.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 45100
   :PG.Title: The Whirl
   :PG.Released: 2014-03-09
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Foxcroft Davis
   :MARCREL.ill: Harrison Fisher
   :MARCREL.ill: B. Martin Justice
   :DC.Title: The Whirl
              A Romance of Washington Society
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1909
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE WHIRL
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   .. _`"Her glance, quick yet soft, was much the prettiest thing of the sort Sir Percy had ever seen"`:

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      "Her glance, quick yet soft, was much the prettiest thing 
      of the sort Sir Percy had ever seen" (Page `33`_)
      (missing from book) . . . . . . *Frontispiece*

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      THE WHIRL

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      A ROMANCE OF
      WASHINGTON SOCIETY

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      BY

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      FOXCROFT DAVIS

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      WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
      HARRISON FISHER AND
      B. MARTIN JUSTICE

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      NEW YORK
      DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
      1909

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      COPYRIGHT, 1907
      BY THE WASHINGTON HERALD COMPANY

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      COPYRIGHT, 1909
      BY DODD, MEAD & COMPANY

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      Published, May, 1909

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   ILLUSTRATIONS

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`"Her glance, quick yet soft, was much the
prettiest thing of the sort Sir Percy
had ever seen"`_ (page `33`_)
(missing from book) . . . . . . *Frontispiece*

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`"'It is the old story. You are worthy to
marry her, but I am not worthy to
speak to her'"`_

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`"'I shall leave this house to-morrow morning,
never to re-enter it'"`_

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   I

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Few men have the goal of their ambition in
sight at thirty-eight years of age.  But Sir
Percy Carlyon had, when he was appointed
First Secretary of the British Embassy at
Washington, with a very well-arranged scheme
worked out by which, at the end of four years,
he was to succeed his uncle, Lord Baudesert,
the present Ambassador.  This realisation of
his dreams came to Sir Percy on a December
afternoon dark and sharp, as he tramped over
the frozen ground through the stark and
leafless woods, which may yet be found close to
Washington.

He was a great walker, this thin, sinewy
Englishman with a sun-browned skin, burnt
by many summers in India and weather-beaten
by many winters in the snowbound depths of
the Balkans.  He had the straight features and
clear, scintillant eyes which are the marks of
race among his kind, but no one would have
been more surprised than Sir Percy if he had
been called handsome.  Within him, on this
bleak December afternoon, was a sensation
strange to him after many years: the feeling of
hope and almost of joy.  He stopped in the
silent heart of the woods, and, leaning against
the gnarled trunk of a live oak, thrust his hands
into his pockets and glanced, with brightening
eyes, towards the west.  A faint, rosy line upon
the horizon was visible through the naked
woods; all else in sky and earth was dun-coloured.

To Sir Percy Carlyon this thread of radiance
was a promise of the future.  This was, to him,
almost the first moment of retrospection since
the day, two months before, when, in the Prime
Minister's rooms in Downing Street, a new life
in a new country opened before him.  Since
then--amid the official and personal preparations
necessary to take up his post, his seven
days on the Atlantic, during which he worked
hard on pressing business, the necessary first
visits upon his arrival--Sir Percy had scarcely
enjoyed an hour to himself.  He had found
the Embassy overwhelmed with affairs, about
which his uncle, Lord Baudesert, coolly
refused to bother himself, but which Sir Percy,
as a practical man, felt obliged to take up and
carry through.  That day, only, had he, by
hard and systematic work, caught up what was
called by Lord Baudesert, with a grin, the
"unfinished business" at the British Embassy, but
which really meant the neglected business of a
lazy, clever old diplomatist who never did
to-day what he could put off until to-morrow.

Lord Baudesert had been many years at
Washington, and had a thorough knowledge
not only of the affairs of the American people,
but of their temper, their prejudices and their
passions.  In an emergency his natural
abilities, and a kind of superhuman adroitness
which he possessed, together with the vast fund
of knowledge that he had accumulated, but
rarely used, made him a valuable person to the
Foreign Office.  However, as soon as the
emergency passed Lord Baudesert returned to his
usual occupation of studying the American
newspapers and anything else which could add
to the already vast stock of knowledge which
he possessed, but rarely condescended to use.

The Embassy was presided over by Lord
Baudesert's widowed sister, Mrs. Vereker, an
amiable old sheep of the early Victorian type.
Then there were three lamb-like Vereker
girls, Jane, Sarah and Isabella, all likewise
early Victorian, who regarded their uncle as a
combination of Bluebeard and Solomon, and
altogether the most important and the most
terrifying person on this planet.  Lord
Baudesert's favourite instrument of torture to the
ladies of his family was the threat to marry an
American widow with billions of money.  How
this would have unfavourably affected her the
excellent Mrs. Vereker could not have told to
save her life--but the mere hint always gave
her acute misery.

The secretaries of the Embassy were very
well-meaning young men, who attended to their
work as well as they knew how, but as Lord
Baudesert seldom took the trouble to read a
document, and would not sign his name to
anything which he had not read, it was difficult
to get business transacted.  When Sir Percy
Carlyon was getting his instructions from the
Prime Minister concerning his post of First
Secretary at Washington the Premier had remarked:

"Your uncle, you know, is the laziest man God
ever made, but he is also one of the cleverest.
No living Englishman knows as much about
American affairs as Lord Baudesert, or has
ever made himself so acceptable to the
American people, but when he isn't doing us the
greatest service in the world, he lets
everything go hang.  We are sending you to
Washington to get some work done.  I hear
you can bully Lord Baudesert in every particular."

"Except one," Sir Percy had replied.  "Neither
I, nor anybody else, nor the devil himself, could
make Lord Baudesert work when he doesn't
want to."

Sir Percy, on this December afternoon in the
woods, reviewed in his own mind his whole
diplomatic career up to the point of that
interview.  His first beginnings had been as a minor
civil servant on the Indian frontier twelve
years before.  It is not uncommon, however,
for those clever youngsters who are sent out
to India to govern, negotiate, threaten and
subdue a vast and deceitful people to find
themselves entrusted with responsibilities which
might appal older representatives of the British
Empire.

Far removed from Western civilisation, and
out of the field of newspapers, young Sir Percy
Carlyon was in effect ruler and lord of a
million people, whose united word counted less
with their English masters than one sentence
from this sahib of twenty-six years of age.
His post was on the Afghanistan frontier,
where he had to circumvent Afghans and
Russians and out-general all of them.  The times
were difficult, and in spite of young Carlyon's
great and even splendid gifts of insight, temper
and diplomacy, he would hardly have succeeded
in his work but for one man.  This was
General Talbott, who was in military command of
the district, and an admirable type of the
soldier-diplomatist.  He had stood by Sir Percy
with a vigour and generosity, and a fatherly
kindness, which no man not an utter ingrate
could ever forget.  They had gone together
through stormy and tragic days, and when the
reports had reached the Indian Office it was
Sir Percy to whom General Talbott gave the
largest share of the credit, and even the
glory, which had resulted from their joint
efforts.

Thanks to this extraordinary generosity on
General Talbott's part, Sir Percy's efforts had
received prompt recognition.  His first two
years in India were brilliantly successful, and
marked him as a rising man among his fellows.
From that time onwards he had been what is
called lucky--that is to say, when two courses
were opened to him he took the sensible one.
After a brief but distinguished service in India
he was transferred to the diplomatic corps, and
good fortune followed him.

But the greatest stroke of his life had come
two years before, in the Balkans, that line upon
which, as Lord Beaconsfield said, "England
fights."  The Foreign Office happened not to be
as judicious in a certain juncture as its young
representative; in fact, the Premier committed
the most astounding blunder, which, if it had
become known, would have sent him out of
office amid the inextinguishable laughter of
mankind.  This blunder, however, was known
only to four persons--the Prime Minister himself,
his private secretary, a telegraph operator
and Sir Percy Carlyon.  What Sir Percy did
was to wire back to the head of the Government:

"Message received, but unintelligible owing
to telegraph operator's ignorance of English."

Then he proceeded to act upon his own
account.  Three days later the Russian envoy
was on his way to St. Petersburg on an
indefinite leave of absence and Sir Percy was
domiciled with the reigning sovereign at his country
place, and was in the saddle to stay.

Six months after he had an interview with
the Prime Minister.  Not much was said, but
Sir Percy was asked in diplomatic language
to name what he wanted.  He named it, and
it was to be First Secretary at Washington
when his promotion was due, then service at
some smaller European court as Minister, and
to succeed Lord Baudesert on his retirement.

The Prime Minister was not startled at the
proposition.  He knew Sir Percy to be a man
of lofty ambition and not likely to underrate
himself.  The scheme, moreover, had in it
elements of fitness and common-sense.  The Prime
Minister was heartily tired of gouty old
gentlemen in great diplomatic positions, and thought
it rather a good idea to make a man an
Ambassador before he got too old.  Besides,
nothing that Sir Percy Carlyon could have asked
in reason would have been too much,
considering from what the Premier had been saved.
So it was arranged that he should go to
Washington as First Secretary, and the rest of the
plan was likely to be carried out even if there
should be a change in the party in power.
Eighteen months afterwards the appointment
was made and the first step in the programme
taken.

In looking back upon his career, Sir Percy
saw nothing but good fortune--great and
exceptional good fortune; so much so, that he
began to ask himself whether, like the old
Greeks, a price would not be demanded from
him for all that had been given him.  The idea,
however, was unpleasing, and he began,
Alnaschar-like, to plan what he should do when he
became Ambassador.  Then a thought stole
into his mind which made his somewhat grim
face relax; there ought to be an Ambassadress.
He could see her in his mind's eye, a beautiful,
stately English girl, looking like the elder sister
of the tall, white lilies.  She must be grave and
dignified, and very reticent--a talkative
Ambassadress would be a horror.  He would like
her to be of some great English home.
Himself one of the best born men in England, he
had a fancy, even a weakness, for distinguished
birth.  He had a strong prejudice against
members of the diplomatic corps marrying outside
of their countries, and especially he disapproved
of diplomats rushing pell-mell into marriage
with American girls.  He had known a few of
these feminine American diplomatists in his
time, and there was not one he considered well
fitted for her position.  Most of them talked
too much; and all of them dressed too much.
Then many of them had shoals of relatives,
whom they insisted on dragging around with
them to the various European capitals, and
these relations generally involved them in social
battles which were anything but dignified.  On
the whole, Sir Percy had fully made up his
mind to marry none but an Englishwoman.

By the time he had reached this point in his
reverie he was striding fast through the woods
in the bitter winter dusk towards the town.
Suddenly a woman's face, like a face in a
dream, passed before his mind.  The thought
of her brought his rapid walk to a dead stop,
like a dagger thrust into his heart.  The image
of Alicia Vernon rose before him--Alicia, who
was tall and fair, and had a flute-like voice and
the deepest and darkest blue eyes he had ever
seen--Alicia, the only child of the man who
had befriended him more than all the men in
the world--General Talbott.

True, he had been but twenty-six years of
age when he met Alicia, who was two years his
senior.  True, that older and stronger men than
he had succumbed to her beauty, her charm,
her courage, her fitness, and her wantonness.
Not one of them, however, but had better
excuse than himself, so thought Sir Percy, his
eyes involuntarily cast down with shame.

