Of course it was difficult for the Duchess to have interesting parties because so many people were banned from her table: all Liberals, all Jews, anybody in trade, anybody who was on the stage, all divorcées, and all of the many people who had at one time or another offended against the Duchess’s idea of what was the done thing. It made for a dull circle of friends.

The Duchess’s favorite topic of conversation was the question of what was ruining the country. The main candidates were subversion (by Lloyd George and Churchill), vulgarity (Diaghilev and the Post-impressionists), and supertax (one shilling and threepence in the pound).

Today, however, the ruin of England took second place to the death of the Archduke. The Conservative M.P. explained at somewhat tedious length why there would be no war. The wife of a South American ambassador said in a little-girlish tone which infuriated Charlotte: “What I don’t understand is why these Nihilists want to throw bombs and shoot people.”

The Duchess had the answer to that. Her doctor had explained to her that all suffragettes had a nervous ailment known to medical science as hysteria; and in her view the revolutionists suffered from the male equivalent of this disease.

Charlotte, who had read The Times from cover to cover that morning, said: “On the other hand, perhaps the Serbs simply don’t want to be ruled by Austria.” Mama gave her a black look and everyone else glanced at her for a moment as if she were quite mad and then ignored what she had said.

Freddie was sitting next to her. His round face always seemed to gleam slightly. He spoke to her in a low voice. “I say, you do say the most outrageous things.”

“What was outrageous about it?” Charlotte demanded.

“Well, I mean to say, anyone would think you approved of people shooting Archdukes.”

“I think if the Austrians tried to take over England, you would shoot Archdukes, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re priceless,” Freddie said.

Charlotte turned away from him. She was beginning to feel as if she had lost her voice: nobody seemed to hear anything she said. It made her very cross.

Meanwhile the Duchess was getting into her stride. The lower classes were idle, she said; and Charlotte thought: You who have never done a day’s work in your life! Why, the Duchess said, she understood that nowadays each workman had a lad to carry his tools around: surely a man could carry his own tools, she said as a footman held out for her a silver salver of boiled potatoes. Beginning her third glass of sweet wine, she said that they drank so much beer in the middle of the day that they were incapable of working in the afternoon. People today wanted to be mollycoddled, she said as three footmen and two maids cleared away the third course and served the fourth; it was no business of the government’s to provide Poor Relief and medical insurance and pensions. Poverty would encourage the lower orders to be thrifty, and that was a virtue, she said at the end of a meal which would have fed a working-class family of ten for a fortnight. People must be self-reliant, she said as the butler helped her rise from the table and walk into the drawing room.

By this time Charlotte was boiling with suppressed rage. Who could blame revolutionists for shooting people like the Duchess?

Freddie handed her a cup of coffee and said: “She’s a marvelous old warhorse, isn’t she?”

Charlotte said: “I think she’s the nastiest old woman I’ve ever met.”

Freddie’s round face became furtive and he said: “Hush!”

At least, Charlotte thought, no one could say I’m encouraging him.

A carriage clock on the mantel struck three with a tinkling chime. Charlotte felt as if she were in jail. Feliks was now waiting for her on the steps of the National Gallery. She had to get out of the Duchess’s house. She thought: What am I doing here when I could be with someone who talks sense?

The Conservative M.P. said: “I must get back to the House.” His wife stood up to go with him. Charlotte saw her way out.

She approached the wife and spoke quietly. “I have a slight headache,” she said. “May I come with you? You must pass my house on the way to Westminster.”

“Certainly, Lady Charlotte,” said the wife.

Mama was talking to the Duchess. Charlotte interrupted them and repeated the headache story. “I know Mama would like to stay a little longer, so I’m going with Mrs. Shakespeare. Thank you for a lovely lunch, your grace.”

The Duchess nodded regally.

I managed that rather well, Charlotte thought as she walked out into the hall and down the stairs.

She gave her address to the Shakespeares’ coachman and added: “There’s no need to drive into the courtyard-just stop outside.”

On the way, Mrs. Shakespeare advised her to take a spoonful of laudanum for the headache.

The coachman did as he had been told, and at three-twenty Charlotte was standing on the pavement outside her home, watching the coach drive off. Instead of going into the house she headed for Trafalgar Square.

She arrived just after three-thirty and ran up the steps of the National Gallery. She could not see Feliks. He’s gone, she thought, after all that. Then he emerged from behind one of the massive pillars, as if he had been lying in wait, and she was so pleased to see him she could have kissed him.

“I’m sorry to have made you wait about,” she said as she shook his hand. “I got involved in a dreadful luncheon party.”

“It doesn’t matter, now that you’re here.” He was smiling, but uneasily, like-Charlotte thought-someone saying hello to a dentist before having a tooth pulled.

They went inside. Charlotte loved the cool, hushed museum, with its glass domes and marble pillars, gray floors and beige walls, and the paintings shouting out color and beauty and passion. “At least my parents taught me to look at pictures,” she said.

He turned his sad dark eyes on her. “There’s going to be a war.”

Of all the people who had spoken of that possibility today, only Feliks and Papa had seemed to be moved by it. “Papa said the same thing. But I don’t understand why.”

“France and Germany both think they stand to gain a lot by war. Austria, Russia and England may get sucked in.”

They walked on. Feliks did not seem to be interested in the paintings. Charlotte said: “Why are you so concerned? Shall you have to fight?”

“I’m too old. But I think of all the millions of innocent Russian boys, straight off the farm, who will be crippled or blinded or killed in a cause they don’t understand and wouldn’t care about if they did.”

Charlotte had always thought of war as a matter of men killing one another, but Feliks saw it as men being killed by war. As usual, he showed her things in a new light. She said: “I never looked at it that way.”

“The Earl of Walden never looked at it that way either. That’s why he will let it happen.”

“I’m sure Papa wouldn’t let it happen if he could help-”

“You’re wrong,” Feliks interrupted. “He is making it happen.”

Charlotte frowned, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“That’s why Prince Orlov is here.”

Her puzzlement deepened. “How do you know about Aleks?”

“I know more about it than you do. The police have spies among the anarchists, but the anarchists have spies among the police spies. We find things out. Walden and Orlov are negotiating a treaty, the effect of which will be to drag Russia into the war on the British side.”

Charlotte was about to protest that Papa would not do such a thing; then she realized that Feliks was right. It explained some of the remarks passed between Papa and Aleks while Aleks was staying at the house, and it explained why Papa was shocking his friends by consorting with Liberals like Churchill.

She said: “Why would he do that?”

“I’m afraid he doesn’t care how many Russian peasants die so long as England dominates Europe.”