Lord Salisbury told me he was the best occasional speaker he had
ever heard; and certainly he was an exceptionally gifted person.
He came to Glen constantly in my youth and all of us worshipped
him. No one was more alarming to the average stranger or more
playful and affectionate in intimacy than Lord Rosebery.
An announcement in some obscure paper that he was engaged to be
married to me came between us in later years. He was seriously
annoyed and thought I ought to have contradicted this. I had never
even heard the report till I got a letter in Cairo from Paris,
asking if I would not agree to the high consideration and
respectful homages of the writer and allow her to make my
chemises. After this, the matter went completely out of my head,
till, meeting him one day in London, I was greeted with such
frigid self-suppression that I felt quite exhausted. A few months
later, our thoughtful Press said I was engaged to be married to
Arthur Balfour. As I had seen nothing of Lord Rosebery since he
had gone into a period of long mourning, I was acclimatised to
doing without him, but to lose Arthur's affection and friendship
would have been an irreparable personal loss to me. I need not
have been afraid, for this was just the kind of rumour that
challenged his insolent indifference to the public and the Press.
Seeing me come into Lady Rothschild's ball-room one night, he left
the side of the man he was conversing with and with his elastic
step stalked down the empty parquet floor to greet me.
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