"Put down Miss Armytage," snapped Lord Baudesert.
The comedy suddenly became a tragedy to Sir Percy Carlyon. So, then, Alicia Vernon and Lucy Armytage were to be brought face to face after all--and it filled him with a dumb rage. Isabella, meaning to conciliate her uncle, murmured:
"A lovely girl, Miss Armytage, so intelligent, so interesting!"
"A provincial, if ever I saw one," was Lord Baudesert's response to this. "Nevertheless she has some beauty and a pretty voice, and we will have her."
When Lord Baudesert had retired to his library Mrs. Vereker and the three girls talked in subdued tones for fear the ogre might hear them. They mournfully agreed there must be something between Lord Baudesert and Mrs. Chantrey, and Sir Percy was appealed to for his opinion.
"Lord Baudesert wouldn't marry Helen of Troy if she had all the virtues of St. Monica and John D. Rockefeller's wealth into the bargain," was Sir Percy's consoling answer. "He simply talks about Mrs. Chantrey to worry you. I wish them both joy if they get each other, but there isn't the shadow of danger."
Mrs. Vereker, however, refused to be comforted.
"And what a surprise that he should have gone out of his way to ask Miss Armytage, whom he frankly called a provincial! Surely, in the language of the hymn, it might be said of Lord Baudesert, 'He moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform.'"
Sir Percy had promised to stay all the evening, but he broke his promise and left early. He began to believe that Fate, and not he, would settle when and how Lucy Armytage would hear the painful story of his youth.
During the next week Sir Percy Carlyon saw General Talbott every day, and for hours, and it was inevitable that he should see much of Alicia Vernon. He did the regular sight-seeing with them, drove with them through the park, went with them to Mount Vernon, and, in short, acted as their cicerone. Nothing could exceed the grace and composure of Alicia Vernon's manner, and in her defeat she was not unlike General Talbott in the few rebuffs that he had experienced during his life. If Sir Percy Carlyon had been a younger or more sanguine man he would have felt quite at ease, but he knew Alicia Vernon too well ever to feel at ease in her neighbourhood. She was not the woman to lay obvious snares and traps to find out things, much less to fall into the open vulgarity of asking questions, yet Sir Percy felt that her sharp intelligence was at work on every word and phrase he uttered, to find out what he had refused to tell her--the name and habitat of the woman he loved.