orders for a bed to be made up in 
 Raney's room, and we'll shift you, as soon as you feel like 
 moving. Is there anything else you'd care for?" 
 
 "The one thing I want is the papers," I said. 
 
 They were brought me ten minutes later by Bertrand, 
 who strolled into the library, raised his eye-brows and 
 withdrew his cigar long enough to give a short whistle of 
 surprise. 
 
 "You're a pretty sight," he chuckled. "George said you 
 wanted these. I suppose you've been fighting the police 
 and want to see if they're advertising a description of 
 you." 
 
 I hunted through the main news sheets, losing myself 
 in columns of official communiques and unofficial cabinet- 
 making, before I was rewarded with a four-line para- 
 graph : 
 
 "Accident to Well-known M.P.," I read, and under- 
 neath the heading, 
 
 J"A fire broke out last evening in the house of Lieutenant-Colonel 
 Vincent Grayle, M.P., in Milford Square. It is not known how the 
 conflagration originated and, at the time of going to press, it is not 
 possible to gauge the amount of damage done. We regret to say 
 that Colonel Grayle has sustained severe injuries, which might 
 easily have proved fatal. His condition is critical, and it is feared 
 that there may have been actual loss of life." 
 
 I put my thumb against the paragraph, handed it to 
 Bertrand and resumed my search. The "Times" and 
 "Morning Post" contained no reference to the fire, but the 
 late London edition of the "Daily Gazette" gave me plenti- 
 
284 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 ful reading matter and rich food for reflection. There 
 was a title, sub-title, headings to the paragraphs and a 
 column and three-quarters of close, descriptive print. It 
 opened promisingly with "Tragedy in M.P.'s House" and 
 progressed through "Mystery Fire in Milford Square" to 
 an account which must have been supplied two-thirds by 
 Bannerman and the rest by the constable who had directed 
 me to the studio in the lane. Grayle's physical state or 
 the delicacy of his position had kept him from contributing 
 anything. 
 
 The narrative, so far as I remember it, ran on these 
 lines. Mr. Guy Bannerman, who acted as secretary to 
 Colonel Grayle, had been reading in the smoking-room and 
 went upstairs at about eleven o'clock. His bedroom looked 
 on to a strip of garden, and in making the window secure 
 he had observed that the curtains in the wooden loft over 
 the garage were on fire. After telephoning to the fire bri- 
 gade, he had seized a jug of water, hurried into the garden 
 and tried to force his way into the loft. The door was 
 locked on the inside, however, and he had to run back and 
 round to a second door opening on to a lane at right angles 
 to the Brompton Road. The room, when at last he got 
 into it, was a sea of fire. Some years earlier it had been 
 roughly fitted up as a work-room and was filled with books, 
 loose papers and maps. There was nothing to shew how the 
 fire had started nor how long it had been going on, but the 
 papers on the floor, the table-cloth and curtains, several 
 straw mats and a fur hearth-rug were blazing. However 
 it had started, its destructive course had been materially 
 assisted by the oil from a big lamp which had been over- 
 turned and broken. By the door the flames were fortu- 
 nately less fierce than at the far end of the room, or Ban- 
 nerman would have been unable to enter. He emptied his 
 jug in front of him, ran down and refilled it from the 
 garage, emptied, filled and emptied it again until the fire 
 had been driven back a few yards. It was now possible for 
 the first time to see through the glare of the flames, and he 
 was horrified to catch sight of Grayle's body lying mo- 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 285 
 
 tionless half under the table. Dragging him to the door, 
 he was about to carry him downstairs when he observed 
 a second body on the far side of the fire-place. Then he re- 
 membered that two men had called to see Colonel Grayle 
 on business half an hour before ; he had assumed that they 
 must have left before the fire broke out, as it was incon- 
 ceivable that three men should have been unable to conquer 
 the flames at the outset. 
 
 After carrying Grayle into the garage, Bannerman re- 
 turned for the second victim, whom he recognised as a 
 young man named Beresford. Of the third there was no 
 sign in the front half of the room, and he had to go for 
 more water. The wooden walls had now caught fire, the 
 book-cases and chairs were smouldering and the oilcloth 
 had blistered and cracked and was smoking ominously. A 
 very few minutes' work were to shew him that one man 
 armed with one bedroom jug could not even keep the 
 flames from spreading. He ran backwards and forwards 
 drenching the floor with water, but never clearing a path 
 sufficient to allow of his advancing more than a third of 
 the way into the room. When the fire-engines arrived, the 
 flames had eaten through the walls and were licking the 
 wooden gables of the roof; they had licked to so great 
 effect that the first jet of water brought down a cascade 
 of tiles and charred rafters. 
 
 While the hoses played, Bannerman looked to the men 
 whom he had succeeded in carrying out. Grayle was alive 
 and breathing faintly, though his clothes fell away in hand- 
 fuls of black ash at the first touch, and his face and head 
 were shockingly burnt and disfigured. Beresford gave no 
 sign of life. His hair was signed and blackened where he 
 had fallen on his face against the bars of the grate; his 
 clothes were as much charred as Grayle's, but his body 
 was almost unmarked, save for a bruise over the heart, no 
 doubt from contact with the point of the fender. Death 
 was probably due to asphyxiation; this was the unofficial 
 opinion of the doctor, pending the inquest. Partial and 
 temporary asphyxiation, indeed, was the only explanation 
 
286 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 why the three men had not either put out the flames or es- 
 caped from the burning room. 
 
 There remained the second visitor, and, as soon as the 
 fire had been put out, Bannerman returned to the loft. By 
 the light of a stable lantern, it was possible to make a cau- 
 tious search. Three-quarters of the roof had disappeared, 
 burnt away or fallen in heaps of broken tiles and black- 
 ened timber on the floor or in the garden ; the walls on two 
 sides, the floor at one end had disappeared equally. On 
 what remained lay a pile of charred table legs and chair 
 backs, broken glass and blistered deed-boxes, scorched 
 books and odd, unidentified metal fastenings and joints, 
 the whole dripping and lapped with sinister black water. 
 Bannerman explored every inch of the wreckage and re- 
 turned to the garage empty-handed. At the end, where the 
 ceiling had fallen in, a smaller pile of wreckage reared itself 
 fantastically on a platform of petrol cans. A revolving 
 book-case and a filing cabinet, charred but intact, were 
 half buried under broken tiles and blackened volumes of 
 Parliamentary Debates; a stout table leg and a small safe 
 lay further away; and there was the reeking half of a 
 burnt fur-coat. 
 
 My interest in the "Daily Gazette" narrative quickened 
 at this point. Mr. Bannerman had admitted Beresford and 
 another (whose name was not given). They had tried 
 the front door unsuccessfully, because all the servants 
 were out for the night. A constable had suggested their 
 going round to the door in the lane; they had entered; 
 there was no hint that one had left before the other. No 
 doubt in a few hours negative proof would be forthcom- 
 ing, but, until that appeared, or until a further examina- 
 tion could be made, it was possible that the second visitor 
 had been a second victim. 
 
 "I'm afraid we've seen the last of young Beresford," I 
 said to Bertrand. 
 
 "What's happened to him?" he asked. 
 
 "You haven't read this yet?" I said. "Well, wait till 
 George comes back at lunch-time, and I'll tell you the 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 287 
 
 whole story. I rather fancy that a good many people have 
 seen the last of me. I say, Bertrand, have you ever been 
 present at a cremation?" 
 
 He looked at me sorrowfully. 
 
 "I should have thought you'd had enough trouble for 
 one night," he said. 
 
 "I have, I can assure you. But my career of crime is in 
 its infancy I'll explain all this at lunch ; I want to know 
 what sort of fire it takes to consume a human body so 
 
 that there's no trace of flesh, blood, hair, bone, clothing 
 t) 
 
 "God knows!" he interrupted. "You'd better ring up 
 Brookwood." 
 
 "I don't think I'm likely ever to ring up anyone again," 
 I said rather rashly. 
 
 Some while before his usual hour George hurried in with 
 a scared expression and wondering, wide-open eyes. He 
 was carrying the mid-day editions of two or three evening 
 papers, and I saw that I should not have to explain much 
 after all. The only point of interest to me was that Colonel 
 Grayle was not yet in a position to give any account of 
 what had happened. 
 
 "And, until he does," I told Bertrand and George, "I 
 propose to keep quiet, too. You see, there's unfortunately 
 no doubt that he and I each tried to kill the other and be- 
 tween us we've succeeded in killing Beresford, though I 
 can't say for certain if it was asphyxiation or the blow on 
 the heart. I'm responsible for that fire. When I see what 
 story Grayle puts up, I shall be better able to decide." 
 
 It was not going to be an easy explanation to frame, and 
 the papers were already beginning to wonder how two, and 
 perhaps three, grown men could be imprisoned in a room 
 with two doors, one of them unlocked. If Bannerman 
 could get in some time later, they could have got out some 
 time earlier. I was only wondering why Bannerman had 
 suppressed my name; did Grayle think that he had two 
 lives on his conscience? 
 
 The evening papers gave a better account of him, though 
 
288 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 he was still too weak to satisfy the curiosity of the re- 
 porters. They also reminded their readers of his politi- 
 cal career and the possibility of his being included in the 
 new government. 
 
 "Have you thought out your own position?" Bertrand 
 asked me uneasily, throwing aside his paper. 
 
 "I don't know that I have," I answered. "I'd sooner 
 leave Grayle to explain." 
 
 "H'm. You came here, stayed here as much knocked 
 about as you please, raving, unconscious. But, when every- 
 one in London's asking how the fire broke out, no one in 
 the house can find a word to say." 
 
 "If Grayle's unconscious, I'm unconscious," I answered. 
 "He can invent the explanation of the fire, and I'll stand 
 by what he says." 
 
 Bertrand sat heavily on the foot of my bed with an- ex- 
 pression of obvious dissatisfaction. 
 
 "Every hour you stay here " 
 
 "I don't pretend that it's ideal," I interrupted. "But I 
 shall wait for Grayle." 
 
 I was not allowed to wait for Grayle. And, if neither 
 Bertrand nor I were satisfied with my silence, we had no 
 reason to be more satisfied when I broke it. Yet I hardly 
 see how I could help myself and I am sure that on balance 
 I do not regret my action. The morning papers next day 
 added little to the established facts and wide-ranging guess- 
 work of the evening before, though, as a humane man, I 
 was glad to see that Colonel Grayle's progress was as 
 satisfactory as could be expected. There was a brief re- 
 port of the inquest on Beresford death by misadventure, 
 with asphyxiation as the immediate cause, unsatisfied won- 
 der on the Coroner's part that such a fire could have taken 
 place, coupled with regret that Colonel Grayle was not 
 well enough to give evidence. Of greater interest to me 
 was an obviously inspired hint that a new department was 
 to be formed for the control of recruiting and that Grayle 
 was likely to be made its head. If the announcement lacked 
 novelty, its setting did not ; for the first time Grayle's own 
 
THE UNWRITTEN LAW 289 
 
 paper he subsidised it, if he did not in fact own the con- 
 trolling majority of the shares accepted responsibility for 
 the forecast. 
 
 I read the announcement about eleven in the morning. I 
 thought over it for perhaps half an hour. Then an idea 
 came to me, which I was powerless to resist. Without con- 
 sidering its effect on him or on myself, without thinking 
 of anything but that I meant to do this, had to do this, 
 I crawled out of bed and made my way painfully down- 
 stairs to the library. I was astonishingly weak in body and 
 I have good reason now to think that I was a little light- 
 headed at the time, but I am not looking for excuses. When 
 I had made sure that I had the library to myself, I dragged 
 two very stiff legs to the writing-table at the far end, sat 
 down and asked for Grayle's number on the telephone. It 
 was repeated to me, and I realised for the first time that I 
 had not yet decided what to say. And, before I could 
 collect my thoughts, a woman's voice was exclaiming rather 
 impatiently, 
 
 "Hullo! Yes! Hullo!" 
 
 "I want to speak to Colonel Grayle," I said. 
 
 "I'm sorry to say Colonel Grayle is ill." 
 
 "It's essential that I should speak to him. Will you 
 please have me put through to his room?" 
 
 There was a perceptible pause, and I chose to fancy 
 that my voice had sounded impressive. 
 
 "Er, who shall I say it is?" she asked. 
 
 "It will be enough, if you say that it's very urgent." 
 
 "I don't know that he's well enough to speak. Are you 
 sure you can't give me a message ?" 
 
 "If he's well enough to take a message from you, he's 
 well enough to listen to it from me. Please be as quick 
 as you can." 
 
 The pause this time was longer, there were mysterious 
 metallic clicks and buzzes ; then a man's voice said, 
 
 "Hullo?" 
 
 "Is that Grayle?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes. Who's speaking?" 
 
290 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 As he had not recognised my voice, I could leave recog- 
 nition or avowal to come later. 
 
 "It's about this announcement, Grayle," I went on. 
 
 "Who is speaking?" he asked again with growing irri- 
 tation. 
 
 "Your appointment, I mean. You know what will hap- 
 pen, if you take it ; you can't say you haven't been warned. 
 I suggest that, before it's too late " 
 
 Faintly, as though the sound were coming through cot- 
 ton wool, I heard a muffled cry. I waited, but there was no 
 other sound. 
 
 "Grayle?" I began again. 
 
 But there was still no sound. 
 
CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 THE DOOR RE-OPENED 
 
 ". . . Naaman came with his horses and with his chariot, and 
 stood at the door of the house of Elisha. 
 
 And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in 
 Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and 
 thou shalt be clean. 
 
 But Naaman was wroth, and went away, and said, Behold, I 
 thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the 
 name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and 
 recover the leper. 
 
 Are not Abana ard Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all 
 the waters of Israel . may I not wash in them, and be clean . . . ?" 
 
 II KINGS 5 : 9-12. 
 
 WHEN a man has crossed the water-shed of forty, his 
 power of recuperation is sorrily reduced. Perhaps he suc- 
 cumbs less easily to illness or injury, the bruises may take 
 longer to shew themselves, but they also take far longer 
 to disappear. 
 
 I found this literally and metaphorically true during the 
 weeks when I lay at "The Sanctuary." After my one 
 painful descent to the telephone, I returned to bed and 
 stayed there for a month. One part of my body after 
 another swelled and changed colour; I was pitifully weak, 
 and for the first time in my life my nerves seemed to have 
 gone limp. The memory of my fight with Grayle haunted 
 me, I could not concentrate my mind on anything and I 
 lacked the native buoyancy to want to get well. Bertrand 
 and George were obviously anxious, but even to oblige them 
 I could not put forth strength which was not in me; the 
 weeks rolled by, and I remained a listless and, I am afraid, 
 an exacting and irritable invalid. 
 
 291 
 
292 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 As my name had not been published, as I could in fact 
 plead serious ill-health at the time of the inquest on Beres- 
 ford, I saw no purpose in thrusting myself on the public 
 until I knew what explanation Grayle proposed to give. 
 Curious enquirers were simply informed that I had met 
 with an accident. In the early days we used to watch 
 the bulletins of Grayle's health and the formation of the 
 new government in parallel columns ; and the second made 
 more rapid progress than the first. The chief offices were 
 allotted, one after another, and the minor positions down 
 to the last Junior Lordship of the Treasury; at the be- 
 ginning it was occasionally stated that "at one time Colonel 
 Grayle's name was mentioned in connection with" this or 
 that or the other appointment ; gradually the references to 
 him became rarer until his own paper wrote his political 
 epitaph and announced with conventional regret that, while 
 the Prime Minister was believed to have been hoping to 
 make use of his services, his present condition of health 
 put the acceptance of any office out of the question. 
 
 Bertrand smiled grimly, as he shewed me the paragraph, 
 but I was impatiently waiting until Grayle's condition of 
 health enabled him to give me a lead. It came at last 
 through the medium of Bertrand on a night when he had 
 been dining at the House and had seen Grayle for the first 
 time since the fire. I am a tolerably humane man and, 
 though I had struck upon provocation and in defence of 
 my own life, I regretted the state to which I had reduced 
 my opponent. He now walked with two crutches and a 
 sling for his foot in place of the one stick; his head was 
 generously bandaged, and, though a curious faint down 
 was beginning to appear on the exposed portions of his 
 scalp, he no longer wore a moustache, and his eyebrows 
 were singed out of existence. 
 
 A circle of his friends was bombarding him with ques- 
 tions and comments from all sides at once "You had a* 
 near shave," "Were you badly hurt?" And then the in- 
 evitable enquiry "How did it start?" 
 
 Grayle began a roaming description of the garage and 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 293 
 
 loft, its tinder-dry wood-work, its equipment of inflam- 
 mable papers and the like. 
 
 "There was a large quantity of petrol there, too," he 
 explained confidentially, "but I don't want this talked about. 
 I had no business to have it there; it was too near the 
 house ; the place as we've amply shewn was in no sense 
 fire-proof. I should have the County Council or some other 
 damned interfering body on my back, if it came out; I'm 
 not claiming from the insurance company, as it is, for 
 fear of too many questions. They let me down lightly at 
 the inquest, because there was no one who could give 
 evidence. So this is a secret session," he ended with a 
 laugh, as he began to hoist himself away towards a chair. 
 
 One or two of his companions followed and relieved him 
 of his crutches, as he sat down. 
 
 "But how did it start?" he was asked again. 
 
 "The lamp was overturned," Grayle answered promptly. 
 "You see, I got a message that this poor fellow Beresford 
 he was the deluded fanatic who was always getting locked 
 up for seditious pamphlets, you know that he wanted to 
 see me on urgent business, so I went off, expecting to find 
 that the fellow was in trouble again I knew him slightly, 
 you see ; we'd met at people's houses when I got there, we 
 sat and talked a bit. Well, he was lame like me. ..." 
 
 He paused and pulled at the bandage on his head. 
 
 "Where had I got to :*' he asked a moment later. 
 
 "You sat and talked," Bertrand put in from behind. 
 
 Grayle turned round quickly and caught sight of him 
 for the first time. 
 
 "You're the very man I've been wanting to see!" he 
 exclaimed; and then to the others, "Excuse me a minute." 
 
 Bertrand pulled up a chair, as they withdrew. 
 
 "You must be grateful to me for coming when I did," 
 he began. "The story didn't seem to be going with much 
 of a swing." 
 
 "You can leave my explanation to take care of itself," 
 Grayle answered shortly. 
 
 "I felt I could make it a bit fuller," Bertrand suggested. 
 
294 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 Grayle looked at him enquiringly. 
 
 "I see. Well, you're at liberty to tell your tale, and I'll 
 tell mine. Or we can both leave it where it is. I admit 
 that some people aren't quite satisfied at present, but I 
 manage to get rid of them, as you've seen. If you want 
 me even to drop a hint that there was an attempt at ?" 
 
 His lips formed the word, but he did not utter it ; and the 
 unexpected silence was surprisingly sinister. 
 
 "It's no business of mine what lies you tell," Bertrand 
 answered. "Is that all you wanted to say? If so, I'll move 
 along." 
 
 In the week before Christmas O'Rane returned from 
 Melton to find me immovably billeted upon him. After the 
 first greetings he sat silent and reflective. I could see 
 that he wanted to talk and did not know how to begin. The 
 room was his wife's, and there were still marks by the 
 lock, where he had burst it from the wood-work. God 
 knows what his thoughts must have been ! As I looked at 
 his slight figure, lazily reposing in a long chair, and at his 
 self-possessed, unrevealing face, I found it hard to picture 
 the scene when he broke in the door. And for the 
 thousandth time since that day of tragedy I asked myself 
 what had been left him in life and longed for him to ask 
 at least for sympathy, if he knew that I could give him no 
 more help. 
 
