[1] Life as the Prime Minister's daughter thrust her into the public eye at an early age and she developed a quick wit and a social presence beyond her years.

[2] When she was just 14, The Times wrote that "many members of the House have made the acquaintance of Miss Asquith and in expressing their concern for her health, have referred to her charm of manner and to the interest which she has begun already to show in political matters."

[citation needed] On 29 April 1919, she married Prince Antoine Bibesco, member of the House of Bibescu and a Romanian diplomat stationed in London, a man 22 years her senior.

Taking place at St. Margaret's, Westminster, it was the society wedding of the year, attended by everyone from Queen Mary to George Bernard Shaw.

At the time of her marriage Proust wrote that she "was probably unsurpassed in intelligence by any of her contemporaries," and added that "she looked like a lovely figure in an Italian fresco".

Insensibly you were drawn into that intricate cobweb of iridescent steel, his mind, which, interlacing with yours, spread patterns of light and shade over your most intimate thoughts.

[9] Her collections of short stories were reviewed on both sides of the Atlantic and her novel The Fir and the Palm was serialised in The Washington Post in November and December 1924.

In her essay, Bowen wrote that, "The Bibesco characters seem to be the inhabitants of a special milieu, in which the more ordinary taboos of feeling and brakes on speech do not operate.

In the second portrait, seen at right (titled "Princess Antoine Bibesco"), Elizabeth appears slightly weary and melancholic, her eyes averted just enough to suggest a break in her former self-confidence.

When shown at the Royal Academy summer show in 1924, Mary Chamot, writing in Country Life, wrote of this painting that it "has the force to make every other picture in the room look insipid, so dazzling is the contrast between the mysterious darkness of her eyes and hair and the shimmering brilliance of the white lace she wears over her head.