Her impact was instantaneous. Sarah was a whirlwind. Sarah was a much-needed breath of fresh air. Sarah was all things Isherwood was not: prompt, regimented, disciplined, and, of course, very American. She started arriving at the gallery at eight each morning. Isherwood, who was used to strolling into work at the Italianate hour of ten, was forced to trim his sails accordingly. She put his disgraceful books in order and spruced up the large common office they shared. She replaced the missing letters on the intercom and the soiled brown carpeting on the stairs. She began the painful process of liquidating Isherwood’s vast pile of dead stock and entered into quiet negotiations to take over the adjacent office space currently occupied by Miss Archer’s dreary little travel agency. “She’s an American,” said Dimbleby. “She’s expansionist by nature. She’ll conquer your country and afterwards tell you it’s for your own good.”

Tanya, as it turned out, did not survive till Friday and was last seen leaving the gallery on the Wednesday evening. Her departure was handled by Sarah and was therefore accomplished with a smoothness not usually seen at Isherwood Fine Arts. The generous severance package—“Very generous from what I hear,” said Dimbleby—permitted her to take a long, well-deserved winter holiday in Morocco. By the next Monday there was a new girl on duty in Isherwood’s anteroom, a tall olive-skinned Italian woman with riotous dark hair and eyes the color of caramel named Elena Farnese. An informal straw poll, conducted by Roddy Hutchinson, found that among the men of St. James’s she was regarded as even more beautiful than the fetching Sarah. The name “Isherwood Fine Arts” suddenly took on new meaning among the denizens of Duke Street, and the gallery was hit by a rash of drop-bys and pop-ins. Even Jeremy Crabbe from Bonhams started dropping by unannounced just to have a glimpse at Isherwood’s collection.

After shoring up the gallery Sarah began venturing out to meet her compatriots. She did formal meetings with the leading lights at the various London auction houses. She lunched expensively with the collectors and had quiet drinks in the late afternoon with their advisers, their consultants, and their assorted hangers-on. She popped into the galleries of Isherwood’s competitors and said hello. She stopped at the bar at Green’s once or twice and bought a round for the boys. Oliver Dimbleby finally screwed up the courage to invite her to lunch, but wisely she made it a coffee instead. Next afternoon they had a latte in a paper cup at an American chain on Piccadilly. Oliver fondled her hand and invited her to dinner. “I’m afraid I don’t do dinner,” she said. Why ever not? wondered Oliver as he waddled back to his gallery in King Street. Why ever not indeed?