A Rainbow to Heaven E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 262

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

A spoilt, rich child with a financier father and an immaculate pedigree, Diana’s a glamorous and beautiful young ‘girl about town’ with an enviable social life. That means she has her pick of London’s most eligible bachelors – including handsome ‘ladies man’ Hugo, Lord Dalk, who pursues her relentlessly, as much for her social standing as for her beauty.
But although Hugo ‘ticks all the boxes’, something in Diana tells her she deserves more in a man.
So when friends Loelia and Jack Standish introduce her to an altogether different kind of man – their philosopher friend Barry Dunbar, ‘one of the greatest young intellects in Europe’ she’s intrigued. But when she meets him, she hates him. He’s dismissive of her trivial lifestyle and unimpressed by her beauty.
Tragically, Diana’s world is turned upside down when her father is found dead by his own hand because his financial empire has crashed, taking with it many companies and countless investors’ precious ‘nest eggs’.
Alone, penniless and cast out by the society she loves, Diana runs away from it all, including Hugo, and finds herself work as a teashop waitress, where she falls ill with pneumonia. Only now does she realise she’s in love with Barry Dunbar, only to learn that on his oriental travels, he has become a Buddhist monk. Has she discovered the love of her life just days too late?

Leseprobe

THE LATE DAME BARBARA CARTLAND

Barbara Cartland, who sadly died in May 2000 at the grand age of ninety eight, remains one of the world’s most famous romantic novelists.  With worldwide sales of over one billion, her outstanding 723 books have been translated into thirty six different languages, to be enjoyed by readers of romance globally.

Writing her first book ‘Jigsaw’ at the age of 21, Barbara became an immediate bestseller.  Building upon this initial success, she wrote continuously throughout her life, producing bestsellers for an astonishing 76 years.  In addition to Barbara Cartland’s legion of fans in the UK and across Europe, her books have always been immensely popular in the USA.  In 1976 she achieved the unprecedented feat of having books at numbers 1 & 2 in the prestigious B. Dalton Bookseller bestsellers list.

Although she is often referred to as the ‘Queen of Romance’, Barbara Cartland also wrote several historical biographies, six autobiographies and numerous theatrical plays as well as books on life, love, health and cookery.  Becoming one of Britain’s most popular media personalities and dressed in her trademark pink, Barbara spoke on radio and television about social and political issues, as well as making many public appearances.

In 1991 she became a Dame of the Order of the British Empire for her contribution to literature and her work for humanitarian and charitable causes.

Known for her glamour, style, and vitality Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime.  Best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels and loved by millions of readers worldwide, her books remain treasured for their heroic heroes, plucky heroines and traditional values.  But above all, it was Barbara Cartland’s overriding belief in the positive power of love to help, heal and improve the quality of life for everyone that made her truly unique.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This novel, written in 1930, depicts faithfully the extremely frivolous social life of the time. Yet there were a few young people seeking spiritual values and trying to help others.

The financial crisis of 1929 on Wall Street and the London Stock Exchange brought suffering not only to the rich but also to the small investor.

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1930

“What is the party like?” Diana Headley asked, as she entered the bedroom, the luxurious furnishing of which was almost completely hidden by piles of ticketed coats.

The girl who was examining herself critically in front of the gilt-edged mirror rose slowly to her feet.

“Not bad,” she said without enthusiasm. “I have got to go on to the D’Alroys’, but I may come back again.”

Diana handed her ermine wrap to the waiting maid and, moving in front of the mirror, arranged her white frock.

She had the same sophisticated, bored air as her friend, which made them appear to an outsider as though they were quite detached from their immediate surroundings. Both girls had the superficial alikeness that had become uniform among the so-called upper classes of Society. Their dresses were almost identical in shape and design. They used the same eyeshadow and rouge. Their hair, waved and curled by the same fashionable coiffeur, was identical.

Yet Diana Headley was undoubtedly distinguished from the rest of her contemporaries. It was not only her publicity that made her outstanding, considerable though it was, or the fact that she was an heiress. Her father, Sir Robert Headley, was one of the leading financiers in Britain, his name was known throughout the world.

Diana was his eldest child, and only daughter. Her mother had died when she was quite small, and ever since she could remember she had played hostess in the large house in Park Lane, and at her father’s country home in Sussex.