 When he spoke, it was to make some comment on the 
 war. The month-old rumour that the cabinet had broken 
 on the question of peace negotiations was still flourishing. 
 Rather than face another winter in the trenches the Ger- 
 man Government was alleged to have made an offer to 
 evacuate Belgium and northern France with the alterna- 
 tive of a threat, in the event of the war's continuing, that 
 every neutral and allied ship sailing under whatsoever flag 
 would be sunk at sight without warning. A school that 
 was faint-hearted in asserting itself, even if it were not 
 faint-hearted in the prosecution of the war, whispered that 
 we must not miss our market and in Bertrand's phrase 
 refuse terms now that we should have to accept gratefully 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 295 
 
 and after the loss of another half million men in six months' 
 time. The rival school of stalwarts proclaimed with great 
 show of reason that Germany would talk of peace only 
 at her own convenience or necessity and that her needs 
 were our opportunity. 
 
 We went on to talk of the new government and its pros- 
 pect of life. In the week before I was incapacitated politi- 
 cal passion in London rose higher than I have ever known 
 it. The old government, tired and indolent, half-hearted 
 and uncaring, was losing the war beyond hopes of recovery. 
 The new government had intrigued its way into place, sell- 
 ing its soul to Lord Northcliffe, as Faust sold his soul to 
 the devil .... As a very independent member I was privi- 
 leged to hear both opinions in approximately equal numbers 
 and certainly with equal violence of expression. I de- 
 scribed to O'Rane two characteristic meetings within five 
 minutes of each other. I had been walking from my office 
 to lunch at the County Club one day, when I stopped to 
 observe an unusual number of cars and a considerable 
 crowd of loafers outside the Reform Club. George Oak- 
 leigh came up from behind and asked what I was watch- 
 ing. 
 
 "It's the party meeting," he explained. "Aren't you go- 
 ing?" 
 
 "Not invited, George," I said. "I'm left out of these 
 pleasant little gatherings. What are they meeting about?" 
 
 "To hear a statement from Asquith. There'll be a vote 
 of confidence, I suppose. He's still the leader of the Lib- 
 eral Party!" he proclaimed with a note of challenge. 
 
 "This partisan enthusiasm is new to you," I commented. 
 
 Any hint of raillery was lost on him. 
 
 "I daresay it is!" he cried. "I was a candid friend in 
 the old '06 parliament, I've voted against them a score of 
 times, but, when I see how they held the country to- 
 gether in the first shock of the war, when I see what they 
 did . . . And now to be turned out by a low press con- 
 spiracy and a man who owes his political salvation to As- 
 quith, a man who was pulled out of the gutter at the time 
 
296 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 of the Marconi scandal . . . when the whole party nearly; 
 split. My God! talk about gratitude in politics!" 
 
 He hurried away still most unwontedly explosive, and I 
 followed more slowly. At the corner of St. James' Square 
 I found Beresford also watching the crowd. (It was our 
 last meeting before he called on me in the afternoon of 
 our tragic expedition.) 
 
 "They're broken ! Their noses are in the dirt, and thank 
 God for it!" he cried, pointing excitedly across the road. 
 "They were responsible ! They dragged us into the war, it 
 was their war, their diplomacy! Asquith, Haldane and 
 Grey. And now they're in the gutter!" 
 
 I remember walking on to luncheon with both concep- 
 tions to digest as an appetiser. 
 
 O'Rane and I talked long of political futures. The 
 Government had resigned without challenge or defeat; we 
 may have felt that we ought to have been consulted, as a 
 compliment to the unfailing support which we had given; 
 we might even dislike the new ministry's mode of birth, 
 but we agreed in thinking that we must give the new 
 management a trial before reverting to those who had failed 
 to keep order in their own home. Suddenly O'Rane inter- 
 rupted me with a question which shewed that his thoughts 
 had been for some time at a distance from domestic politics. 
 , "Er Stornaway," he said with noticeable nervousness. 
 "You remember when you came to see me at Melton some 
 weeks ago? You were going to set enquiries on foot to 
 find out where Sonia had got to." 
 
 I told him what had been done and how we had failed. 
 There had not been many days for me between giving 
 my promise of help and involving myself in the encounter 
 with Grayle, but George and his sleuth-hound colleague con- 
 tinued to ransack every resource suggested by friendship 
 or professional pique. And at the end of three weeks they 
 were as near finding her as at the beginning. 
 
 "She is either staying with friends or hiding away in 
 rooms somewhere," I told O'Rane as my conclusion. "And 
 I can't suggest any way of tracking her down. It's a 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 297 
 
 waste of time to advertise ; she's hiding, because she doesn't 
 want to be found. If I may advise you, wouldn't it be 
 wiser to leave her where she is? I take it that you've 
 stopped proceedings?" 
 
 "I've stopped proceedings," he answered, and his chin 
 dropped forward on to his chest so that I should not see 
 the movements of his thin face. 
 
 "Then there's nothing to discuss with her. If at any 
 time in the future she or you want to regain your liberty, 
 you can start out to get in touch with her then. Any ques- 
 tion of stopping her allowance is mere persecution and I 
 don't even know that it's likely to be successful perse- 
 cution. She drew a cheque for twenty pounds on the day 
 she left Grayle; and she's not drawn a penny since. It'll 
 take some time to exhaust her balance, and, if she finds 
 that her quarterly cheque isn't being paid regularly, you 
 know even better than I do that she'll starve or beg or work 
 her fingers to the bone before she'll give in." 
 
 O'Rane was long without answering. Then he dragged 
 himself out of the chair, shook hands and bade me good- 
 night. 
 
 "I must have a look for her myself," he murmured, as 
 though he were thinking aloud. 
 
 "O'Rane, she's clearly avoiding you," I pleaded. "Will 
 it do any good?" 
 
 "I must meet her !" he cried tremulously. 
 
 If I said a very brutal thing then, I said it because I 
 thought that in the long run it was kindest. 
 
 "Let me tell you one thing before you go," I begged 
 him. "O'Rane, you're not facing realities, you know; 
 you're playing with the idea of reconciliations, you think 
 that it's possible to get your wife back and to live with her 
 again. My dear boy, you must use your imagination. 
 Think of the mental process that took her away, think 
 what her experience has been, think what her mental state 
 must be now. She will never come back to you. And you 
 couldn't live with her, even if she did." 
 
298 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 O'Rane went out of the room without answering by 
 word or gesture. 
 
 2 
 
 On Christmas Day George came into my room after 
 dinner. He betrayed considerable excitement and was car- 
 rying a stout red book in one hand. 
 
 "I've tracked her down!" he exclaimed almost before 
 the door was closed. 
 
 "Tracked who down?" I asked without any great in- 
 terest. 
 
 "Sonia. I caught sight of her at the Savoy outside the 
 Savoy, rather after lunch. The Maitlands were giving a 
 party, and, as we came out into the court-yard, Gerald 
 Deganway put up his eye-glass and dug me in the ribs. 
 Then I saw her in some kind of livery or uniform, driving 
 a car. She didn't see me, and I don't think she wanted 
 to be seen, because she was sitting rather hunched up and 
 with her face turned away. . . . Then an old general 
 stumped out and told her where to go ; she said, 'Yes, sir/ 
 turned the head of the car and drove away. I just had 
 time to see the number and I spent a useful hour or two 
 this afternoon finding who it belonged to. Apparently the 
 old boy calls himself Brigadier-General Sir Andrew Lamp- 
 wood. Now we'll turn him up in 'Who's Who/ " 
 
 He dropped into a chair, filled a pipe and began to turn 
 the pages. General Lampwood, I gathered from his frag- 
 mentary recital, had been educated at Eton and Sandhurst 
 . . . had served in Egypt, India, Egypt again and South 
 Africa . . . despatches, medals, clasps ... a widower 
 with two sons . . . one house in Wilton Crescent and an- 
 other in Norfolk. . . Naval and Military, Turf, Rane- 
 lagh. . . . 
 
 "Well, if Raney wants her, he knows where to find her," 
 he ended. "I suppose you've never met this Lampwood? 
 No more have I." He shut the book with a snap and 
 drummed with his knuckles on the binding. "No wonder 
 we couldn't find her; she's probably living in rooms near 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 299 
 
 by, driving for him all day. . . . I'm surprised that nobody 
 should have seen her till to-day; she's so well-known, and 
 it's the sort of thing the picture-papers love to get hold 
 of." He sniffed contemptuously. " 'Recruit to the Ranks 
 of Society War- Workers !' ... I suppose she can only 
 just have felt that she must do something and have some- 
 where to live " 
 
 "Do you find people still talking about her?" I inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 "They always have and they always will." He lay back 
 and smoked for a few moments in a reflective silence. 
 "Ever since she came out. ... Of course, she's a really 
 beautiful woman always has been and she's got a lot 
 of glib society patter and she can make herself almost 
 irresistible to most men. As she would say herself, her 
 technique is perfect. And, if you never waste your energy 
 on emotions, I suppose you're left with a tremendous lot 
 for your precious technique. She can be so charming to 
 everyone, when she likes, that she'll make a success of any- 
 thing from a sticky dinner to a charity bazaar. She was 
 always a success, she knew it, she got temperamentally 
 drunk on it until I think that the only thing she cared 
 about was being admired, wanted, loved. . . . And now 
 she's driving a car for a dug-out general. ..." 
 
 "But what are people saying about her?" I persisted. 
 
 "Oh, the old scandal's been toned down to almost noth- 
 ing. She was being seen about with Grayle too much, and 
 Raney put his foot down and said it was to stop." He 
 grinned maliciously. "Lady Pentyre told me at lunch to- 
 day that it was perfectly abominable the way people went 
 about inventing lies and about a sweet girl like that! It 
 came so well from Lady Pentyre." 
 
 He smoked in silence until O'Rane came in for the five 
 minutes that he always spared me on his way to bed. 
 George repeated what he had told me and asked if there 
 was anything that he could do. 
 
 O'Rane listened without any change of expression and 
 then said that he would write to Lady Dainton. 
 
300 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "There's nothing more you'd like me to do?" George 
 asked again. 
 
 There was a moment's hesitation in which O'Rane's un- 
 smiling face became graver. 
 
 "Well, I can't do it for myself," he said and paused 
 again. "I I wonder if it would be possible for you to 
 get a word with Sonia find out what time she starts in 
 the morning and then intercept her " 
 
 "Well?" George encouraged him. 
 
 "I wouldn't bother you, if I could see," O'Rane re- 
 sumed apologetically. ''Tell her that if she wants any- 
 thing " 
 
 I felt that it was time to interfere. 
 
 "She can go to her parents," I said. "O'Rane, we're all 
 of us different men and women every day of our lives, 
 we're always changing, never the same. Some things 
 change us more rapidly than others, marriage, illness, great 
 prosperity or great disaster, the death of a friend my dear 
 boy, I'm only telling you what you know already. Be- 
 cause your name doesn't change, because you look the 
 same and your hair doesn't turn white from illness or grief, 
 you think that you're the same. You're not. And she's 
 not. Since you parted, there have been changes and de- 
 velopments in both your souls which will prevent your ever 
 coming together again. You don't like me to say it, but 
 you'll have to recognise it." 
 
 The boy's eyes seemed to shine with reflected pain at 
 every word. 
 
 "But isn't there room for something new?" he asked. 
 "A man may love a woman with all his heart and soul, 
 he may marry her, she may die; in time he may marry 
 again without forgetting her, without transferring the 
 affection he once gave her leaving her in the place where 
 she's always been since she died, but somehow creating a 
 new love. Don't you think that when two people . . . 
 separate, the husks of their love may die . . . their old 
 love, I mean, they may even hate the memory of it, but in 
 time, perhaps, a new one may be born . . . ?" 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 301 
 
 "Between the same people? My friend, the memory of 
 the separation, the reasons for it, will rise up like ghosts 
 to keep them apart. You want her to come back?" 
 
 For the first time a wan smile lit up his thin face. 
 
 "Do you wonder ?" 
 
 "What can you give her that you didn't give her before ?" 
 I persisted. 
 
 He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. 
 
 "I shouldn't like to think that a second chance is always 
 thrown away." 
 
 "And what inducement can you offer?" I asked him 
 brutally. 
 
 He spread out his hands with a shrug. 
 
 "What inducement did I offer before? We've been in 
 love with each other so long ! At one time she was actually 
 engaged to another man. . . . But there was something 
 constant and unchanging. She didn't forget him or hate 
 him, but in time she had adjusted herself and come back 
 to the thing that had always been there, hidden and un- 
 changed. ... So now, isn't it possible that, when the last 
 six months fall into their proper perspective, when the 
 ghosts no longer rise up " 
 
 "How many people have you known to marry a second 
 time after they've been divorced?" 
 
 "But there's no reason why they shouldn't." 
 
 "In fact they don't," I said. 
 
 I believe that George delivered himself of his message 
 within about three days. I believe, further, that he 
 descended to bribe some smirking kitchen-maid and stood 
 through a downpour of rain to seize the opportunity. Mrs. 
 O'Rane masked any surprise that she felt I suppose that 
 she must have been taking part in many unexpected meet- 
 ings, thanked him for troubling to come and transferred 
 her attention to the wind-screen, as a choleric voice re- 
 marked, "Now, young man, when you've quite finished talk- 
 ing to my chauffeur!" 
 
 The meeting confirmed my own diagnosis. The play was 
 ended, and, if I concerned myself with wondering what 
 
302 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 O'Rane and his wife would do with the remainder of their 
 lives, I felt that this would be a new play, no continuation 
 of the first. The brief scandal had flickered out as ab- 
 ruptly as it had flared up. Lady Maitland my barometer 
 and sounding-board announced to Bertrand across the 
 length of a considerable table that she had seen darling 
 Sonia, who had really turned over a new leaf; it was the 
 best thing in the world; she was taking the war seriously 
 at last. 
 
 "Do you know, that dear child is never off duty Sun- 
 days or week-days, night or day?" she confided. "You try 
 to get her to lunch or dine she'll tell you frankly that it's 
 not the least use promising, because, if her General wants 
 her, out she has to go and she may be driving for him all 
 night. I don't see how she can keep it up not seeing any- 
 one, you know, or doing anything, and after the life she 
 had been leading. Of course, she was really very naughty 
 about the way she did it all in a night, you know threw 
 everybody over I was running an entertainment on be- 
 half of my society, and she simply spoilt one tableau. . . . 
 But then that's so like darling Sonia." 
 
 "She's less of a fool than I thought," was Bertrand's 
 comment to me. "No awkward questions, nobody to meet 
 her and ask them ! Can't live at home when she has to be 
 ready with the car at a moment's notice. ... I hope Gen- 
 eral Sir Andrew Lampwood has broad shoulders. . . . 
 She's snug and secure till the war's over, and God knows 
 when that will be." 
 
 I made no answer, for I was thinking of O'Rane. On 
 New Year's Eve he had dined at home with George and 
 Bertrand, and all three came up to my room afterwards. 
 We made a despondent party, for the endlessness of the 
 war daunted us as the third year added month to month with 
 lengthening casualty lists and a growing sense that, when 
 we had already failed so many times and in so many ways, 
 there was no reason why we should not go on failing. Each 
 one of us was far enough from reality to be conscious of 
 helplessness and insufficiency ; I could not count the number 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 303 
 
 of times that Bertrand had growled, "I've done with the 
 House! I'm not going down there any more. What good 
 can we do?" the number of times, too, that he repented 
 and saw the House as the one independent and courageous 
 check on an imbecile and malign government. Stripped 
 of all mental elasticity and enthusiasm, George hated the 
 Admiralty with a savage ferocity that was made no less 
 by the easy youth which he had passed, uncontrolled, un- 
 disciplined and effortless. And underneath our nervous 
 depression and irritability lay a despondent sense that the 
 moral grandeur of the war had become obscured. 
 
 "I suppose the pace was too hot," George observed 
 gloomily. "But in those first weeks . . . They may not 
 have known what they were going out to face, but they 
 went like good 'uns ; and the people who stayed behind were 
 ready for any sort of sacrifice of money, comfort, leisure. 
 All the spiritual fervour seems to go now in trying to make 
 other people do things, keeping other people up to the 
 mark. . . . God! I'm sick of the press agitations, I'm sick 
 of all this political intrigue, I suppose I'm sick of the 
 war." 
 
 O'Rane nodded, but made no answer. 
 
 "I don't ask anyone to listen to me," George went on 
 with unwonted bitterness, "because I've been wrong all 
 through. So have you, Bertrand. We were wrong before 
 the war, when we said there couldn't be a war; and we 
 were wrong when we started yapping about a 'war to end 
 war/ We can't even make a clean job of this, we can't 
 make the Hun put up his hands and say he'll go back to 
 the status quo, and as for dismembering Germany and de- 
 posing the Kaiser we can't do it! But when I remember 
 my own torn-fool speeches at the beginning " 
 
 "But we couldn't keep out of it, George," O'Rane inter- 
 jected. 
 
 "And precious little good we've done by going in. I sup- 
 pose we have stopped Germany from dominating Europe, 
 but, as for our own honour, we offered that up on the altar 
 of necessity when we found that we were fighting a nation 
 
304 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 that meant to win if it darned well could. Our later policy's 
 become frankly imperialistic; there's no ethical connection 
 between Belgian neutrality and the partition of Turkey and 
 Austria. I'm afraid I've taken a deuced long time to see 
 it. . . ." He turned to me with a scornful smile. "Do you 
 remember when you first came back to England? When 
 we met outside the Admiralty?" 
 
 "I've often thought of that conversation," I said. 
 
 "Everything seemed to follow so naturally in those days," 
 he sighed. "Disarmament, nationality, a tribunal to arbi- 
 trate between states. Raney, you were one of the most 
 persistent optimists I've had the ill-luck to meet ; you're not 
 going to pretend that the entire thing's not the most futile, 
 gigantic waste . . . whole peoples in arms hacking them- 
 selves to death and not a damned thing gained ! You don't 
 think we're going to win this war?" 
 
 For the first time in six months I saw O'Rane roused 
 to impersonal interest. 
 
 "I don't know if anybody's going to win," he answered. 
 "And, what's more, I don't greatly care." 
 
 "If you were back in August, '14?" George asked, looking 
 him in the eyes and then quickly turning away. 
 
 "I'd go through it again," was the quiet reply. 
 
 George got up and began to pace restlessly up and down 
 the room. 
 
 "The big thing about this war is quite independent of 
 results," O'Rane explained. "It's the effect on the indi- 
 vidual, the effort, the risk, the readiness to make sacrifice. 
 I always hold that there's no room in life for compromise. 
 You know that, don't you, George ?" He held out his hand 
 and pulled George on to the arm of his chair. "From the 
 days when we were at Melton together. You and dear old 
 Jim Loring and Tom Dainton dear God! how this war 
 has killed them off! you used to thrash me, you brutes, 
 to make me see that I must compromise, but you never 
 won. And always before the war I thought that compro- 
 mise what I call moral cowardice and spiritual slovenli- 
 ness was the only thing that people minded about. They 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 305 
 
 didn't care. It wasn't their business! If the world was 
 cruel and licentious or base-minded, they always asked me 
 to remember that human nature was human nature." He 
 sprang up with a sudden wriggle as though he were jerking 
 an incubus from his shoulders. "As a nation we were con- 
 tented with the second-rate compromise, toleration, ease; 
 we were second-rate in life, art, politics, second-rate in hu- 
 manity, in soul. . . . And then there came the war and it 
 was the big moment when we had to decide whether to 
 fight our way through the flames or to stand in distant 
 security and explain to the reporters that there was a child, 
 sure enough, in the top storey, but that it would be suicide 
 to attempt a rescue and what was the fire brigade for, any- 
 way ? . . . We had to decide, we had to make up our minds 
 that there was something big enough to suffer and sacri- 
 fice ourselves for. . . . All of us who went out there thought, 
 rightly or wrongly, that we'd found something that ad- 
 mitted of no compromise. . . . Even if you went out of 
 bravado, like poor Val Arden, so as not to be thought a 
 funk . . . What it was I don't quite know . . ." he went 
 on slowly. "I doubt if any of us know, and we certainly 
 didn't at the time. Perhaps it was for the security of the 
 people at home. ... I know I was seeing red, I'd have 
 slit the throats of German women and children at that time 
 in revenge for what they did in Belgium. . . . But before 
 that started, before war was declared . . . You remember 
 that last week-end of the Saturnia regna, George? When 
 we walked up and down, up and down at Loring Castle, 
 wondering whether there was anything worth saving. . . . 
 Well, whenever I catch myself feeling as you do now, I 
 recall that about four million men voluntarily decided that 
 there was something in life better than their own lives, 
 something that had to be preserved, something that ruled 
 out all compromise. That's the moral value of war. After 
 all, what is it you do when you run .into the flames and 
 rescue the kiddie from the top storey? You save its life, I 
 admit, and that's something, if you value human life, but 
 the child may die a week later of whooping-cough, it may 
 
306 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 grow into a drunkard, an imbecile, a criminal. What mat- 
 ters it that you've taken yourself, your own soul, and given 
 it a value? . . . When this is all over, if we lose, if we're 
 bankrupt and broken, if Germany enchains us like so many 
 tribes of African blacks, it still doesn't matter to the men 
 who refused to compromise, they've made themselves. . . . 
 Yes, quite deliberately, I'd go through it all again. . . . 
 And, when the war's over, we can't afford to tolerate any- 
 thing but the best, we haven't been fighting for the second- 
 rate. And we've got to prepare our own minds for that 
 now, so that the material changes follow automatically. You 
 must start with the individual, your own relationship to 
 the world in all its aspects. Hanging for sheep-stealing 
 ceased automatically when the public mind had prepared 
 itself, stirred itself up to say 'This has got to stop!' and 
 the compromisers, the obscurantists, the vested interests 
 daren't raise their heads. You think, perhaps, that I'm not 
 the best person to decry the usefulness of compromise " 
 
 He stopped abruptly, and all the light and colour died out 
 of his big eyes. 
 
