She was one of those characters that can neither thrust themselves to the front, nor have any wish to do so, but being there, no ordinary power can thrust them away.
With the Grafin as her friend Cicely found herself in altogether a different position from that involved by the mere interested patronage of Lady Shalem.

A vista of social success was opened up to her, and she did not mean it to be just the ordinary success of a popular and influential hostess moving in an important circle.

That people with naturally bad manners should have to be polite and considerate in their dealings with her, that people who usually held themselves aloof should have to be gracious and amiable, that the self-assured should have to be just a little humble and anxious where she was concerned, these things of course she intended to happen; she was a woman.

But, she told herself, she intended a great deal more than that when she traced the pattern for her scheme of social influence.

In her heart she detested the German occupation as a hateful necessity, but while her heart registered the hatefulness the brain recognised the necessity.