It was not surprising that this life, so far advanced beyond what her years should have involved, had given her a certain poise and a sophisticated outlook. But she also had personality. As she turned from the bedroom and walked slowly downstairs to the ballroom, she was greeted on all sides with affection and enthusiasm.

Women of all ages hurried forward to kiss her, murmuring the conventional endearments, and paying her extravagant compliments.

The men were more restrained, but she was left, after a few moments, without a dance to spare for the rest of the evening. To the many invitations extended to her to dance immediately, she answered,

“I am sorry, I am engaged for this one.”

When finally she reached the ballroom floor, it was to turn with a smile to the tall man who was awaiting her arrival.

“I thought you were never coming,” he said, putting a hand on her elbow, and steering her through the crowd.

“Was I a long time?” she asked indifferently, obviously unconcerned.

“It seemed so to me,” he said.

He put his arm round her waist, starting to dance in a quiet, smooth way that proclaimed him a good, though conventional dancer.

Lord Dalk was thirty-seven. He had been about London for so long, finding amusement first here and then there, that people had almost forgotten to speculate on what would be his ultimate fate in matrimony, until he fell in love with Diana. There was no doubt that he was infatuated with her beyond his usual easily satiated interest, and instantly the gossips got busy, and proclaimed it to be a suitable match.

Hugo, it is true, had not much money, but that was heavily balanced by Diana’s very considerable prospects. He had an old title, a family house, which needed money to be spent on it, he was good-looking, a gentleman, and a Lord.

What more, they asked, could one require these days?

A somewhat unsavoury reputation, which had perhaps developed, or rather extended too far to be classified merely as ‘youth’s wild oats’, was but a minor disadvantage.

Diana, on the other hand, had beauty, money, and a certain amount of breeding on her mother’s side. Her father was a self-made man, but sufficiently successful for even the biggest snobs to be prepared to forget his humble origins.

As she and Hugo danced round the crowded ballroom, they were smiled upon by all those who watched them, though the smiles were often tinged with envy.

“You are looking divine tonight,” Hugo said quietly.

Diana thanked him with a quick smile, which yet had something of mockery in it. She could never feel to herself that Hugo’s compliments were genuinely sincere. They were said gracefully and with perfect technique, but invariably she could not prevent herself thinking that he said them so well from long experience. There was a certain fulsomeness about him, a sort of atmosphere, as though he were the product of good teaching.

She could almost hear the echo of his mother’s voice, saying,

“I do hope Hugo falls in love first with a really nice married woman. It is so good for a young boy and teaches him so much.”

Looking round the ballroom tonight, Diana knew quite well what her friends were thinking. Her girlfriends were envying her luck, the greatest number of them having, at one time or another, set their cap in Hugo’s direction without success.

Several of her men friends were undoubtedly disappointed, yet most of them were prepared to accept philosophically the fact that sooner or later she must marry, and that old Hugo was as good as anyone else.

On the principle that the devil one knew, was better than the devil one knew not.

‘How little,’ Diana thought, ‘it seems to matter one way or another.’

She chided herself for being pessimistic.

“I feel morbid,” she told Hugo brightly. “Let us go and have a drink.”

They forced their way into the crowded supper room and Hugo managed to get a bottle of champagne.

“Not a bad vintage,” he said, filling Diana’s glass and his own. “Better than the usual stuff one finds at these crushes. By the way, who is giving the party tonight?”

“A Mrs. Schniber,” Diana answered. “They are in hooks-and-eyes – or something like that. That is the daughter.”

She pointed to a quite attractive young woman standing in the doorway, looking searchingly round as if hoping to find a friendly face or a genial supper partner.

“Not bad looking as they go,” Hugo answered, “but hardly my type. Does she know anyone here?”

Diana laughed.

“I should not think so,” she answered. “The invitations were all sent out by Mary Carter – the Society organizer. She takes all the golden geese under her wing, as long as they are golden enough. We all adore her. She knows exactly the type of parties we like, and therefore we all come. It does not matter who pays, so long as Mary organizes them.”

“And what do the Schnibers get out of it?” Hugo asked.

“Well, they get publicity, and the satisfaction of knowing that the right people are crossing their doorstep, I suppose,” Diana said. “They also get the bill in the morning, unless Mary makes them pay in advance, which I should think quite likely!”

“Oh, well – here’s to them!”

He raised his glass.