When he first met her, Alicia was already
married to Guy Vernon, weak, worthless and
rich.  Sir Percy remembered, with a flush of
self-abasement, how ready, nay, how eager, he
had been to listen to the plausible stories Alicia
told him of Guy Vernon's ill-treatment and
neglect of her.  But she had omitted to
mention that she had squandered half of Guy
Vernon's fortune within the first three years of
their married life, and had compromised
herself with at least half-a-dozen men since her
marriage.  True, also, that Alicia and Sir
Percy were at a lonely post among the hills on
the Afghan frontier, and that he and Guy
Vernon's wife had been thrown together in
an intimacy impossible anywhere else on the
face of the globe.  True, again, was it that
Alicia Vernon's flattery had been insidious
beyond words.  Money was what she had
heretofore required more than anything else on
earth except the enslavement of men.  Sir
Percy's fortune, however, was only a modest
patrimony, which would scarcely have sufficed
for six months for what Alicia Vernon
considered her actual needs.

As she had in reality seduced Sir Percy's
honour, so, in a way, was she herself seduced
by his powerful intelligence, by his brilliance
and by his success, which, with a woman's
prescience, she felt sure was only the presage
of greater things.  She inherited from her
father a clear and trenchant mind, and she
readily foresaw that the time would come
when this young Indian civil servant would be
heard of by all his world.  She, however, was
his first courtier.

It was impossible that a woman so gifted, so
complex, so courageous as Alicia Vernon
should not have at least one virtue in excess.
That was her love for her father.  False she
was to him in many ways, but true she ever
was in love of him.  By the exercise of all her
intelligence, and by eternal vigilance, she had
succeeded in making General Talbott believe her
the purest, the most injured woman alive.  He
always called her "my poor Alicia," and hated
her husband with a mortal hatred, thinking him
to have injured the gentlest and sweetest of
women.

Sir Percy's infatuation for Alicia Vernon
lasted but a few months, and, through Alicia's
woman's wit, was unsuspected by the world,
least of all by General Talbott, who adored his
daughter.  Then Sir Percy awoke once more
to honour, and pitied the woman and hated
himself for the brief downfall.

It is not every man who beats his breast and
throws ashes on his head who is a true
penitent.  But no man felt bitterer remorse for his
wrongdoing than did Sir Percy Carlyon.  He
applied the same judgment to himself that he
did to other men, and while reckoning his fault
at its full wickedness, also reckoned that sincere
penitence was not entirely worthless.  He had
lived his life to that time of remorse in
cheerful ignorance and a silent defiance of the Great
First Cause; but upon the darkness of his soul
stole a ray of light.  He began to believe a little
in a personal God, a father, a judge and a
school-master who required justice and obedience
of mankind.  Sir Percy became secretly a
religious man.  He did not go to church any
oftener than before, nor did he take refuge in
Bible texts, but the prayer of the publican was
often in his heart, "God be merciful to me a
sinner."

After a pause of a minute or two he resumed
his quick, swinging walk.  The December night
was upon him, although it was not yet six
o'clock, and he had still five miles to tramp
before reaching Washington.  That night the
initial ball of the season was to be given at the
British Embassy, and Sir Percy was, for the
first time, to see the kaleidoscopic Washington
society.  His rapid walk stimulated him and
enabled him to put out of his mind that painful
and humiliating recollection of his early lapse,
which had lain in hiding for him by night and
day, by land and sea, for ten years past.  So
long as he had been in Europe Alicia had not
allowed him to forget her, but had tracked him
from place to place.  How well he remembered
the anger and disgust he felt when she
would suddenly appear--beautiful, charmingly
dressed, smiling and composed--on the terrace
at Homburg and challenge him with her eyes!
How hateful became the Court balls at
Buckingham Palace when Alicia Vernon, leaning
upon her father's arm, would greet Sir Percy
in her seductive, well-modulated voice, of
which he knew and hated every note!  How
wearisome became the visits to great country
houses when Alicia, as it so often happened,
floated into the drawing-room on the evening
of his arrival, and was generally the most
beautiful and most gifted woman there, with more
knowledge of what she should not know than
any other woman present!  At least, thought
Sir Percy, his spirits rising, he would be free
in Washington from Alicia Vernon's presence.
There was not much here to attract a woman
of her type.

By the time the lights of Washington studded
the darkness and the tall apartment-houses,
sparkling with electric lights, loomed against
the black sky, Sir Percy was himself again,
cheerful, courageous--ready to meet life with
a smile, a sword or a shield, as might be demanded.





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   II

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The British Embassy was blazing with light,
and the musicians were tuning their
instruments in the ball-room, when Sir Percy came
in, a little before ten o'clock.  Lord Baudesert,
a handsome, black-eyed and white-haired man,
his breast covered with decorations, was
critically inspecting Mrs. Vereker and the three
Vereker girls, Jane, Sarah and Isabella.  All
were panic-stricken as Lord Baudesert's keen
eyes travelled from the top of their sandy,
abundant hair down to their large feet encased
in white satin slippers.

"I swear, Susan," Lord Baudesert was saying
to Mrs. Vereker, a large, patient, soft-voiced
woman, "I believe that black velvet gown you
wear figured at the old Queen's coronation."

"I have only had it ten years, brother,"
murmured Mrs. Vereker; "and it is the very best
quality of black silk velvet, at thirty shillings
the yard.  A black velvet gown never goes out
of fashion."

"Not if it belongs to you," answered Lord
Baudesert, laughing.  "And why don't you
three girls dress like American girls?  Your
gowns look as if they had been hung out in the
rain and dried before the kitchen fire and then
thrown at you."

Jane, Sarah and Isabella, accustomed to these
compliments, only smiled faintly but Sir Percy,
looking Lord Baudesert squarely in the eye,
remarked:

"They don't dress like American girls because
they are English girls; and, for my part, I
never could understand how any sane man
could prefer an American to an English girl.
As for Aunt Susan's gown, it is very handsome
and appropriate, and she should not pay any
attention to your views on the subject."

Mrs. Vereker looked apprehensively at Sir
Percy, whom she regarded as a superserviceable
champion, likely to get her into additional
trouble.

"Oh, my dear Percy!" she hastened to say,
"Lord Baudesert's taste in dress is perfect.  I
am sure I would be as smart as any one if I
only knew how, but we are at the mercy of the
dressmakers, and Lord Baudesert can't understand that."

"Lord Baudesert can understand anything he
wants to," answered Sir Percy, laughing.

Then Lord Baudesert laughed too.  Sir
Percy's determination not to be bullied by him
was an agreeable sensation to Lord Baudesert,
accustomed as he was to be approached on all
fours by the ladies of his family.

The occasion to worry his womankind, however,
was too good for Lord Baudesert, and he
began again to his nephew:

"I hope, my dear boy, you will meet a friend
of mine to-night--Mrs. Chantrey--a widow,
very handsome, fine old Boston family, with
something like a billion of money."

Mrs. Vereker sighed.  Mrs. Chantrey was her
rod of scourging, which Lord Baudesert freely
applied.  Then, taking his nephew's arm, the
Ambassador walked into the next room, and
out of Mrs. Vereker's hearing expressed his
true sentiments.

"You will see American women in full
force to-night," he said.  "They are strange
creatures, full of *esprit*, and they have brought
the art of dress to the level of a fine art.  Be
sure to look at their shoes and their handkerchiefs.
I am told that their stockings are works
of art.  Don't mind their screeching at you,
you will get used to it.  There is great talk of
their wonderful adaptability, nevertheless I
never saw one of them whom I really thought
was fitted to be the wife of a diplomat.  You
needn't pay any attention to the way I talk
about Mrs. Chantrey; I wouldn't marry that
woman if she were made of radium at two
million dollars the pound, but it amuses me to
worry Susan on the subject."

"That's nice for Aunt Susan," answered Sir
Percy--"but on one point my mind is made up:
I shall never marry an American."

"I can tell you one thing," continued Lord
Baudesert: "marrying an American heiress is
about the poorest investment any man can
make, if he has an eye to business.  In this
singular country money is never mentioned by
the bridegroom.  That one word 'settlement'
would be enough to make an American father
kick any man out of the house.  The father,
however, is certain to mention money to his
prospective son-in-law.  He demands that
everything his daughter's husband has should
be settled on the wife, and generally requires
that his future son-in-law's life be insured for
the wife's benefit.  Then, whatever the American
father has to give his daughter he ties up
as tight as a drum, so that the son-in-law can't
touch it, and everything else the son-in-law
may get depends on his good behaviour.  The
American girl, having been accustomed to
regard herself as a pearl beyond price, expects
her husband to be a sort of coolie at her
command.  If he isn't she flies back to her father,
and the father proceeds to cut off supplies from
the son-in-law.  Oh, it is a great game, the
American marriage, when it is for high stakes.
I take it that it is impossible for any European,
even an Englishman, to get at the point of
view of an American father concerning his
daughter."

Then the first violin among the musicians
played a few bars of a waltz.  Sarah and
Isabella, seeing Lord Baudesert's back turned,
waltzed around together in a corner of the
drawing-room.  As soon, however, as they
caught Lord Baudesert's eye they left off
dancing and scuttled back under the wing of
their mother.

"You seem to have terrorised those girls
pretty successfully," remarked Sir Percy; "why
don't you let the poor things have a little
independence?"

"My dear fellow, they wouldn't know what
to do with independence if they had it.  They
have behind them a thousand years of a
civilisation based upon the submission of an
Englishwoman to an Englishman.  They would be like
overfed pheasants trying to fly, if they had a
will of their own, and they are happy as they
are.  They always sing when I am not by.  I
annoy Susan occasionally by talking about
Mrs. Chantrey.  When that lady is in full canonicals,
with all her diamonds, she looks like the Queen
of Sheba in Goldmark's opera.  She looks worse
than a new duchess at her first Court."

At that moment the great hall door was
opened, and the first guest, a tall, slight,
well-made man, with a trim grey moustache, entered,
and was shown into the dressing-room.  Lord
Baudesert then took his stand, or rather his
seat, near the door of the drawing-room, with
Mrs. Vereker at his side.

"I always have the gout," he explained to Sir
Percy, "at balls.  It is tiresome to stand, and,
besides, an Ambassador is entitled to have some
kind of gentlemanly disease of which he can
make use upon occasions."

"I am so sorry," said Mrs. Vereker sympathetically
to Lord Baudesert, "that the gout is
troubling you this evening.  I have not heard
you speak of it for months."

"Haven't had a touch since the last ball,"
calmly replied Lord Baudesert, and then he
stood up to greet the early guest, who entered
without showing any awkwardness at his
somewhat premature arrival.

"Delighted to see you," said Lord Baudesert,
with the greatest cordiality.  "It is not often
you honour a ball.  Let me introduce my
nephew and new Secretary of the Embassy to
you--Sir Percy Carlyon, Senator March."

The two men shook hands, and instantly each
received a good impression of the other.

"The Ambassador must have his joke," said
Senator March.  "It is true that I seldom go
to balls, nor am I often asked.  You see how
little I know of them by my turning up ahead of
time.  The card said ten o'clock, and to my
rude, untutored mind it seemed as if I were
expected at ten o'clock, and here I am, the sole
guest.  I don't suppose the smart people will
show up for an hour yet."

"So much the better, for it gives me the
chance to talk to you," replied Lord Baudesert.

Then the three men sat down together and
chatted.  The conversation was chiefly between
the Ambassador and the Senator.  A question
concerning international affairs had been up
that day in the Senate, and Senator March, who
was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign
Relations, had spoken upon it.  He gave a
brief *resumé* of what he had said, and Lord
Baudesert, in a few incisive sentences, threw
a flood of light upon the subject.  Sir Percy
listened with interest to what Senator March
had to say.  It was his first informal
conversation with an American public man, and he
admired the ease, the simplicity and the sublime
common sense with which Senator March
handled the complicated question, and so
expressed himself.

