confidence, intellectually; but my responses were cumbersome and uneasy, for her conversation struck me as containing a good deal of trumped-up intensity. A fine pair of pearls dangled from her ears, and her dark blue eyes goggled emptily while she informed me that she was taking lessons in Italian. She was “dying to read Dante,” and had already started the Canto about Paolo and Francesca; adored D’Annunzio, too, and had been reading his Paolo and Francesca (in French). “Life is so wonderful—so great—and yet we waste it all in this dreadful War!” she exclaimed. Rather incongruously, she then regaled me with some typical gossip from high quarters in the Army. Lunching at the Ritz recently, she had talked to Colonel Repington, who had told her—I really forget what, but it was excessively significant, politically, and showed that there was no need for people to worry about Allenby’s failure to advance very far at Arras. Unsusceptible to her outward attractions, I came to the conclusion that she wasn’t the stamp of woman for whom I was willing to make the supreme sacrifice. …
Lord Asterisk had returned that evening from London, where he’d attended a dinner at the House of Lords. The dinner had been in honour of General Smuts (for whom I must parenthetically testify my admiration). This name