"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 luncheon-party wasn't the only
place where it was being discussed, 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 wonderful, 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 Coffee-Room, now
silent as Dainton yielded inch by reluctant inch to the slow penetration
of inevitable truth, now discussing explanations and canvassing
expedients for retrieving a lost position. Beyond giving Grayle's name
and mentioning 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 consider. He would _force_ Sonia to return to her
husband, _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 loyalty,
and, if I may say so, your daughter exceeded them when she went back
with Grayle after we'd tried to persuade 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 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 construct 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 doing, 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 Sanctuary' 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.
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 repeated
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 emotional 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 volunteered. "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 enquired.
Guy has a dual personality compounded of loyalty to his master and love
for humanity at large. The combination 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 errand," 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'Rane'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, Stornaway. 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 sufficiently
recovered from my surprise to ask anything.
"I've no idea," he answered.
5
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 face, collected a fur-coat and umbrella and walked into
the Square.
"She stopped for a moment on the top step and unfastened 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 moment, 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 discretion. "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 _habitué_, "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 sometimes 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 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 reconcile 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 door-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
provocation, but I am no more of a physical coward than my neighbour 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."
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 seeing O'Rane to-morrow
morning."