s life took a sudden, new,
extraordinary turn. He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the intimate
adviser and the daily companion of a young girl who had stepped all at
once from a nursery to a throne. His relations with women had been, like
everything else about him, ambiguous. Nobody had ever been able quite
to gauge the shifting, emotional complexities of his married life; Lady
Caroline vanished; but his peculiar susceptibilities remained. Female
society of some kind or other was necessary to him, and he did not
stint himself; a great part of every day was invariably spent in it. The
feminine element in him made it easy, made it natural and inevitable for
him to be the friend of a great many women; but the masculine element
in him was strong as well. In such circumstances it is also easy, it is
even natural, perhaps it is even inevitable, to be something more than
a friend. There were rumours and combustions. Lord Melbourne was twice a
co-respondent in a divorce action; but on each occasion he won his suit.
The lovely Lady Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant Mrs. Norton... the
law exonerated them both. Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil. But
at any rate it was clear that, with such a record, the Prime Minister's
position in Buckingham Palace must be a highly delicate one. However,
he was used to delicacies, and he met the situation with consummate
success. His behaviour was from the first moment impeccable. His manner
towards the young Queen mingled, with perfect facility, the watchfulness
and the respect of a statesman and a courtier with the tender solicitude
of a parent. He was at once reverential and affectionate, at once the
servant and the guide. At the same time the habits of his life underwent
a surprising change. His comfortable, unpunctual days became subject to
the unaltering routine of a palace; no longer did he sprawl on sofas;
not a single "damn" escaped his lips. The man of the world who had been
the friend of Byron and the regent, the talker whose paradoxes had held
Holland House enthralled, the cynic whose ribaldries had enlivened so
many deep potations, the lover whose soft words had captivated such
beauty and such passion and such wit, might now be seen, evening after
evening, talking with infinite politeness to a schoolgirl, bolt upright,
amid the silence and the rigidity of Court etiquette.

IV

On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fascinated by Lord Melbourne.
The good report of Stockma