"There is no excuse for our treating any
question except in the most sensible, practical
manner," answered Senator March.  "In
Europe you are shackled with the traditions
and customs of a thousand years.  You can't
take down even a tottering wall without
endangering the whole structure.  With us it is all
experimental.  Nevertheless, our affairs are no
better managed than yours in England."

Sir Percy at every moment felt more and
more the charm of Roger March's manner and
conversation.  It was so simple, so manly and
so breezy.  Nor was Senator March without
appreciation of this clean-limbed, clear-eyed
Englishman.  Half an hour passed quickly in
animated conversation before there was
another arrival; but then the stream became a
torrent.  In twenty minutes the rooms were full
and the dancers were skimming around the
ballroom to the thrilling strains of music.
Mrs. Chantrey was easily identified by Sir Percy.
She was a big, handsome woman, with an enormous
gown of various fabrics and colours, who
so blazed with diamonds that she looked like a
lighthouse.

Sir Percy was not a dancing man, nor did he
ever admire dancing as an art until he saw
the soft, slow, rhythmical waltz as danced by
Americans.  His duties as assistant host kept
him busy, but, like a born diplomat, he could
see a number of things at once and pursue more
than one train of thought at the same time.  As
he talked to men and women of many different
nationalities, ages and conditions, his eyes
wandered toward the ball-room, where the waltzers
floated around.  Never in his life had he seen
so many good dancers, particularly among the
women.  One girl in particular caught his eye.
Her figure was of medium height, and her black
evening gown showed off her exquisite
slenderness, the beautiful moulding of her arms and
the graceful poise of her head.  Her face he
scarcely noticed, except that she had milk-white
skin contrasted with very dark hair and eyes.
She danced slowly, with a motion as soft as the
zephyr at evening time.  Sir Percy's eyes dwelt
with pleasure upon her half a dozen times while
the waltz lasted.  Then came the rapid
two-step, which reminded Sir Percy of a graceful
romp.  But the black-haired, white-skinned
girl was not then taking part.

The drawing-room grew crowded, and Sir
Percy, moving from group to group, did not
go into the ball-room.  He was introduced to
a great number of ladies, young, old and
middle-aged, and the general impression made
upon him was what he expected of the
American woman *en masse*.  Prettiness was almost
universal, but beauty of a high order was rare.
One girl alone he reckoned strictly beautiful--Eleanor
Chantrey, the only child of the lady
like the lighthouse, but totally unlike her.
Eleanor was tall and fair, and Sir Percy
thought he had never seen a more classic face
and nobler bust and shoulders.  Her voice, too,
was well modulated, and delicious to hear after
the peacock screams of most of the women
around him.  Miss Chantrey had both read
and travelled much, and had the peculiar
advantage of knowing the best people everywhere,
quite irrespective of the smart set.  It soon
developed that she and Sir Percy had mutual
friends in England, and had even stayed at the
same great country house, although not at the
same time.  Her manner was full of grace and
dignity, but with a touch of coldness like a New
England August day.  It was quite unlike the
English.  Eleanor was the highly prized
American daughter, whose value is impressed upon
her by that most insidious form of flattery--the
being made much of from the hour of her
birth.  Nothing, however, could be farther
from assumption than Eleanor's calm, grave
sweetness, with a little touch of pride.  Sir
Percy, smiling inwardly, could not but be
reminded by this gentle and graceful American
beauty of some royal princess before whom the
world has ever bowed.  She was well worth
seeking out, however, and Sir Percy, thinking
he was doing the thoroughly American thing,
asked Miss Chantrey if he might, in the name
of their mutual friends, call upon her.

"My mother will be very glad to see you, I am
sure.  We receive on Tuesdays," she answered,
and named a house in the most fashionable
quarter.

A little later Sir Percy found himself
standing among a fringe of men around the
ballroom door.  The lancers quadrille was being
danced, and once more he noticed the
black-haired girl dancing, and this time he was
surprised to see that her partner was Senator
March.  The Senator went through the square
dance with the gravity and exactness with
which he had learned his steps at a dancing
school forty years before.  His partner was
no less graceful in the square dance than in
the waltz, and was more unrestrained, making
pretty little steps and curtsies and movements
of quick grace, which made her dancing the
most exquisite thing of the kind Sir Percy had
ever seen.  When the quadrille was over he
suddenly found her standing almost in front
of him, laughing and clinging to Senator
March's arm.  Her profile, clear cut as a cameo,
but not in the least classic, was directly in front
of Sir Percy, and he was forced to admire her
sparkling face.  She had not much regular
beauty, but her white skin, contrasted with her
black hair, dark eyes and long, black lashes,
was charming.  Her mouth was made for
laughter and on the left side was an elusive
dimple.  Sir Percy hated dimpled women, but
he found himself looking at the girl's mobile
face and watching the appearance and
disappearance of this little hiding place of
laughter upon her cheek.  And, wonderful to
say, she did not screech, but spoke in a voice
that was singularly clear and musical.  Some
experience of the American methods of
introducing right and left had been Sir Percy's, and
he was not surprised when Senator March laid
a hand upon his arm and whispered:

"May I introduce you to this young friend of
mine, Miss Lucy Armytage of Bardstown,
Kentucky?  You have heard of Kentucky
horses, haven't you?"

"Yes," answered Sir Percy, with the recollection
of Iroquois and the Derby in his mind.

"Very well, the Kentucky horses are not a
patch on the Kentucky women."

"In that case," replied Sir Percy, laughing,
"may I beg you to introduce me to Miss
Armytage at once?"

Senator March introduced him in due form,
and Miss Armytage, holding out a slim hand,
cast down her eyes demurely and murmured
that she was glad to meet him.

"Sir Percy has only lately arrived in
America," explained Senator March.

"And has probably never heard of Bardstown,
Kentucky," responded Miss Armytage,
suddenly lifting her eyes and fixing them full
upon Sir Percy.  "I am afraid," she said
meditatively, "that I follow the example of St. Paul.
You know he was always bragging about being
Paul of Tarsus, and I am always bragging
that I am Miss Armytage of Bardstown, Kentucky."

"Pray tell me all about Bardstown," said
Sir Percy gravely, and Miss Armytage, in her
clear, sweet voice, and with equal gravity,
proceeded to a statistical and historical account of
Bardstown, the dimple in her cheek meanwhile
coming and going.

Sir Percy listened, surprised and amused.
The affected dryness of what Miss Armytage
was telling was illuminated with little turns
and sparkles of wit; and from Bardstown she
proceeded to give, with the utmost seriousness,
a brief synopsis of the history and resources
of the State of Kentucky.  Sir Percy grew
more and more amused.  He perceived that
she was diverting herself with him, a thing no
woman had ever done before.  He had heard
of American humour, but he did not know
that the women possessed it.  He felt sure
that Miss Armytage was a real humourist,
and also a sentimentalist when she said, presently:

"I was at a great dinner in New York last
week, and as we were sitting at the table I
heard an organ grinder in the street outside
playing 'My Old Kentucky Home,' and while
I was listening, and thinking about Bardstown,
two tears dropped into my soup.  I never was
so ashamed in my life."

She looked into Sir Percy's eyes with an
appealing air, like a child who knows not whether
it is to be rebuked or praised.  Her whole air
and manner radiated interest in Sir Percy as
she asked softly:

"What do you suppose the other people at the
table thought of me?"

Sir Percy answered her as any other man would:

"That you had a very tender heart."

.. _`33`:

He was charmed with her simplicity,
combined with her natural grace.  A moment after
a young naval officer came up and claimed
Miss Armytage for a dance.  She turned to go
with him, but looked backward at Sir Percy
with a glance such as Clytie might have given
the departing lord of the unerring bow.  Her
glance, quick yet soft, was much the prettiest
thing of the sort Sir Percy had ever seen.  He
perceived that Miss Armytage was the typical
American girl.  However, he was much
disgusted, as his eyes followed Lucy, to see her
glancing up into the eyes of Stanley, the young
naval man, with precisely the same look of
appealing confidence with which she had
bewitched himself two minutes before.  He hated
a coquette with an Englishman's hatred of
being trifled with by a woman, and immediately
classified Miss Armytage, of Bardstown,
Kentucky, as a very finished coquette, and
concluded not to trouble himself further about her.

The ball went on merrily, and it was one
o'clock in the morning before the carriages
began to drive away from the *porte-cochère*.
Among the last guests to go was Lucy
Armytage.  Sir Percy was standing in the hall when
Lucy tripped down the stairs and joined an
elderly, grey-bearded man standing near Sir
Percy.  A long white evening cloak enveloped
her slender figure and a white gauze scarf was
upon her soft black hair.  She joined the
grey-bearded man, who had on his overcoat and his
hat under his arm, and then she, glancing
toward Sir Percy, cried softly:

"I am so glad I met you.  May I introduce
my uncle?  Colonel Armytage, of Kentucky,
Sir Percy Carlyon.  My uncle is a member
of Congress; in Kentucky that makes him a
colonel, though I can't explain why."

"My dear sir," responded Colonel Armytage,
extending a cordial hand, "I am extremely
pleased to meet you, extremely so!  I am of
unmixed English descent myself, and quite
naturally I look upon our country as the mother
of us all."

Sir Percy tried to imagine a member of
Parliament meeting an American as Colonel
Armytage met him, but his imagination was
not equal to anything so extraordinary.  He
understood, however, and appreciated the
frank, unconventional good-will which
animated Colonel Armytage, and replied with
sincere courtesy:

"I am always glad to hear that sentiment from
an American, and be assured we feel the tie of
blood as much as you do."

"Some of you do," answered Lucy oracularly,
"but some of you don't.  I can tell you a
harrowing tale of a little upstart Englishman.
Pray excuse me."

Colonel Armytage scowled at Lucy.

"You must forgive her, my dear sir," he said
to Sir Percy; "this child has a charter to say
and to do as she pleases, and Mrs. Armytage
and myself are under bond to obey her.  I shall
have much pleasure in seeing you if you will
honour me with a call.  That, I believe, is the
custom in Washington, but I assure you, sir,
in the State of Kentucky, it would be the native
who would call first, and such would be my
desire if it were not for this infernal official
etiquette which forbids it.  Mrs. Armytage
and my niece receive on Tuesdays," and he
named a large down-town hotel, which had
ceased to be fashionable about forty years
before, but still was frequented by Southern and
Western representatives.

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.





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.. class:: center large bold

   III

.. vspace:: 2

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.

"I am delighted to see you, Sir Percy," said
Colonel Armytage.  "Lucy will be delighted,
too.  She has talked about you incessantly since
she met you."

If the uncle of an English girl had confided to
Sir Percy that she had talked about him
incessantly since their first meeting Sir Percy
would have thought it time to ask for leave
to hunt big game in the Rockies.  But, being
a man of brains, he recognised the mental
attitude of Colonel Armytage, and found
himself rather pleased at the thought that this
dark-eyed girl had chatted about him.  Probably
he was the first Englishman of his kind
she had ever met.  The next moment he was
being introduced to Mrs. Armytage, a motherly
soul, in a black velvet gown, which was the
twin of Mrs. Vereker's robe of state.  A little
way off, Lucy, in a white gown, was talking
earnestly with a group of plain, elderly
persons.  She turned her head and caught sight of
Sir Percy, but with a little nod and a glint of a
smile she continued her conversation, and even
escorted the little group to the door, where she
said good-bye.  Then she came up to Sir Percy.

