Colonel Armytage said this with a note of pride in his voice, which an American uses when he proclaims he is ruled by his womankind.
They talked together a few minutes, and then Lucy and Colonel Armytage passed on to the cloak-room. When Lucy Armytage was gone the crowded rooms seemed empty to Sir Percy Carlyon. He walked home through the still and quiet streets at midnight and then smoked savagely for an hour before his study fire. No man was ever more surprised, annoyed and chagrined than was Sir Percy Carlyon to find himself bewitched by this captivating, provincial girl, and one amazing thing had happened--she had driven away the image--the hateful image--of Alicia Vernon. Alicia was the only woman who had ever deeply impressed herself upon Sir Percy Carlyon, until he met Lucy Armytage. There was warfare between these two ideals. It seemed to Sir Percy as if Alicia's wantonness had, in a way, cast a shade over all women. If a creature outwardly so modest, so refined, so high-bred, could be at heart a wanton, how could he ever believe in the purity of any woman's heart and mind? He dallied with the false suggestion that, if a woman were dull, she might be good, but if she were clever, her mind might range afar into the forbidden paths. Lucy Armytage, however, from the moment he met her, seemed to restore his shattered ideal of women. He had not reasoned, and could not reason, upon this, but he felt deeply the strong, unconscious and unacknowledged influence of this girl.
Sir Percy, sitting before his fire, repeated to himself that, in spite of Lucy's charm, there was every conceivable reason why he should not seek to marry her. She was an American to begin with, she had never seen a European capital, she was not a linguist, and her only accomplishment, as far as he had seen, was that of dancing, which was scarcely what an Ambassadress, as his wife would become, would find the most useful accomplishment in the world. He was a poor man for his position, and there was no indication that Lucy had a fortune. Then it suddenly occurred to him that, even if he gave rein to his passion, Lucy might scorn him. She had not been trained to appreciate what he had to offer, and she might classify him with Stanley and the other youngsters whom he had seen dancing attendance upon her.
He called himself an ass, and then, his cigar being out, he lay back in his chair and fell into a delicious reverie. Supposing that Lucy might marry him, what charming, piquant beauty was hers; what insinuating grace; with what naïveté did she admit her imperfections! How unerringly did she divine the best way of making herself acceptable, and how singularly and completely did she possess that art of arts--the art of pleasing! Soon his reverie merged into a soft dream. He was with Lucy Armytage in the winter twilight and they were walking together through the cold, bare, winter woods, and Lucy's slim hand was in his and her eyes were downcast. He awoke suddenly and found his fire out and the clock striking one, and he marched off to bed swearing at himself for his folly and determining that the time had come when he must put Lucy absolutely out of his mind.
The next night Sir Percy Carlyon was to dine at the Chantreys'. Lord Baudesert and Mrs. Vereker were also of the party. Mrs. Chantrey thought a member of the British Embassy but a little lower than the angels, and to this was added the stimulus that she confidently expected to be Lady Baudesert before the year was out. Lord Baudesert encouraged this harmless delusion in every possible way, short of actually proposing, and if he had not been the ablest of diplomatists Mrs. Chantrey would certainly have married him when he was not looking. She had, in her own mind, already rearranged all the furniture in the British Embassy, decided whom she would invite to dinner and whom she would leave out, and intended to be very civil to Mrs. Vereker. However much Lord Baudesert might be outwardly diverted by Mrs. Chantrey's elderly coquetry, he was forced, cynic though he was, to admire Eleanor Chantrey. He even went so far as to concede that, if it were possible for an American woman to be fitted for an Ambassadress, Eleanor Chantrey was that woman. Beauty, distinction and many other accomplishments were hers, and she would have adorned the highest position.
The first person Sir Percy's eyes rested upon as he entered the drawing-room was Lucy Armytage, and to his rage and delight she was given to him to take in to dinner. Every moment thereafter he felt himself falling more and more in love with her.
Senator March was among the guests, and after the ladies had departed and the men were smoking he said to Sir Percy:
"Next month I'm having a little house-party at a country place I have in the Maryland mountains. I go there occasionally for a few days' rest. I hope you will be of the party."
Sir Percy accepted with pleasure. He had never met a man for whom he felt a stronger inclination towards friendship than Roger March.
When the men returned to the drawing-room Lucy Armytage and Eleanor Chantrey were standing together on the hearthrug and talking with animation. Eleanor was resplendent in her beauty, but to Sir Percy Carlyon the slim, black-haired Lucy Armytage seemed to outshine her as a scintillant star, set high in the heavens, outshines the great, round, common-place moon.