Mrs.de Barral was living then in a big stone mansion with mullioned windows in a large damp park, called the Priory, adjoining the village where the refined poet had built himself a house.
These were the days of de Barral's success.

He had bought the place without ever seeing it and had packed off his wife and child at once there to take possession.

He did not know what to do with them in London.

He himself had a suite of rooms in an hotel.

He gave there dinner parties followed by cards in the evening.