"My dear fellow, you'd do exactly the same thing if it were Violet out there. And you'd probably make a hash of it," he added unflatteringly. "I don't mind betting I get Sonia away without even calling on the Ambassador. I shall sugar a bit, and bluff a bit, and bribe a bit. They'll probably be as keen to get rid of her as she'll be to go, and a chance to be civil to the great United States isn't to be disregarded in war times."
Loring shrugged his shoulders resignedly.
"I'll see about the money at once," he said. "I suppose all the banks are shut to-day, but I'll let you have it as soon as I can."
II
O'Rane had come very near the truth in the explanation he hazarded of Sonia's movements and changes of purpose.
The first two months of the tour had been uneventful. She had whirled with her companions through one country after another, too busy to think or quarrel, almost too busy to be conscious of herself: it was only as they left the long plains of Lombardy behind them, and mounted the first green-clad spurs of the Alps, that a restlessness and discontent settled on their spirits. There was a new tendency to find fault with their hotels, a general disagreement over what they were to do next, a candour of criticism that was less amiable than free. The party found itself disintegrating and taking sides for or against the victim of the day: Lord Pennington confided to Sonia that Sir Adolf and the Baroness would be less unbearable if they had studied table-manners. Mrs. Welman complained to Webster that Lord Pennington ought to dine alone, as no one—least of all himself—knew what stories he would tell in mixed company when he felt himself replete and cheerful. Sir Adolf wondered—in Mrs. Welman's hearing—what "liddle Zonia" could see in "thad gread zleeby Websder. He is not half awäg: she musd zdir him up, hein? He is a gread wed planked."
In justice to Sonia, who never let sentiment obscure the main chance, it should be said that she had seldom regarded Webster otherwise than as a beast of burden: he was devoted and docile, would lie somnolently in his corner of the car without venturing on "clever conversation," and could be ignored from the moment when he tucked the dust-rug round her knees till the time when she dispatched him to procure her strawberries in a wayside village.
Sometimes, indeed, she may have wondered lazily what was going on inside the sleepy brain behind the half-closed little eyes; once she looked on with amused detachment while Mrs. Welman tried to filch him from her side; once, too, she tried to make him jealous by changing places with the Baroness and driving for a day and a half in Lord Pennington's car. This last experiment was slightly humiliating, as her placid slave received her back at the end of it without reproach, surprise or rapture. Sonia half decided to abandon the invertebrate to the first-comer and was only checked by a feeling that she might be ostentatiously resigning an empire she had never won. Alternatively on the fourth day after their arrival at Bayreuth, in the purgatory of tedium which a Wagner festival must provide for auditors of only simulated enthusiasm, she accepted Sir Adolf's challenge and set herself to rouse "that great sleepy Webster" to an interest in herself.
The details of the campaign can only be supplied from imagination. Sonia, who confessed much, and Webster, who preserved his customary sphinx-like silence, united in suppressing all reference to what passed: the other members of the party saw only as much as the protagonists thought fit to allow. The results—which are all that is relevant here—came to light on the last morning of their stay in Bayreuth. Sir Adolf paid the bill, ordered his car, expounded the route and drove away. Lord Pennington followed suit, only waiting to ask if Sonia would care to drive with the Baroness and himself, as Webster's chauffeur had reported trouble with the timing-gear. Sonia replied that she would give the car another half-hour to come to its senses, and, if the repairs were not complete by then, Webster would have to bring her on by train and leave the chauffeur to pursue them as best he might. On that understanding Lord Pennington also drove away, and Sonia wandered through the gardens in front of the hotel and sent Webster once every quarter of an hour to inquire what progress was being made.