At that moment, a small man edged his way round the crowded tables, and a flash of light recorded the fact that he had managed to secure an informal photograph of ‘the beautiful Miss Diana Headley having supper with Lord Dalk, the well-known sporting peer’.

The hours went by slowly.

Bottles of champagne emptied fast, and in Lancashire, as the night shifts fed them, the wheels of the machines in Schniber’s factories turned unwearyingly.

Mr. Schniber’s spotless white shirt-front and faultlessly cut evening clothes from a Savile Row tailor, made him indistinguishable from the majority of his guests. Only ten years ago, he would have been standing at this hour of the night in greasy overalls, before one of his machines, the roar of its motion in his ears, its activity dependent upon his ministrations.

Tonight, by virtue of those same machines, he moved among people who had never worked and never known the necessity for it. He listened with respect and interest to their opinions on life.

He envied their soft hands, their easy, lazy manner, and their contempt of himself. He had given fifty years of his life to manual labour, he had starved, he had striven, he had achieved through sheer force of determination.

Hooks-and-eyes had brought him from a tenement, to a house in Grosvenor Square – hooks-and-eyes had replaced the good-humoured, hard-working, beer-drinking companions of his youth with the querulous, sophisticated ingratitude of spoilt Mayfair.

Mr. Schniber felt gratified that he had money, and that Society accepted his hospitality.

He looked to where his wife was standing in the ballroom, mechanically shaking hands with complete strangers, anxiously seeking every now and then, guidance from where Mary Carter was holding court.

Mrs. Schniber was of ample proportions. Her first evening dress, bought many years ago in the High Street of a Liverpool suburb, had been of vermilion velvet. She had worn it, Mr. Schniber thought, magnificently, and his first savings had gone towards a heavy gold ring set with a somewhat dubious brilliant.

Tonight Mrs. Schniber was in black satin, chosen for her by Mary Carter. Mr. Schniber had been told that it was what she should wear. He would be reassured of this in a day or two, when he would receive the bill for it, but tonight it seemed to him a little sombre, hardly in keeping with the gaiety of the occasion.

Even the three rows of magnificent pearls that reposed on Mrs. Schniber’s bosom, and the diamond earrings that flapped against her plump throat, hardly made up for the lack of colour.

However, if Mother and Ruth were pleased, that was all that mattered to him.

And Ruth was pleased – there was no doubt about that.

He followed his daughter with an appreciative gaze as she moved across the room towards him. He liked her curly dark hair flattened against her white skin, though the redness of her mouth still shocked him a little. They had said things in Lancashire when the factory girls had first started to paint their faces so outrageously, during the War and afterwards.

Ruth slipped her hand through her father’s arm.

“Come and give me some supper, Dad, dear,” she said, “I’m terribly hungry.”

Mr. Schniber beamed. Wasn’t that just like his girl to keep supper for him! He did not know, that standing there, he had looked pathetic, stout, small, and rather awkward, and that Ruth had heard a pale-faced young man, whose only acquisition was an Oxford accent ask,

“Who’s that fat little outsider standing in the doorway? A ’tec?”

Diana had gone upstairs to the ballroom and having, by her prolonged absence in the supper-room, created a hopeless muddle over her dance engagements, proceeded to make matters worse by dancing continuously with Hugo.

The room was less crowded now, as people had felt the need for food and drink. Hugo danced well, and Diana found it a relief to glide along in his arms, not bothering to talk, hardly bothering to think. There was no doubt that she liked Hugo, and liked being with him, she told herself. He was a comfortable companion.

They danced until Diana found, to her surprise, that it was after two o’clock.

“I must go home,” she said.

She went upstairs to get her ermine coat. She looked at her face in the glass, flushed a little, but showing no signs of fatigue.

‘I’ve had fun tonight,’ she thought, ‘and I do like Hugo.’

When she came downstairs, he was waiting. Her car had been fetched and they left immediately, without saying goodbye or thanking the Schnibers.

As she sank back against the cushions of her Rolls-Royce, Diana put her hand into Hugo’s.

“It’s been a good evening,” she said. “I have enjoyed myself.”

Masterfully he pulled her into his arms, and when her head was against his shoulder, he put his hand under her chin and kissed her. It was not the first time Hugo had kissed Diana, but tonight there seemed a difference.

He looked down at her, and said gently,

“When are we going to get married, Diana?”

For a moment she lay still with closed eyes, drifting in her thoughts, hardly hearing, or understanding his question.

