When we returned with overcoats and thick boots she looked uncertainly at her thin shoes and inquired:
"Is it really wet outside? Perhaps I'd better change."
And change she did—every stitch of clothing she possessed, I imagine, for a full half-hour had passed before she descended in shooting-boots, Burberry and short skirt; and by that time tea was ready and the rain had set in for the night. Variations on the same theme were played daily under the eyes of Lady Loring, who was too placid to mind anything that did not affect her beloved Amy or Jim; under the eyes, too, of Lady Dainton, who, I believe, had hardly issued a command or rebuke to Sonia from the day of her birth. Crabtree and Prendergast openly kissed the rod, Loring good-humouredly regarded such treatment as being all in the day's work of a host; with the women I suppose Violet's criticism was expressive of the general feeling. I frankly derived a certain lazy amusement from watching Sonia playing the oldest game in the world; she seldom bothered me, and, while others ran errands, I was free to spend idle hours in the smoking-room with Valentine Arden, whose sex-philosophy taught him that, if a woman wanted him, she must first come and find him. Each day we elaborated a new and more masterly scheme for recalling Crabtree to town: each day we foundered on the same reef and forced the conversation at dinner in our attempt to discover his address in Lincoln's Inn and the name of his clerk.
It is perhaps humiliating to confess that his dislodgement, when it came, was not at our hands. I recall one afternoon when Prendergast fell from favour; Sonia forswore a walk with him and invited Crabtree to give his opinion of a new brassy she had just received from Edinburgh. They set out immediately after luncheon (in those days Sonia did not smoke and could not understand how it could be necessary to anyone else); at tea-time she returned alone—rather white and subdued—and went straight to her room. Her mother, Lady Loring and Amy visited her in turn and reported that she was over-tired and had lain down with a headache. As we started tea, a telegram arrived for Crabtree, followed by Crabtree himself. Tearing open the envelope, he informed us with fine surprise that his clerk had summoned him back to chambers to advise on an important case; might he have a car, would Lady Loring excuse him ...? Valentine Arden, with an author's small-minded jealousy in matters of copyright, dropped and broke a plate in sheer vexation, though to his credit be it said that the anger was short-lived, and, when Loring himself strolled round to the garage to see that his orders had not been misunderstood, Valentine was filling a petrol tank as enthusiastically as I had offered to help in the packing and dispatch of our fellow-guest.
With her taste for good 'entrances,' Sonia appeared as the car turned out of sight down the drive. The headache was gone, and throughout dinner she was almost hilarious, though by the time we had finished our cigars she had retired to bed. Two hours later I met Amy coming out of her room: she beckoned me to a window-seat by the "Mary Queen of Scots" room, and we sat down.
"Thank goodness that's over!" she exclaimed, passing her hand over her eyes.
"Is Sonia upset?" I asked.
Amy shook her head and sighed.
"I can't make out," she answered. "They've—sort of parted friends. I think she's rather glad he proposed—and thoroughly frightened when it came to the point. George, does David fancy he's going to marry her?"
"I believe he thinks so."