Then Lucy nodded and smiled and took Colonel Armytage's arm and was gone in a moment.
Sir Percy followed Lord Baudesert to the library and joined him in a cigar and a whisky and soda.
"What do you think of 'em?" asked Lord Baudesert knowingly, and Sir Percy, understanding that the American ladies were meant, answered:
"Very pretty and very well dressed and very much spoiled, I should judge. I can't quite make out how much real and how much apparent cleverness they have."
"No, neither can any one else," replied Lord Baudesert; "they are the most complex creatures alive. You must readjust all your ideas concerning the sex when it comes to studying this particular variety. They are not like Englishwomen, nor Frenchwomen, nor Spanish women, nor German women, nor Hindoo women, that ever I heard, yet they have some of the characteristics of all. Having been afraid of women all my life--except, of course, Susan and her brood--I am more afraid of American women than any others. Don't marry one, my boy. That's my advice--but don't tell Susan I say so."
"Trust me," replied Sir Percy confidently, lighting another cigar.
III
Sir Percy Carlyon had declined to be domiciled at the British Embassy, as Lord Baudesert urged, but took modest chambers close at hand. He found plenty to do, and although he was supposed to be capable of bullying Lord Baudesert, it was impossible to force the Ambassador to a regular course of work every day. Sir Percy, however, watched the chances, and succeeded in getting more out of Lord Baudesert than any one else had ever done. Moreover, Sir Percy was a persona grata to Mrs. Vereker and the three girls, not that this mattered to Lord Baudesert, who, as far as women were concerned, was a natural and incurable bully and buccaneer. Lord Baudesert was neither bad-tempered nor bad-hearted, but it cannot be denied that he was a trying person domestically. It was in vain that Sir Percy reminded his aunt and cousins that Lord Baudesert had no power of life or death over them and could not eat them. Mrs. Vereker was horrified at the suggestion that she should exercise a little personal liberty, and the three girls thought Sir Percy slightly cracked when he advised them to assert themselves boldly in the presence of their uncle. On the whole, however, Sir Percy liked his new outlook upon the world, and considered that he was now in the sunshine of good fortune.
Mrs. Vereker, Jane, Sarah and Isabella worked hard in the society grind, and Lord Baudesert was less lazy in social than in official life. Sir Percy, up to the evening of the ball, had not paid a single visit, except of an official nature, but on the Tuesday afternoon following he put on a frock-coat and started out armed with his card case. In front of his own door he hesitated a moment to think whether he should call on the Chantreys or the Armytages. Ridiculous to say, Sir Percy had been haunted by the remembrance of the airy grace, the seductive eyes of this provincial coquette--for so he classified Lucy Armytage; and, calling himself a great fool, he turned his steps first towards the down-town hotel where the Armytages lived. He began to reckon what Lucy's age might be. She had a peculiar guilelessness of look and voice and manner which seldom lasts beyond a girl's twenty-first birthday; yet he judged her to be not less than twenty-five. One thing about her, he admitted, was adorable--an obvious ignorance of evil, a lovely innocence, which revealed itself readily to the experienced eyes of a man of the world. Sir Percy hated knowing women, and that recalled Alicia Vernon. He doubted if she, even as a young girl, had ever been truly innocent in mind.
The afternoon was warm and bright, though it was December, and carriages full of elaborately dressed women were dashing about the streets and standing in long lines before houses which were open on that day. Sir Percy found, when he reached the down-town hotel, that visitors were plentiful there also, and thronged the halls and staircases. He was shown up to the great public drawing-room, in which lights were already blazing, and where a bevy of Congressmen's wives and daughters were holding a joint reception. The huge room was well filled, the ladies being in the majority. Sir Percy, standing in the doorway, was searching for Lucy Armytage when a hand was laid upon his arm.