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Like her Uncle David, the Duke of Windsor, Elizabeth loves horses (she rides superbly), racing (if possible, she never misses a race when the royal stable is entered), swing music, nightclubs, and having her own way. But Elizabeth's rebellions are those of any headstrong, well-reared child suffering an overdose of family. "I'd like a car of my own," she told a friend recently, "but there's so damn much family talk about which make I must have that I don't think I'll ever get one." Her greatest insubordination to date followed the King's official announcement that the Princess would join none of the women's services. Elizabeth had other ideas, and not long afterward the King meekly announced that his daughter had been granted a commission in the A.T.S. (British WACs). As Elizabeth, dungaree-clad, her pretty face smeared with grease, learned to drive and dismantle Army trucks, the Empire beamed with approval. Fundamentally Elizabeth is a dutiful and levelheaded daughter who enjoys reading the latest best-sellers (For Whom the Bell Tolls was a favorite), knitting (she hates sewing), and gossipy teas with Margaret and a few girl friends before an open fire at the Palace. Even her revels are circumspect affairs. Once when she led a conga line around the Palace the sentries saluted as the dancers passed. The nightclubs she haunts are the most fashionable, her guests impeccably aristocratic, and a Scotland Yard operative is always on hand to choose a table and clear a path to the ladies' room. Elizabeth is sometimes curt and often imperious. At a Palace party, when she found a friend powdering her nose in a corridor, Elizabeth snapped: "This is not the cloakroom." Nevertheless she is highly popular among her wellborn friends. "A smasher of a girl," most of them say of her.
Prince Charming? The great question mark that hovers perpetually over any heiress has never left Lilibet. Since she was first able to blow a kiss from her cradle, Britain's cooing matchmakers have been at work on her. When the Princess took to nightclubbing, the speculation, abetted by trigger-fingered columnists, increased tenfold, until any sleek young lord seen dancing twice with Lilibet was a marked man. Since she seldom sits one out (she is a gifted and tireless dancer), the field was enormous. But during the last year it has narrowed to a single contestant: a well-scrubbed, curly-haired lieutenant of the Royal Navy, who was born sixth in line to the throne of Greece.