Then something within her resented the easy confidence with which he assumed that she would marry him. It annoyed her that he should imagine her so easy. She knew Hugo too well not to know that he was well-aware of what a catch he was, from a matrimonial and Mayfair standpoint.

In that moment she felt a sudden resentment, and drawing herself a little away from him, the mockery returned to her eyes, and she answered mischievously,

“Dear Hugo, this is so sudden.”

Hugo pulled her back into his aims and kissed her again, a forceful, almost violent kiss, which left her a little dazed.

The car stopped.

“Goodbye, Hugo,” Diana said, pushing back the fur rug as the chauffeur opened the door of the car.

“You haven’t answered my question,” he said, retaining her hand.

“I will think it over,” she said, and saw with amusement a look of surprise on Hugo’s face.

She took her hand away from his, and walked slowly up the steps, opening the door with her latchkey. He followed her, but in the doorway she turned back to him again.

“Goodnight.”

“May I come in for a drink?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“I’m too tired tonight. Ring me up in the morning.”

And before he could say any more, she had slipped inside and closed the door behind her, leaving him to drive away a little uncertain of what her attitude had really meant.

*

It was after ten o’clock when Diana awoke the next morning. Her letters, though numerous, were of little importance.

She lay on her embroidered pillows, gazing with unseeing eyes at the sunshine that poured through the thin net curtains and made the cut glass and gold of her dressing table ornaments flash and dance with its brilliance.

‘Hugo proposed to me last night,’ she thought, ‘and yet I feel curiously unexcited about it.’

There was an inevitability, it seemed to Diana, that all the men she should meet should pursue their courtship of her in very much the same way. They were introduced, they invited her to lunch, dine and dance, and then, after a week or so, they would propose marriage with a singular lack of originality, and for Diana, a lack of surprise.

She had known within herself that Hugo was bound to ask her, yet somehow, she thought this morning, she had expected him to be more difficult. It was absurd that she should have so little feeling, that all men should leave her with the same unenthusiastic affection that made her want them as friends, rather than husbands.

And yet, when Hugo had first begun to take her out, she had felt that here, at last, was someone whom it would not only be sensible but also agreeable to marry.

She had liked him enormously. She had been interested in his reputation for elusiveness, but now he had become, as all the others, an admirer with serious intentions to whom she had to answer either ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Life felt a little flat. It was as if she had expected an adventure, and had it replaced by something humdrum and stereotyped.

‘Oh well,’ she thought, ‘I needn’t answer him for some time, and yet I wonder if waiting would gain me anything. Am I likely to find someone who amuses me more?’

She knew the answer to the question even while she asked it. She lay for a long time, lazily watching the sunshine and dozing. She was very beautiful but her face in repose was spoilt by its expression of disappointment,

Diana was nearly twenty-five, and for seven years she had enjoyed all the fruits of life that money and Mayfair could offer her, and now she was finding them little to her taste. People, like things, became very ordinary once one knew them. She felt she was missing something, and yet was not quite certain what it was. She wanted more, and yet did not know how to find it.

Like all lonely children, she had peopled the world with her own imagination and fantasies. Her mother had died when she was ten. She had always been fragile and the bringing of two children into the world had weakened her stamina until she had seemed to fade away, meaning very little to her children, and even less to her busy husband.

Four years younger than herself, Diana had a brother called Jimmy. As a child she had seen very little of him, and now she was grown up, she saw less. His schooling had taken him away from her, and his holidays had generally been spent abroad with a tutor, for Sir Robert was keen that his son should learn languages, a privilege which he himself, with his self-taught education, had been denied.

Diana blossomed from a very pretty and effective child into a beautiful young girl. She had inherited her mother’s features, with a forceful distinction that came from her father. She had his alive and perceptive eyes, deep set, with dark eyelashes under dark eyebrows, which hinted of Irish ancestors. Her hair, which as a child had been the colour of ripe corn, deepened with the years into a golden russet-brown, curling naturally against her fair skin.

Sir Robert Headley had bought Mortons – an old house about an hour’s run from London. Originally a Tudor mansion, it had been added to by each succeeding generation, until it combined modern comfort with a genuine atmosphere and charm, that no single architect could possibly have devised.

Here Diana kept her horses and her dogs, which she loved far more than her many so-called friends and acquaintances.