 Bertrand, whom I thought to be dozing, raised his head 
 for a moment and lowered it again. 
 
 "Didn't Saint Paul say something about being all things 
 to all men?" he asked gently. "Saint Paul was a great dip- 
 lomatist, a great man of the world. You'd say he was a 
 great compromiser, David, but at least he knew how to 
 suit himself to his audiences, to make allowances for poor, 
 despised human nature. And perhaps you'll even admit 
 that he was not altogether unsuccessful and that Christianity 
 would never have spread a hundred miles from Jerusalem 
 but for him. I sometimes think he has been unduly neg- 
 lected," he continued with a yawn. "Christianity would 
 have been a poor thing without him." 
 
 "It would have been a poorer thing without Christ," 
 O'Rane answered. "And there would have been no Chris- 
 tianity at all, if Christ had said that the Scribes and Phari- 
 sees were doing their best according to their lights ... or 
 that we must make allowances for Dives because he had a 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 307 
 
 great many calls on his charity and really couldn't in- 
 vestigate each one personally. Of course, there'd have 
 been no Crucifixion. ..." 
 
 The Christmas holidays passed rapidly, and I remember 
 that O'Rane told me one Sunday night that he would be 
 going back to Melton in another ten days' time. None of 
 us cared to ask him how much longer he proposed to con- 
 tinue this make-shift life, teaching seventeen-year-olds for 
 nine months in the year and learning procedure in the House 
 of Commons during the remainder ; it was his means of try- 
 ing to forget that his wife was in the same city, living 
 within a mile or two of him, driving perhaps within a 
 hundred yards of their house or passing him in the street, 
 elusive and unattainable. 
 
 After George's glimpse and single meeting, we heard 
 little of her. George told me that he had met "Sonia's 
 General," as that no doubt gallant soldier came to be called 
 with unflattering disregard of earlier and more varied 
 achievements, that he was an agreeable fellow, that someone 
 was putting him up for the Eclectic Club. They fell into 
 conversation and discussed the prowess of the new driver; 
 the General had been taken completely by surprise. 
 
 "If she'd said 'Sonia Dainton,' anyone would have 
 known," he explained. "I'd forgotten she was married. She 
 suits me uncommon well, if she can stand the strain. . . ." 
 
 A day or two later Bertrand made the General's ac- 
 quaintance and came home with the not very surprising 
 news that Mrs. O'Rane had terminated her engagement. 
 
 "I never supposed that pjiase would last long," he 
 grunted. "Up early, back late, out in all weathers and 
 thankful if you can snatch five minutes to munch a sand- 
 wich out of a paper bag. There'd be very little of this 
 boasted 'war-work' done, Stornaway, if people weren't al- 
 lowed to go about in uniform, and none at all, if the first 
 condition of your employment was that no one was allowed 
 
308 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 to know that you were doing war-work of any kind. / 
 can see the offices and hospitals yielding up their social 
 ornaments! Well, Sonia O'Rane's at least honest about 
 it. A week or two with only a livery and no one to admire 
 her 1" 
 
 "She's got no excuse now for living anywhere but at 
 home/' I commented. 
 
 Bertrand grunted scornfully. 
 
 "Give her credit for a little more contrivance than that! 
 She leaves her General at the end of the month, by which 
 time her husband will be safely back in the country. But 
 she hopes to take it up again, when she's a bit stronger. 
 I had this from the General; he shewed me her letter. 
 Damned ill-written scrawl," he added with the intolerance 
 which ran away with him whenever his prejudices were 
 aroused. "She'll recuperate by lunching and dining out and 
 dancing and staying up till all hours ; and the moment David 
 comes back to London she'll be well enough to go back to 
 her precious work. You see if I'm not right." 
 
 This time, however, Bertrand's ingenuity and malice over- 
 reached themselves, for we heard from Lady Maitland that 
 Mrs. O'Rane was genuinely ill. 
 
 "I used to see her every morning," she told George, "as 
 I went to Harrod's, and nine times out of ten we had just 
 a word together. Then I missed her, then I saw the car 
 being driven by someone else. I hope it's nothing serious." 
 
 The conversation took place at a luncheon party where 
 O'Rane was present. George took it upon himself to re- 
 assure her, but from the fact that Mrs. O'Rane had dis- 
 appeared even more completely than after leaving Grayle 
 there was a risk in fabricating good or bad news about her. 
 General Lampwood supplied her address, and one evening 
 when there was nothing better to do George went round to 
 her lodgings. They consisted of a bed-sitting room in a 
 street off Wilton Crescent conveniently near to the garage. 
 She was in bed, and the landlady doubted whether visitors 
 would be very welcome, as she was suffering a good deal of 
 pain. 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 309 
 
 "That decided me/' George told me. "She hadn't actually 
 said she wouldn't see anyone, because I'm pretty sure she 
 didn't think it would be necessary. I gave her the surprise 
 of her life when I marched in; she couldn't imagine how 
 I'd heard she was ill, how I'd found out her address. . . . 
 She's now suffering from the most awful reaction after the 
 racket of the last year. Nothing that I said or did was 
 right; she was as lonely as a woman could be and at the 
 same time resented my coming, resented my saying she 
 looked rotten and ought to see a doctor. . . ." He frowned 
 and shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "She needn't 
 bother. She won't catch me going there a second time." 
 
 Yet rather less than ten hours passed before he was 
 caught going there a second time. Indeed he can hardly 
 have left the house before Mrs. O'Rane was writing in 
 contrition "Darling George, do forgive me if I was snappy 
 and ungracious, but I did feel so rotten ! It was my own 
 fault that nobody came to see me, because nobody knew 
 where I was, but I felt so horribly neglected, I was so furi- 
 ous with everybody for not coming to see me, that when 
 you came into the room I laid myself out to be hateful. . . . 
 My dear, I did really feel iller than I can tell you, so forgive 
 me ! Sonia." 
 
 "I suppose if I collect a few flowers ..." George began 
 apologetically next morning. "I shan't be able to stay 
 more than a moment, or I shall be so frightfully late at the 
 office ... I might get my cousin Violet to look her up, of 
 course." 
 
 I was never told how he found Mrs. O'Rane on the oc- 
 casion of his second visit, but in the evening young Lady 
 Loring paid us an unexpected visit. I did not see her, but, 
 when she had gone, George came into my room with an 
 expression of worried perplexity. 
 
 "Violet's been sitting most of the day with Sonia," he 
 explained. "I wonder if you guessed. ... I confess I never 
 thought of it for one moment. Sonia's going to have a 
 child very shortly." 
 
310 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 I, too, was taken by surprise and needed a moment to 
 arrange my thoughts. 
 
 "You're sure of that?" I asked. 
 
 "She told Violet. The question is what are we going 
 to do with her? She's got to be properly looked after and 
 she's got to be moved out of her present pokey little 
 room. ... I suppose it means a nursing home. Violet sug- 
 gested taking her to Loring House, but that was more gen- 
 erous than practical, I'm afraid there's no doubt Sonia did 
 behave very badly to Jim Loring when she was engaged 
 to him . . . and Violet knows it and doesn't forgive her . . . 
 and Sonia doesn't forgive her for knowing it. You know 
 what women are. Violet's got all the sweetness in the 
 world, she thinks she doesn't bear a grudge, she can call 
 on Sonia in bed, make a fuss of her . . . but it's different 
 to take her into her own house, particularly with the asso- 
 ciations that house must have for Sonia. But I needn't 
 labour the point; the suggestion was turned down almost 
 as soon as it was made. Well, she can't go to her mother, 
 because Crowley Court's overflowing with wounded sol- 
 diers ; and I don't know that she's overwhelmingly anxious 
 to meet her mother. She can't come here, of course." 
 
 He stood reflectively rubbing his chin. 
 
 "Whose child is it going to be?" I asked. 
 
 "Grayle's the father. I suppose that, as Raney's taken 
 
 up his present attitude " He left the sentence unfinished 
 
 and began to fill a pipe. "Ye gods, what a sweet mess 
 people can get themselves into!" 
 
 "When's the event expected?" 
 
 "Pretty soon, I fancy. Violet didn't tell me the exact 
 date, but she did give me to understand very plainly that 
 Sonia mustn't be left by herself any longer. She was ex- 
 traordinarily overwrought and hysterical, when I saw her, 
 but for some reason or other I never imagined ... I say, 
 Stornaway, if it had been Raney's child, if this had hap- 
 pened a year ago?" 
 
 "Nothing would have saved them," I answered, "though 
 it might have kept them artificially together, making a hell 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 311 
 
 of each other's lives, when they'd be far happier apart. 
 O'Rane was more responsible than any man for the break- 
 up of their life ; Grayle was only the instrument. The trag- 
 edy began when they married/' 
 
 George smiled grimly. 
 
 "I suppose even Raney will see it, when his wife gives 
 birth to another man's child. . . . And then what ? Will he 
 divorce her then? Have we got to go through all this 
 racket again? In the meantime the nursing-home prob- 
 lem " 
 
 He stopped guiltily, as the door opened and O'Rane came 
 in to say good-night to me. 
 
 "Who's been to call here?" he asked George. "I met a 
 car driving away." 
 
 "It was Violet Loring." 
 
 "Oh, I wish I'd known that! When next you see her, 
 you can tell her she's a rude pig not to have pulled up. 
 She must have seen me." 
 
 "She was in rather a hurry," George explained. "As a 
 matter of fact, it was me she came to see." 
 
 I suppose his voice betrayed uneasiness or at least em- 
 barrassment, for O'Rane turned to him with quick sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 "Nothing wrong, I hope?" he asked. "The boy's all 
 right?" 
 
 "Oh, it wasn't that." George looked at me almost de- 
 spairingly, but I could only shrug my shoulders and leave 
 him to make up his own mind. "She came in to say that 
 Sonia's a bit seedy," he went on. "I as a matter of fact, 
 I saw her for a moment yesterday and, as she was rather 
 off colour, I thought it would be a friendly act for Vi to 
 look her up. I don't know if you heard Lady Maitlarid tell- 
 ing me at lunch the other day that she was a bit done up." 
 
 O'Rane's face became rigid, and his voice was as set as 
 his features. 
 
 "I didn't hear anything about it. I You ought to have 
 told me, George. What's the matter with her?" 
 
312 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 George looked at me again, without winning any more 
 help than before. 
 
 "I only saw her for a moment," he answered evasively. 
 "She seemed rather overdone." 
 
 "But who's looking after her?" 
 
 "Nobody much at present. That was what Violet came 
 about : she'd been to see her and thought it would be more 
 comfortable if she were moved into a nursing home." 
 
 Nature must compensate the blind by developing their 
 other qualities. Though he could not see George's studiedly 
 non-committal face, O'Rane divined something hidden from 
 him in the easily reassuring voice. 
 
 "Old man, I don't think that's the whole story, is it?" 
 he asked with persuasive gentleness. "The nursing-home 
 rather gives you away. Has Sonia got to have an opera- 
 tion?" 
 
 "There's no suggestion of it! Violet says it's nothing 
 out of the ordinary." 
 
 "Then why a nursing-home?" 
 
 "Because she wants rather more attention than she's 
 likely to get in her present quarters. But there's not the 
 slightest need for you to worry yourself." 
 
 O'Rane began to pace up and down the room, chewing 
 his lips. 
 
 "She must come here, of course," he said at length. 
 
 This time I looked up at George. 
 
 "You won't find that practicable, O'Rane," I said. 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "She won't come." 
 
 "Because of me, you mean ? I'll clear out, if she prefers 
 it; I should be clearing out in any event at the end of 
 the week. But it's her home." 
 
 "You can't bring her home by force." 
 
 O'Rane's eyes lit up with sudden, burning passion. 
 
 "If I had my sight, I'd bring her myself ! As I haven't, 
 George is going to bring her for me. Yes, you are, George. 
 You're going to take a car and have her carried into it and 
 brought here. If she objects, you're going to make her. 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 313 
 
 I'll leave the house when she tells me to. You dcn't under- 
 stand me, you wouldn't understand me, if you lived to be 
 a thousand; but I took an oath and I'm going to keep it. 
 I swore in the sight of God that I would hold her in sick- 
 ness and in health to love and to cherish till death parted 
 us. I said it with her hand in mine ... in Melton chapel 
 . . . and I could feel her fingers trembling. It was a scorch- 
 ing July day, and I could feel the sun coming hot on my 
 face. ... I'd never been at a wedding before, for some 
 reason; we'd rehearsed it, and Sonia'd told me how I had 
 to stand and what I had to say. . . . And I kept repeating 
 the words as we came out into the Cloisters it was cold 
 as the grave, and I felt her shivering as she leant on my 
 arm. And then there was a word of command and a rattle 
 as the Corps presented arms. . . . And we came out into 
 Great Court, and I could feel the sun again. And we 
 were marched off to Little End, and I heard a lot of yelp- 
 ing, and something with a cold nose pressed against my 
 hand, and Sonia gave a little choke and said that Pebble- 
 ridge had turned out the hounds in our honour. . . . And 
 before we went to Burgess' house the words were still 
 running in my head I whispered 'I will love you, comfort 
 you, honour and keep you in sickness and in health, for- 
 saking all other.' I swore it then and I should be damned 
 if I went back on it. This is her first sickness since we 
 were married, and I'm not going to leave her to go through 
 it alone until she tells me to." 
 
 His voice rang with excitement until the room echoed 
 and Bertrand came in with eyebrows raised. 
 
 "You don't in the least understand, Raney," George be- 
 gan in difficulty and distress. "You were quite right; I 
 hadn't told you the whole story " 
 
 "I don't want to hear any more yet," O'Rane inter- 
 rupted. "I shouldn't be asking you to do this, if I could 
 do it myself." 
 
 "Was that necessary?" George asked with a touch of 
 stiffness and impatience. "I'll go whenever you want me 
 to." 
 
3H SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "You must go now. Ring up Violet and tell her to meet 
 you there in half an hour with her car; you'll want a 
 woman to help you. The rest of us will have our work 
 cut out to get things ready here. Stornaway, I'm sorry 
 to disturb you, but I shall have to find you a shake-down 
 in some other part of the house ; this is Sonia's room. Don't 
 waste a moment, George " 
 
 "I suppose you know it's after eleven," George inter- 
 rupted. 
 
 "Move her to-night, if she's fit to move. Let Violet de- 
 cide that." 
 
 George looked from Bertrand to me and turned help- 
 lessly to the door. O'Rane had already rung my bell and 
 was standing in the passage tattooing the floor with impa- 
 tient foot and waiting for his housekeeper. I spread a 
 bath-towel in the middle of the floor and began to pile on 
 it my exiguous personal effects, while Bertrand seated him- 
 self heavily in an arm-chair and begged for enlightenment. 
 A moment later the front-door slammed, as George set out. 
 
 For an hour we worked hard to make the house ready 
 for Mrs. O'Rane. Bertrand's one comment, when I ex- 
 plained the new commotion, was, "The boy's mad! She 
 won't come," and from time to time, when he was being 
 urged and driven to a fresh task, he would remonstrate 
 gently and warn O'Rane not to be disappointed. There 
 was never any answer. By midnight our labours were com- 
 plete: the bedrooms had been reshuffled and beds made, 
 food and drink prepared. We met in the library with 
 vague uncertainty what to do next. 
 
 "You must tell me if it looks all right," O'Rane said to 
 Bertrand. "I want it to look exactly as it was before. She 
 always loved this room, and I believe it is a beautiful 
 room." 
 
 Bertrand glanced perfunctorily round and laid his hand 
 clumsily on the boy's shoulder. 
 
 "I told you before, David; you're going to be terribly 
 disappointed, if you think she's coming." 
 
 "I would have undertaken to bring her !" he cried. "We 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 315 
 
 can trust George. And I don't suppose he'll even say 
 where he's taking her." 
 
 "If she doesn't know where she's coming," I interrupted, 
 "you'd better keep out of the way till she says she'd like 
 to see you." 
 
 "I must welcome her," O'Rane answered. 
 
 Bertrand and I exchanged glances and excused ourselves. 
 As we turned at the door, O'Rane was standing with his 
 watch to his ear. About three-quarters of an hour later I 
 heard a car slowing down in the street outside. 
 
 George has told me since that his cousin and he found 
 their patient far less difficult than they had feared. She 
 was plunged in melancholy bordering on hysteria. Loneli- 
 ness, pain and neglect had reduced her pride until she sat 
 up in bed with her face contorted and tears trickling down 
 her cheeks, reproaching them for never coming to see her 
 and bitterly proclaiming that she now knew how much trust 
 to put in people when they said that they were her friends. 
 George took her hand and explained that he had come 
 to take her away where she would be tended and made 
 happy. At once there was an indignant outburst ; she would 
 not move, she was quite well ; if they would go away instead 
 of bullying her, worrying her, threatening her, she would 
 be all right in a moment. He let the storm spend itself 
 and recaptured the hand that she had snatched away. 
 
 "Violet's told me what's the matter with you," he whis- 
 pered. "Unless you're very quiet and good, you'll injure 
 yourself. And you are going to be quiet and good, aren't 
 you?" He was talking to her as though she were a child 
 and she responded by throwing her arms round his neck and 
 weeping convulsively. "You're going to be very good, 
 aren't you, Sonia? And we're all going to take the greatest 
 care of you. Violet's got her car here, and we're going to 
 wrap you in a cloak and explain to your landlady that we're 
 not really stealing the blankets, however much appearances 
 may be against us, and we're going to take you away, and 
 you're going to be in the midst of friends, and every- 
 body's going to be kind and sweet to you, and you're going 
 
316 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 to forget how lonely and miserable you've been the last 
 few days." 
 
 He lifted her into a sitting position, while Lady Loring 
 hunted for slippers and wrapped a cloak about her. 
 
 "I don't deserve it!" Mrs. O'Rane cried with sudden re- 
 vulsion. "Why do you come here bothering me? It's my 
 fault, I knew perfectly well what I was doing; I should 
 never have done it, if he'd treated me properly, if he'd loved 
 me. It was David's fault, you know it was ; and you come 
 here bothering me when I'm ill. . . ." 
 
 George helped her out of bed and supported her across 
 the room. From time to time she muttered, "Why don't 
 you leave me alone? It was his fault, but he could never 
 do any wrong in your eyes!" like a sobbing child in the 
 last stages of a tornado of temper. He carried her into 
 the car, while Lady Loring poured out a hurried explana- 
 tion to the landlady. A deep drowsiness descended upon 
 her as she felt herself being packed into a bed of cushions, 
 while a bearskin rug was wrapped round her, but, as the 
 engine started, she opened her eyes and enquired sleepily 
 where she was being taken. 
 
