Chapter II

And then it was that the Hon. Astarte Cholmondeley came into my life. I remember as clearly as though it were yesterday--and it is now over thirty years ago--the moment of our meeting. It was at one of those enormous futile receptions that political hostesses give at the beginning of the Session, assemblies of two or three thousand men and women, minor politicians, organizers, journalists, all clamorous for champagne and burning for nods of recognition from the great men of the Party. It was a fine night, almost oppressively warm, and I had walked across the Park from Hill Street, carrying my opera-hat in my hand. There was a dull uniform roar from the distant traffic; the tops of the trees faintly swished in the light wind, the lights along the lake shone very quietly, and above were the vast serenities of the sky, powdered with stars. On benches in the shadows lurked pairs of quiet lovers, and the stars looked down upon them as they had upon lovers in Nineveh and Babylon. As I stepped out into the rush of Pall Mall, with its stream of swift motors, I thought, I remember, of my career....

III

The crush was vulgar and intolerable.

I had spent an hour passing dejected remarks to the other young men, also there out of duty and as bored as I was myself. Then suddenly she entered ... a slender slip of a thing, brown-haired and brown-eyed, leaning flower-like on the arm of her elephantine mother, the Dowager....