When, through a Lonely Hearts ad, she met Captain Rudof MacLeod, a hard-living, hard-drinking officer home on leave from Holland's vicious colonial wars in the East Indies, she didn't care that he was 22 years older than her. He was handsome, with a splendid moustache. She was tall (5ft 10in) and elegant, with flirty dark eyes and a dark olive complexion. The attraction was immediate, sexual and very strong. She told him she longed to do "crazy things" and they were engaged within six days. They married three months later, she in a bright yellow gown rather than the traditional white.