Jimmy went to school – Diana was perfectly happy at Mortons. She had a governess, and occasionally went to London for special classes, but her main instructor was the vast library which extended the whole length of one side of the house, and which had been collected by the previous owner.

Sir Robert had bought Mortons, lock, stock and barrel, from a famous statesman who had lived there for the last thirty years of his life. His library, he filled not only with classics, but with any book of particular interest, including some popular light fiction which he considered of special merit.

When he died, Sir Robert moved into the house without even the blotting paper being changed on the writing desk, and as she grew older Diana found herself more and more absorbed in the contents of the library.

When Diana was only seventeen her governess had left, and she succeeded in persuading her father that she needed no further schooling. He was too busy to argue, and only too pleased to find that his daughter was prepared to play hostess for him at his house in London, and at his weekend parties, which were always in the interest of his business.

The wife of one of his friends, herself a well-known London hostess, gave Diana a coming-out ball. Fond as she was of Sir Robert, it was not entirely charity which made her insist on this kindness to his daughter.

She saw Diana one weekend at Mortons and realised the child’s possibilities.

She took her for a fortnight to Paris, chose her clothes, and had her hair cut and arranged by an expert. Diana left England a pretty schoolgirl – she came back a beauty.

From the moment she made her debut, ‘the snob’ press in London hailed her with joy and acclaimed her the most important debutante of the year.

“Here is someone new to talk about,” they said, and talk they did, with the result that Diana became as well-known as any first-class actress, or professional beauty of the Edwardian era.

Pictures of her in the garden, in her sitting room, in her racing car and on her horse presented her to the admiring public week after week. A snapshot of her at a fashionable entertainment, or a first night, was always worth ten-and-sixpence to the photographer and a new portrait of her was worth three guineas to the studio.

It was little wonder that her mail each morning consisted of invitations for sittings, and that her telephone rang daily with requests for interviews, or for her opinion on such items as exercises, the return of the hobble skirt, or her experiences in an autogyro.

Thinking of Mortons this morning, in the sunshine, as she lay in her bed in the Park Lane house, Diana suddenly had a longing for its quiet and solitude. She realised that it was a long time, in fact years, since she had been there alone. Every weekend she had filled the rooms with amusing, bright and noisy friends and she had taken her favourite walks in the company of other people.

She had swum in the lake, boated on the stream, had ridden along the grassy rides, but always accompanied by whatever man appealed to her most at the moment.

‘I’ll go to Mortons today,’ she determined, ‘by myself.’

As she thought of it, the telephone rang.

CHAPTER TWO

Diana did not go to Mortons that day.

Instead she stayed in London and dined that evening with Lord Dalk. He fetched her from Park Lane and they drove almost in silence, to the Embassy Club. When they had ordered their dinner, they sat on one of the flame-coloured sofas watching people arriving through the engraved glass doors, finding little to say to each other, both conscious of a strain between themselves.

Finally Hugo broke the silence.

“I love you, Diana.”

She realised as he spoke what an extraordinary charm he had, but she saw too how his success in the past had been almost completely due to a fascination that, entirely physical, was irresistible to most women.

He was well-made in a broad-shouldered manner, and if he were slightly too heavy from good living and luxury, he had nonetheless kept himself fit.

Diana found herself criticising Hugo tonight, as she never had done before. She liked or disliked people without logically explaining to herself her preferences, merely letting chance and her own emotions decide for her. She was well-aware, however, that Hugo had aroused in her, a certain physical response to his attractions and that were she to relax, he could attract her further.

Satiated with the ease with which most women fell to his charms, and finding them all too complaisant, Hugo was not the slightest abashed by Diana’s coldness, it only incited him to further efforts.

In fact, the colder she was, the more he desired her, until he knew himself to be falling deeply in love with her. Accustomed to women hanging on his words, laughing at his jokes, and listening with fascinated eyes, Hugo was at once annoyed and intrigued. He asked her out to dinner and took her to the quietest place he knew. She was charming and intelligent, but still he felt he got no farther.

Then Diana included him in a weekend party at Mortons. He went down and liked her even better against her own background.

It was lovely summer weather. After dinner, the men came out of the dining room with their cigars and went on to the paved terrace where the women, like ghosts in their pale dresses, were awaiting them.

Cleverly – for who was a better technician at such things than he? – Hugo detached Diana from the others. They walked down the terrace and moved over the soft lawns towards the rose garden.

