The dinner where I was introduced to Henry was in the House of
Commons and I sat next to him. I was tremendously impressed by his
conversation and his clean Cromwellian face. He was different from
the others and, although abominably dressed, had so much
personality that I made up my mind at once that here was a man who
could help me and would understand everything. It never crossed my
brain that he was married, nor would that have mattered; I had
always been more anxious that Peter Flower should marry than
myself, because he was thirteen years older than I was, but
matrimony was not the austere purpose of either of our lives.
After dinner we all walked on the Terrace and I was flattered to
find my new friend by my side. Lord Battersea chaffed me in his
noisy, flamboyant manner, trying to separate us; but with tact and
determination this frontal attack was resisted and my new friend
and I retired to the darkest part of the Terrace, where, leaning
over the parapet, we gazed into the river and talked far into the
night.
Our host and his party--thinking that I had gone home and that Mr.
Asquith had returned to the House when the division bell rang--had
disappeared; and when we finished our conversation the Terrace was
deserted and the sky light.
We met a few days later dining with Sir Algernon West--a very dear
and early friend of mine--and after this we saw each other
constantly. I found out from something he said to me that he was
married and lived at Hampstead and that his days were divided
between 1 Paper Buildings and the House of Commons.
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