than these trivialities. After dinner that night — we had been silent the whole time — he turned to me and asked whether I was in earnest in my resolve to go... I remember that I answered: Of course, and I shall do nothing else...

When he rose from his chair he turned to me and said coldly that he had been thinking of a trip to New York, but so long as matters were running this

course, he would not try to stop them... He spoke his last sentence as he stepped into his room, and for the first time in our married life I heard him slam its door violently...

In the early days of February the boat that carried us across the sea set off; on board were the Prince, and Bruce Ogilvy with his beautiful wife and her sister,

and Commander James Dugdale... The arrangements were excellent, so that none of us felt any fatigue; so too was the hotel where we stayed. And although the companions came back every day with the stories of their adventures upon the snows, and spoke of the splendor of nature in that corner of the earth, it never once occurred to me to venture out; I preferred the quiet sittings before the fire, sipping tea and listening to music...

Two weeks passed in our visit to the snow country, when suddenly the Prince announced the end of the trip; then he went on to say: We shall not go to London, but to Vienna. And so we crossed the Alps by train until we

reached the Hotel Bristol in Vienna. The Prince spent most of his days with the English Minister, Sir Walford Selby, accepting official interviews only, and passing the evenings in waltzing. And one evening he came out with one of his surprises: he said that he loved the dancing of Vienna, yet he admired no less the fire of gypsy dancing and its music. And so the next morning we were on our way to Budapest...

I had lived the splendor of Budapest in stories, and had no notion of the reality of life there... nor did I know

what magic music held in that place... And because I still remember that evening: an official of the Foreign Ministry led us to a humble place where, he said, the sweetest music was played. I sat beside the Prince at a table in a corner of the darkened hall; we listened to the music, feeling that all the misery of the world was flowing out with those melodies. I looked into his eyes: in them was the same gleam that flashed in my own glances. I felt that I was in a dream and that the world was reeling beneath me; yet this let no doubt into my soul that I would return to my home, to my husband...

And when I returned, Ernest had changed completely. He showed no interest in me, and paid no heed to my talk of the trip, nor to what had happened during it. I do not think there is anything that troubles a person

and robs him of sleep more than a state of doubt and total disregard... Such was my condition with Ernest in the days that followed the trip... I do not deny that I was shaken, yet I saw in the distance new doors and unknown horizons opening before me, flooding my life with a new radiance. The Prince ruled my life; the current was rushing on at a speed I did not grasp; and I surrendered to him my fate, and the fate of my future and my whole being, and I began to taste the true flavor of London life.

Among my friends in this period were two ladies whose connections made their houses a meeting place of

intellectual and political discussion; thinkers and men of letters would come from England, and from every part of the world, to Lady Colefax and Lady Cunard... And in the house of Sibyl Colefax I met, for the first time in my life, Winston Churchill...

I was still under the influence of assorted musings; and the lines began to grow clearer; then there drifted to my ears the news of the Prince's interest in me... This news had become the occupation of the English clubs and salons. People's curiosity grew, and they set about