Lady Caroline Byng

Lady Caroline presides over Belpher's social arrangements with the serene authority of a woman who has never doubted her own judgment, and she has decided opinions about who should marry whom. Her marriage to the cheerfully dim Reggie Byng is a study in mismatched temperaments, and her determination to steer Maud toward a suitable match puts her squarely in the way of the lovers. She is the embodiment of the aristocratic pressure the younger generation is trying to escape, and her interventions keep the plot's machinery grinding.