Sonia was standing by the window looking out over the lake. Presently she walked out on the terrace and called to Loring to join her. For a few minutes I watched them standing on the lowest terrace in earnest conversation, then they returned to the house and Sonia asked to be allowed to go to bed.
"Tell me when you'd like to turn in yourself," I said to Loring when we were alone in the smoking-room for a last drink.
He walked up and down restlessly, glancing at the pictures and books, and finally coming to anchor opposite my chair.
"Did Beryl say you were expecting Raney here?" he asked, sipping his whiskey and soda and staring rather hard at the floor.
"The deuce you are!" He put down his tumbler and resumed his restless walk. "This is devilish awkward, George. Not to put too fine a point on it, Sonia refuses to meet him."
"What's the trouble?" I asked. It would be interesting to hear her reasons as expressed to Loring.
He tramped up and down until I pushed a chair in his way and made him sit down.
"Women are beyond me," he complained. "_I_ don't know the rights of the case, but she says he was very insulting to her."
"But when was all this?" I asked. "I didn't know she'd seen him."
"Oh, it was years ago--down at Crowley--before he went abroad. Raney's got a very sharp tongue and keeps no sort of check on it, you know."
"Yes, I don't defend what he said on that occasion," I put in.
"I was in the room," I said, "and anything I didn't hear he came and told me in my bedroom that night."
"Well, what the devil did he say?" he demanded indignantly.
"Sonia's kept it pretty fresh in her mind," he retorted.
I might have recalled to them both a dinner-table scene at House of Steynes thirteen months before when Sonia inquired how Raney was getting on in Mexico and expressed a more than friendly desire to see him on his return. That was, of course, before the engagement to Loring.
"What d'you suggest?" I contented myself with asking.
"_I_ think we'd better clear out," he answered, with emphasis on the pronoun.
"They can't take us till Wednesday. Sonia talks about going to an hotel, but that's out of the question. I'd better take her back to London----"
"Oh, I can't do that. He's my mother's only brother, you know."