"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."