 "You're to go to sleep and not ask questions," said George. 
 "Is that a promise ? Say it quite slowly 'I Sonia O'Rane 
 promise that I will go to sleep at once quite 
 quietly and will not ask a n y questions.' " She 
 laughed weakly and began to repeat the words, only stum- 
 bling at her own surname. "Once again !" George ordered. 
 "I Sonia O'Rane promise. . . ." She struggled half- 
 way through the sentence and then dropped asleep with 
 her head pressed against his shoulder. 
 
 She was still sleeping when the car drew up at "The 
 Sanctuary." The door stood open, George lifted her out 
 and carried her across the pavement and into the house. 
 The lights in the library were burning, and, as he carried 
 her in with her head over his shoulder, she looked dully 
 at the familiar book-cases and panelling, the high, shadowy 
 rafters, the chairs and sofas and the preparations for a 
 meal on the refectory table. He had borne her half-way 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 317 
 
 across the room, when she recognised her surroundings and 
 struggled violently to free herself. George had perforce 
 to lay her on a sofa before she threw herself out of his 
 arms. As he did so, O'Rane came up from behind. 
 
 "I asked George to bring you here," he explained. "I 
 thought you'd be more comfortable at home." 
 
 She dragged herself to her feet and hurried uncertainly 
 to the door. 
 
 "My dear, you can't go out in that state!" said Lady 
 Loring, as she laid restraining hands on her shoulders. 
 
 "Let me go ! It was a trick! You lied to me !" 
 
 O'Rane slipped forward and touched her wrist. 
 
 "I thought you'd be more comfortable at home," he 
 repeated. "You won't find me in the way, I'm going back 
 to Melton. I was only staying to see that you had every- 
 thing you wanted." 
 
 "Let me go !" she cried again, shaking his fingers off her 
 wrist. 
 
 "No, I'm going. But isn't it more comfortable ?" 
 
 She looked stonily round, and her eyes came to rest on 
 his face. 
 
 "Oh, yes. It's more comfortable. Now may I go, 
 please?" 
 
 "You had better stay. Let me help you upstairs, and 
 then I'll leave the house. I was hoping you'd be glad to 
 be back. And I'd waited so long." 
 
 He smiled and held out his hands to her. She looked 
 at him for a moment; then her eyes closed, and she began 
 to sway. 
 
 "Take me home !" she whimpered, as George sprang for- 
 ward to catch her. 
 
 "You must stay here to-night." 
 
 "I ask you to take me home !" 
 
 O'Rane put one arm under her shoulders, and the other 
 under her knees. 
 
 "It's too late now, and you're tired, darling," he whis- 
 pered. "To-morrow, if you like. I'm just going to carry 
 you up to bed, as I used to do at Crowley Court when you 
 
318 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 were twelve and I came over for the holidays. Do you re- 
 member? And then I'll say good-night, and Violet will 
 put you to bed and take care of you. Don't struggle, Sonia 
 sweetheart! You can't hate me so much that you can't 
 bear to let me touch you or carry you up a flight of stairs 
 when you're ill." 
 
 As I kept deafly and pusillanimously to my room, I am 
 far from sure what happened during the remainder of the 
 night. O'Rane, I believe, carried his wife up to bed, left 
 her in charge of Lady Loring and accepted from the tired 
 butler at Loring House an armchair in the library for his 
 own accommodation. Bertrand was already in bed, I heard 
 George going to bed as the car started outside; by two 
 o'clock all was quiet. 
 
 I remember that, when I was young enough to play 
 baccarat for high stakes and impressionable enough to be 
 embarrassed by a scene, I stayed in a house where certain 
 unpleasantness took place at the card-table. The dispute 
 and recriminations were bad enough, the night of reflection 
 after a dozen final councils adjourned from bedroom to 
 bedroom was worse, but worst of all was our uncertain 
 meeting next day, when we stood whispering by the fire in 
 the dining-room, peevishly waiting for breakfast and watch- 
 ing the door to see whether the cause of the unpleasantness 
 would shew himself. Bertrand, George and I stood whis- 
 pering next morning with much the same embarrassment; 
 breakfast lay on the table, and none of us paid any atten- 
 tion to it. The time was early for me and late for George ; 
 I have no idea at what hour Bertrand usually rose, but I re- 
 member he was soothing himself with the first cigarette I 
 had ever seen him smoke, at intervals forgetting that it was 
 not a cigar and trying to hold it between his teeth. 
 
 Our attitude of vague expectancy was broken up by the 
 arrival of Lady Loring in a creased, black evening dress 
 with a travelling rug over her shoulders. Her eye-lids were 
 pink with fatigue and her arms mottled with cold. 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 319 
 
 "We look a nice band of conspirators!" she exclaimed. 
 "Now, will somebody tell me what it's all about ?" 
 
 "How's Sonia?" George asked. 
 
 "She went to sleep the moment her head touched the pil- 
 low and she was sleeping like a child whenever I looked 
 at her. I think you're all needlessly alarmed about her, but 
 then you're only men. /'ve been through it all, so I know 
 exactly what it feels like to imagine you're being neglected. 
 But what does anybody want me to do?" 
 
 She beckoned us to the table and sat down rather wearily, 
 looking from one to another. 
 
 "The trouble is, dear lady," Bertrand grunted, "that we 
 don't know. I suppose you've heard that these two young 
 idiots have had a disagreement? Does that young woman 
 upstairs know where she is?" 
 
 "She'll know the moment she wakes up. Is David here ?" 
 
 "He said he'd beg a shakedown at your house, Violet," 
 George interrupted. 
 
 Lady Loring hummed dubiously. 
 
 "To judge from her condition yesterday," she ventured, 
 "she's hardly accountable for her actions. It's not to be 
 wondered at, you know, when you think what she's been 
 through and the way she's lived on her nerves for years. 
 If you'll tell me what you want done, of course . . ." 
 
 It was easier to concentrate our attention on breakfast. 
 George soon hurried away to his office, Bertrand lighted a 
 cigar and went off to a committee meeting, after stumping 
 the library for half an hour, with the ends of his walrus 
 moustache pulled into a circle, and murmuring at five- 
 minute intervals, "What are two fat old men like us doing 
 in this galley?" A telephone message from O'Rane en- 
 quired how his wife was, and Lady Loring took the oppor- 
 tunity of arranging with her maid for a supply of clothes 
 to be sent round. The conversation reminded me of her 
 vigil, and I told her that, if she would lie down until lunch- 
 eon, I would take a book, a chafing-dish and a bowl of 
 bread and milk and sit outside Mrs. O'Rane's door in case 
 she wanted anything. Half-way through the morning 
 
320 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 O'Rane tiptoed upstairs for a change of linen; Bertrand 
 relieved guard while I went down and took a light meal 
 with Lady Loring. It was not until three or four o'clock 
 that I heard sounds of movement within the sick-room. 
 
 I went in to find Mrs. O'Rane considerably altered since 
 our last meeting, but more collected than I had anticipated. 
 She asked for food and, when I had brought her the bowl 
 of bread and milk, begged me to stay and talk to her. Her 
 first question was who had brought her to "The Sanctuary," 
 and, when I had told her, she lay back on the pillows with 
 closed eyes to avoid giving away any points. 
 
 "I feel better than I did yesterday," she said at length. 
 "I shall go back to my own rooms to-day." 
 
 "You'll be wiser to stay here." 
 
 She smiled rather sneeringly. 
 
 "You think it's the simplest thing in the world for me 
 to stay here." 
 
 "The wisest," I corrected her. "Your husband's not here, 
 by the way, and you can be sure of being well looked 
 after." 
 
 "Oh, don't say that again! You think it's easy for me 
 to lie here and be looked after by people who despise me 
 and hate me. . . ." 
 
 I got up and lifted the tray from her bed. 
 
 "I'm going to leave you now," I said. "Sleeping's much 
 better for you than talking, and I'm afraid I've got rather 
 a faculty for getting on your nerves." 
 
 Her lower lip at once fell and trembled with nervous con- 
 trition. 
 
 "I didn't mean to be rude, but I do feel so ill! And you 
 do all hate me! To bring me her el" 
 
 She gave a single breathless sob, and tears began to 
 well into her eyes and trickle down her cheeks. I pulled 
 a chair to the bedside and took her hand. 
 
 "The older I get," I said, "the greater disparity I find 
 between the theory and practice of hating. Theoretically 
 I hate no end of a lot of people, but, if I had the power 
 of venting my hatred on them, I don't see myself using it 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 321 
 
 much. As a matter of fact, I had a talk with George the 
 other night about you ; I said that the madcap life here was 
 fantastically impossible, that your husband had himself to 
 blame more than any other man for driving you out of the 
 house " 
 
 "That wasn't why I left him," she interrupted quickly. 
 
 "You didn't leave him because you thought he was un- 
 faithful to you." 
 
 "I know he was. I had proofs." 
 
 "Supplied by Grayle?" I hazarded. She looked at me 
 steadily without answering. "Well, when you've time, I 
 should re-examine those proofs in the light of your general 
 knowledge of your husband. If you're interested in my 
 opinion of you" her eyes lit up eagerly "you'd sooner be 
 insulted than ignored, wouldn't you?" expectancy gave 
 way to affected anger "Well, I don't hate you, but you 
 were a little fool to marry such a man ; your instinct, your 
 knowledge of life, your knowledge of him ought to have 
 made it impossible. Having married him and considering 
 his affliction, I blame you for not effacing yourself, obliterat- 
 ing your own individuality to stay with him. After 
 that " I dropped her hand and strolled to the win- 
 dow. "You were young, entitled to make your own life; 
 it's not easy to justify, but it seems to follow almost natu- 
 rally from the premisses. It happens to have turned out 
 a failure, but no one can hate you for an error of judge- 
 ment, particularly when you've shewn that your instinct 
 about men is unreliable ; you shewed it with O'Rane, I be- 
 lieve you shewed it before . . . and fortunately pulled up 
 before it was too late. I feel this so strongly that I told 
 O'Rane it would be a tragedy, if you ever tried to come 
 back to him ; there'd be a second catastrophe worse than the 
 first. . . . I'm afraid he's too much in love with you to use 
 his imagination." 
 
 She pressed the palms of both hands against her eyes. 
 
 "I can't stay here," she exclaimed irrelevantly. "I've no 
 right to turn David out." 
 
 "You needn't worry about that. He's given you the right, 
 
322 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 and you're turning him out for less than a week. For the 
 matter of that " 
 
 Her face grew suddenly set and her eyes scornful. "I 
 suppose in spite of all the fine words this is all a trick to try 
 and force me back here ?" 
 
 "I've not the least doubt that O'Rane hopes you'll return 
 to him," I told her frankly; "he probably will, even when 
 he knows what's the matter with you, no, he doesn't know 
 even that at present ; but he's living in a fool's paradise." 
 
 With another of her quick facial regroupings which is 
 the only phrase I can find to indicate the shortening of a 
 line here, its lengthening there, the droop or lift of the 
 corners of her mouth, the dilatation of a pupil, the sudden 
 gleam which turned her brown eyes almost golden, the tilt 
 of the nose or the sudden birth of a dimple she was smil- 
 ing with her old demure self-confidence. 
 
 "I'm vain enough to think I can make almost any man 
 want to live with me," she said, darting a glance from be- 
 neath lowered eyelashes. 
 
 "Come, that's more like yourself !" I laughed. 
 
 Thereupon the smiles and coquetry vanished as though 
 I had struck her in the face. Yes, I had always hated her, 
 always disapproved of her, regarded her as a flirt, taken 
 everyone's side against her. There was no good in her, 
 was there? Nothing ever to be said in her defence? . . . 
 She lashed herself from one fury to another for ten min- 
 utes, only stopping from exhaustion and discouragement at 
 my failure to answer. 
 
 "I could make him love me!" she panted in conclusion. 
 "I shouldn't even need to make him, he's in love with me 
 now. But / could make him happy. You think I can't. 
 You think I can't ! You know you think I can't !" 
 
 I laid my hand on hers ; she slapped at it petulantly, but 
 without any great desire to hurt, I fancied. 
 
 "Mrs O'Rane " 
 
 "Why don't you call me Sonia?" she interrupted with 
 complete detachment from all that we had been discussing. 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 323 
 
 "Everyone does. I suppose you prefer to keep at a dis- 
 tance!" 
 
 And then I did a thing which still surprises me. I got 
 up and sat on the edge of her bed. (There was a spring- 
 mattress which I largely capsized, so that she was thrown 
 half on her side.) I put one arm round her shoulders, 
 drew her to me and kissed her on the forehead and both 
 cheeks. I remember thinking at the time what an amazing 
 thing it was to do, and the thought was confused with a 
 knowledge that her face was dry and burning. She put her 
 arms on my shoulders and returned the kiss ; quite dispas- 
 sionately I noticed that her lips were crumpled and dry as 
 brown paper. 
 
 "Don't you think you're really rather a silly baby, Sonia ?" 
 I said. "If you could remember the times we've met, I 
 should tell you frankly that for half of them I wanted to 
 go away and keep at the farthest possible distance. For 
 the other half " 
 
 Her eyes brightened in anticipation of a compliment. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "It doesn't matter now. Why won't you believe that 
 everyone here wants to help you ?" 
 
 "Because I don't see why they should. I didn't expect 
 it, I don't ask for it ; I made up my mind at the time . . ." 
 
 She choked and drew herself closer to me, sobbing quietly 
 but inconsolably until I felt her arms relaxing and laid her 
 back on the pillows, a pathetically disfigured and moist piece 
 of something that was above all wonderfully youthful. 
 
 "If you'll promise not to cry, I'll stay and talk to you," 
 I said. "Otherwise " I must have made some uncon- 
 scious movement, for she clutched at my sleeve. "Do you 
 promise? Well, I'm only a man. ..." 
 
 She pulled herself suddenly upright. 
 
 "Where's David?" she demanded. 
 
 "At Loring House, I believe, only a man, as I was say- 
 ing, but I can tell you that you'll wear yourself out, if you 
 go on like this. You've got a great grievance against all 
 of us, you say we hate you and despise you; wouldn't it 
 
324 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 be fairer not to say that till we've given you some better 
 cause than you've had at present?" 
 
 Her teeth snapped like the cracking of a nut. Then the 
 corners of her mouth drooped, and she began to cry again. 
 
 "If you would hit me!" Her head fell back until I could 
 see only a quivering throat and the under side of her chin. 
 "My God ! what I've been through ! No one knows ! No 
 one can ever know !" 
 
 I gave her some water to drink and asked leave to light 
 a cigarette. 
 
 "When I was a small boy," I said, "there was a big 
 oak press in my bedroom which used to reflect the firelight 
 until I thought that all manner of goblins were coming out 
 to attack me. I never got rid of the idea until I was shewn 
 inside it by daylight I remember it was full of the drawing- 
 room summer chintzes; then I never feared it again. 
 Does it help you to talk about things, Sonia?" 
 
 Her face set itself again, but this time in resolution. For 
 two hours I listened to the most terribly frank self-revela- 
 tion that I am ever likely to hear. Like a sinner worked 
 up to make confession, she told me of her life from the 
 age of sixteen, when she had fallen romantically in love 
 with O'Rane and when her mother had, quite properly, told 
 her not be ridiculous. For years she had been incited 
 I had almost written "excited" to make a great match ; she 
 had rushed into an engagement with an honoured title, half 
 feeling all the time that she was pledged to the trappings 
 of a man rather than to the man himself; and, when the 
 engagement ended, she had set herself, like a prisoner at 
 the triangles, to shew that it did not hurt, that she was 
 not going to allow her capacity for enjoyment to be killed ; 
 and, when her own people looked askance at her, she had 
 traded her charms among others who fawned on her and 
 whom she despised. The outbreak of war found her un- 
 placed without mission or niche; she had thrown herself 
 into war-work and broken down, she had lain useless, 
 neglected and tacitly contemned until she met O'Rane, 
 blind and icily self -sufficient. 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 325 
 
 Then she had married him in the delirium of self-immo- 
 lation, only to find that his passionate idealism for the future 
 was transmuted into a white-hot zest to perfect the present. 
 He was prepared to practise the Sermon on the Mount in a 
 tweed suit and soft hat. For a month she shared his life 
 as she would have partaken of an impromptu mid-night 
 picnic in the Green Park. Then a homing instinct had re- 
 belled against the promiscuous publicity of their life, she 
 had felt that his love for her was diluted beyond taste by 
 a vague devotion to mankind. She had treasured slights 
 where no slights were intended and vented irritabilities 
 where none was justified. His smiling patience had evoked 
 a sense of hopelessness, followed by a desire for self-asser- 
 tion. They had quarrelled, and, rather than admit herself 
 in the wrong, she had blindly groped for evidence against 
 him which the heat of inconvertible resentment would tor- 
 ture her into believing. Grayle had supplied it. ... 
 
 She told me unreservedly of the conflicting influences 
 upon her of three men at the same time. All were in love 
 with her after their kind. O'Rane himself, most sympa- 
 thetic with men and least understanding of women, gave her 
 the keys and cheque-book of his life, imagining that unde- 
 monstrative, uncaressing fidelity would meet with like re- 
 turn ; Beresf ord offered a romantic devotion which posed her 
 frigidly among mountain snows and would have sent him 
 through fire to avenge an insult to his idealised conception. 
 And Grayle had strode in, compelling and indifferent, slight- 
 ing and frightening her alternately, at a time when she was 
 instinctively yearning to be called to order, taken in hand, 
 shaken and even beaten. 
 
 "I was like the 'Punch' picture of the woman in a 
 thunderstorm," she laughed. "I wanted a man there just 
 to tell me not to make a fool of myself. Poor David never, 
 never . . ." 
 
 Grayle desired her until she felt safe in playing with 
 him, then he neglected her until in pique she set out to 
 try the temper of her charms ; ultimately he terrorised her 
 
326 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 into a surrender which neither blind trust nor deaf devo- 
 tion could compass. 
 
 She told me of her mood when she felt that Grayle 
 was overpowering her, of her drunken willingness to believe 
 what she knew was untrue. She described her parting with 
 O'Rane as she might have described herself beating a child 
 because she was out of temper and had to pretend that 
 someone else was in fault. I was given an unsparing ac- 
 count of her life in Mil ford Square, which she entered 
 with an unsubstantial hope that she would find love and a 
 quivering sense that she had come like a dog to be beaten. 
 Not a day and night had passed before she found that she 
 had outstayed her welcome, that she was pressing on him 
 for all his life what he desired for an unoccupied after- 
 noon. Their life together was like the record of wife- 
 beating by a besotted husband refined in method by the play 
 of sarcastic wit on impressionable senses. At last there 
 had come a day when he put into words the taunt that 
 hitherto lacked only verbal clarity; she riposted with the 
 charge that he was discarding her to clear the way to his 
 political ambitions; every hoarded grudge and bitterness 
 was dragged into the light, unseemly reproaches were ut- 
 tered with the knowledge that all were exaggerated and 
 most without foundation; and in a breathing-space both 
 discovered that the articulation of such hidden and re- 
 served acerbity made it impossible for them ever to live 
 together again. 
 
 She had walked into the street with his last scurrility 
 stinging her ears and cheeks until she found herself tear- 
 lessly crying. It was no use crying, when she needed alt 
 her wits to decide her next move, all her composure to 
 face it. A lodging for the night had to be found in some 
 place where she would not be interrogated, and for long 
 her mind wavered slowly from one to another of the neigh- 
 bourhoods in which she had lived and which all the while 
 she knew were the first for her to reject Rutland Gate, 
 Manchester Square, Curzon Street, Westminster. It was 
 hard to think of anywhere else; one needed a map, one of 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 327 
 
 those easy maps that were pasted on the walls of Under- 
 ground stations. . . . 
 
 The long recital had exhausted her pent antagonism, and 
 she described her experiences as General Lampwood's 
 driver with humour and an occasional preening of her 
 feathers. 
 
 "One day I knew I was going to have a child," she threw 
 out abruptly. "It it made me quite ill. Then well, you 
 know the rest. I'm not complaining. I never thought it 
 was going to be easy or pleasant, but, if I had my time 
 over again " 
 
 "I think not, Sonia," I said. 
 
