AN EMBARRASSING COMPLIMENT.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5474, 31 December 1904, Page 15

AN EMBARRASSING COMPLIMENT.

"Only twice did I come under Lord Beaoonsfield’s 'direct magnetic influence,’ though I had often been his neighbour at crowded assemblies,” writes Lady Mary Montgomerie Currie (in an article on "Remarkable Looking Men,” in the "Nineteenth Century" for October). "Upon the first of these occasions a curious mal entendu arose. It was at a large party at tho late Lady Salisbury’s, in Arlington street, when lord Rowton led him np to me and formally presented him. We sat down together upon a sofa, when ho began by expressing the pleasure he felt at having at last ‘become acquainted with his dear god-daughter.’ His conversation was so delightful that I did not like to interrupt it by asking him tho meaning of this opening phrase, and I parted from him a good deal mystified. Lord Rowton having previously arranged a little dinner for the following week, at his house in South Audley street, in order that we might improve the acquaintance. Now, it happened that just before this a lady who was a near relation of mine had met the Prime Minister (as he then was) when staying at Alton Towers. To her, too, his conversation had proved delightful. He possessed the royal gift of remembering (or of appearing to remember) all about one’s ‘birth, parentage, and education,’ and of seeming to be interested in everything that he imagined might be of interest to those with whom he was conversing, and he immediately informed her that her greatgrandfather (who was my own great-grand-father also)—an old gentleman who looked upon himself as a poet and a patron of literature and the drama—had been the very first person to whom he had submitted the proofs of his first book, in order to ask his opinion of its merits. "Aa this seemed to imply some sort of intimacy with my family, and as I had never known who my god-father really was (so little interest had he ever evinced in my acquirement of edifying matter 'in the vulgar tongue,' and as he had never given mo so much as a penny whistle by way of remembrance), 1 said to myself that it was by no means Impossible that Lord Beaoonsfield had actually been the godfather hitherto undiscovered, starting from which vague supposition, I (impulsive bottle-imp that it is!) jumped at once to the conclusion that not only was this just possible, but very probable indeed, and sent me off to Lord Rowton’s dinner thrilling with emotions which would scarcely have been out of place upon the occasion of a reunion with a long-lost parent. An explanation awaited me. Lord Beaconsfield had spoken of me as his ‘god-daughter’ because I had selected ‘Violet Fane’ as a nom-de-plume, the name of the heroine of one of hia early novels. He had always wished to ask me whether I had chosen this name for any particular reason ?“ This was where the embarrassment oanue in. Lady Currie goes on to say how she got Lord Rowton to at once procure for her a copy of "Vivien Grey,” which she had previously read, but forgotten. Then she hurried through the chapters relating to Violet Fane, so as to qualify herself for making Lord Beaconsfield a satisfactory answer when they resumed their conversation. .