Page:The Confessions of a Well-Meaning Woman.djvu/100

 I am not exaggerating when I use the word “perfection.” A seventeenth-century Italian palace with gardens that put Cheniston and my brother-in-law Spenworth to shame; pictures that one somehow always thought were in the National Gallery. . . And, if you care for material comfort, as—I am not ashamed to say—I do, not having enjoyed enough of it to become blasée. . . “If you cannot be rich yourself, know plenty of rich people,” as Will said the first night. . . In jest, of course. . . If I wanted to make a criticism, I should say that Lady Erskine might have chosen her party on less catholic lines. As patron of the arts, Sir Adolphus is of course brought into contact with an entire world of artists, musicians, actors and the like which is outside my ken. He confessed that he liked “mixing people up” and trying to break down the very rigid barriers which separate the artistic people from the rest of us. I have not the slightest objection to that on principle, but, when it necessitates meeting a number of half-naked young actresses who truly honestly have no place in the artistic or any other world. . . And when they are allowed to set the tone of the house. ..

I reminded myself that, with the exception of Brackenbury Hall, I had not stayed in a country-house for I don’t know how long.