"They were constituents," she said.  "They
are very nice people at home, but they are not
much accustomed to society, and naturally they
feel a little awkward in a room full of strangers
like this.  If one takes them in hand, and is
a little pleasant, they are eternally grateful, and
will stand by Uncle Armytage through thick
and thin when the nominating convention is on."

"I see you are a politician," said Sir Percy,
looking down at her and trying to determine
whether white or black were more becoming to
her piquant and irregular beauty.

"No; I am a diplomatist, like yourself,"
replied Lucy, looking up with laughing,
unabashed dark eyes into his face.  "My uncle,
you see, is not a diplomatist at all, and neither
his worst enemy nor his best friend could call
him a politician.  I call him a statesman.  He
is the dearest man on earth, but he always acts
on his impulses, and that, you know, is very
unwise."

The gravity with which she said this made
Sir Percy smile, but Lucy kept on with the air
of an instructress:

"Of course, it is unwise.  Imagine Lord
Baudesert bolting out the truth upon every
occasion!  And that is just what my uncle does.
My aunt thinks him the wisest person in the
world, so you see I am the only one in the
family who is capable of any diplomacy at all.
Now, as I am twenty-five years old----"

"So old as that?" said Sir Percy, pretending
surprise.

"Twenty-six next birthday," gravely responded
Lucy, "and I have learned a great deal.
One thing is, that constituents never forgive
one if they are not shown attention in
Washington.  I assure you my attentions to
Bardstown people in Washington got my uncle his
last nomination.  I took a grocer's daughter
round with me sight-seeing, and I gave nine
teas in one month for Bardstown girls.  I didn't
commit the folly of asking for invitations for
them.  Nobody thanks you for introducing the
superfluous girl, and I can't see why one should
expect other people to pay one's social debts.
But I paid all my own debts, and made Uncle
Armytage do a lot of things for the Bardstown
men who were here, which he said he hadn't
time to do.  But I made him find the time.  Isn't
that diplomacy?"

"Diplomacy and good sense combined," answered
Sir Percy.

He thought he had never seen so expressive
a face as Lucy Armytage's.  Every word she
uttered seemed to have a corresponding
expression of the eye.  Her cheeks were colourless,
like the leaves of a white rose, but her lips
were scarlet and showed beautiful and
regular teeth.  A charming English girl always
reminded Sir Percy of a beautiful rose in
bloom, but this girl was like the star-like
jessamine, which grows not in every garden,
its white, mysterious flowers hiding in the
depths of its green leaves and casting its
delicious perfume afar.  Then Lucy said,
suddenly changing the subject:

"I have been in a dream all day.  This morning
I went for a walk far into the country, as
I often do, and I took Omar with me."

"Omar?" asked Sir Percy, not quite understanding her.

"'The Rubaiyat,' I mean.  Everybody reads
it here.  It always takes me into another world.
Our life is so vivid, so full of action, so
concerned with to-day, and Omar's world is all
peace and dreaming.  I daresay you can read
Omar in the original?"

"A little; but I didn't know that Americans
liked peace and dreaming."

"Wait until you see more of us.  There is
Senator March; I must speak to him."

She turned and went up to Senator March,
who had come in and was standing talking with
Mrs. Armytage.  Sir Percy remained some
minutes looking at the sight before him.
He was reminded of those meetings of the
Primrose League which bring together all
manner of men and women.  Meanwhile
he was acutely conscious of Lucy's presence,
although half the room separated them.
She was indeed like the jessamine flower
whose languorous sweet odour forces one to seek it.

Sir Percy found a few acquaintances, and
while talking with them Senator March made
his adieux and came up.

"Come," he said, "my brougham is below; let
us take a turn together round the speedway."

Sir Percy liked the simple friendliness of
Senator March's tone and manner, and readily
accepted.  As the two men passed along the
corridor of the hotel another man was entering
who came up and shook hands with Roger
March.  The new-comer carried a satin-lined
overcoat on his arm and his hat in his hand.
His appearance was so striking that to see him
once was to remember him.  He was of medium
height, rather handsome, with dark hair
slightly streaked with grey, a thin-lipped,
well-cut mouth, and eyes of peculiar keenness--the
eyes that see everything and tell nothing.  A few
pleasant words were exchanged and Senator
March and Sir Percy passed on.  Outside, a
handsome brougham, with a pair of impatient
horses, was waiting.  The two men entered and
in a little while were whirling along the level
curve of the boulevard which skirts the river.
The sun was sinking redly, and the water was
wine-coloured, in the old Homeric phrase.  The
air was like champagne, with a sharpness in
it brought by the breeze from the inland sea
a hundred miles away.

"Did you observe," asked Senator March,
"the man I spoke to coming out of the hotel?
It was Nicholas Colegrove, one of those
thoroughly American types that are worth
observing.  He is the son of a Congregationalist
minister somewhere up in New England.  He
managed to pay his boy's way through a small
college.  Then Colegrove went into a railway
office as clerk; by sheer force of intellect he
has forced his way upward until he is the
strongest man in railway circles in this country.
Not that everybody knows it--oh, no!
Colegrove is one of those men who avoids the
shadow of power as much as he loves its
substance.  He keeps sedulously in the
background; but there isn't a railway president in
this country who would like to antagonise
Nicholas Colegrove."

"One sees at a glance," replied Sir Percy,
"that he is a strong man."

"A very strong man.  He shows a sort of
good will for me, but as I am Chairman of the
Committee on Railroads I don't cultivate the
intimacy of Nicholas Colegrove.  I am a little
afraid of the man."

"There are wonderful and diverse American
types," said Sir Percy, "of men and women,
who are so distinctively American that they
seem to belong to this continent as much as
Indian corn and the giant trees of California."

"Perhaps so, and our friends the Armytages,
for example, are a very distinctive American
type.  Armytage himself is a sensible man, a
good lawyer, and a hard worker in the House,
but he is rashly outspoken and fiery tempered.
His wife is a good creature, devoted and
domestic, but of no particular value to Armytage
in his public life, as she always approves of
everything he does.  The charming Miss Armytage
is the real political manager of the family.
She is a born diplomatist, if ever I saw one, and
manages to conciliate the enemies whom Armytage
makes by this hasty temper and unguarded
tongue.  I admire Lucy Armytage very much,
and have often thought, if ever I had a
daughter, I would wish her to be like her.  I
have known her ever since she was a schoolgirl,
and often call her by her first name."

"I thought," said Sir Percy, "that American
women took no share in public life?"

"Not openly, but every official position in this
country, including that of the Presidency, has
some time or other been determined by a
woman.  I know of a Presidential convention
where, at midnight, a train was chartered and
the party managers, making a run of one
hundred and fifty miles in one hundred and
sixty-seven minutes, knocked up a possible candidate
at two o'clock in the morning and asked if he
would consent to have his name presented to
the convention.  'Wait until I talk with my
wife,' was his answer.  He went upstairs,
remained fifteen minutes, and came down and
said: 'No, gentleman; my wife has the doctor's
opinion that my heart is weak, and she refuses
to consent that I shall run.'  It turned out
afterward that the nomination would have been
equivalent to an election.  Oh, no! our
American women, as a rule, carefully avoid any
appearance of meddling with politics, but they
have a great deal to do with it,
nevertheless, just as the Roman ladies had in their
time."

As they rolled along in the handsome,
well-hung brougham, each man felt a growing
regard for the other.  Sir Percy, after the
English manner, rarely brought a name into
conversation, while Senator March, like an
American, spoke names freely, and presently
mentioned that he was due at Mrs. Chantrey's
for a dinner call.

"Come with me," he said to Sir Percy; "the
Chantreys will be glad to see you.  I know that
Mrs. Chantrey dearly loves a member of the
diplomatic corps, and the daughter is
charming--she is, in her way, as typically American
as Lucy Armytage--I often call the child by
her first name involuntarily."

"Miss Chantrey was kind enough to ask me
to call," said Sir Percy, and after a while the
two men were entering together a fine house in
one of the best avenues of the town.

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:

"Afraid of my uncle, I mean.  He makes such
a terrible row when I am out late.  I am not in
the least afraid of anything else."

Her timidity had seemed charming, but her
girlish courage was more charming still.  Sir
Percy's head was in a whirl.  No woman had
ever impressed him so quickly and so deeply
as this black-eyed girl, and he was staggered
at the intensity of his own pleasure in being
with her.  Meanwhile Lucy thought him the
most impassive of men, and felt a curious
feminine desire to disturb that cool placidity which
was so like a lake covered with a thin skin of ice.

"I saw you and Senator March going into the
Chantreys'," she said, as they walked rapidly
along in the deepening dusk.  "I admire Miss
Chantrey more than any girl in Washington.
At first I thought her a little cold, but her very
coldness is a sort of sincerity.  I should like to
have a house exactly like the Chantreys',
except that I would make the atmosphere a little
warmer."

She rippled out a laugh, and her eyes, under
their long lashes, sought Sir Percy's in the half
gloom.

"I am afraid that you would find our English
houses a little chilly, and they are not always
redeemed by such grace as Miss Chantrey's."

"Oh, one expects a little British chilliness in
an English house!  You admit, you know, that
your reserve is nothing but shyness after all.
Now I am not in the least shy, and so I have
managed to get on beautifully with the few
English people I have met.  My uncle, you
must know, is an Anglomaniac of the deepest
dye, and claims relationship with all the
peerage and half the baronetage.  He is the most
prejudiced man!  If it were not for me I don't
know what would become of him."

Sir Percy was extremely diverted at the notion
of a slip of a girl taking care of a member of
that great body which had its origin at
Runnymede in the far-off days.

The stars were coming out in the wintry sky
and it was yet some little distance to the streets
where the gas lamps flared.  It was an
enchanting walk to Sir Percy, and without a word
being spoken concerning a street car, or a cab,
Sir Percy and Lucy Armytage walked together
along the quieter streets to the very door of the
big hotel.

Lucy Armytage went upstairs to her room,
the typical hotel bedroom, but which she had
transformed into something resembling herself.
She had been proud of the bower-like air
she had given the large square room, and had
regarded with confident admiration the
spotless muslin curtains and the thin white
draperies over her little bed.  Now she looked about
her with dissatisfaction.  How unlike it was
to Eleanor Chantrey's beautiful and artistic
room!  And then Eleanor had an exquisite
yellow boudoir, in which Lucy once had tea
with her.  How much beauty and ornament and
luxury was in Eleanor's life!  For the first time
Lucy Armytage began to wish for something
which could not be furnished in Bardstown,
Kentucky.

"At least," she said, rising and speaking to
herself, "I *know* I'm provincial.  It is a great
thing to know the limitations of one's horizon.
What a narrow, uncultivated, inartistic,
uninteresting person Sir Percy Carlyon must find
me after Eleanor Chantrey!"

Then she went to her constant and usually
faithful consoler--her mirror.  But to-night
even the mirror seemed not in a flattering
mood, and Lucy only saw a disconsolate girl
who, to her mind, could stand no comparison
with that fine flower of civilisation--Eleanor
Chantrey.

At the same moment Sir Percy was smoking
fiercely as he made his way back to his
chambers.  From the first moment his eyes rested
upon Lucy Armytage she had commanded his
attention.  He had tried to escape from the
enchanting spell she had thrown over him, but
all in vain.  What was the meaning of that
stirring of all his pulses, that sudden joy, when
he met her in the twilight?  He reminded
himself that he was thirty-eight years old, quite
old enough to know better; that he was the
First Secretary of the British Embassy and
that he had firmly resolved never to allow
himself to become in the least interested in an
American woman.  He determined to avoid
Lucy Armytage in the future as a disturbing
element; in short, he resolved to take up arms
against his destiny.