 "I never expected a bed of roses," she answered haught- 
 ily. Then she suddenly covered her face with her hands. 
 "You mean I'm not through with it yet? Mr. Stornaway, 
 is it is it as bad as people say ? I'm not a coward, really ; 
 I don't believe I should mind if I wanted it, if I were pray- 
 ing for a child, if it was going to be a child I should 
 love. . . . That was what made me ill. When I first knew 
 and I remembered the awful day when he turned me out 
 of the house ... I wanted to kill myself. There was a 
 big motor lorry racing along Knightsbridge, and I made up 
 my mind to step in front ... as if I hadn't heard it. I 
 stood on the kerb and put one foot forward. . . . Oh, but I 
 wanted to live so badly! I couldn't, I simply couldn't! 
 It was like tearing myself in two with my own hands. I 
 just had time to think of next spring and all the early 
 flowers coming up. ... And then I knew that I should 
 have to go through with it!" 
 
 Her eyes closed, and she lay without speaking until I 
 made sure that she was asleep. I was treading lightly to 
 the door when she called out and asked to be supplied with 
 paper and a pencil. 
 
 "You're just in the mood to go to sleep," I protested. 
 
 She shook her head obstinately. 
 
 "I couldn't sleep, if I tried. You say David's at Loring 
 House?" 
 
328 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "He spent last night there and looked in here this morn- 
 ing for clean clothes. I've no idea where he is now." 
 
 She looked at me with the set, unrevealing expression 
 which I had seen once or twice already. 
 
 "Let me know if he comes in to-morrow," she said. 
 
 We had not to wait so long, for O'Rane, behind the pre- 
 text of packing books and clothes for his return to Melton, 
 came in after dinner and examined me keenly on the condi- 
 tion of his wife. I mentioned that she had hinted at a desire 
 to see him or at least to know his whereabouts, and, for 
 all his control of himself, O'Rane's face was transfigured. 
 
 "I'm here now," he said significantly. 
 
 "That means I'm to go up and find out if she wants to 
 see you and if Lady Loring will let her?" 
 
 There was a sound of voices, as I knocked at the door 
 the nurse mildly begging her patient to go to sleep, Sonia 
 resolutely and not too petulantly protesting that she had 
 just finished. I delivered myself of my message, while she 
 sat turning over a pile of manuscript and trying to read it 
 and listen to me at the same time. 
 
 "Will you look at this?" she said at length. 
 
 She had written a condensed but pitiless version of the 
 story which she had told me, starting with the day when 
 she had chosen to believe that O'Rane was unfaithful to 
 her and ending with the morning when she knew that she 
 was going to bear Grayle a child. 
 
 "It's not very legible," she commented casually. "My 
 writing's not up to much at the best of times, but when 
 I'm in bed it's hopeless." 
 
 "I can read it," I said. 
 
 "I want you to read it to David," she went on in the 
 same tone. 
 
 I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing. 
 
 "Will you do that for me?" she asked. 
 
 "If you wish it." 
 
 "Thank you very much. Now I think I shall go to 
 sleep." 
 
 I went downstairs and led O'Rane to the far end of the 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 329 
 
 library. He stood with his hands in his pockets and his 
 back to the fire, rocking in his old way from heel to toe. 
 
 "Have you read it ?" he asked me, when I had explained 
 his wife's request. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He held out his hand for the papers. 
 
 "And you remember everything she said?" 
 
 'Tretty well." 
 
 He rocked in silence for a moment and then smiled 
 whimsically. 
 
 "I suppose you could forget it, if you tried?" he sug- 
 gested. "Perhaps it would help you to forget it, if we got 
 rid of this. I usually burn myself when I start playing 
 with fire ; perhaps you wouldn't mind putting this in. Don't 
 set the chimney alight, will you?" 
 
 The next morning I again mounted guard, while Lady 
 Loring rested. We had agreed that, if no change for the 
 worse shewed itself, it would be quite unnecessary to con- 
 tinue this day and night attendance. Physically Sonia was 
 quite normal, but her nerves were unstrung, and for a time 
 it had certainly looked as if hysteria might develop into 
 something graver. Two nights' untroubled sleep, the be- 
 lated recognition that she was among friends and, most of 
 all, the relief of confession had braced her and built up 
 her self-respect. When I went in to see her she was still 
 a little defiant, but it was the defiance of courage. 
 
 "Is David here ?" was her first question. 
 
 "He went bacK to Loring House when he'd finished his 
 packing," I answered. 
 
 Sonia looked at me in silence, and her eyes narrowed. 
 
 "Oh ! So that's it," she murmured at length. 
 
 "What is what?" I asked. 
 
 She sighed carelessly. 
 
 "You were right, and he was wrong, that's all. I was 
 right too. ... I knew that, when I left this house, I'd left 
 
330 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 David for good ; if I hadn't known it then, I knew it when 
 when we came here that night and he offered to drop the 
 divorce if I'd leave you remember? He thought he was 
 somehow so different from other men. . . . What did he 
 actually say?" 
 
 "He didn't say anything, Sonia. I think you're on the 
 wrong tack. He just asked if I'd read the letter and if I 
 remembered it. I said 'Yes.' Then he smiled and begged 
 me to forget it." 
 
 "But didn't you read it to him?" 
 
 ''He asked me to burn it." 
 
 She looked at me for some moments without under- 
 standing, then pulled herself lower into the bed and half 
 turned away, shading her eyes with her hand. I walked to 
 the window and gave her nearly a quarter of an hour to 
 order her thoughts. At the end I asked her why she had 
 written the letter. 
 
 "I felt I owed it to him," she said slowly. "I don't regret 
 it, though I suppose it's a selfish sort of gratification. . . . 
 If he'd left me alone, I should have said nothing, but when 
 he went out of his way to have me brought here and looked 
 after . . . I suppose it's very magnanimous to burn a let- 
 ter of that kind without reading it, but I'd sooner have 
 had him read it. If he comes here, I shall have to tell him 
 .... at least that I'm going to have a child. Please don't 
 think that I'm running away from what I've done. I'm not 
 trying to work on his feelings, I'm not trying to make him 
 take me back; I couldn't go back, if he begged me, if his 
 life depended on it." 
 
 "Then it doesn't matter much whether he reads the letter 
 or not." 
 
 Sonia nodded slowly. 
 
 "I must see David, though." 
 
 "It will upset you without doing him any good." 
 
 She bit her lip to steady herself. 
 
 "Perhaps it will cure him," she suggested. 
 
 I was not present when they met; I do not even know 
 how long they were together. Sometime before dinner 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 331 
 
 O'Rane came into the library and sat down in front of the 
 fire without speaking. From his haggard face I guessed 
 that he had been taken as much by surprise as any of us. 
 During dinner he roused himself with an effort, and I 
 remember that we discussed the coming unrestricted sub- 
 marine campaign, the danger of starvation, the inadequacy 
 of our food control and the likelihood of finding America 
 ranged on our side in the war. We talked very earnestly 
 I believe, very intelligently, as though we had a critical 
 audience and were shewing our best form ; but it was won- 
 derfully unengrossing. 
 
 "It's just a year since I was in America," I remember 
 beginning in preface to some new argument. 
 
 "I say she told you everything, didn't she?" O'Rane 
 interrupted. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He forced a smile. 
 
 "It rather brings it home to one, doesn't it?" 
 
 "And yet is this any worse for you than when they 
 were living together ?" 
 
 "I was really not thinking of myself for the moment. 
 My God, Stornaway, if you were a woman and hated a 
 man as she hates Grayle, how would you like to be feeling 
 that he'd had anything to do with your child, how'd you 
 like to go through all this hell of childbirth to bear him, 
 a child? All your life, even if you came to love it or at 
 least to be kind to it, you'd always be reminded, wouldn't 
 you ? You'd trace a likeness, it would seem to get stronger 
 and stronger. ... I wonder what we should do?" 
 
 "I imagine most women would try to stop the child being 
 born." 
 
 O'Rane looked up quickly. 
 
 "Sonia wouldn't." 
 
 "Then I'm afraid she's got to accept this as her punish- 
 ment." 
 
 "Hers?" he murmured. 
 
 I made no answer, but my mind went back to the lunch- 
 eon at Crowley Court, when Roger Dainton sat with 
 
332 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 drooping mouth and troubled brown eyes, wondering if he 
 had heard aright that his own daughter was likely to be 
 divorced, waiting to wake up from the bad dream. And 
 I remembered Lady Dainton. She had an adequate allow- 
 ance of maternal feeling, I doubt not, but on that day she 
 was less moved by Sonia's plight than by a sense of social 
 failure, of a rare and delicate instrument broken as if 
 after twenty years' training the hand of the violinist was 
 .become paralysed. 
 
 "It's a bit one-sided, isn't it?" suggested O'Rane quietly. 
 
 I still said nothing. Grayle was being punished in the 
 one part of him that I knew to be capable of feeling, but 
 perhaps the punishment did not stop there. For all I could 
 tell he might in time know a pang of desire to see his own 
 child. O'Rane's black eyes were sunk low in their sockets. 
 
 "It's damnably all-embracing," I said. 
 
 He pushed his chair back and returned to the fire, where 
 he threw himself on a sofa. 
 
 "D'you know where George is dining to-night ?" he asked. 
 "I want to talk to him. ... I suppose you think me a 
 great fool, Stornaway, for not seeing it before. I loved 
 her so much, I love her so much still. . . . Anyone can 
 manage a boat when the water's calm, it wouldn't have re- 
 quired much love just to live with Sonia while everything 
 was sunny, but I was prepared to do so much more. . . . 
 When I went down to Melton the night after she left me, 
 I set my teeth and told myself that I must keep my head. 
 I knew it wasn't a trifle, like a fit of bad temper, I knew 
 it was a very big thing she'd done. And I haven't much 
 use for the kind of man who blindly protests beforehand 
 that he'll forgive his wife whatever she may do. ... It 
 isn't love, it isn't generosity; it's just dam' folly. But I 
 did feel that my love for Sonia would be a poor, cold 
 thing, if it only lasted while everything was going well, if 
 it wasn't strong enough to live through a bad storm. You 
 won't exactly have to strain yourself to imagine what it 
 was like thinking of her with Grayle. ... I don't know 
 that I can explain, it's all the little things, the little personal 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 333 
 
 touches that I missed even without being able to see her. 
 She was such fun, she always enjoyed life and got so 
 much out of it; she made a story out of everything and 
 she loved telling me everything she'd been doing and she 
 knew I loved hearing about it. I missed that frightfully 
 when I was alone at Melton, before she left me; I used to 
 feel quite jealous when I thought of her going about with 
 other people, being a success, when I wasn't there to hear 
 about it afterwards. But I always knew that I should be 
 with her again in a few months. Well, I felt that my love 
 for her would be just like other people's love, if I didn't first 
 of all mind like hell and then recognise that in spite of it 
 all, in spite of it all . . . You saw me trying to get her away 
 from him for her own sake; it honestly was; I tried to 
 keep myself in the background. You know I always hoped 
 she'd come back. But now . . ." 
 
 He drew his legs up under him and sat with his chin 
 on his fists. 
 
 "What are you going to do?" I asked. 
 
 "That's what I wanted to see George about. She must 
 have the house as long as she wants it, and I'll try to per- 
 suade Violet to come and look after her regularly when 
 the time draws near. Then if she'd like to go on living 
 here . . . You see, there's rather an important money ques- 
 tion. I've got the freehold, so there's no rent to pay, 
 but Bertrand runs the place. He won't stay on with her 
 and without me, and I doubt if we can afford the upkeep 
 by ourselves. I shall make myself responsible for Sonia, 
 of course, but we shall have to cut things pretty fine. 
 George is my trustee, and I wanted to discuss it with him. 
 ... As regards the child . . ." He paused, and I could see 
 him furtively moistening his lips. "Something's got to be 
 done about that. It will be Sonia's child, and, whoever else 
 is to blame, the kid mustn't suffer. If I make George trus- 
 tee of a fund . . . That gives him an official status, you see ; 
 he'd have a voice in the upbringing of the child, the educa- 
 tion I don't trust a woman by herself " 
 
 "Are you recognising the child?" I asked. 
 
334 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 "Certainly." He smiled for the first time. "Poor little 
 devil! it will have as much right to my name as I have. 
 I daresay you know that my father ran away with some- 
 one else's wife? Ever since the smash came I'd never 
 thought of it before I've been wondering how the other 
 man felt. Fellow called Raynter he was at the Legation 
 at Berne. My father ran away with her, and Raynter 
 wouldn't divorce her. . . . I've never precisely liked being 
 illegitimate, because it seemed a reflection on my father, 
 but I always used to think there was a certain amount of 
 romance about the whole thing. . . . Bertrand knew my 
 mother; he says she was one of the most beautiful women 
 in Europe; my father loved her and they were frightfully 
 happy for the little time that they lived together before 
 I was born. I I thought it was very fine and plucky of 
 them. . . . But lately I've been wondering what Raynter 
 thought of it all, what kind of life he had. I believe he 
 loved my mother too, and it killed her when I was born. 
 I wonder what he thought of the man who'd killed his 
 wife. ... I suppose you never met him in your diplomatic 
 wanderings ?" 
 
 "No. He left the service immediately after what you've 
 been describing." 
 
 "What happened to him?" 
 
 "I believe he took to drink," I said. 
 
 O'Rane made a sound of disgust. 
 
 "But perhaps it's just because it doesn't appeal to me . . ." 
 he apologised. "I certainly did hope to be finished off in 
 France after I'd lost my sight, but there's such a tenacity 
 about life. I'm glad I pulled through, even to be where 
 I am and as I am now. Yes, I've been feeling that there 
 may be rather more to say for Raynter andI suppose 
 rather less for my father." 
 
 He fell to musing, and I smoked in silence until George 
 came in. Then we had the discussion re-opened ; Bertrand 
 returned from the House at eleven, and I heard it a third 
 time. If O'Rane hoped for advice or comfort, I am afraid 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 33$ 
 
 he did not get it, though Bertrand did indeed tell him bluntly 
 that he was burdening himself needlessly. 
 
 "I could have got rid of it all by divorcing her," was the 
 only answer. 
 
 "You're not responsible for the child." 
 
 "Somebody's got to be." 
 
 Bertrand sighed and held his peace, while George and 
 O'Rane talked in undertones. 
 
 "What are you going to do yourself ?" I asked. 
 
 "I've hardly thought. You see, until four hours ago 
 I'd always contemplated having Sonia as as part of my 
 life. I've got to think things out afresh. . . . But there's 
 plenty of time. For the present, of course, I'm going back 
 to Melton. To-morrow." 
 
 "Have you said good-bye to Sonia?" George enquired. 
 "I mean, have I got to explain all this to her?" 
 
 O'Rane hesitated in doubt. 
 
 "I'm not quite sure. You see, she said she wanted to 
 tell me something, and I went in, and then she told me that 
 she was going to have a child. I can't say if I shewed 
 anything more than surprise, I mean. I said I really 
 don't know what I did say. We talked about how she was, 
 and I said I hoped she was better, and was there anything 
 that she wanted? And she asked me when I was going 
 back to Melton. ... I told her to let me know if there 
 was anything I could do. . . . We didn't take any formal 
 farewell, but I came away as soon as I could, we weren't 
 either of us enjoying it very much." 
 
 "You gather that she proposes to stay here?" 
 
 "I think so. And I should tell anyone who asks. This 
 is the natural place for her to be, her friends may as well 
 come to see her. I shall get over to Crowley Court as 
 soon as I can and tell her parents . . . and I think the best 
 thing I can do is to find work of some kind abroad. We've 
 thrown dust in everyone's eyes for fairly long, but it can't 
 go on indefinitely, if she's living here and I never come 
 near the place. ... I don't know yet ; I haven't had time to 
 think. I never thought that her having a child by someone 
 
336 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 else could suddenly make all the difference, but it has. I'm 
 not angry with her, or aggrieved, or anything of that kind, 
 but I've just discovered that she doesn't belong to me any 
 more. I'd still do anything she asked me to do, but some- 
 thing's been killed, something's been taken away. ... If 
 only someone else were going to benefit by it! I believe 
 I could forgive Grayle, if he'd proved that he was making 
 her happier than I'd done. . . . We haven't made much of 
 a success, have we?" 
 
 He smiled wistfully, and his face looked suddenly older, 
 as if the accumulated strain of years had exhausted him. 
 Bertrand took his arm and told him to go to bed. George 
 and I got off our chairs and waited without knowing what 
 to do. 
 
 "Is Violet on duty?" he asked. "If you're all going up, 
 I'll come with you and see if Sonia wants anything." 
 
 The bedroom door was ajar, and I saw Lady Loring 
 reading a book. She raised one finger warningly, as O'Rane 
 came into the room; then remembered that he could not 
 see the signal and touched his wrist. 
 
 "Is she asleep ?" he whispered. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He felt his way to the bed and ran one hand lightly over 
 the blankets until it reached the pillow. Then he bent 
 slowly forward, listening to his own breathing, and kissed 
 his wife on the forehead. 
 
 "You'll look after her well, won't you, Violet ?" he said, 
 as they came to the door. 
 
 "Trust me, David," she whispered. "I'll do all I can, and 
 we'll get in a regular nurse to-morrow." 
 
 It may have been fatigue, but I thought that she was 
 looking worried. 
 
 "You told me this morning," I said, "that a nurse wasn't 
 necessary any more for the present." 
 
 "I didn't think so then, but she's not quite so well to- 
 night. We mustn't talk here, or we shall wake her. You 
 didn't say anything to upset her, did you, David?" 
 
 "I hope not. What's been the matter?" 
 
THE DOOR RE-OPENED 337 
 
 We came into the passage, and George and Bertrand con- 
 siderately whispered good-night and left us. I would have 
 gone, too, but O'Rane had slipped his arm through mine. 
 
 "She's so nervous and fanciful," Lady Loring explained, 
 "that she makes herself quite ill. I suppose, never having 
 been through it before . . . To-night she was quite ridicu- 
 lous. Didn't it sometimes happen in bad cases that the 
 mother or the child had to be sacrificed? Well, what hap- 
 pened then? And who decided? She worked herself up 
 into the most pitiful state, imagining herself unconscious 
 and at the mercy of a mere brutal man, who could order 
 her to be killed." Lady Loring looked through the open 
 door and smiled compassionately. ''She's so afraid of 
 dying, David, that it never occurs to her that this sort of 
 thing is happening every hour of the day and that it's the 
 exception for anything to go wrong. I don't quite know 
 what to do about her. . . ." 
 
 O'Rane stood for a moment without speaking; then he 
 disengaged his arm and said good-night to us. I heard him 
 busying himself in the library for a few minutes ; the front 
 door closed gently, and I caught the sound of footsteps, as 
 he walked away. The next morning he telephoned to ask 
 how his wife was. In the afternoon he called with a cab 
 for his luggage and drove to Waterloo without coming 
 into the house. 
 
CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 SANCTUARY 
 
 ". . . And I have waited long for thee 
 
 Before I poured the wine!" 
 ROBERT BUCHANAN: The Ballad of Judas Iscariot. 
 
 THE winter months of 1917 passed sadly for anyone who 
 was condemned to live in the depression of London. I was 
 well enough to go back to work in February, but I stayed on 
 at "The Sanctuary," because, with all its nerve-racking 
 discomfort, I had not the heart to go away when both 
 Bertrand and George pressed me so warmly to remain. 
 Three, they said, were less depressing than two, though I 
 came to doubt it. For the tenth time, we seemed to be 
 entering upon the last decisive phase of the war; Germany 
 had begun her unrestricted submarine campaign, it was in- 
 evitable that America should abandon her neutrality. (Since 
 the Presidential election and with every day that brought 
 intervention nearer, our press became less scornful of the 
 President; it ceased to misquote and misinterpret phrases 
 about a nation that was too proud to fight or a peace with- 
 out victory.) But the race would be hotly contested. The 
 submarine campaign at sea, a win-through-at-all-costs of- 
 fensive on land had to put Germany in a position to dictate 
 terms before the incalculable weight of American arms was 
 thrown into the scale against her. 
 
