As I kept deafly and pusillanimously to my room, I am far from sure what happened during the remainder of the night. O'Rane, I believe, carried his wife up to bed, left her in charge of Lady Loring and accepted from the tired butler at Loring House an armchair in the library for his own accommodation. Bertrand was already in bed, I heard George going to bed as the car started outside; by two o'clock all was quiet.
I remember that, when I was young enough to play baccarat for high stakes and impressionable enough to be embarrassed by a scene, I stayed in a house where certain unpleasantness took place at the card-table. The dispute and recriminations were bad enough, the night of reflection—after a dozen final councils adjourned from bedroom to bedroom—was worse, but worst of all was our uncertain meeting next day, when we stood whispering by the fire in the dining-room, peevishly waiting for breakfast and watching the door to see whether the cause of the unpleasantness would shew himself. Bertrand, George and I stood whispering next morning with much the same embarrassment; breakfast lay on the table, and none of us paid any attention to it. The time was early for me and late for George; I have no idea at what hour Bertrand usually rose, but I remember he was soothing himself with the first cigarette I had ever seen him smoke, at intervals forgetting that it was not a cigar and trying to hold it between his teeth.
Our attitude of vague expectancy was broken up by the arrival of Lady Loring in a creased, black evening dress with a travelling rug over her shoulders. Her eye-lids were pink with fatigue and her arms mottled with cold.
"We look a nice band of conspirators!" she exclaimed. "Now, will somebody tell me what it's all about?"
"How's Sonia?" George asked.
"She went to sleep the moment her head touched the pillow and she was sleeping like a child whenever I looked at her. I think you're all needlessly alarmed about her, but then you're only men. I've been through it all, so I know exactly what it feels like to imagine you're being neglected. But what does anybody want me to do?"
She beckoned us to the table and sat down rather wearily, looking from one to another.
"The trouble is, dear lady," Bertrand grunted, "that we don't know. I suppose you've heard that these two young idiots have had a disagreement? Does that young woman upstairs know where she is?"
"She'll know the moment she wakes up. Is David here?"