Importance of The London Club

For decades, if not centuries, British men and women of the middle and upper classes had memberships in private clubs where they could eat, meet, and stay, an alternative to home, office or hotel. In this particular unnamed women's club whose anonymity perhaps evoking the emotional and spiritual anonymity at the heart of their lives, Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot first encounter the newspaper advertisement that draws them to Italy.