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   IV

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Sir Percy Carlyon kept his word to
himself, and did not go near Lucy Armytage.
Nevertheless he could not avoid seeing her.
One dull afternoon he was taking tea with
Mrs. Vereker and the three girls, who were all so
much alike that only their names differentiated
them.  In the midst of the deadly dullness with
which Mrs. Vereker invested this function
visitors were announced.  Lucy Armytage with
her aunt arrived to pay their call of ceremony
after the ball.  Mrs. Vereker and Mrs. Armytage
were birds, or rather fowls, of a feather,
as each of them was distinctly of the barnyard
variety.  They sat and talked commonplaces
comfortably together, like a couple of old sheep
browsing side by side, the lady from Bardstown
and the lady from the greatest metropolis
in the world, and found each other thoroughly
companionable.  Not so Lucy Armytage and
the three Vereker girls.  Lucy's manner of
saying the unexpected thing, her gravity, which
was really her method of trifling, her quick,
incisive humour, puzzled Jane, Sarah and
Isabella.  So also it puzzled Sir Percy Carlyon,
who for that reason found Lucy Armytage the
most interesting woman he had ever known.
She had odd scraps, and even whole volumes,
of knowledge upon the most unexpected
subjects.  She knew nothing about art or music,
but she confessed her ignorance with a sweet
humility which bewitched Sir Percy more than
all the knowledge that Minerva carried under
her helmet.  Lucy had, however, read much
and indiscriminately about the East, could
discuss occultism intelligently, knew Omar, and
had the Indian Mutiny at her finger tips.

"The truth is," she said to Sir Percy, holding
her muff to shield her face from the fire and
reminding him once again of the picture in the
Louvre, "we are very old-fashioned in
Bardstown.  At home we have a great many old
books, but not many new ones.  My uncle hates
modern books, as he does most modern things,
and our library is a haphazard collection of
antiques."

Then Lord Baudesert entered, and his
appearance created the same flutter among the ladies
of his family as if a vulture had descended
upon a dovecote.  Mrs. Vereker hastened to
give him tea, while Jane, Sarah and Isabella
fell over each other in their efforts to provide
him with thin bread and butter.  Mrs. Armytage, too,
was somewhat awed by the appearance
of a live Ambassador and, except Sir Percy,
Lucy alone remained tranquil.  Lord Baudesert
talked with her a little, and was pleased to find
that she could give a connected answer without
fear or embarrassment.  And then an
untoward thing occurred--the door opened, and
at almost the same moment two South
American diplomats, between whom a frantic
controversy and charges and counter-charges were
raging, entered the room.  Mrs. Vereker looked
frightened to death, and the Vereker girls could
think of nothing else to say but to invite the
belligerents half-a-dozen times over each to
have tea.  Lord Baudesert's manner was
perfect in its evenly matched courtesy, and Sir
Percy Carlyon was not a whit behind.  Lucy
Armytage, however, who knew how the land
lay, calmly engaged one of the sultry-eyed
South Americans in conversation, and even got
him off in a corner to look at a picture.  Then
Sir Percy, seeing a way out of the situation,
went up to Lucy and her diplomat and asked
them to come into the next room to see a
portrait lately added to the Embassy.  With
perfect tact and grace Lucy managed to take the
South American, with Sir Percy escorting
them, into the adjoining room--a service for
which Sir Percy thanked her with a meaning
glance.  They were absent only five minutes,
but that gave time for the other belligerent to
take his departure.  Then Lucy's diplomat,
after five minutes' talk with Lord Baudesert,
went out, and Lucy and Mrs. Armytage began
to make their adieux.  As Lucy offered her
hand to Lord Baudesert he said, smiling:

"I am glad I happened to be here when you
called, and more glad that you were here when
our South American friends called."

Lucy gave him a roguish glance, which
brought a smile to his handsome, saturnine old
face.

When she was gone Lord Baudesert, alone in
the bosom of his family, remarked:

"That might have been a deuced awkward
thing.  Miss Armytage stood in the breach and
helped to save the situation.  She has a great
deal of natural tact--looks simple, but is really
very artful."

Sir Percy Carlyon sat soberly drinking his
tea like a true-born Briton, but inwardly he
was not at peace.  Lucy Armytage always
moved and interested and disturbed him.  He
glanced toward the low chair in which she had
sat and saw her again as "The Lady with the
Muff."  He heard her voice, gentle yet ringing,
and the perfume of the lilies of the valley
she had worn pinned upon her breast still
pervaded the room.  He remained silent while
Mrs. Vereker and the three girls discussed
Lucy.  Mrs. Vereker and Jane thought her
very pretty, Sarah and Isabella thought her not
pretty at all.  Lord Baudesert decided that she
was extremely pretty; then they all agreed with
him.  When the ladies of the family went away
to dress for dinner Lord Baudesert asked Sir
Percy:

"Did you ever know three such idiots as my
nieces?"

"They are not idiots at all," responded his
dutiful nephew; "they are afraid of you--that's all."

"Oh, yes, that's all!  But that's enough.
However, with all their dulness, they are better
fitted to be the wives of diplomats than women
like that sparkling little Armytage girl.  She
is clever enough at getting people out of a tight
place, but, mark my words, the cleverer women
are in getting out of trouble the readier they
are to get into it.  That's why they are not
suited to the diplomatic corps."

"I quite agree with you," answered his
nephew, with vigour.

Sir Percy found himself overwhelmed with
dinner invitations, which he accepted partly
as a duty and partly as a pleasure.  He
enjoyed the Washington dinners hugely, and
after a while grew accustomed to the shrill,
and often untrained, voices of the American
women.  He liked the naturalness and
simplicity both of the men and women he met, and
the absence of the young-lady-anxious-to-be-married
was pleasing to him.  He also liked
the wives and daughters of his colleagues, and
often thought, if dinners were the sum of
man's existence on this planet, Washington
was the ideal spot in which to live.  Besides his
work at the Embassy, which was not light, he
was making a thorough study of American
public affairs--no small undertaking.  Then
Lord Baudesert was continually clamouring
for his nephew's company, so that Sir Percy's
days and evenings were full.  So full, indeed,
was his time, that he ought, in the natural
course of events, to have forgotten Lucy
Armytage, of whom he only caught stray glimpses
during the next month.

Colonel Armytage promptly returned Sir
Percy's visit, and Sir Percy, by the exercise of
all his will power, managed to call at the hotel
one day just after having seen Lucy drive off
in a hansom.  He was rewarded--or punished,
as the case might be--by meeting her face to
face at the White House reception that night.
She was again talking with Stanley, the
handsome young naval officer, dazzling in his
uniform.  Lucy stood under the branching leaves
of a huge palm, in the east room, which made
a background for her delicate and *spirituelle*
head.  She wore the same black gown in which
Sir Percy had first seen her, and carried a fan,
which she used for the purpose for which it
was designed--to accentuate and set off her
own charms.  Sir Percy passed her with a bow
and a word, which she returned with one of
those brilliant smiles that transformed her soft
and elusive beauty into something vivid,
palpitating and star-like.  Unconsciously to himself,
Sir Percy kept a furtive watch upon her.  He
saw other men come up to drive Stanley off, and
they in their turn were driven off by other
enterprising gentlemen.  Some of them were
ridiculously young, and others were obviously old;
but Lucy contrived to make a beardless ensign
feel as if he were a full admiral, and a dry-as-dust
senator forget the burden of his years and
drink once more of the draught of youth.  Sir
Percy fully determined not to seek Lucy Armytage
out, and just as this decision was fixed in
his mind he saw her pass upon the arm of
Colonel Armytage.  He went up to her, and,
being a close observer, saw Lucy's mobile face
suddenly light up, and the little dimple come
and go in her cheek.

"Delighted to see you," said Colonel
Armytage; "my niece is dragging me away just as
I was beginning to enjoy myself.  She has been
sending me to bed every night at ten o'clock
because I have had a touch of rheumatism, and
half-past ten, she has just informed me, is too
dissipated for me."

"I believe Miss Armytage claims entire
authority over you, doesn't she?" asked Sir
Percy, smiling.

"Absolute jurisdiction.  She has taken charge
of my person and estate, and also Mrs. Armytage,
and she manages us both according to
her own ideas."

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.

Later, driving back to the Embassy in the
big, comfortable coach, Lord Baudesert said to
Sir Percy:

"Magnificent girl, Miss Chantrey.  She has
everything: beauty, breeding and fortune.  If
she were not an American I should advise you
to pay your court in that direction."

"But she is an American," replied Sir Percy,
laughing, "and that is the unpardonable sin,
according to my view of a diplomat's career."

That day two weeks Sir Percy Carlyon found
himself at Senator March's country place for
the week end.  The party was small but
brilliant.  Eleanor Chantrey, her mother and Lucy
Armytage were the only ladies.  Their amusements
were simple, and consisted chiefly in the
enjoyment of the country, open in winter, after
a siege in town.  Young Stanley, a personable,
pleasant fellow, was among the guests, and his
frank adoration of Lucy Armytage made
everybody smile, except one person, the other
man who was in love with her--Sir Percy
Carlyon.  Sir Percy was too well trained and
well balanced to show the chagrin he felt and
the Fates, and the exigencies of a house party,
threw him more with Eleanor Chantrey.  He
was forced to admire her, but his admiration
was cool and discriminating.  On Eleanor's
part sprung up a strong admiration for Sir
Percy Carlyon.  She was not incapable of love,
but her will and intellect were always dominant
over her heart.  And then the daughter
repeated her mother's dream of ambition,
marked, however, by the enormous difference
between the dream of a woman and the sense
of a simpleton.  Her beauty, her intelligence,
her wealth, her prestige, had inspired her with
what Sir Percy called "the princess attitude of
mind," which looks around and chooses the
man upon whom to bestow her hand.  Sir Percy
Carlyon was well fitted to please her, and she
understood perfectly the really splendid
position which would be his in time.  She knew,
also, he was a man of small estate, and it
occurred to her, in her half-laughing, half-serious
speculations, that her fortune would be well
applied in maintaining the position of an
Ambassadress.  The idea that if she should indicate
the slightest preference for Sir Percy she could
not bring him to her feet did not occur to her.
Her imagination, stimulated by her ambition,
took hold of her, that Sir Percy would be
eminently suitable for her, and she played with it,
as women of the world do with such ideas quite
as much as the veriest country lass.

On the afternoon before the party broke up
a walk was proposed.  As the case always is,
the party paired off, and Eleanor Chantrey
considered herself ridiculously mismated with
Stanley, who was equally dissatisfied.  Sir
Percy Carlyon found himself walking with
Lucy Armytage through the winter woods in
the red February afternoon.  The dead leaves
were thick underfoot and drowned the sound
of footfalls.  Unconsciously the two voices
grew low, and it was like the fulfilment of Sir
Percy's dream.  An impulse, stronger than
himself, made him try all his powers on this girl,
with her innocent guile, her unworldly
coquetry.  Suddenly he found she vibrated to
him as a violin answers the bow.  That was
too much for the resolution of Sir Percy
Carlyon, or for any other man with red blood
in his veins.

They were the last to return, and at dinner
that night Lucy Armytage's usually pale cheeks
were flooded with a deep colour.  She had
promised to be Sir Percy Carlyon's wife.





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   V

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Sir Percy Carlyon's mystification with
his American *fiancée* began within twenty-four
hours of the time she had given him her first
kiss.