 Men wore grave faces in those days. Though few could 
 give accurate figures of the tonnage which was being sunk 
 daily or of the stocks of food on which we could depend, 
 everyone knew that prices had soared until they had to 
 
 338 
 
SANCTUARY 339 
 
 be arbitrarily fixed by the Government ; everyone knew that 
 already certain foods were unprocurable and that the priva- 
 tions were unlikely to grow less. Meatless days and three- 
 course dinners were but the beginning, and Bertrand, who 
 was by now almost reconciled to the continuation of war 
 in the hope that it would discredit the new Government, 
 shook his head gloomily at me and wondered morosely 
 how long the proud-stomached people of England would 
 consent to go on short commons. 
 
 And it was not only in food that the shortage was being 
 felt. Omniscient critics, who had a figure and a date ready 
 for every question, whispered that, since the Somme cam- 
 paign, we were short of recruits to the extent of a hundred 
 thousand men, and the whisper, growing in volume, was the 
 signal for a campaign, half malicious, half patriotic, and 
 wholly mischievous. The unessential industries must yield 
 up their young men, the civil service must be purged of its 
 indispensables, and, that not even one fish should slip 
 through the meshes of the net, those who had been ex- 
 empted, rejected or discharged from the army, were re- 
 quired to present themselves for re-examination. The cam- 
 paign evoked one flash of opposition, not serious in itself, 
 but of interest as a symptom of turbulent discontent ; mass 
 meetings of discharged soldiers, each with his silver badge, 
 assembled to declare their intention of not being sent out 
 again until others had done their share. 
 
 "The wheel has swung the full circle now," said George 
 one night. "I was up before a board to-day. The doctors 
 seemed to feel that it was a personal score for them that 
 my eyes weren't bad enough for me to be rejected; but, 
 when they came to my heart, they were quite indignant. 
 They couldn't pass me on that, but it was a personal griev- 
 ance and I shouldn't have been a bit surprised if they'd 
 tested me to see if I'd been chewing cordite. ... I suppose 
 it's not to be wondered at; I'm not as keen to go out as I 
 was two and a half years ago; I shouldn't be keen at all, 
 if it wasn't for the feeling that I'm left, that all my friends 
 have been killed. . . . And they must get men from some- 
 
340 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 where. This Russian revolution is a very fine and hopeful 
 thing in itself, but the Russians are so much absorbed in it 
 that they can't spare time to bother about the war, and the 
 Germans are withdrawing the best part of their troops from 
 the East. / don't know where you're going to get men 
 from. The papers keep yapping about Ireland, but I won- 
 der how many of their inspired leader-writers know any- 
 thing about the country." 
 
 It was one of many discussions, when George would 
 come home late and tired from his office, Bertrand later 
 and more tired from the House. 
 
 "If Germany threw up the sponge to-morrow!" George 
 began one night, "what should we have gained? The flower 
 of our manhood's been destroyed, we're smashed financially, 
 the money market of the world has shifted to New York, 
 and we shall spend the rest of our days paying the interest 
 on our debt, trying to repair the damage. ... I don't care 
 to think of the labour troubles we're going to have when 
 we try to get back to peace-time rates of wages or when 
 the men find that their jobs have been done as well or 
 better in their absence by women. And what's it all for? 
 I get most infernally sceptical at times. As poor Beres- 
 ford used to prove with chapter and verse, in every war 
 of this kind there's always been a school of optimists to 
 say that such a scourge will never be seen again. And it 
 always is. ... As for social or moral elevation, with the 
 spirit of lynch-law and the methods of the press-gang . . . 
 It'll all be the same!" 
 
 "It can't be quite the same after so universal a shake- 
 up," I objected. 
 
 George shook his head wisely. 
 
 "In the early days, when men of our class were en- 
 listing as privates, even lately, when rankers were getting 
 commissions, I used to think that some of our social angles 
 would be rubbed off, but just you have five minutes' talk 
 with an Old Army officer about the 'temporary gentlemen' 
 in his battalion, who've been fighting side by side with him, 
 mark you! While you're on the desert island, your Ad- 
 
SANCTUARY 341 
 
 mirable Crichton may come to the top, but once get him 
 back in London with a drawing-room and a servants' hall ! 
 ... I agree in theory with people like Raney, who say 
 we must get value for the lives we're spending, but I can't 
 do it! Nobody can do it. The men out there who are 
 paying the price want to forget about the whole thing, 
 they'll come home at the end as they come home now on 
 leave, to attend to their own affairs, to enjoy themselves, 
 to make up for lost time and recapture the years they've 
 wasted in the trenches. And the people who've never been 
 out have forgoten all the old good resolutions; they're as 
 tired of the war as the soldiers, tired of drudgery, dis- 
 comfort, economising; they want to forget it and enjoy 
 themselves and get back to the old life. Frankly, Storn- 
 away, it still makes you sick to hear of the way our prison- 
 ers are treated and that sort of thing, but you don't any 
 longer regard this war as a crusade, do you? There's too 
 much eighteenth-century diplomacy about it, too many 
 compensations, too much balance of power. It was one 
 thing to send a forlorn hope to Belgium, one thing to say 
 that the German military machine must be broken, but 
 when it comes to conscribing men to coerce Greece or win 
 Constantinople for Russia ... I wonder when the accursed 
 things will end." 
 
 Bertrand roused himself to light a fresh cigar. From 
 the angle at which he held it in his mouth, no less than 
 from the way that he screwed up his eyes and peered into 
 the shadows of the rafters, I prepared myself for a para- 
 doxical and probably pretentious generalisation. 
 
 "I sometimes feel that war is the new expression of our 
 national activity," he began. "Don't the Rolls-Royce peo- 
 ple build only for the Government? Well, that's typical of 
 a gigantic state-socialism which has grown up in a night; 
 you can't build a house or buy a suit of clothes until war- 
 needs have been satisfied. Production, transport, distribu- 
 tion have all been taken over; you've an army of con- 
 trollers directing the machine; and in time we shall dress 
 as we're told, eat the quantity of food we're allowed, move 
 
342 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 here and there, do this and that, as we're ordered. At 
 one age we shall be drafted into the army, at another we 
 shall be knocked on the head to save feeding; there'll be 
 birth-rate bonuses amounting to state-subsidised polygamy. 
 . . . Everything that a man did in the old days for his own 
 benefit or amusement, his daily task, his career, his ma- 
 terial output, his accumulation of wealth, his pioneer-work 
 in developing and improving the world, his family-life, 
 even will now be directed to feeding the war. I don't 
 complain; we're united in a labour gang of forty million 
 souls, and our job is to turn out a better war than Ger- 
 many. I don't see where it's going to stop and I don't 
 see who's going to stop it. Not the soldiers, because they're 
 shot if they disobey an order ; not the Government, because 
 they're the Board of Directors/' 
 
 "You'll only stop it by a general strike at home," George 
 answered reflectively. 
 
 Bertrand spread out his hands with a gesture of sweet 
 reasonableness. 
 
 "And who's going to carry through a general strike ? The 
 people with small fixed incomes can't make themselves 
 heard, and, for all the rise in prices, your industrial wage- 
 earner has never been so prosperous; besides, whenever 
 prices become too high, the Government steps in and con- 
 trols them, subsidises producers. Again, it's not pleasant 
 to be told that your sons and brothers are being killed 
 because you won't turn out shells." 
 
 George wriggled his shoulder-blades impatiently. 
 
 "But, if you make it plain that you're not going to turn 
 out shells, the killing stops automatically. If anyone would 
 only come off the high horse and discuss concrete terms!" 
 
 Bertrand shrugged his shoulders and blew a scornful 
 cloud of smoke. 
 
 "But people are getting used to the killing," he objected. 
 "Three years ago take anyone you like, Jim Loring; he 
 could only die as the result of illness or an accident ; even 
 if there were a war, he wasn't a soldier. And it came like 
 a sort of icy grip at the heart. . . . Nowadays a man be- 
 
SANCTUARY 343 
 
 comes a soldier, whether he likes it or not, at eighteen. 
 They get mown down at twenty instead of dying in their 
 beds at seventy. And, as we grow accustomed to it, on my 
 soul ! George, we cease caring. People who come back from 
 Paris tell me that there's a sort of hedonistic fatalism there 
 the restaurants never so full, money never so prodigally 
 squandered. And anyone who knows anything knows that 
 French credit in America is gone! So it isn't the calm, un- 
 dismayed spirit of the Spartans at Thermopylae; it's hys- 
 teria, carelessness. I've little doubt that with certain obvious 
 differences you'd find the same thing in Berlin, assuredly 
 you'd find it in Vienna. And we're getting it as badly." 
 
 It was due to the house in which I lived, but I suddenly 
 realised that for a twelvemonth my emotions and interests 
 had strayed from battlefields where thousands of men were 
 daily laying down their lives for conflicting ideals; they 
 were engrossed in the contemplation of a middle-aged 
 bachelor, taking advantage of a blind man to carry off his 
 wife. And Mrs. Tom Dainton, one of the earliest widows 
 in the war, had married again. And Lady Maitland and 
 her friends were wondering whether the risk of sudden 
 death would nerve young Pentyre to marry Lady Sally 
 Farwell. 
 
 "You're not very encouraging, Bertrand," I said. 
 
 "And yet, if you take a long view, you can see light/' 
 he rejoined unexpectedly. "The same scientific develop- 
 ment which gives you chloroform gives you also poison 
 gas; and, until you can disarm the world and make one 
 nation of it under a single police, each war becomes more 
 horrible than the last. At the same time international 
 divisions and values may be becoming obsolete ; the strong- 
 hold of Gibraltar may be the target for long-range 
 Spanish guns; we may all of us thankfully throw down 
 our weapons before we have to fight under changing con- 
 ditions. You remember when war broke out, George ? You 
 were going to stay with Jim Loring, and I went to Pad- 
 dington with you; we all shook our heads gravely and 
 said, 'Thank God! We're an island!' Well, insularity 
 
344 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 would have been a source of greater weakness than strength, 
 if the perfection of submarine warfare had gone pari passu 
 with the development of trench warfare; and we may 
 want to cry 'quits' before the submarine makes any further 
 progress. Or take aerial transit. With any luck, George, 
 you'll live to see mail and passenger services through the 
 air all over the world. Germany can't get to the Far East 
 without the leave of Russia, she can hardly get to America 
 without sending her air-ships over someone else's territory. 
 All these international barriers have changed their values." 
 
 George looked at his watch and dragged himself to 
 his feet. 
 
 "I think I shall turn in. A discussion of this kind is very 
 purifying for the soul, no doubt, but it doesn't get you 
 any forrarder. Dear old Raney could usually be counted 
 on to produce some Mark Tapley consolation at the end 
 of the evening, but I doubt if even he's got any superabun- 
 dance at the present time." 
 
 Bertrand emptied his tumbler, and we moved slowly 
 towards the door. 
 
 "Have you heard anything of him since he went back?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "He's written once or twice on business. I send him a 
 line two or three times a week to say how Sonia's getting 1 
 on, and I'm going down there for the week-end pretty 
 soon. You can't tell much from a dictated letter or from 
 him, if it comes to that," he added with a sigh. 
 
 It must have been two or three days after this night that 
 Lady Loring came to me with a worried expression and the 
 announcement that Sonia would have to keep her bed until 
 after her confinement; against this sentence the doctor al- 
 lowed no appeal. Thereafter I found myself spending a 
 considerable portion of the day in the sick-room. Sonia had 
 overcome her earlier antagonism and after her first unbur- 
 dening of spirit was prepared to discuss herself and her 
 history with a frankness that amazed me until George told 
 me that it was one of her most unchanging characteristics 
 and one that was not solely stamped upon her by a desire 
 
SANCTUARY 345 
 
 to talk about herself. At the end of a week I had received 
 a full and most unflattering account of her girlhood. 
 
 "I was frightfully attractive, of course, but I must have 
 been odious/' she began engagingly. "Every other woman 
 hated me, and I used to take it as a great compliment, 
 but I don't think I should now. I want to be liked, I always 
 did; but I never took any trouble, I went out of my way 
 to exasperate men. I don't know why people stood me 
 people like George, I mean, who didn't pretend to be in 
 love with me. I must either have been a first-class flirt, 
 or I must have been a genius, or else I must really have had 
 qualities that I didn't recognise." 
 
 I had a full history of her engagement to Loring, over 
 whom her facile triumph had exasperated her, so that she 
 picked quarrels day by day until the engagement was broken 
 off and she made, if not the match, at least the most widely 
 discussed scandal, of the year. 
 
 There was another man called Claypole or Crabtree (as 
 she always alluded to him as Tony I never entirely dis- 
 covered his surname) to whom she had been engaged before 
 Loring came on the scene. I had his history, too, sand- 
 wiched between accounts of the men whom she had not 
 married for one reason or another, and the rich Jews 
 like Sir Adolphus Erskine, whom she had fascinated and 
 bled; throughout she talked like an artless child describing 
 her first ball. On some subjects she was inexorably reti- 
 cent ; I never heard why she had fallen in love with O'Rane 
 and married him, and in all the hours that I sat with her 
 she never alluded a second time to the stages of her es- 
 trangement from her husband. An hour daily for a fort- 
 night told me little, perhaps, about Sonia, but it shed a 
 searching light on girls of the class to which she belonged. 
 
 As the days went by I found myself allowed to spend 
 less and less time with Sonia. She had hypnotised herself 
 into believing, as a matter of duty and necessity, that she 
 
346 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 was ill, tired and suffering at a time when half the amount 
 of persuasion would have made her feel that she had never 
 been more comfortable in her life. It was hardly cow- 
 ardice, for George had told me anecdotes of her endurance 
 in the hunting-field which shewed that she was capable 
 of supporting pain; but the obsession made her a difficult 
 patient. 
 
 "Only three weeks more," I used to be told ; "only a fort- 
 night more." 
 
 Then she began to count in days, and I saw her face 
 lengthen and her eyes dilate, as though the Wild Ass's 
 Skin were shrinking in her hand. She was morbidly curi- 
 ous to find out from Lady Loring how much unavoidable 
 pain she would have to feel; the doctor was questioned 
 again and again until he warned her that she was preparing 
 the gravest consequences for her child and herself. And it 
 was after he had gone that she whispered a terrible prayer 
 that the baby might be born dead. 
 
 When the conversation was reported to me, I felt that 
 drastic steps would have to be taken, if she was to be kept 
 from going mad herself and giving birth to an imbecile. 
 I took George into my confidence and sent him for his week- 
 end at Melton with a string of rhetorical questions and a 
 bulletin which brought O'Rane the same night to London, 
 where he stayed until Sunday evening, while his neglected 
 guest billeted himself on the Headmaster and accepted the 
 hospitality of the Common Room. I was by myself, dozing 
 over a book, when the library door was flung open, a gigan- 
 tic Saint Bernard ambled in and a drenched and breathless 
 figure demanded if anyone was there. 
 
 "What on earth brings you to London?" I asked. 
 
 "Sonia. I gathered from George ... I say, something's 
 got to be done, you know." 
 
 He stood with his eyes open and set on me, his lips 
 parted to shew a gleam of white, and one hand mopping 
 his coat, more, I think, for distraction than in any Jiope of 
 drying it. 
 
SANCTUARY 347 
 
 "I don't quite know what you think you can do," I said 
 dubiously. 
 
 "If she's awake " he began eagerly. 
 
 "You'd frighten her out of her wits," I interrupted. 
 "And you can ask Lady Loring, if you don't believe me. 
 What you can do to-morrow morning, is to let it be 
 known that you've come up to lunch with a man or collect 
 some books and, if she'd care to see you, she can. But I 
 think you've rather acted on an impulse, you know." 
 
 "I couldn't stay down at Melton, if there was anything 
 I could do by coming up." 
 
 "I'm afraid that you'll find that there isn't." 
 
 His underlip curled obstinately. 
 
 "We'll see. I took a solemn vow that I'd see her 
 through . . ." 
 
 I said nothing, remembering that he was Irish and a 
 romantic; his simple-minded talk of oaths and obligations 
 belonged to another age and another land. 
 
 In the morning I asked Lady Loring whether it would 
 be prudent to let O'Rane see his wife. I was referred to 
 Sonia herself, who received the news of her husband's 
 presence without visible surprise and hesitated for what 
 seemed five minutes before answering. Then she picked 
 up a hand-glass from the table by her bedside, looked long 
 at her reflection and laid it down with a sigh ; there was a 
 second spell of indecision before she told me she was not 
 well enough to see anyone. 
 
 "I think she's gratified by your coming," I told O'Rane, 
 "but she'd rather not have any visitors at present. It's not 
 hostility to you, but a woman loses her looks to some extent 
 at a time like this, and I think she's sensitive about it." 
 
 "But she knows " He interrupted himself suddenly, 
 
 and his voice became softly wistful. "D'you appreciate that 
 I've never seen my wife since she was my wife !" 
 
 "I don't think she always does," I answered. "But the 
 trouble in her mind won't be removed by your sitting and 
 talking to her sweetly for half an hour, when she doesn't 
 want to see you." 
 
348 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 O'Rane's normal composure was breaking down, but he 
 recovered himself with an effort. 
 
 "I might have been a rather more civil host to George, 
 at this rate," he murmured. 
 
 At dinner that night we talked of a subject which illness 
 and other work had driven into the background. The war 
 had shattered many of my fine boasts of what I would do, 
 if I were a millionaire, and new outlets had to be found 
 for the Lancing fortune. I had already decided that Ripley 
 Court could be put to no better use than as a richly en- 
 dowed haven of rest for those whom the war had made 
 incapable of ever helping themselves again. There were 
 men, I knew, concealed mercifully for themselves and the 
 world from inquisitive or pitying spectators, who had 
 marched into battle and returned from the operating-theatre 
 blind and without limbs, mere trunks surmounted by sight- 
 less heads, yet I was told glad to be spared even such 
 life as remained to them. They were to be my first care, 
 and, when the last had died, there would still be sufficient 
 incurable cripples without the adventitious aid of modern 
 warfare to keep my hospital full. There was opportunity, 
 too, for bringing comfort and resignation to the demented, 
 the paralysed and the blind. As I saw O'Rane's interest 
 quickening, I told him that I wanted him to be one of my 
 trustees. 
 
 He hesitated until I feared that he was going to refuse. 
 
 "One of them ?" he asked in doubt. 
 
 "I shall appoint several, but they must be all young men ; 
 I want the best of their lives." 
 
 "If I act," he answered slowly, "I should have to act 
 alone. I'm in the early thirties still " 
 
 "You would find it more than one man's work." 
 
 "Ah, but I could give the whole of my life to it." I 
 started to interrupt, but he raised his hand. "And, fur- 
 thermore, I should allow you to impose no conditions; the 
 money would have to come to me as it came to you, and 
 you would have to let me play ducks and drakes with it 
 as I liked " He paused to laugh wistfully. "You've had 
 
SANCTUARY 349 
 
 admirable opportunities of observing how satisfactorily I 
 arrange my own affairs; but I couldn't undertake the re- 
 sponsibility otherwise. You see, you might try to impose 
 conditions that I didn't like; and then my heart wouldn't 
 be in the work. Or your conditions might become obsolete 
 with the changing state of society, as has happened with 
 every trust that has been in existence for more than a 
 hundred years. But, above all, you know that, if you 
 want to help your fellow-creatures, you must do it at dis- 
 cretion and not by looking at a deed to see if you're allowed 
 to. Do you know the story of Bertrand's fifty-pound note ?" 
 
 "I don't think so." 
 
 O'Rane's eyes lit up with laughter. 
 
 "Get him to tell you the full saga; I can only give you 
 a synopsis. Years and years ago some man asked for a 
 loan of five hundred pounds, and Bertrand, to cut the inter- 
 view short, said he'd present him with fifty. The man said 
 he didn't want it as a gift, wouldn't take it as a gift. 
 
