From a Competition in _People of Position_ (with which are incorporated
_West End Whispers and Mayfair Mysteries_). Prizes will be awarded to
the three readers who are first, second, and third in guessing the
identities of the greatest number of Society Personages indicated in the
Guess Who It Is series of articles.
First Prize, a copy of this year's _Debrett_. Second Prize, a copy of
last year's _Debrett_. Third Prize, a bound volume of _People of
Position_ (with which are incorporated _West-End Whispers and Mayfair
Mysteries_.)
* * * * *
She is a woman who matters very much indeed. By birth and by marriage
she belongs to two extremely ancient families, which were settled in
Britain when it was entirely covered with forests and inhabited largely
by wild beasts. But it is not any advantage of birth or of wealth that
has made her the great social figure she is. It is her extraordinary
charm and her arresting personality. She is not strictly beautiful, but
her smile is peculiarly her own--a rare distinction in these days when
there is so much that is artificial.
She has the reputation of being one of the three best dressed women in
Europe, and never wears anything, not even her boots, more than once.
Her wit is positively brilliant, and in this connection it may be
asserted once for all that it was she who first gave vogue to the
greeting, "Doodledo," an abbreviated form of "How d'you do," though
others have been given the credit for that sparkling pleasantry. In the
art of "setting down" she is unapproachable, combining gentle courtesy
with fine satire and mordant epigram, as on the occasion when a certain
pushing and impossible outside person claimed her acquaintance in public
with a loud "How are you?" With her own look and smile she turned and
gave him his _coup de grace_--"Not any the better for seeing you!"--at
which an exalted foreign Personage, who was chatting with her laughed so
much that he fell into an apoplexy.
She and her husband are sometimes at their beautiful place in
Middleshire, and sometimes at their mansion in Belvenor Square. When
they are not in England they are generally abroad. She is devoted to
horse-riding, motoring, yachting, and ski-ing, but has not, like some of
her set, forgotten how to walk. On the contrary, when in town she may
occasionally be seen taking this old-fashioned form of exercise in the
Park, placing one foot alternately before the other in her charmingly
characteristic manner.
She has once or twice, in a delightfully mischievous spirit, amused
herself by flouting those very social ordinances of which she is an
acknowledged high priestess. When wars, strikes, and Governments are
forgotten, it will still be remembered how, some years ago when she was
a few months younger than she is now, she appeared in her box at the
opera on a MELBA (_and therefore a tiara_) night wearing a necklace of
spar beads and a large ribbon bow on her head. An electric shock ran
through the house; opera and singers were unheeded; and the beautiful
Countess of ---- tore the family diamonds from her head and neck, and,
with a shriek of despair, flung them into the orchestra.
The subject of our article could have shone in any or all of the arts,
had she cared to give her time and talents to them. Let it be said, too,
that, though surrounded from her infancy with "all this world and all
the glory of it," she has a serious side to her character, countenances
the Church, and by no means discourages religion.
It is widely known that she keeps a diary. Ah! if only that diary, in
its dainty, morocco, gold-clasped volumes, could be abstracted from the
wonderful mother-o'-pearl escritoire, carried out of the exquisite
Renaissance boudoir, down the noble staircase and out of the massive
hall-door, and, after the spelling, grammar and composition had been
slightly overhauled, if it could but be published and given to the eager
world, what an intellectual feast it would provide! And to the fair,
gifted, high-born diarist what a fortune it would bring, and what a
number of simply _absorbing_ libel cases!
_GUESS WHO IT IS._
* * * * *
_The Daily Mail_ must be more careful with its posters. Here are two
recent examples:--