If I could have persuaded anyone else to carry O'Rane's warning to Beresford, I would have done so, but old Bertrand and George had crossed to Ireland for a week's fishing, and, when I called on Mrs. O'Rane in the hope of catching her for ten minutes in a serious mood, it was my ill-luck to choose the night before Pentyre went out to the Front. An impromptu dance was taking its noisy course, and the only satisfaction which I derived from the visit was my discovery that the estrangement was not yet common property. Indeed, Mrs. O'Rane was fortunate in that her behaviour, however outrageous, was judged and condoned by a special standard. "That's so like darling Sonia," Lady Maitland and her like would say. I took the trouble to pump young Deganway, whom I personally dislike, but even his long nose had not scented a scandal. It never seemed to dawn on Sir Roger and Lady Dainton that anything was amiss; they both disapproved of O'Rane, they both felt, without taking the trouble to disguise their feelings, that Sonia had disappointed their ambitions and was wasting her life; but with a curious timidity or survival of self-respect Mrs. O'Rane never let her own relations see that eight months after her marriage she was in effect separated from her husband.
Failing to transfer my burden to other shoulders, I drove one night to Sloane Square and ran Beresford to earth in his rooms at the top of a modest block of service flats. There was no lift, and I was out of breath and temper by the time that I had climbed eight flights of stairs and lost myself in an uncharted maze of stone-flagged passages. At last, with a stitch in my side, I found his name painted on a wall and leaned helplessly against the door, as I looked for the bell. The door yielded unexpectedly, and I found myself stumbling into an unlighted passage, where a phosphorescent rectangle hinted at a second door. Groping for the handle, I knocked and entered. Beresford was lying in an arm-chair with the injured leg on a coffin-stool and a reading lamp on a rickety oriental table behind him. In semi-darkness the room was youthfully bizarre. There were low cases, filled with paper-labelled books, running round three walls, a window with a divan under it in the fourth, Japanese silk hangings above the book-cases and praying mats insecurely scattered on an over-polished floor. The furniture consisted of a red lacquer cupboard, chest and clock; in one corner a Buddha smiled from behind folding doors with placid and baffling benevolence; a discoloured Moorish lamp hung from the middle of the ceiling with the Hand of Welcome outstretched to support it; a joss-stick in a porcelain vase on the mantel-piece smouldered fragrantly.
At the creak of the door's opening, Beresford raised himself abruptly in his chair and as quickly subsided.
"Oh, it's you," he said.
"I didn't see any bell, so I walked in," I told him. "Are you busy?"
Out of the corner of his eye he glanced at the table beside him. There was neither paper nor book to offer plausible protection.
"I didn't look for this honour," he said with a slight sneer. "I was—as a matter of fact—thinking out an article,—thing I've got to finish to-night, you know." I sniffed—disapprovingly, I fear—the close, rather sickly atmosphere and loosened my coat. "It's a few reflections on the anniversary of the 'Lusitania,'" he went on, in a tone of challenge, "pabulum for thoughtful Yanks. Do you want to see me about anything in particular? I—I've got to get this finished to-night."
His theme gave me my cue, and I furnished him with a digest of my conversation with O'Rane. He heard me out, impatiently but without protest.
"I'm sure it's very kind of you both," he said at length, "but I'm afraid it's no use. We should never have had this war, if a few other people had done what I'm doing instead of blathering about peace and disarmament in a sixpenny review, like young Oakleigh, and throwing everything to the winds the moment war was declared. I appreciate your coming, all the same——"
He pulled himself upright and limped to the lacquer cupboard, from which he took out a writing-block and pad. I was ready and anxious to leave as soon as I had delivered myself of my message, but—petty as it may seem—I resented his hunting me out of his flat quite so unceremoniously; hitherto I had perched on the arm of a chair; I now lowered myself with an obstinacy unbecoming my age into its depths.