Sir Percy might have imagined himself in an English house. The large pink and white footman at the door was unmistakably English, and the quietness of the atmosphere and repose, which became at once obvious, were as English as the footman. In the beautiful drawing-room Eleanor Chantrey sat beside a tea-table drawn close to the fire. Mrs. Chantrey almost embraced Senator March when he mentioned the liberty he had taken in asking Sir Percy to come with him, and Sir Percy was figuratively invited to rest on Mrs. Chantrey's bosom--like the poor stricken deer.
Mrs. Chantrey had a hidden romance, a heart's dream, a secret aspiration, to be one day an ambassadress, to share Lord Baudesert's title and position. To say that Lord Baudesert's sharp old eyes had seen this, from its first budding, is putting it mildly. In fact, the wily old gentleman had, himself, planted the notion in Mrs. Chantrey's innocent, susceptible, elderly mind, and carefully cultivated it. Every season, for ten years past, Mrs. Chantrey had confidently expected to be asked to preside over the British Embassy, and every season she had been disappointed, yet not without hope. It was one of Lord Baudesert's chief delights in Washington to play upon the hopes and fears of various enormously rich widows, of whom Mrs. Chantrey was the first. And Lord Baudesert, having something like fifty years' experience as an accomplished flirt, managed to keep these ambitious ladies dancing to a very lively tune. Hence the advent of Lord Baudesert's nephew was to Mrs. Chantrey a delightful and encouraging sign, and she was ready to be an aunt to him at a moment's notice.
Only three or four persons were sitting around the tea-table, all of whom Sir Percy had before met. There were no introductions, and when Eleanor Chantrey handed Sir Percy his tea he could scarcely persuade himself that he was not in Mayfair. Eleanor Chantrey, with ten times her mother's brains, had not an atom of coquetry in her being; she was perfectly graceful, and with a sort of cool kindness which suggested sincerity. Instead of being the same to all men, she was different in her manner to each person present, according to her degree of acquaintanceship. To one infirm old gentleman, who was plainly uninteresting at his best, Sir Percy noticed that Eleanor was extremely kind and even cordial in her manner, and pressed him to remain when he made a feeble motion to go.
After a pleasant visit, Senator March and Sir Percy left at the same time; it seemed as if the two could not see too much of each other. When they parted, at Sir Percy's door, it was with the understanding that they should dine together at the club the next evening.
The clear December twilight was at hand and a new moon trembled in the heavens as Sir Percy, instead of going indoors, started for his invariable walk before dinner. He made straight towards the west and soon found himself on a wide avenue recently laid out, with young trees in boxes on each side. A quarter of a mile away from the houses it soon ran into the open fields, with clumps of trees and little valleys on either hand. Nothing quieter, more remote or deserted could be imagined, and yet Sir Percy was but fifteen minutes from his own door. Not a person was in sight, until, after a time, he saw, at some distance ahead, and rapidly approaching, the slight figure of a woman muffled in furs and walking rapidly. Something in the grace of her movements attracted Sir Percy as she came nearer. She held up her muff to her face in an attitude which reminded Sir Percy of Vigée le Brun's picture in the Louvre, "The Lady with the Muff." As the girl flashed past him in the grey twilight he recognised Lucy Armytage. A strange and almost uncontrollable desire suddenly rose within him to join her, but, with the hereditary caution of an Englishman, he turned his head the other way. The next moment Lucy faced around, and, coming up to him, cried breathlessly:
"How glad I am to meet you here! Pray walk with me as far as the car."
There was no help for it, and Sir Percy, with the feeling of delight which follows when a man is forced to do what he wishes to do, replied:
"With the utmost pleasure. Is it not rather late for you to be in so lonely a place?"
"Decidedly so. Our reception closed at five o'clock, just when other people's are beginning, and a friend asked me to drive out in this direction for a little air. She left me on a lighted street, but I wanted to feel the earth under my feet so I walked around this way. I didn't realise how late it was until a few minutes ago, and I was scurrying home half frightened to death."
As she said this, Sir Percy would have liked to open his arms wide and hold her to his breast like a timid bird, but Lucy dispelled this idea by saying: