"If--I--ever--doubted--anything----!" he whispered.
"Sorry!" He laughed and went back to his normal tone. "Dear old George! If I'd ever doubted, d'you think I could have stood going round with a guitar in Chinatown--handing basins on a liner.... Doubt!"
An hour later we turned in through the drive gates of Crowley Court.
As I slowed down opposite the door, it occurred to me to ask whether O'Rane had made his peace with Tom Dainton.
"No. And never shall," he grunted. "Fortunately he's not here, though. If he were----"
The sentence was cut short as the doors were flung open, and Crabtree, gorgeous in white waistcoat and pink carnation, advanced into the white glare of the headlights.
"Stout fellows!" he cried heartily. "Haven't seen you for ages, Raney----"
"How do you do, Crabtree?" O'Rane responded, in a tone that would have chilled a blast furnace.
"Come along in! Never mind about the car, George; one of the men'll take it round. How are the lads of Oxenford, what? How's the House? How's everything?"
The questions were so clearly rhetorical that I attempted no answer. Sir Roger came in sight, crossing the hall, and I hurried in to shake hands with him, reflecting that full two-thirds of my antagonism to Crabtree arose from his inveterate use of my Christian name.
"The ladies have gone up to dress, George," said Dainton. "We shall find everyone else in the billiard-room. If you'd care for a drink----"
He hurried on ahead, hardly giving me time to shed my coat and cap, for all the world like a trusted old family servant making me at home in his master's absence. The impression was not altogether a capricious fancy: I remember a ball at Crowley Court where the stately wife of a newly honoured manufacturing chemist whispered loudly to her host, "Sir Zachary and Lady Smithe. _Smithe_, my man, not _Smith_, mind."
In the billiard-room we found Loring and Summertown perfunctorily practising fancy cannons, while Valentine Arden ostentatiously slumbered at full length on a divan. Tea was long past, dinner some way ahead; and, as Arden complained, he hadn't tasted a cocktail since leaving London.
"You may not know it, Raney," yawned Loring as Sir Roger closed the door behind us and hurried away to order whisky and soda, "but you've saved my life. Another ten minutes of Crabtree! It only shows the folly of staying in other people's houses. With the best intentions in the world they spring disquieting surprises on you. Really, after a certain episode not a thousand miles from--shall we say?--House of Steynes last autumn, I thought I should be safe in coming here. The rising generation beats me, and as for poor Valentine----"