It is they who are fickle, and the excuses they make to break away from
her are both varied and ingenious. During the War, of course, they
always had the pretext of being ordered to the Front at a moment's
notice, and were not, it appears, allowed to write home on account of
the Censor. Elizabeth used to blame Lloyd George for these defects of
organization. Even to this day she is extremely bitter against the
Government.

In fact, she is bitter against every one when her love affairs are not
running smoothly. The entire household suffers in consequence. She is
sullen and obstinate; she is always on the verge of giving notice. And
the way she breaks things in her abstraction is awful. Elizabeth's
illusions and my crockery always get shattered together. My rose-bowl
of Venetian glass got broken when the butcher threw her over for the
housemaid next door. Half a dozen tumblers, a basin and several odd
plates came in two in her hands after the grocer's assistant went away
suddenly to join the silent Navy. And nearly the whole of a dinner
service was sacrificed when Lloyd George peremptorily ordered her young
man in the New Army to go to Mesopotamia and stay there for at least
three years without leave.

Those brief periods when Elizabeth's young men are in the incipient
stages of paying her marked attention are agreeable to everybody.
Elizabeth, feeling no doubt in her rough untutored way that God's in
his Heaven and all's right with the world, sings at her work; she shows
extraordinary activity when going about her duties. She does unusual
things like remembering to polish the brasses every week--indeed, you
have only to step in the hall and glance at the stair rods to discover
the exact stage of her latest 'affair.' I remember once when one
ardent swain (who she declared was 'in the flying corpse') got to the