"Have her to dinner as soon as you can. Delightful girl, she is. After all, perhaps Percy didn't make any blunder."
Mrs. Vereker shook her heard like a Chinese mandarin, and sighed; she had been shaking her head and sighing ever since the engagement was announced.
The dinner two weeks later was another and greater triumph for Lucy Armytage. Sir Percy had expected her to be frightened out of her wits at the thought of sitting next Lord Baudesert during the whole of the dinner, and he could not quite bring himself to believe that Lucy's calm courage was not foolhardiness. But where men were concerned, Lucy Armytage knew what to say and do as well as any woman that ever lived. As she sat next to Lord Baudesert at the long and glittering dinner-table, she talked with him so prettily, controlling her natural effervescence, but occasionally sparkling into brilliance, that Lord Baudesert found himself captivated as he had never been before in his life. Senator March and Alicia Vernon were present also; it seemed to Sir Percy as if the Fates were still at their terrible work between Alicia Vernon and him.
Mrs. Vereker was sadly polite to Lucy, wondering all the time what Lord Baudesert saw in her to delight him so obviously. When the last guest had departed, Lord Baudesert, standing in front of the fire in the hereditary attitude of the Englishman, with his feet wide apart and his hands behind his back, remarked coolly:
"I think, Susan, when you go home this summer, you may as well arrange to remain during the winter. I intend to take the future Lady Carlyon in hand and show her a few things, and I can't do it as well with you here. I shall ask her to preside here."
Mrs. Vereker gasped. The intimation was not wholly displeasing to her after three years of trial with Lord Baudesert, but the idea of an American woman doing the honours of Lord Baudesert's Embassy was enough to stagger anybody, certainly a person so easily staggered as Mrs. Vereker.
On a June morning in a small church in Bardstown, Kentucky, Lucy Armytage became Lady Carlyon. It was the simplest little wedding imaginable, without any token that Lucy was making a splendid marriage. She was a charming and unaffected bride, and looked all happiness. Sir Percy, however, after the manner of an Englishman who has attained his heart's desire, was silent, and looked somewhat bored.
On the same day, at a fashionable church in Washington, Alicia Vernon became Alicia March. The first news she heard of Sir Percy Carlyon was that he was promoted, and appointed Minister at a small Continental court. Thus Lady Carlyon and Mrs. March had separate orbits many thousand miles apart.
IX
Four years and a half afterwards, on a mild, sunny December afternoon, Senator March, whilst walking through the still fashionable, fine old street in which his house was, saw a beautiful victoria, superbly horsed, drawn up to the sidewalk. In it sat a lady and gentleman, whom he instantly recognised as Sir Percy Carlyon, recently appointed Ambassador to Washington, and Lady Carlyon. They had stopped for a moment to speak to two beautiful little boys, three and two years of age, in the care of a stately nursemaid and her assistant. Senator March's eyes rested with longing upon the charming little children. He was passionately fond of children, and they were the only gift of Heaven which seemed denied to him. When the nurse moved away with her charges Senator March stepped up and grasped Sir Percy's hand, and then Lady Carlyon laid her little white-gloved hand in his.