In paperback,
Arabella's predicament is not without certain ironies. As hostess and hosuekeeper for her elegant and eminiently successful widowed father, she finds herself "stuck" in a luxurious home where she receives some of London's most alluring and influential people; and when she finally allows herself to fall in love, it is with a man who is "happily married" and whos avowed intentions toward her are anything but honerable. Committed to the glitter of fashionable Mayfair life, she is nonetheless intrigued by elements of Bohemia. And though money is nice, a smart new coat or hat always a ready consolation, her younger brother's letters from India (where he has fled in search of suffering and poetry) cause her to long for a world seemingly outside the range of her experiences or imaginings.
