She had attained to that desirable feminine altitude of purse and position when people who go about everywhere know you well by sight and have never met your dress before.
Lady Shalem was a woman of commanding presence, of that type which suggests a consciousness that the command may not necessarily be obeyed; she had observant eyes and a well-managed voice.

Her successes in life had been worked for, but they were also to some considerable extent the result of accident.

Her public history went back to the time when, in the person of her husband, Mr.Conrad Dort, she had contested two hopeless and very expensive Parliamentary elections on behalf of her party; on each occasion the declaration of the poll had shown a heavy though reduced majority on the wrong side, but she might have perpetrated an apt misquotation of the French monarch's traditional message after the defeat of Pavia, and assured the world "all is lost save honours." The forthcoming Honours List had duly proclaimed the fact that Conrad Dort, Esquire, had entered Parliament by another door as Baron Shalem, of Wireskiln, in the county of Suffolk.

Success had crowned the lady's efforts as far as the achievement of the title went, but her social ambitions seemed unlikely to make further headway.

The new Baron and his wife, their title and money notwithstanding, did not "go down" in their particular segment of county society, and in London there were other titles and incomes to compete with.