 "Well, please yourself/ said Bertrand; 'you ca ^ it a 
 loan, and I'll call it a bad debt ; but I'm very busy, and you 
 won't get any more. Good morning/ 
 
 "The man talked a good deal about impending ruin, 
 hinted at suicide and told Bertrand that he would be re- 
 sponsible for turning an honest woman on the streets. 
 Bertrand went on with his writing, and eventually the fel- 
 low pocketed the note and got up. 
 
 " 'I hope to pay this back within three months/ he said 
 stiffly. 'It's not what I expected, but I can't afford to 
 refuse it/ 
 
 " 'Don't pay it back to me/ said Bertrand, who was be- 
 ginning to feel rather ashamed of himself. 'Hand it on to 
 someone else who's in a tight corner, and, when he's ready 
 to pay it back, he can lend it to his next friend in distress/ 
 Then a little bit of the old Adam peeped out, and he added, 
 'Remember it's a loan; you must tell the next man so and 
 you've no idea how many men and women we shall save 
 from ruin and suicide.' 
 
 "Well, Bertrand never expected to hear another word, 
 
350 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 but a year or two later, he received a letter of thanks from 
 a young barrister, whose wife had had to undergo an opera- 
 tion ; then from a doctor in Sunderland who hadn't known 
 how to pay his rent ; then from a girl who'd lost her father 
 and wanted money to pay for learning shorthand and typ- 
 ing. The fifty pounds have been in circulation for about 
 eighteen years, and from time to time Bertrand still gets 
 a letter from some out-of-the-way corner of the world. . . . 
 Of course, I'm living on charity now, but, when I was 
 competing equally with my fellows, an odd fifty pounds 
 might have come in very handy. That's what I mean by 
 helping people at discretion/' 
 
 "There's a difference between fifty-pounds and twenty- 
 five million," I pointed out. 
 
 O'Rane smiled to himself and then shook his head. 
 
 "Not so much as you might think," he said. 
 
 "I wonder how you'd use it." 
 
 His face became slowly fixed and grim. 
 
 "I wouldn't let any boy go through what I've had to 
 face," he murmured. "It may be fortifying for the char- 
 acter, but that sort of thing can be overdone. The Spartan 
 youth who allowed a fox to gnaw his vitals ended up, I have 
 no doubt, with an immensely fortified character but also 
 with a grievously impaired set of vitals. You know, a 
 boy without parents " 
 
 He broke off and began to whistle to himself; then re- 
 marked unexpectedly: 
 
 "I wonder whether this will be a boy. . . . But, boy or 
 girl, it must be an awful thing to lie waiting for the birth 
 of a child that you hate in advance, that's got to be hid- 
 den " 
 
 He buried his face in his hands and sat without speaking. 
 
 "Is that what's happening ?" I asked, for Sonia had never 
 consulted me even in her most expansive moments. 
 
 He nodded abruptly. 
 
 "She doesn't want anyone to know that she's ill or why 
 she's ill ; no one else does, and we trust all of you. As soon 
 as the child's born, it's going to be smuggled away. . . . It 
 
SANCTUARY 351 
 
 will be properly looked after, of course, and all that sort 
 of thing, but it will never be allowed to know its own 
 parents. All the arrangements have been made, and I 
 gather that the doctor has been most sympathetic and 
 helpful." He smiled with scornful bitterness and sat for a 
 minute without speaking. "I was surprised to find a woman 
 like Violet touching the suggestion with the end of a pole ; 
 she was a bit surprised, too, I fancy, because she sort of 
 excused herself and hoped Sonia would relent later on, but 
 it was absolutely necessary to humour her in every way at 
 present. . . . That kind of thing always sticks in the 
 throat of a man like a woman who refuses to have a 
 family at all. . . .1 don't know, I suppose I'm super- 
 stitious; I should feel that, if I brought a child into the 
 world like that furtively, shamefacedly, wrapping a blanket 
 round it and carrying it out of the back door in the dead 
 of night . . . Wouldn't you, too, Stornaway? Wouldn't 
 you feel that you were putting a curse on the poor little 
 brute? And I can't imagine a woman deliberately doing 
 that to another woman's child let alone her own. Picture 
 the child later on growing up. ... Even if it never 
 knows the manner of its birth, wouldn't you rather expect 
 it to learn stealing in a Dickensian slum and to end up on 
 the scaffold? I suppose it's all very fanciful and morbid. 
 . . . But the other seems so infernally unnatural. I thought 
 it wasn't done. I thought a mother would no more treat her 
 own baby like that, whatever the provocation, than a man 
 would hit a woman in the breast/' 
 
 At O'Rane's age I might have thought the same thing. 
 
 "Doesn't anybody else know?" I asked. 
 
 "George may have told the Daintons; / didn't," he an- 
 swered, smoothing the wrinkles out of his forehead. "We 
 shall all have to rack our brains before the time comes, God 
 knows. Violet says I must make a point of being in the 
 house in case anything happens. If Sonia dies, I mean, it 
 would look funny my not being with her." 
 
 "And if other people have to be told?" 
 
352 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 O'Rane's nose came down on his upper lip in a wither- 
 ing sneer. 
 
 "I suppose it means one or two trusty and competent 
 nurses, and the child will be kept in another part of the 
 house. And, later on, London air won't suit it, and it will 
 be sent with a governess to the sea, educated abroad. . . . 
 My God ! 7 was educated abroad !" He coughed apologeti- 
 cally and relieved his feelings by pacing up and down in 
 front of the fire. "Where had we got to?" he asked ab- 
 sently. "Oh, yes! Well, a boy like that I assume for 
 some reason it's going to be a boy might owe the whole 
 of his career, his life, his happiness and power of doing 
 good entirely to a chance meeting with some man who 
 chose to pay three hundred a year on his account for so 
 many years. But it's the personal touch, the personal re- 
 lationship that must be established !" He swung round in his 
 walk and faced me. "All my life I've wanted to be Prince 
 Florizel !" he cried. "I wanted to be able to lend a hand to 
 distressed young Americans who found unexpected dead 
 bodies in their Saratoga trunks, I wanted to find comfort- 
 able and remunerative positions at my court for the con- 
 science-stricken survivors of the Suicide Club. But with 
 the untrammelled disposal of your estate " 
 
 "Wouldn't it pall, if you didn't have to make the money 
 before you gave it away?" I asked. 
 
 "I don't think my interest in human beings would ever 
 pall," he answered. ''There's such a devil of a lot of them, 
 and they're all different. When I got into the House, I 
 stood as a Tory, and George was rather offended, be- 
 cause he said I was the most revolutionary nihilist he'd 
 ever met. I could never call myself a democrat, though, be- 
 cause democrats deal in mobs, and I only see a mob as 
 composed of individuals, all different, all absorbingly in- 
 teresting with bodies to be kicked and souls to be damned, 
 if your preference lies that way. I can't deal with people 
 as types. I can't classify them ; each one is much too real, 
 too personal. And, if you're like that, you end up as a 
 nihilist, because all government is based on generalisations, 
 
SANCTUARY 353 
 
 mostly inaccurate and wholly inadequate. As we're find- 
 ing out." He put his watch to his ear and listened. "I 
 must be making my way to the station," he said. "I'm 
 not taking an active party line at present, but I seem to 
 find a growing sense that the old governing classes haven't 
 measured up, haven't made good in their own job. We've 
 had three specimens since the war started. ... I always 
 feel that in universal nihilism I should come to my own. 
 Now I must fly ! Forgive me for talking so much !" 
 
 George returned to London the following day in a bet- 
 ter temper than, I fear, would have been mine, if I had 
 been invited to the country and abandoned by my host 
 within an hour of my arrival. Melton week-end parties 
 have long been famous, for Dr. Burgess has had through 
 his hands perhaps a fifth of the younger statesmen and bar- 
 risters, authors, clergymen and soldiers of the day. Any 
 old Meltonian can claim a bed, and it will be found for 
 him in his old house, at the Raven or in lodgings ; he dines 
 on Saturday night in Common Room as a matter of course 
 and lunches with Burgess next day as a matter of right. 
 Strangers from less fortunate foundations are jealously 
 excluded, but I attended one dinner as a Governor and 
 found a Law Officer on my right, a silk from the Commer- 
 cial Court on my left and a twice-wounded Brigadier op- 
 posite me. The food was tolerable, the wine good; the 
 conversation indiscreetly well-informed. George told me 
 that, when he was in the House, he could only find out what 
 was going on by spending a week-end at his old school. 
 
 "I had one bad moment on Sunday afternoon," he con- 
 fessed, when I asked for news of O'Rane. "We'd all been 
 lunching with the old man, and he asked me to stay be- 
 hind. It was rather reminiscent of certain regrettable meet- 
 ings in my extreme youth. ... I knew what he was going 
 to talk about and I knew it would be no good for me to 
 beat about the bush. The door had hardly closed before 
 
354 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 he put it to me what was the matter with Raney. I had 
 to tell him everything, you can't hide things from Burgess. 
 For that reason I wasn't sorry that Raney had bolted here ; 
 he'd never forgive me, if he guessed I'd given him away." 
 
 "But it won't make any difference, will it ?" I asked. 
 
 "Oh, Burgess has got too much of God's commonsense. 
 But Raney can't stand being pitied. Burgess will only 
 allude to it, if he convinces himself that it will do some 
 good. I'm afraid I don't see how it can ; poor old Raney's 
 just got to set his teeth once more and go through it single- 
 handed. ..." 
 
 A week later Bertrand, George and I were gossiping over 
 a last cigar, when Lady Loring entered with a grave face. 
 The doctor had that moment left after his evening visit 
 to Sonia. 
 
 "I think it's time we sent for David," she said without 
 preamble. 
 
 "You're certain?" I asked. "He's in the middle of term." 
 
 "If we're keeping to our plan," she answered unenthusi- 
 astically. "Any moment now " 
 
 Bertrand stumped across the library to a writing-table. 
 
 "I'll send him a wire," he said. "Time enough for ap- 
 pearances, if he turns up in the course of to-morrow. How 
 is she?" 
 
 Lady Loring shrugged her shoulders carelessly and then 
 turned quickly away. 
 
 "She's all right physically," she answered. "But if you 
 left a bottle of prussic acid within reach . . . That's what 
 frightens me so much. Until to-night she was so keen to 
 go on living that she could face almost anything, but to- 
 night I believe she doesn't care about it any more. She 
 wants to slip away and end everything, get rid of all her 
 difficulties. ." 
 
 O'Rane arrived at "The Sanctuary" next day half an 
 hour after I had finished luncheon. This time his wife 
 consented to see him, but only after some hesitation. 
 
SANCTUARY 355 
 
 "You mustn't go away!" she whispered to me. "If you 
 if you see I'm getting tired, you know . . ." 
 
 O'Rane came into her room with a smile, kissed her hand 
 and then felt for a chair, where he sat in silence for per- 
 haps three minutes until Lady Loring entered to say that 
 it was time for her patient to rest. 
 
 "I never asked how you were feeling," he said, as he got 
 up to go. 
 
 "I'm all right at present," Sonia answered. Then a 
 shiver ran through her, communicating itself to her fingers 
 until I saw his hand tighten over them. 
 
 "It's going to be all right, Sonia," O'Rane whispered. 
 
 She lowered her eyes and stared dully across the room. 
 
 "It can't be all right." 
 
 "I'll make it all right." 
 
 The corners of her mouth began to droop miserably. 
 
 "Of course, if I die ..." she began with a catch in her 
 breath. 
 
 O'Rane dropped on to one knee and drew her two hands 
 into his own. 
 
 "It's much more fun living, sweetheart!" he whispered. 
 "And you're going to live, you're going to make whatever 
 you like of your life. If you want me, I shall always be 
 at hand, as I am now; and, if you don't want me, I shall 
 keep away. I owe you so much, my darling; you must 
 give me the chance of paying you back a little bit. When 
 we married, I didn't give either of us a fair trial, I forgot 
 the life you were accustomed to, I forgot that my own life 
 wasn't like everyone else's ; I just went ahead, doing every- 
 thing that came natural to me, and it never occurred to me 
 that I was making you unhappy. Forgive me, Sonia!" 
 
 She dragged one hand away and covered her eyes. 
 
 "I don't know that I've got much to forgive," she mur- 
 mured, and I could see her lips curving to a wistful smile. 
 
 "I shouldn't have asked you, it I didn't need it. Sonia, 
 you're going to be brave, aren't you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Promise?" 
 
356 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 The lines of her throat tightened. 
 
 "You know what my promises are worth, David." 
 
 "If you promise, I know you'll keep it. And then I 
 shall want another promise two more, in fact. I want 
 you to promise not to- worry, and you must promise not to 
 feel any pain. Will you do that, sweetheart? I've come 
 up all the way from Melton, you know." 
 
 She withdrew her hand, and I saw that her face had be- 
 come suddenly pale and that her eyes were tightly closed. 
 
 "I can't promise that, David." 
 
 His voice caressed her, as though he were talking to a 
 child. 
 
 "I think you can, darling. Do you remember when you 
 sprained your ankle, skating at Crowley Court, and you 
 started to cry with the pain and I said I wouldn't carry you 
 back to the house until you'd promised to stop crying and 
 not to let the ankle hurt any more ? You promised quickly 
 enough then, and it's much more important now. If you'll 
 promise that now, I'll do anything you like." 
 
 She smiled wistfully a second time, then drew his head 
 down to her own and whispered something. I heard him 
 say, "You won't. I swear you won't, Sonia." Then he 
 drew himself upright, waved his hand and walked to the 
 door. 
 
 I sat with him in the library, while he attacked a belated 
 luncheon and plied me with questions about his wife. Her 
 whispered request, he told me, was that she might, if pos- 
 sible, be kept from seeing the child when it was born, and 
 on this he hung a string of questions to find out what steps 
 we had taken to secure the best doctors and nurses, when 
 the birth was expected, whether anyone else knew. 
 
 "We've told no one," I assured him, "since you asked 
 us not to." 
 
 "I told Burgess," he said. There was a long silence. "I 
 told him everything. ... I mean, one does with Bur- 
 gess. I found it wasn't news to him. George had told him 
 weeks ago. . . . One does with Burgess," he repeated, 
 smiling. 
 
SANCTUARY 357 
 
 "What did he say?" I asked. 
 
 "He was rather helpful." 
 
 "George told me that he wouldn't trouble to talk to 
 you about it unless he saw his way to help you," I said. 
 
 O'Rane finished his meal and lay back in his chair. 
 
 "I went in and told him that I wanted a day or two's 
 leave, if he could possibly spare me ; I told him Sonia was 
 going to have a child. . . . He waited for some time and 
 then said, 'The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the 
 truth?' Said it as if he meant it, too; it was like trying 
 to get extra leave in the old days; as a rule he'd accept 
 any excuse, however bad, provided it was given in good 
 faith; I once got an extra half for the whole school 
 because it was so hot that, as I told him, we'd much 
 prefer not to be working. . . . Well, I told him the 
 whole truth all about Sonia and myself, all about Grayle, 
 . . ." He paused as though breathing hurt him, then 
 smiled wearily. 
 
 "It may have been good for my humility of spirit, but I 
 can't say it was very edifying for Burgess. ... I told him 
 that Sonia's been dancing in the shadow of a volcano, that 
 we were always on the verge of an appalling scandal and 
 that it was more by luck than anything else that it had 
 been averted. I described to him how we'd smuggled her 
 home and what we were going to do to keep the child away 
 from her. . . . Have you ever told a long story and dis- 
 covered at some point that it's falling extraordinarily flat 
 or that someone's shocked? Burgess never said anything, 
 and of course I couldn't see his face, but I don't know 
 whether you understand me the silence seemed to become 
 more intense at times. I felt that his eyes must be on me 
 and I not to put too fine a point on it I began to feel 
 rather frightened. . . . If I could have seen. ... I knew 
 from his voice when he first spoke that he was sitting down ; 
 and I suddenly remembered a most awful row I'd had with 
 him when I was about sixteen. He sat there then with his 
 back to the window, and I stood in front of him arguing 
 and arguing; it was a little matter of discipline, and he'd 
 
358 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 decided to fire me out. . . . Well, I went through just the 
 same thing this morning. I I felt I was owning up ; and 
 I'd have given anything in the world to see his face. . . . 
 You know how you spin out the explanation . . . and 
 rather overdo it ... you're too plausible and you feel the 
 whole time that you're not getting it across. ... I went 
 on and on ... and finally I stopped short ; it wasn't any 
 use, he knew everything even if George hadn't told him. 
 ... I became stiff and dignified and said once more, 'If 
 you can shift the work round so that I can be away for a 
 
 day or two ' Then I heard him scraping for a light 
 
 and sighing and throwing the matches away. . . . God! 
 until you're blind, you've no conception how many things 
 you hear. You wouldn't notice the sound of a wooden 
 match falling in the grate, but 7 did; and, though I've 
 given up smoking because I can't taste tobacco, I felt a 
 little smarting at the back of my nostrils as Burgess got 
 going with his pipe. ..." 
 
 If ever a man talked to gain time, it was O'Rane at 
 that moment. 
 
 "What advice did he give you ?" I asked him at length. 
 
 "He didn't give me any advice. But, when I'd finished, 
 he said he'd pull the time-table about and that I could stay 
 away as long as I liked. I knew he'd say that. Well, in 
 the ordinary course I should have said 'Thank you' and 
 cleared out, but I didn't find it easy to move. Burgess sat 
 there, sucking at his pipe ; I stood there and I felt a per- 
 fect fool, because I was beginning to blush. And the old 
 man said, 'Well, David O'Rane?' and I said, 'Well, sir?' 
 And then there was another silence. And then he said, 
 'Thou hast no further need of me' You know the way he 
 talks ? I did thank him then and was starting to the door, 
 when he called out, 'Thou art at peace in thine own mind?' 
 That rather stung me, and I told him that, all things con- 
 sidered, I didn't think I was wholly to blame ; and he an- 
 swered rather enigmatically that, if I wasn't careful, I 
 should be. I asked him what he meant." 
 
 O'Rane left his chair and took up a familiar position at 
 
SANCTUARY 359 
 
 the fire-place, resting his arm on the high chimney-piece and 
 leaning his head on the back of his hand. 
 
 "Burgess is a curious man," he resumed dispassionately. 
 "I don't think he ever had any children of his own, but he's 
 got well, an extraordinarily human imagination. He be- 
 gan talking about this poor kiddie who isn't born yet 
 and pointing the contrast between his life and the life of 
 any other boy, who'd have a father and a mother fussing 
 round him, whenever he had a bit of wind in his poor 
 little tummy, and playing with him and watching him, as 
 he began to crawl and talk, and trying to make him under- 
 stand that it wasn't the end of the world when he was 
 miserable trying to cut teeth. . . . The old man didn't 
 spare me," said O'Rane with a quivering laugh. "I had 
 about twenty years of the boy's life compressed into twenty 
 minutes; the way he'd go to school, frightfully shy and 
 with no one to see him through, no one to give him half a 
 sovereign at mid-term; and the way he'd get a remove or 
 find himself in the eleven with nobody to brag about it 
 to; and the way he'd go on to a public school and work 
 his way through the green-sickness period of dirty stories 
 and foul language without anyone to tell him that he 
 was becoming rather a pitiable little object. . . . And the 
 portentous age, when he'd be head of his house, and the 
 days when he'd want to ask his father what Oxford used to 
 be like in the prehistoric days. . . . After twenty minutes 
 or so I told Burgess that I didn't see it was my look-out." 
 
 "Well?" I said, as O'Rane hesitated. 
 
 "I think it was damned unfair," he burst out, but the 
 resentment in his tone was unconvincing. "Burgess was a 
 friend of my father, he knows all about me, I've told him 
 every last thing about myself. ... I don't suppose even 
 George knows, but the old man used to invite me to help 
 tidy up his library, if I wasn't taking Leave-Out, and of 
 course I was as happy as a clam ; and we used to talk, and 
 I told him things that kept me awake half the night, but 
 he always seemed to have forgotten them next day. Well, 
 
360 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 I suppose after my father died I did have rather a 
 crowded youth ; and Burgess asked me if I wanted to send 
 my son through the same mill. 
 
