Anything that was ordinary and commonplace began to bore her, and it was not long before people came into the same category. She did not understand that her restlessness was in part due to the fact that she had an active and capable brain which was seldom exercised amongst the friends and acquaintances of her own particular world.

In Society no woman was required to be clever, and even wit in a lady was slightly suspect, and though Violet managed by sheer personality to become a law unto herself, she could not create companions of her own sex with whom she could share her intelligence. Gradually her life began to be spent more and more amongst men.

She found in love affairs the thrill she needed, the excitement she craved.

It gave her a sense of power to know that a man was her abject slave, that men would follow wherever she might lead them.

Clever and intelligent in other walks of life, they would become, when they were with her, as shy and awkward as schoolboys.

She became more and more masterful, more and more autocratic. She made almost insatiable demands on those who loved her, merely to see if her wishes would be obeyed. But she found that even love could become wearisome, even lovers could be as boring as ordinary men, so still she craved new and fresh people, new and fresh sensations.

A hundred times she thought herself in love, a hundred times she knew she had been mistaken.

Then she met Robert Stanford.

The attraction between them was magnetic and instantaneous, and even as Violet was aware that this tall, broad shouldered man was to mean something in her life, she was also aware that she had met her master.

Here was a man who was not going to be so easy to lead or to drive, here was a man who was not to be conquered but would be a conqueror.

So because for the first time Violet had met someone whom she could admire and look up to, she fell completely and abjectly in love. She was clever enough not to let Sir Robert know it. She realised that in some ways he was not unlike herself. He had had too much, things had fallen into his lap too easily. If he wanted anything, he had just to put out his hand and take it, and so she remained elusive and only she knew how hard at times it was to be that where Robert was concerned.

He was ridiculously good looking, she thought, looking at him now from under her eyelashes when, having ordered the dinner and turned over the pages of the big wine list, he chose the wines with care. There was to be a special Spanish sherry with the soup, a light German wine with the fish, claret from Bordeaux with the game and champagne to follow.