Claire Clairmont
When Strange first makes the acquaintance of Lord Byron it is during the latter's intimacy with a young woman, Claire Clairmont, the half-sister of his friend Shelley's wife. A passionate and vivacious brunette, she had imprudently thrown herself at his lordship. (As he wrote in easy self-excuse to a friend, "..if a girl of eighteen comes prancing to you at all hours of the night, there is but one way..."). This young woman later bore him a natural daughter.
Strange is a little disturbed by the irregularity of her connexion with Byron[50], and when he meets Mrs Clairmont again it is in Venice, whither she has pursued his lordship after he has tired of her. She implores Strange's aid in fixing his lordship's affections on her once more, but he rightly declines. A third party can never usefully intervene in such situations. The interview between the two of them is accidentally witnessed by Flora Greysteel, who is in danger of putting a wrong construction on it and losing some of the esteem she was beginning to feel for Strange[51].