 "He's not my son," I said. 
 
 ''Thy wife's son, laddie," he answered. 
 
 O'Rane turned wearily from the fire and began to pace 
 up and down the room. 
 
 "I told him!" he exclaimed. "I said that, if it hadn't 
 been for that, Sonia and I could have forgotten everything 
 and come together again. You remember? I was ready 
 ah, dear God in Heaven ! I was ready ! And then I heard 
 that this had come between us, that there was going to be 
 a permanent reminder, a permanent barrier, a permanent 
 alien something in our lives. That was the first time I 
 saw you were right, the first time I appreciated we could 
 never forget and go on as if nothing had happened. My 
 love for Sonia hasn't changed. If if anything happened 
 to the child . . . But as long as it's there! I told Bur- 
 gess that, though I agreed with him in principle, I was 
 very sorry, but I couldn't help it. It was Grayle's busi- 
 ness. He asked me if I thought Grayle was likely to accept 
 his responsibilities; I told him I saw no indication of it. 
 He said nothing to that, and I made another bolt for the 
 door. He called me back and asked what I proposed to do. 
 I said I'd told him already. 
 
 "He didn't stop me, and I got back to my rooms in the 
 Cloisters. I began to pack a few things, but the whole 
 time I was feeling that I hadn't explained properly and 
 that Burgess rather despised me. I got extraordinarily ex- 
 cited and angry over it, until at last I left the packing alone 
 and went back to his house to justify myself. The man 
 shewed me at once into the library, and it was only when 
 I got inside that I realised that all this time Burgess ought 
 to have been taking the Sixth for Tacitus. Instead he was 
 still in his chair, still sucking at his pipe. I fired away, full 
 of indignation, and went through the whole weary busi- 
 ness from the beginning, just as I'd done before. He never 
 interrupted me, never said a word till I'd finished. Then 
 
SANCTUARY 361 
 
 he told me pretty bluntly that he was only indirectly inter- 
 ested in me and that what he wanted to find out was why 
 the child should be penalised, why I, who knew something 
 of what it would have to go through, persisted in making it 
 face the music for no fault of its own. I was pretty well 
 worked up, but I tried to be reasonable and asked him what 
 he suggested I should do. He never hesitated a moment 
 this time! He told me it was my duty to treat the child 
 as if he were my own son, never to let him or anyone else 
 know what had happened before he was born, but to de- 
 vote myself to him as if he were well, not my own son, not 
 someone for whom I was naturally responsible, but some- 
 one who'd been entrusted to my care. He said, if I didn't 
 with the experience I'd got to back me . . . Somehow, 
 the way he put it, Stornaway . . ." 
 
 He brought his walk to a conclusion as abruptly as the 
 sentence and dropped heavily on to a sofa, as though glad 
 that a necessary task was finished, yet awaiting criticism 
 from me and obviously prepared to argue as vehemently 
 against me on one side as he had argued against Burgess 
 on the other. 
 
 "In practice, what do you propose to do ?" I asked. 
 
 "I've been trying to think the whole way up from Mel- 
 ton. I suppose we shall have to behave as though the whole 
 world knew Sonia was going to have a baby, it will have 
 to be our child. And I suppose we shall live like other 
 people who are kept from divorcing each other because of 
 their children. Nominally we shall share the same house, 
 and I suppose things can be arranged so as to spare Sonia. 
 . . . But Burgess has convinced me. We've no right to 
 think of ourselves or wash our hands of responsibility or 
 try to score off other people at the expense of the child. 
 I've promised her that she shall never see it. . . .1 don't 
 know, I suppose this is one of the things that men and 
 women are temperamentally incapable of seeing with the 
 same eyes ; but, whoever the father was, whatever the his- 
 tory, I should have imagined that any woman would fight 
 for her child against all the powers of creation; it was 
 
362 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 like a stab when Sonia first said she hoped the child would 
 be born dead, it was another stab when she begged me 
 begged me to promise. ... I promised right enough ; it was 
 the only thing to do, but I can't let it rest at that. If she's 
 well enough to talk, I want to make everything quite plain 
 to her now; otherwise I must explain afterwards. . . ." 
 
 As we finished dinner, Lady Loring came down to say 
 that Sonia was asking for her husband. I was not present, 
 I am glad to say, at their interview, but it did not last more 
 than five minutes, and at its end O'Rane looked in for a 
 moment to say that he proposed to walk as far the House 
 of Commons for a breath of fresh air. Neither by word 
 nor tone did he invite anyone to accompany him; and on 
 his return he went upstairs without coming into the library. 
 I called for a bulletin on my own account before retiring for 
 the night, and Lady Loring warned me that I must be pre- 
 pared for anything at any moment. Sonia had worked her- 
 self from hysteria into something hardly distinguishable 
 from delirium ; forgetting that she had already seen her hus- 
 band, she had sent for him a second time and a second time 
 implored him to spare her the sight of her own child; Lady 
 Loring, who had been on duty all day, was not allowed to 
 rest, and, as I passed the door, the lights were burning and 
 I caught the sound of voluble chatter. 
 
 For an hour I tried to sleep, but the intermittent hum 
 of voices, the creak of feet passing rapidly up and down 
 the passage, still more the indefinable suspense kept me 
 awake. For another hour I tried to read, but I was al- 
 ways interrupting myself to listen; and at two o'clock I 
 pulled a dressing-gown over my pyjamas and returned to 
 the library. To my surprise Bertrand was dozing over a 
 boolc, while George sat writing letters on his knee. Both 
 looked up, blinking with dull fatigue, as I came in. 
 
 "I wonder how long this racket's going on," Bertrand 
 growled, as he walked across to fetch himself a drink. 
 "She'll kill herself at this rate. And what almighty fools 
 the three of us are to be here at all !" 
 
SANCTUARY 363 
 
 "Has Raney come back yet?" George asked me. "I was 
 told he'd gone for a walk like a wise man." 
 
 "He was sitting outside her door, as I came down," I 
 answered. 
 
 Grumbling inarticulately, Bertrand went back to his book. 
 George looked at me long enough to see that I was too tired 
 to talk, then began a fresh letter. I prowled in front of 
 the bookcases, trying to find something that I had the 
 mental energy to read. It was shortly after four when 
 O'Rane hurried silently into the room and telephoned for 
 the doctor. 
 
 Thirty hours the fag-end of a broken night, a day and 
 another night passed before O'Rane appeared. The pain- 
 ful silence of the house was violated only by guardedly 
 light steps and hushed voices. Bertrand and George took 
 their meals at the club; I stayed behind, neglecting my 
 work and subsisting on tinned tongue, stale bread and cold 
 water, to run errands, answer telephone calls and carry up 
 trays of food to Lady Loring. At first I believed that poor 
 Sonia was trying to hypnotise herself and intensify her own 
 tortures, but in time a new gravity settled on the faces 
 of the doctor and nurse. 
 
 I had never before been in a house where a confinement 
 was taking place; I do not wish to repeat the experi- 
 ence. Whenever I carried up a meal, Lady Loring or the 
 trained nurse would say vaguely, "I'm afraid she's having 
 a bad time," but for the rest I was left to myself in the 
 great silent library with my senses strained to catch any 
 sound from the familiar white bedroom where I had spent 
 so many days with Sonia, trying to distract her thoughts. 
 O'Rane, from the moment when he telephoned for the doc- 
 tor, had been with her. There was some ineffectual at- 
 tempt to banish him from the room, but Lady Loring after- 
 wards let him stay and admitted that his personality was 
 keeping Sonia from the surrender which she sometimes 
 seemed ready to make. 
 
364 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 When he came into the library at breakfast-time on the 
 second day, his clothes were shapeless and dusty, his face 
 unshaven and grey with fatigue. 
 
 "The doctor says it's a boy," he told me hoarsely. "Is 
 there any water in the room? I've had nothing to eat or 
 drink since first I went up there ; and then I must get some 
 air into my lungs." 
 
 He sighed and dropped limply on to a sofa. 
 
 "How's Sonia?" I asked him. 
 
 "They can't say yet. She's doped. They've given her 
 as much as they dare, as much as her heart will stand. 
 . . . My God! I'm glad I'm not a woman! I can under- 
 stand their having one child, because they don't know 
 what's in store for them, but their courage in having a 
 second . . . !" 
 
 I poured him out a cup of coffee and buttered him two 
 slices of toast. 
 
 "I wouldn't try to talk overmuch," I told him. 
 
 "It's a bit of a relief to me," he answered with a smile. 
 
 "All this time " He lifted his right hand above his 
 
 head and began stiffly to open and shut the fingers. "I was 
 gripping her wrist," he explained ; "I only let go twice, and 
 the first time it was bruised purple, as if she'd shut it in 
 a door. . . . And nobody said anything. . . . Sonia kept 
 getting spasms of pain which made her moan or cry out, 
 and her nerve gave way from time to time . . . and then 
 I I tried to hypnotise her, I found that by repeating 
 'Sonia, Sonia, Sonia,' very distinctly and very low, I could 
 capture her mind. . . . God! how it got on my nerves!" 
 
 The first cup of coffee was followed by a second, which 
 he gulped in scalding mouthfuls, asking at short intervals 
 what the time was and how long he had already stayed 
 away. 
 
 "Violet and the nurse are pretty well beat out," he ex- 
 plained; "I want to pack them off for a bit of a rest while 
 I mount guard. And we've got to shift the boy before 
 Sonia comes round ..." 
 
 "You're not moving him yet?" 
 
SANCTUARY 365 
 
 "Only to another room. I I promised her, you see." 
 
 He bade me a hurried good-bye and disappeared up- 
 stairs until the middle of the afternoon. George came in 
 after luncheon, put half a dozen breathless enquiries and 
 returned hot-foot to his office. Bertrand had a question in 
 the House, but, as soon as he could get away, he came 
 and demanded a full report. 
 
 "You don't gather when the child's to be moved?" he 
 
 said, when I had done. "I This is an extraordinary 
 
 business, Stornaway. I've lived a devil of a long time 
 and I've done some pretty odd things and mixed with some 
 pretty curious people and all that sort of thing, but I'm 
 hanged if I've ever done anything like this before. What 
 are we all up to ? I feel I've been stampeded." 
 
 "Well, neither of us is doing anything very active," I 
 pointed out, looking at my cigar and book. 
 
 "We're countenancing it. If you sat by and watched 
 a drunken man making pipe-lights out of five-pound notes 
 . . . What have they decided to do? I don't understand 
 them; I can't keep pace with them." 
 
 In so far as I had been admitted to O'Rane's confidence, 
 he had decided to keep the child in London until it could 
 be safely moved and then to send it with its nurse to a cot- 
 tage which he had mysteriously acquired on the South 
 coast. And there his plans for the time being had ended. 
 
 "He's apparently committing himself to three house- 
 holds," Bertrand cried. "The first because his wife re- 
 fuses to live with him, the second because he wants to make 
 his friends believe that they are living together, the third 
 because he requires a home for his wife's child, which in 
 time will come to be regarded as his child. ..." 
 
 "/'ve got no influence over him," I said in protest against 
 his tone of injury. 
 
 Bertrand shook his head gloomily. 
 
 "When once he's made up his mind it doesn't matter 
 how fantastic a thing may be. . . ." 
 
 The door opened, and O'Rane came in to repeat his re- 
 quest of the morning for water and any food that was 
 
366 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 available. He had found time to shave and change his 
 clothes, but I have never seen a man more utterly ex- 
 hausted. 
 
 "Is there any news?" Bertrand asked. 
 
 "She's doing very fairly, I think," he answered with 
 a drawl that was almost a stammer. 'The effect drug, 
 you know wearing off. She woke up for a few moments. 
 Now getting some natural sleep/ 5 
 
 I put a stiff dash of brandy into the water and watched 
 O'Rane's grey cheeks colouring. 
 
 "Did she seem comfortable?" I enquired. 
 
 "Comfortable?" he repeated with a laugh. "The physi- 
 cal relief, you know. . . . Whatever happens now, she's 
 free from pain, she's bound to feel better and better. . . . 
 When I was wounded, there were times when I thought I 
 couldn't bear it; the nurses told me that I said quite 
 clearly, 'It's no use hurting me any more ; I can't stand it/ 
 Dear souls! as if they could help it! And one did stand 
 it. ... But, when the pain began to abate, when you 
 didn't have" to keep yourself braced up against it, I went 
 as limp as a rag. It was like the end of a long fever. . . . 
 After that, whether I was asleep or awake, I always knew 
 that the real hell was over. There might be little twinges 
 in unexpected places, but the pain was over, over. And 
 the feeling of weakness was so delicious ! Like an endless 
 repetition of the glorious moment when you're just dropping" 
 off to sleep. . . . That's how Sonia is now." 
 
 The next report came after dinner, when the doctor had 
 concluded his evening visit and she had been put to sleep 
 for the night. 
 
 "She's had a frightful time," he told us, "and there's 
 always the possibility of a relapse, but I know she's not 
 going to relapse, I'm not going to let her." 
 
 "And the child?" 
 
 "Oh, he's all right." 
 
 The next morning O'Rane joined me at breakfast after 
 a night's unbroken rest. Despite a mild protest from the 
 nurse, he had insisted on staying in Sonia's room and had 
 
SANCTUARY 367 
 
 slept in nis clothes on the floor for twelve hours on end. 
 
 "She's had a wonderful night," he told me, exultantly. 
 "And the boy's doing magnificently. They seem to think 
 it'll be reasonably safe to move him to-morrow. And then, 
 if all's well with Sonia, I shall go back to Melton. I shall 
 only want to talk to her, if I stay any longer; and, as it is, 
 if a board creaks or anyone touches the bed . . . That 
 good angel Violet has promised not to go until everything's 
 all right. Don't you think she's been wonderful? Violet 
 Loring, I mean. I'd got no sort of call on her." 
 
 "I don't know that the baby upstairs has any great call 
 on you," I answered. 
 
 "We ell, you can't open an account with a thing twenty- 
 four hours old," he laughed. "I say, Stornaway, I had 
 no idea that babies were so small. Hullo, that's Violet's 
 step! There's nothing wrong, is there?" 
 
 Lady Loring had come in to say that Sonia was asking 
 for him. He hurried upstairs, leaving his breakfast un- 
 finished, and did not return for a couple of hours. I asked 
 him whether there was anything amiss, for there was an 
 unfamiliar frown on his face. 
 
 "No, but it was curious . . ."he began hestitatingly. 
 "You remember how she made me promise. . . . Well, I 
 went in and asked her how she was, and she said she was 
 feeling better. . . . And then she asked about the child 
 . . . wanted to know whether it was a boy or a girl . . . 
 wanted to know how it was .... It ended by my carrying 
 him in for her to see . . . .1 was in two minds whether to 
 do it, because she was working herself up to a pitch of 
 great excitement, but I thought it would only make things 
 worse, if I refused. She wanted to see what he was like, 
 you know, whether there was even the remotest resem- 
 blance. . . . She gave a sob, when I brought him in, and 
 said, 'He's got my eyes/ I'm afraid the whole thing 
 excited her rather. She suddenly got the idea that she 
 oughtn't to have asked me to bring him in. Poor mite ! he's 
 not responsible for his own father, and I told her that if 
 we started quarrelling over a thing like that . . . An- 
 
368 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 other curious thing, Stornaway; I have always imagined 
 that I should hate the very existence of the child; when 
 I was first told what was the matter with Sonia, I felt 
 that there was a sheet of fire between us. I don't feel that 
 now ; I feel that Grayle has passed utterly out of our lives. 
 As for punishing that poor, helpless little creature . . . 
 I suppose you hate babies, but I wish you'd have a look at 
 this one and tell me what he's like. I've always thought 
 what fun it would be to have a son and watch him growing 
 up. . . .1 should have thought that Sonia, that any 
 woman, after all she's gone through . . . Still, when 
 youVe been treated as Grayle treated her, when you've 
 waited in dread and horror all these weary months . . ." 
 He broke off in perplexity, which only lifted when he sud- 
 denly began to smile. "You will have a look at him, won't 
 you? And tell me what he's like. He's going to the 
 country to-morrow." 
 
 After dinner that night I made my way to the bedroom 
 which had been temporarily converted into a nursery. It 
 was dark and empty, and I walked to the door of Sonia's 
 room in search of Lady Loring. A low sound of voices 
 penetrated to the passage: I knocked and went in to find 
 O'Rane standing by the bed with a thickly swathed child in 
 his arms, while his wife lay; with her hand in Lady Lor- 
 ing's, looking up at him. 
 
 "I hope you're feeling better," I said to Sonia. 
 
 "David says you haven't even seen him yet," she pouted, 
 disregarding my words. She stretched our her arms to the 
 slumbering child. "Darling, you're being rather left out 
 of all this, aren't you? But if you will go to sleep when 
 the loveliest things are being said about you . . . My 
 blessed, I've waked you!" 
 
 There was a half-perceptible movement under the long 
 shawl. O'Rane's arms began to rock gently. 
 
 "Take him back, David," Sonia begged. "And then 
 just come in for one moment to say good-night. I feel 
 so feeble that I simply can't stand more." 
 
 As he left the room, Lady Loring nodded to me, and I 
 
SANCTUARY 369 
 
 prepared to follow her. Sonia was lying with closed eyes, 
 but, as I moved, she raised herself and beckoned with one 
 hand. 
 
 "Mr. Stornaway! Just one moment before he comes 
 back ! They want to take my baby away. I know I asked 
 them to, but that was before. . . . You won't let them, 
 will you? He's mine, mine! David thinks I'm saying it 
 because I ought to, because everybody would expect me to, 
 but I'm not! On my honour I'm not! I'd go through it 
 again rather than let them take my baby away." 
 
 "He won't be taken away, if you want to keep him," I 
 promised her. "Good-night, my dear Sonia. Go straight 
 of? to sleep and don't worry about anything. If you want 
 your child, David won't try to steal him. You're sure you 
 want him ?" 
 
 "David?" 
 
 "I meant the boy." 
 
 A smile dawned on her tired face. 
 
 "I want so much ! I always have .... Oh, I know you 
 despise me, and you're quite right. I despise myself. But 
 I must be loved, I can't get on without it. And I've been, 
 oh! so lonely!" 
 
 She gave a little sob. I felt a hand on my arm and 
 turned to find Lady Loring shaking her head and pointing 
 to the door. 
 
 "Tell me anything I can do to help you, Sonia," I said, 
 "and I'll do it. Now good-night. You've got to go to 
 sleep, and I shan't let David even say good-night to you/' 
 
 I met O'Rane in the passage and carried him off to 
 the library. 
 
 "Lady Loring wants to get her off to sleep," I explained. 
 "You and the child between you have rather excited her. 
 If you will take my advice, you'll go back to Melton by the 
 first train to-morrow. The two of you are wearing each 
 other out. I'll do whatever's necessary here." 
 
 "But I can't leave her yet." 
 
 "You can and must. You've got your work to do. 
 O'Rane, you may remember that I've advised you a good 
 
370 SONIA MARRIED 
 
 many times to face facts and end this business. In your 
 greater wisdom you've always refused " 
 
 "You never seemed to appreciate that I loved Sonia." 
 
 "Indeed I did. But I thought we agreed that there 
 were some tests which the greatest love in the world 
 couldn't survive." 
 
 He took up his stand by the fireplace, smiling to himself 
 and rocking gently from heel to toe with his hands in his 
 pockets. 
 
 "I thought so, too. But wouldn't it be a fair-weather 
 love? I treated Sonia badly, and she treated me worse. 
 Until I married, I always thought that marriage was an 
 easy, straightforward business; you just fell in love, and 
 there was an end of it. If I spoiled her life because / 
 hadn't the imagination, the consideration . . . I'm sorry, 
 Stornaway, I can't discuss it. One's pride is rather in- 
 volved. I always said that I loved her more than a man 
 had ever loved a woman before; if I can't prove it . . . 
 But I'm boring you." 
 
 "I'm only tired. So are you, so's everyone. We'd bet- 
 ter all go to bed. Promise me one thing. If you go in to 
 say good-night to your wife, don't stay more than a 
 
 THE END 
 
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