The rooms are ablaze with light. We stand for a moment on the balcony and gaze down at the dancers on the floor below. The couples weave in elegant formations, as brilliant as the butterflies in my hair. I should like to stay and watch them. I should like the opportunity to observe this world before I enter it. George tidies the folds of my dress and clasps my arm.

Several heads turn our way as we are announced. George keeps a firm grip on my elbow. He steers me through the throng of people and stops in front of a hatchet-faced man. He has designs for me.

“Just arrived, Duckworth?” The two men shake hands.

“Mr. Chamberlain, allow me to present my half sister, Miss Vanessa Stephen.” I see the hand stretch out toward me. George’s hot breath is on the back of my neck, willing me to comply. The hand looms closer, imperious, expectant, impatient. I am insubstantial and ridiculous in my dress. I pray for one of the dancers gliding past to catch hold of me and swirl me away. Miserably I shake the hand. I can think of nothing to say.

We leave early. George helps me into the carriage without a word. I know he is angry. He waits until we are on our way before he erupts.

“Would you like to tell me what that was about? I suppose you think it is amusing to insult people. You do realize who that was?”

I bow my head. The streetlamps are blurred smears in the wet panes of the carriage window.

“Your hair was awful, too! Why can’t you keep it pinned up? You must learn to use those clips I bought you.”

Poor George! My silences were unacceptable in the circles he moved in, but so, paradoxically, was your ability to talk. The night you tried to discuss Plato with the people he had seated around you at dinner was a humiliation for you both. If only he had not staked so much on our success! If only he had left us to find our own way in the social sea into which he cast us, instead of forcing us forward where we foundered, things might have been different. Yet as I think back to that time now I cannot blame him entirely. I suspect we owe something of what we later accomplished to his influence. George’s constant haranguing, his perpetual reminders as to our place and obligations, focused what might have remained vague longings for an alternative.