MARGOT: "All right. If you will let me drive you away from lunch in my phaeton, I will show you the Gladstone picture."
ARTHUR WALTER: "Are you serious? Do you know them well enough?"
MARGOT (nodding confidently): "Yes, yes, don't you fret!"
After lunch I drove him to 40 Grosvenor Square and, when I let myself in with my latch-key, he guessed who I was, but any interest he might have felt in this discovery was swamped by what followed.
I opened the library door. Mr. Gladstone was sitting talking to my parents under his own portrait. After the introduction he conversed with interest and courtesy to my new relation about the Times newspaper, its founder and its great editor, Delane.
What I really enjoyed most in London was riding in the Row. I bought a beautiful hack for myself at Tattersalls, 15.2, bright bay with black points and so well-balanced that if I had ridden it with my face to its tail I should hardly have known the difference. I called it Tatts; it was bold as a lion, vain as a peacock and extremely moody. One day, when I was mounted to ride in the Row, my papa kept me waiting so long at the door of 40 Grosvenor Square that I thought I would ride Tatts into the front hall and give him a call; it only meant going up one step from the pavement to the porch and another through the double doors held open by the footman. Unluckily, after a somewhat cautious approach by Tatts up the last step into the marble hall, he caught his reflection in a mirror. At this he instantly stood erect upon his hind legs, crashing my tall hat into the crystal chandelier. His four legs all gave way on the polished floor and down we went with a noise like thunder, the pony on the top of me, the chandelier on the top of him and my father and the footman helpless spectators. I was up and on Tatts' head in a moment, but not before he had kicked a fine old English chest into a jelly. This misadventure upset my father's temper and my pony's nerve, as well as preventing me from dancing for several days.
My second scrape was more serious. I engaged myself to be married.
If any young "miss" reads this autobiography and wants a little advice from a very old hand, I will say to her, when a man threatens to commit suicide after you have refused him, you may be quite sure that he is a vain, petty fellow or a great goose; if you felt any doubts about your decision before, you need have none after this and under no circumstances must you give way. To marry a man out of pity is folly; and, if you think you are going to influence the kind of fellow who has "never had a chance, poor devil," you are profoundly mistaken. One can only influence the strong characters in life, not the weak; and it is the height of vanity to suppose that you can make an honest man of any one. My fiance was neither petty nor a goose, but a humorist; I do not think he meant me to take him seriously, but in spite of my high spirits I was very serious, and he was certainly more in love with me than any one had ever been before. He was a fine rider and gave me a mount with the Beaufort hounds.
When I told my mother of my engagement, she sank upon a settee, put a handkerchief to her eyes, and said:
"You might as well marry your groom!"