The air was filled with the scent from the huge beds of night-scented stock, and a pale moon threw the shadows of the trees on the pathway before them. Beside the lily-pond they stood without speaking. It was quite silent, save for the faint wind stirring the leaves, and an owl hooting far away by the stream.

They might have been miles from London, miles from civilization.

Without saying a word, Hugo took Diana’s hand, raised it to his lips, and then very gently took her in his arms – almost to his surprise he was thrilled by the touch of her.

There was a magic in the night and in Diana, that he had not felt for many years with any woman. She let him kiss her, though she did not respond, and then, still without speaking, they walked back to the others.

The party had gone indoors, the wireless was playing, and they were dancing. In the bright lights of the room Hugo looked at Diana. Her face expressed no emotion of any kind. He could not even persuade himself that her eyes were shining more than usual.

He was at first almost astounded, and then the hunting instinct in him was aroused. That this young girl should feel so little for him was not only unusual, but it was also overwhelming! Eagerly he asked her to dance and held her tightly to him, and now was her moment to look slightly embarrassed, to smile flirtatiously at him – for had they not a secret between them?

Instead, Diana’s conversation was as frank and ordinary as if they had come straight from the dinner table. From that moment Hugo began to fall in love with her.

Tonight, at the Embassy, Hugo thought he had never seen her look more beautiful. She was wearing white, with a cape of white foxes joined together by bands of Russian ermine. Her only jewellery was two huge diamond clips in the front of her dress, while on her shoulder she had pinned just a single orchid from the large bunch he had sent her before dinner.

“I love you, Diana.”

In response to his words, Diana looked at him, and smiled,

“Thank you, Hugo.”

“I asked you a question last night. Am I to get my answer this evening?”

Diana smiled again.

“Your question last night,” she said, “should have commenced with a ‘will’ rather than with a ‘when’.”

“Must we do it according to form?”

Diana nodded.

“Of course,” she said. “You can’t expect me to give up all the fun.”

There was something in the lightness of her voice that annoyed Hugo disproportionately.

“I don’t think you ought to joke about it like this.”

He then had the grace to laugh at his own words, even before Diana started to tease him.

“Really,” she said, “you’re getting incredibly Victorian these days. I’m sure if I did marry you, I shouldn’t be allowed to make up my face, or do anything without your permission!”

“But – seriously, Diana.”

She shook her head.

“Don’t let’s be serious,” she said. “I've been serious all day, and I’m tired of it. Let’s talk about something else.”

Both of them knew that it was an impossibility, and yet Diana felt that she must fence for time. She did not want to give him an answer one way or the other, at any rate not tonight.

Quickly she looked round the room for a topic of conversation.

There were the usual unconcerned young women with smart young men, occasionally accompanied by their husbands, making a depressing third to the party. There was a group of ex-debs, giggling amongst themselves and smiling self-consciously into the looking glass. Royalty was represented and was being entertained by a very attractive lady of doubtful parentage but undeniable charm.

Three young men, whose names all figured in the pages of Debrett, were partnered by three platinum-blonde Americans, who were finding that on this side of the Atlantic, gum-chewing was considered a fascinating attraction.

It was at the table next to these that Diana saw an old friend of hers, Loelia Standish, who was dining alone with her husband.

With a quick apology to Hugo, Diana moved across to her table.

“Loelia, my dear,” she exclaimed, “I’d no idea you were in London!”

“We arrived tonight.”

Aged about thirty-five, Loelia Standish was one of the few women for whom Diana had sincere admiration and affection. She had met her several years ago at a house party, which had turned out to be singularly boring, and having made great friends with her during the few days they were there, had gone to stay at her country house in Worcestershire.

Here the first impressions had proved themselves to be so correct that Loelia Standish became the one person whom Diana really desired as a friend.

Loelia had a miserable life with her first husband. She had divorced him, and married Jack Standish, whom she adored, and who adored her. They were so content that neither had much use for other society, but Loelia liked Diana, and did her best to make the girl’s stay a happy one, sensing perhaps a little of the underlying loneliness of a life which seemed so full and enviable to the outside world.

“I was going to ring you up tomorrow morning,” she said now. “We only got here two hours ago, and we are staying until Monday, because Jack wants to buy a horse at Tattersall’s. Who are you with? Why not come and join us?”

The invitation was exactly what Diana wanted, and to Hugo’s annoyance, he found himself joining the Standishes at their table.