"Above all things," she said earnestly, as they
were supposed to be exchanging commonplaces
in the train, "nothing must be said of this, not
one word to a soul.  After a while I will break
it to my uncle and aunt."

Sir Percy stared at her, and wondered
whether he were dreaming or she raving.  He
expected, after the English custom, to
announce the engagement immediately to Colonel
and Mrs. Armytage, and what did Lucy mean
by "breaking" it to them?  His name, his
position and his prospects were such that the
greatest match in England might not have been
reckoned unequal for him, and here was a girl
from Bardstown, Kentucky, who proposed to
wait for an auspicious moment when she could
"break" this direful news to her aunt and
uncle!  Something of his involuntary surprise
showed in his face, and Lucy studied it gravely
and then suddenly laughed.

"I see," she whispered, "you don't understand.
This is *our* secret: the world has nothing
to do with it."

"I thought," answered Sir Percy, infatuated,
but still retaining some of the vestiges of
conventionality, "that marriages were quite public
affairs.  One has to get a license and be
married in church."

"But this isn't being married," explained
Lucy; "this is only being engaged."

Then the two looked at each other with
adoring but uncomprehending eyes.  Lucy's
woman's wit, however, came to her rescue.

"I think," she said gravely, "that perhaps you
know more about the ways of the world than
I do, and, after all, there are other ways than
those of Bardstown, Kentucky.  So that it shall
be as you wish."

She said this with such a pretty lowering of
her long lashes, and so much deep feeling
visible under her coquetry, that Sir Percy was
more than ever charmed.  Nor was the sound
sense at the bottom of Lucy's remark lost upon
him.  A compromise was effected, by which
Colonel and Mrs. Armytage were to be
informed immediately, and the rest of the world
was to remain in ignorance until within one
month of the wedding day.

There was no suspicion among the others of
the party concerning what had occurred, and
least of all with Eleanor Chantrey and Stanley,
both of whom might be said to have contingent
interests in the matter.

The morning after Lucy's return she was
awakened to receive a bouquet of roses and a
letter from Sir Percy Carlyon.  There was
also a note for Colonel Armytage asking
for a private interview.  This precipitated
matters.

"I should like to know," said Colonel Armytage,
standing with his back to the fire in his
own room, with Sir Percy's letter in one hand
and *The Congressional Record* of the day
before in the other, "what this means--'a private
interview.'"

"Perhaps," ventured Mrs. Armytage, "he
wants to ask you for a copy of your speech of
yesterday.  There is an editorial in the
newspaper about it this morning."

Lucy, dressed in a delicious pink *négligée*, was
standing by the window, holding the roses in
her hands.

"No," she said, coming forward with cheeks
matching the pale beauty of the roses; "he
wants to ask you, uncle--we were together,
you know--and--and----"

A light dawned upon Colonel Armytage.

"The fellow wants to marry you," he roared.

"And I want to marry him," answered Lucy,
with much spirit.

And then there were kisses and tears and
embraces among all three of them.

"It is a far cry to England," said Colonel
Armytage, "and I had always hoped you would
marry some rising young lawyer in Bardstown."

Mrs. Armytage hinted that it might be a
marriage of ambition for Sir Percy, who would
naturally wish to be allied to a man of such
eminent perfections as Colonel Armytage.
At eleven o'clock Sir Percy walked into
Colonel Armytage's room.  His manner was
so manly and so debonair, even in his imminent
circumstances, that Colonel Armytage could
not but compare him mentally with those
Kentucky thoroughbreds who are models of
decorum in the stable, on the race track and
wherever they are seen.  Sir Percy told his
story and then waited for Colonel Armytage's
decision.

"My dear sir," said Colonel Armytage, after
a moment, "I appreciate the respectful attitude
you take towards me, but, to tell you the truth,
these matters are in the hands of our young
people entirely.  It is the part of parents--and
Mrs. Armytage and I stand in that relation to
our niece--to advise and take precautions, but
not to coerce.  However," he continued,
smiling, and showing fine white teeth between his
grey moustache and beard, "I don't think there
is any coercion in this case."

"I believe not," said Sir Percy, with an
answering smile, "these things are somewhat
differently managed in the States than with us,
but the result is the same.  Miss Armytage is
doing me the honour of marrying me without
the consideration of certain matters which
must be mentioned between you and me.  As
regards settlements, I shall be as liberal as I
possibly can, but I must frankly tell you that
my fortune is modest.  All of it, however, shall
be settled upon the future Lady Carlyon and
her children."

"I beg to differ with you there," promptly
replied Colonel Armytage.  "I think children are
not to be considered in these matters: I don't
believe in putting a woman in the power of her
children.  Every penny I have is settled upon
my wife, and she is my sole executrix, without
bond.  That is what I require of any man who
marries my niece, and also that he insures his
life for her benefit, and that her money--for
my niece has some money of her own--shall be
settled upon her irrevocably."

Sir Percy Carlyon longed both to laugh and
to swear, but he controlled his inclinations and
said calmly:

"I fully appreciate your point of view, but
you must remember certain obligations which
we, in England, acknowledge to our successors.
My baronetcy will descend to my eldest son, if
I be blessed with a son, and there are moral
obligations in such a case to give a child
something to maintain the rank to which he is born.
With regard to the future Lady Carlyon--what
is hers I desire to remain hers.  If I were a
richer man, I think I could convince you of
my disinterestedness."

Colonel Armytage, like Lucy, had a mind
open to conviction, and, after considering this
speech for a moment or two, acknowledged
that Sir Percy was right.  Thus the dangerous
question of settlements was got over without
friction.  After a few minutes more of
conversation, Sir Percy asked to see Mrs. Armytage.
That excellent woman, in bestowing her
approval upon his suit, told him earnestly that
to be related by marriage to such a man as
Colonel Armytage was in itself a high privilege
and carried a special blessing with it.  Sir
Percy inwardly agreed with this.  He was glad
that his future wife was brought up in the
atmosphere of love and kindliness, which
surrounded the Armytages.  He had a rapturous
half-hour alone with Lucy, and then went away
feeling that the gates of paradise had been
opened before him.

In order to escape comment, it had been
arranged that Sir Percy's visits should be on
one or two evenings in the week, when he
would not be likely to meet any of his
acquaintances as he passed in and out of the hotel, or
might be supposed to be going to see a man.
Evening visits, although long since abandoned
by the smart set, still prevail among the
old-fashioned people and the Congressional circle,
in which were most of the Armytages'
acquaintances.  Never had Sir Percy imagined that
such delicious hours in life awaited him as
those he spent during the next fortnight in the
Armytages' little sitting-room.  Colonel and
Mrs. Armytage, according to the Bardstown
custom, felt it their duty to leave their modest
sitting-room entirely to the lovers; but Lucy,
who was making a close study of Sir Percy
Carlyon's class prejudices, insisted that
Mrs. Armytage should remain.  Mrs. Armytage,
feeling guilty, would establish herself with her
knitting before the fire and dutifully fall asleep
within ten minutes of Sir Percy's arrival.  The
lovers, sitting in an embrasure of a window and
looking down upon a quiet side street, were
almost as much alone as they had been in the
winter woods, on that February afternoon,
when they had first known each other's hearts.
Sir Percy had a satisfaction which is often
denied lovers--the satisfaction of seeing his
*fiancée* adapting herself with grace and
intelligence to his tastes and wishes.  Lucy
Armytage was far too clever to have that deadly
obstinacy which is the bane of provincials, and
which makes them carry their Bardstowns into
every company and association in which they
may find themselves.

It occurred to Sir Percy, a very short time
after his engagement, that the sacrifices which
he was prepared to make for the sake of marrying
the woman he loved might not be so great
after all.  Whenever he saw Lucy he found
that she had learned something.  She had
picked up a new phrase, or abandoned an old
one which was not in perfect taste; she had
learned to curb her wit and to be on her guard
against those indiscreet words and actions
which are harmless enough in a young girl,
but highly dangerous in the wife of a diplomat.
Sir Percy had begun to believe all he heard of
the adaptability of the American woman after
studying Lucy Armytage, and he saw, with
profound pride, that Lucy was forming herself
to be his wife.  One thing only troubled him:
should he confess to her then, or after their
marriage, the story of Alicia Vernon?  It was
a difficult thing to tell to a girl so young as
Lucy Armytage, and so guileless, and so little
familiar with wickedness.  If penitence could
avail, then he had atoned for that early
wrongdoing.  He concluded it would be
kinder for him to wait until after their
marriage, when he could tell her the whole painful
story.

One afternoon, three weeks after Lucy
Armytage had promised to become Lady Carlyon,
a letter was delivered at the British Embassy
for Sir Percy Carlyon.  One look at the clear,
strong handwriting made him turn pale--it was
Alicia Vernon's hand and the postmark was
Washington.  He thrust the letter into his
pocket and, declining Lord Baudesert's
suggestion to come in to tea, went back to his own
chambers.  With hatred and repugnance
pulsating all through him, he opened the letter
and read it.  The date was of that day, and it
was written from a fashionable uptown hotel.

.. vspace:: 2

"We arrived yesterday, my father and I.  It
was quite unexpected, for Washington has
always seemed as far away to me and as unreal
as Bagdad, but here we are.  We shall call at
the Embassy in a day or two, and meanwhile
my father asks me to say that we shall be at
home at five o'clock every day, and he hopes
to see you soon.

.. vspace:: 1

"A.V."

.. vspace:: 2

How like the letter was to Alicia Vernon!
Apparently so conventional, so frankly friendly,
and yet how different was she to all of this!
Sir Percy Carlyon had reached that age and
stage of life when he was sceptical of
reformations.  One thing was certain, General
Talbott's presence ensured Alicia Vernon's *entrée*
to the British Embassy, and that she and Sir
Percy would be much thrown together.  At
this, rage and shame possessed him.  He saw
at a glance the grim possibilities of the case,
and they were enough to stagger a strong man.
He examined the letter before him as it lay
upon his study table, and it seemed to bring
contamination with it.  His sin and the shame
had tracked him over the world, and were now
seated, hideous spectres that they were, on each
side of him.  He had repented and had atoned
as far as he could, for the sin of his youth.

He rose and, throwing his arms wide, despaired
in his heart, and then asked pardon of
that Higher Power to which his soul aspired.
The thought of Lucy came to him like a lash
upon an open wound.  Then his mood grew
dogged and a kind of fatalism possessed his
mind.  If it were written that Alicia Vernon
should be avenged upon him, then it *was*
written, and struggle were useless.  If only he had
not told Lucy Armytage of his love!  She, poor
child, might be dragged into the degradation
which awaited him!  He remembered that he
was to go to see Lucy that evening after dinner.
The joy he felt at the thought of being with her
was poisoned by the black shadow of Alicia
Vernon's presence in Washington.  He had to
pass the hotel where she and General Talbott
were lodged on his way to his club for dinner,
and the place which held Alicia seemed odious
to him.  And General Talbott, too; of all living
men he was the man whom Sir Percy should
most wish to meet and to serve; but among the
keenest pangs of his punishment were the
shame and unworthiness he felt in General
Talbott's presence.

Sir Percy had some thought of excusing himself
from his semi-weekly visit to Lucy on that
evening, but, doggedness still possessing him,
he went, thinking to himself, at any moment
the explosion might come, any meeting might
be their last, therefore would he have as many
as possible.  He had not reached his present
position without acquiring perfect mastery
over his manner, his voice and his countenance,
and Lucy had no suspicion that he was not
entirely at his ease when he entered the
Armytages' sitting-room.

