The Marquis was obviously well satisfied with his supper partners and, as they leant towards him, their bare shoulders frequently touched his close-fitting evening coat embellished with numerous decorations.
‘Those are the sort of women he prefers,’ Rowena thought, ‘and what have they in common with a doctor’s daughter?’
The supper came to an end, but there was no question of anyone leaving.
The Queen, who had entertained three hundred guests to a banquet at Buckingham House, arrived late and did not sit down to supper until two o’clock in the morning.
The people who had come with her were all talking of the disaster in Green Park when the Pagoda with its Japanese lanterns and gas-jets spluttering on its blue roof, had burst into flames.
It had collapsed into the waters of the lake, k
