"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
Beresford 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 ordered 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 question; 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 helpful," 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 wonderful
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 coquette--he thought of her and dreamed of
her, she was so 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 idealised 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 allowed in."