Never had he seen Lucy more charming than
when she came forward to meet him.  She was
full of the lessons in languages she was taking,
especially in rubbing up her superficial
knowledge of French.  She had got a French
newspaper, and read with admirable accent some
editorials in which Sir Percy was interested.
Mrs. Armytage went sound asleep as usual,
and the lovers could talk with a sweet
unrestraint.  Heretofore it was Sir Percy who had
risen promptly on the stroke of ten, but
to-night it was a quarter past before he stirred,
and Lucy then forced him away.  He returned
to his chambers accompanied by the ghost of
his wrong-doing, and the black dog who kept
watch over him prevented him from sleeping
all night long.

The next afternoon at five o'clock Sir Percy
Carlyon was ushered into General Talbott's and
Alicia Vernon's charming little drawing-room
at the hotel.  As he came in, General Talbott
met him with both hands outstretched.  Sir
Percy realised, as he always did in General
Talbott's presence, that here was a man of no
common mould.  He was small, bald and
low-voiced, but in distinction of bearing and
manner there were few men superior to General
Talbott.  This distinction also belonged to
Alicia Vernon, and Sir Percy could not but
recognise it as she rose and advanced towards
him and gave him her hand.  She was quite
forty, and showed it.  Like most women of her
exquisite blonde type, each year left a visible
mark.  Her chestnut hair had lost much of its
lustre, and her fine white skin had little marks
and lines in it, like a crumpled roseleaf.  She
had not the freshness and naturalness which
Sir Percy Carlyon reckoned the chief charm of
the American women.  Alicia Vernon was the
product of an old civilisation, and showed it;
but her tall and stately figure retained all its
symmetry, and her eyes and her voice and her
smile--ah, they were matchless still!  Her
voice, low, soft and clear, had a melancholy
sweetness and power of expression that Sir
Percy Carlyon had never known in any woman's
voice but hers, and her eyes, the colour of
the violets, had in them a depth of fire, and
flickering shadows like the heart of an opal.
Everything about her was individual and
distinctive.  Sir Percy was not much versed in
the details of a woman's dress, but he felt,
rather than knew, the beauty of the sweeping,
pale blue draperies which undulated about
Alicia Vernon, and the seductive perfume
which exhaled from everything which she wore
and used.  Hers was the charm of the Shulamite.

In meeting Sir Percy her manner and tone
were perfectly calm, friendly and composed.
Towards her father she was always perfect;
and his air of tender, chivalrous protection was
touching and beautiful.

The three sat around the fire and talked
intimately, as friends do after a long absence.
Mrs. Vernon offered Sir Percy a cup of tea,
and even handed it to him with her own hands
sparkling with gems, but he declined it.  If it
had been in Italy during the time of the Borgias
he would have hesitated to drink any cup
offered him by Alicia Vernon.  She said little,
leaving the conversation chiefly to her father
and Sir Percy.  As they talked she sat in a
large chair, her head half turned towards Sir
Percy and holding between the fire and her
face an antique fan painted by Greuze.  She
had been a slip of a girl when her lips had
sought Sir Percy's, and had shown him, in
triumph, her long, bright hair; but in some
things she was unchanged, and Sir Percy felt
that a stripling of to-day, such as he had been
in the old days, would not be safe with
Mrs. Vernon.  While they were talking Lord
Baudesert's card was brought to General
Talbott.  On it was scrawled:

"My first chance to take the air.  Gout has me
by the leg, so come down and drive with me
for an hour."

General Talbott rose at once.  Sir Percy had
no excuse to leave at the same time and
remained perforce.

When the door was shut on General Talbott
Sir Percy Carlyon's face changed into the hardness
of a flint, and he sat silent waiting to see
what position Mrs. Vernon would take with
him.  She too remained silent for a while,
fixing upon him two wells of violet light.  The
setting sun streamed through a western
window upon Sir Percy's face, and she studied it
carefully.  No; he was not handsome even as a
young man, and at thirty-eight his moustache
was growing grey and his hair scanty, and
there were crow's feet in the corners of his
eyes.  But what did that matter to her?  He
was the most considerable man upon whom she
had ever tried her power.

"After all," she said presently, her low voice
filling the room as a trained singer's softest
note is heard at the Paris Opera, "I was right
even in my youth, and knew that before you
was a great destiny.  You are to be the next
Ambassador here."

"How did you know that?" asked Sir Percy.

"Partly by observation and partly by a clever
guess.  I have been staying in the same house
with the Prime Minister, and quite naturally
we spoke of you.  I told him that we were old
friends."

As she said the last two words Sir Percy
Carlyon turned away his head and a dull flush
dyed his sunburnt face.

"However, those are matters really of
prescience.  I was very young when we loved, but
even then I knew that some day you would be
a great, if not a famous, man."

"I am neither," responded Sir Percy, taking
refuge in commonplace.

Then there was silence again for a time.  The
firelight played over Mrs. Vernon's face and
figure and the masses of pale blue draperies,
and over the tip of her pale blue slippers, upon
which stones sparkled.  Her eyes were fixed
upon Sir Percy, and, raising herself in her
chair, she leaned over towards him and said calmly:

"Guy Vernon, you know, has been dead more
than a year."

Sir Percy knew what she meant--that she was
now free.

"I had not heard it," he replied with equal
calmness.  "I hope that your latter days with
him were happier than the earlier ones."

"I had not seen or spoken with him for several
years.  We had much unhappiness together.
If I had been happily married----"

She broke off suddenly and then continued
after a while:

"It would be hypocritical for me to express
any grief at Guy Vernon's death, and,
whatever I am, I am not a hypocrite--except to my
father.  I love him, for I can love, and he is
the one person I really fear--except you."

As she spoke she leaned forward again, and,
closing her fan, almost laid the tip of it upon
Sir Percy's hand, outstretched on the arm of
his chair.  In another instant it would have
been a caress, but Sir Percy coolly moved his
hand and Mrs. Vernon quickly withdrew the fan.

"General Talbott is a man very much to be
feared as well as loved," was his answer.
"Whenever the memory comes to me of what
I owe him and how I repaid him I feel like
shooting myself."

"But we were very happy in that time,"
murmured Alicia, leaning back and letting her
hands fall in her lap as she watched the fire.

Sir Percy rose and Alicia Vernon rose too.

"You know very well," she said, showing
some agitation, "why I came here.  I wanted
to see you.  I am a fool, of course--every
woman is about some man.  I have tried to
forget you, I have been trying to do that for
twelve years, but I have not yet succeeded.  Do
you remember those tragic stories of the
Middle Ages, when a woman who loved a man
would dress herself as a page and follow him
to the Crusades?  Such are the women who
knew how to love; not those conventional
creatures who sit by the fire and to whom one
man is the same as another."

As she spoke her eyes filled and two large
bright tears dropped upon her cheeks, and she
pressed her handkerchief to her eyes with a
trembling hand.  Sir Percy had meant to be
stern with her, but no man, if he be a man,
can be stern to a woman in tears.  He
remained silent for a minute or two, moved, in
spite of himself, at Alicia Vernon's emotion.

"Alicia," he said, and then paused.  It was
the first time he had called her by her name
for years, and as he spoke her eyes lighted up
and a sad smile played about her mouth.  "I,
least of all human beings, can reproach you.  I
am willing to take upon myself all the guilt,
all the shame, of that bygone time, but it was
guilt and shame, and let us not deceive ourselves."

"Was it guilt and shame?" she asked in her
thrilling voice.  "Was it rather not fate?  I
was married at twenty to a worthless wretch.
I was formed to love and be loved, and I found
myself tied to a creature like Guy Vernon.
Then I met in you the man for whom I was
meant and I came into my own.  At least I
was disinterested, for then you were both poor
and obscure.  I never had one regret for
anything that happened.  Do you suppose that
Marguerite Gautier regretted, even when she
was dying, that she had loved Armand?  I
always go, when I can, to hear that opera, *La
Vie de Bohème*.  Mimi's death is really a
triumph of love.  Let me tell you this: no woman
who ever loved ever regretted it.  If she
regretted it she did not love.  Men feel and act
differently about these things.  You know you
loved me once and you have seemed to hate me
ever since, but love will prevail--it will yet
prevail."

It was a piteous sight to see her with clasped
hands and the glory of an undying hope in her
eyes and voice.  To make her believe that the
end had come long since between Sir Percy
Carlyon and herself was like fighting a shadow.
The resolve took possession of Sir Percy to tell
her of Lucy Armytage, and then she might
realise the inevitable.

"We will speak no more of the past," he said,
"and I will tell you what has happened in the
present.  I have met a woman whom I truly
love, and she has promised to marry me."

Alicia Vernon turned deathly pale, and stood
looking at him with eyes like those of Dido
when she saw Æneas sail away from her.  She
walked steadily to the window and looked with
unseeing eyes at the glory of red and gold in
which the sun was sinking.  Sir Percy
Carlyon, standing where she had left him, had to
battle with his common-sense.  Reason told
him that he had done this woman no
injury--rather she had injured him--and although
Alicia Vernon's protestation of love for him
carried with it conviction of truth, it had not
kept her in the straight path.  Nevertheless he
felt as if he had struck her a physical blow.
Presently she came from the window towards
the fire, and said to Sir Percy what any woman
of forty would say:

"The girl you love is young?"

"Yes."

"That is the way of the world," cried
Alicia--"youth is everything.  What is it François
Coppée says?  'There is nothing for women
but a little love when they are young.'  I ask,
however, one thing of you.  You can scarcely
refuse it."  Sir Percy remained silent.  He did
not refuse it, but he was too much on his guard
to promise it.  "Only this, let me see this
woman whom you prefer to me.  You think it
childish?  Very well; all women have
something of the child in them."

Sir Percy went towards the door, and his face,
already dark and flushed, grew still darker.
Alicia came up to him and said with pleading
in her voice:

"You can't suppose that I would let her
suspect anything?  I think I have shown that I
know how to keep the secrets of my life.  I
would hardly be so foolish as to betray myself
to this girl who has succeeded where I have
failed."

Then came one of the most exquisitely painful
moments of Sir Percy Carlyon's life.  The
thought of bringing Lucy Armytage into the
same room with Alicia Vernon filled him with
rage and shame.  Rather than see Lucy
Armytage become what Alicia Vernon was he would
have killed her with his own hand.  Something
of this dawned upon Alicia's mind as she looked
at him.  It flashed from her eyes and burst into
words.

"It is the old story.  You are worthy to
marry her, but I am not worthy to speak to
her.  Oh, what a world it is!"

.. _`"'It is the old story.  You are worthy to marry her, but I am not worthy to speak to her'"`:

.. figure:: images/img-100.jpg
   :align: center
   :alt: "'It is the old story.  You are worthy to marry her, but I am not worthy to speak to her'"

   "'It is the old story.  You are worthy to marry her, but I am not worthy to speak to her'"

"It is the world which has made that law, not
I," responded Sir Percy.  "Don't think that I
reckon myself worthy to marry this woman
whom I love--I only hope to make myself a
little less unworthy.  Ever since the world was
made it has demanded more of women than of men."

"That law sounds well when it is enforced
by you against me.  Good-bye," was Alicia's
response.





.. vspace:: 4

.. class:: center large bold

   VI

.. vspace:: 2

Sir Percy Carlyon went out into the
cool March air, which steadied his
much-shaken nerves.  He had refused to bring about
a meeting between Alicia Vernon and Lucy
Armytage, and with masculine directness made
not the slightest secret to himself why he did
it.  Yet he was not without shame at the part
he had played in the matter.

It was early for his walk, as the spring
afternoons were growing longer.  He struck out
toward the northwest and walked for an hour.
As he was returning he reached the top of the
hill, where the paved streets began, when Lord
Baudesert's carriage with its high-stepping
bays overtook him.  Lord Baudesert called out
of the window, and in another minute Sir Percy
was sitting in the carriage opposite Lord
Baudesert and General Talbott.

"It is rather pleasant," said Lord Baudesert,
"to come across a countryman once in a while,
and not to be always considering American
susceptibilities.  Talbott, here, is delighted with
the country as far as he has got.  I told him
it is the most interesting, as it certainly is the
most complex, of all nations and societies."  Lord
Baudesert leaned back in the carriage and
settled himself comfortably to talk upon that
agreeable subject, his own affairs.  "The
Ambassadors at Paris and Berlin and other
European capitals have an easy berth compared
with mine.  I can walk in and talk with the
President and arrange affairs to our mutual
satisfaction.  It might be supposed that I had
accomplished something, as it would be in any
Chancellery of Europe, but not here, if you
please.  At the next Cabinet meeting the
Secretary of State may say that it is all a stupid
blunder on the part of the President, or the
Attorney-General may put in his oar, and all
goes to smash.  Then, if it gets as far as the
approval of the Secretary of State, and the
permission of the Attorney-General, as soon as
it is done up in official form, it goes to the
Senate.  The Senate likes to lay the Secretary
of State by the heels and the British Ambassador
on top of him; and that is where our
carefully studied arrangements generally land.  The
House of Representatives, too, can generally
find a peg on which to hang some objection,
and, if there is any money involved, we can't
turn a wheel without the help of the House.
That is diplomacy in America."

"How do you get anything done, then?" said
General Talbott.

"There are ways, my dear Talbott.  The
Speaker of the House is a useful man to have
as a friend, and there are, besides, a few men
in the Senate who can deny themselves the joy
of tripping up an Ambassador.  One of them
I particularly desire you to meet--Senator
March.  He stands high with the administration,
and with everybody, in fact.  He is an
uncommonly able man, and has a candour and
fairness which disarms opposition.  I should
not venture to call him absolutely the most
gifted man in the Senate, or the most profound
lawyer, or the most brilliant speaker, but, take
him altogether, I consider him the strongest
man in public life in Washington to-day.  You
will meet him when you dine at the Embassy
next week.  I will send a card in due form to
yourself and Mrs. Vernon.  I think I had the
pleasure of meeting your daughter once before
her marriage?"

"That marriage turned out most unfortunately
for my poor child," replied General Talbott,
with the peculiar tenderness in his voice
with which he always spoke of Alicia.  "Guy
Vernon had a large fortune, but he was a
scapegrace inborn.  My daughter was young,
innocent, and had never had the command of
money, so you may imagine she made some
mistakes, but she was most cruelly treated; that
I found out after her patience could no longer
stand her husband's unkindness.  Vernon died
more than a year ago, after having lived long
enough to ruin the life of my only child."

Sir Percy Carlyon, sitting with his back to
the horses, listened with an impassive face to
General Talbott's words.

"Mrs. Vernon had her settlements, had she
not?" asked Lord Baudesert.

"Yes.  But she and Vernon between them
managed to get some of the provisions of that
arrangement set aside, and spent a great part
of the money which was supposed would be a
provision for my daughter in the event of
Vernon's death.  Luckily, there were no
children.  I shouldn't care to have a grandchild
with Guy Vernon's blood in him.  My daughter
is an angel.  Pardon a father's pride."

"She looked an angel," replied Lord Baudesert,
"when I saw her in the first bloom of
her beauty."

Sir Percy Carlyon, listening to this, reflected
that his shrift would be short if General
Talbott knew what had happened twelve years
before.

Lord Baudesert dropped General Talbott at
his hotel, then drove back with Sir Percy to
the Embassy, where Sir Percy joined the
family circle at dinner.  When the ladies left the
table and the uncle and nephew were alone was
Lord Baudesert's favourite time for exchanging
confidences with Sir Percy.  To-night he
chose the subject of General Talbott and his
daughter.

"While I have not seen Talbott's daughter for
many years, I remember well what a beautiful
and captivating young girl she was, but it
seems to me that I have heard rumours--eh?
Bad marriage, worthless husband,
and gay wife.  Do you know anything about it?"

Sir Percy then calmly and deliberately
proceeded to lie like a gentleman.

"Nothing except what the world knows.  I
saw a great deal of Mrs. Vernon twelve years
ago when I was in India.  As you see, General
Talbott is a most devoted father and
Mrs. Vernon a most affectionate daughter.  She was
virtually separated from Vernon when I first
knew her."

"And had squandered a lot of money?"

"Both of them were spendthrifts, as far as
that goes.  Mrs. Vernon was a beautiful young
woman and much admired."

"And a little gay, perhaps?"

"Not that I ever heard," responded Sir Percy
coolly, looking Lord Baudesert in the eye.  "It
would be hard to believe that General Talbott's
daughter were not everything she should be.
He is, I think, altogether the finest man I ever
knew."

Lord Baudesert, with a catholic interest in
beauty, asked:

"You saw Mrs. Vernon this afternoon.  Is
she still beautiful?"

Sir Percy paused before answering this
question.

"Yes, she is still beautiful, but she is no longer
a girl, of course.  If you will excuse me now,
I will join my aunt in the drawing-room."

Sir Percy went from bad to worse--because
as soon as he appeared in the drawing-room
Mrs. Vereker and the three girls fell upon him
like playful sheep and began to ask him all
manner of questions about Alicia Vernon.
Was she a great beauty, as Mrs. Vereker had
heard, and was she going to marry somebody
else, now that Guy Vernon was dead?  Jane
wished to know how Mrs. Vernon dressed her
hair.  Sarah inquired if her sleeves were large
or small, according to the latest London
fashion, and complained that, for her part,
Americans changed the mode of their sleeves
so often that she could not keep up with them!
Isabella yearned to know whether Mrs. Vernon
smoked cigarettes or not.  Sir Percy almost
laughed at the latter suggestion.  He had never
seen any woman in his life so careful to pay
the tithe of mint, anise and cummin to the
world as Alicia Vernon, or more ready to avoid
the weightier matters of the law.  The slightest
aroma of fastness was rigidly forsworn by
her, and no Cromwellian ever kept out of the
way of the fast set more absolutely than did
the lady of the violet eyes.

In the midst of this patter of questions Lord
Baudesert entered the drawing-room, and the
three girls suddenly grew mute, while
Mrs. Vereker asked Lord Baudesert, for the fourth
time that evening, if the east wind hadn't given
him a touch of gout.  Having answered this
question three times with much savagery, Lord
Baudesert let it pass, and demanded pen and
paper, directing Isabella, who was the family
scribe, to make out the list for the dinner which
was to be given next week in honour of
General Talbott and Mrs. Vernon.  The first name
put down was Senator March, and then followed
a list of eight or ten other representative
men whom Lord Baudesert thought General
Talbott would like to meet.  The selection of
the women was more difficult.  By way of
disciplining Mrs. Vereker, who did not need it in
the least, Lord Baudesert commanded Isabella
to begin the list of ladies as follows:

"Mrs. Chantrey."

Mrs. Vereker ventured to say feebly:

"Mrs. Chantrey has already dined here twice
this season."

"She may be dining here oftener than you
think," was Lord Baudesert's menacing reply,
and Mrs. Vereker, in her mind's eye, saw
Mrs. Chantrey as the future Lady Baudesert,
presiding with much majesty over the British Embassy.

Some girls were required for the unmarried
men who were asked.  It was the unwritten
law that at dinners only one of Mrs. Vereker's
covey should appear at the table--an honour
which was always received with nervous
apprehension by the successful candidate.  This
time it was Isabella who was the Jephtha's
daughter of the occasion.  Mrs. Vereker
suggested several girls, but each one was
remorselessly thrown out by Lord Baudesert on
various grounds.  Presently he asked:

"What is the name of that girl who was here
on the afternoon the two South Americans
called, and helped to pull us out of the hole?"

"Miss Armytage," replied Mrs. Vereker.

"She struck me as rather an unusual sort of a girl."

Mrs. Vereker, with her usual capacity for
misunderstanding Lord Baudesert's meaning,
replied faintly:

"Oh, yes, very unusual!  She is from a little
town called Bardville in Tennessee, or is it
Indiana?  I forget which.  Of course she would
not do at all, and we never thought of
suggesting her."

"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.

Cards and invitations began to pour in upon
General Talbott and his daughter, but the
dinner at the Embassy was the first formal
entertainment which they attended.

Sir Percy's first meeting with Lucy Armytage
after Alicia Vernon's arrival was purely
accidental.  He had taken his late afternoon walk
eastward, and as he crossed, after sunset, the
deserted plaza of the Capitol he noticed Lucy's
slim figure standing in the purple dusk upon
the Capitol terrace.  She did not know he was
near until he spoke, and then she turned, her
face and eyes flooded with the joy of the
unexpected meeting.  She had come from the
National Library with a book, and announced her
intention to walk back to the hotel.

"Since I am to be an Englishwoman, I shall
probably be more English than the English
themselves.  I walk everywhere, and I have
bought a pair of large thick boots, which my
uncle declares he can't tell from his own."

Lucy's feet were slender enough to take this
liberty with them.  Lucy was full of her
invitation to dinner at the British Embassy, where
she had never dined before.

"It will be different," she said, "from any
dinner I was ever at, because when Lord
Baudesert and Mrs. Vereker know--you
understand"--Sir Percy understood well enough,
and Lucy continued--"they will, of course, look
back and begin to canvass me and I want them
to have a good opinion of me."

To which Sir Percy, like a true lover, replied:

"How could they have any other?"  Yet the
thought of Lucy coming face to face with
Alicia Vernon made him sick at heart.

It was still light enough for them to remain
out of doors twenty minutes, and the region of
the Capitol, which swarmed with people during
the day, was absolutely deserted.  A sudden
impulse prompted Sir Percy to say to her, as
they strolled slowly along the quiet streets in
the twilight:

"I have something to ask of you, something
I hope you will grant."

Lucy turned upon him two laughing, adoring
dark eyes; but the look upon Sir Percy's face
sobered her.

"It is this--to have enough faith in me to
accept my word.  There is something in my
past life, something which the world might
think of no great consequence, something I will
tell you all about when we are married.  It will
be a confession, but I repented of it long before
I ever met you, and I have repented of it a
thousand times more since."

"I could not marry any man whose word I
could disbelieve," replied Lucy with calm confidence.

They walked together until within a square
of the hotel, when Lucy demanded that Sir
Percy should leave her.

The evening of the Embassy dinner came, and
Sir Percy Carlyon, who always acted as
assistant host, was the first guest to arrive.
Almost immediately General Talbott and Alicia
Vernon followed.  Alicia, like most Englishwomen,
was at her best in the evening.  She
was one of those rare women who could wear
jewels in her hair and look well, and to-night
she sparkled with gems.  No woman could
cross a drawing-room floor with more grace
than Alicia Vernon, or could sit and rise and
bow with greater dignity.  She was more like
an enthroned queen than a pretty princess such
as Lucy Armytage's air and manner suggested
when she entered the drawing-room.  Nevertheless
their charms were so different that they
enhanced, rather than outshone, each other.
Lucy carried in her hands a huge bouquet of
violets.  They had been Sir Percy's gift, and a
whispered word of thanks, unnoticed by any
one, repaid him.  Alicia Vernon, apparently
absorbed in conversation with various persons
who were introduced to her, after the
American fashion, watched closely every woman as
she entered the room.  She was the last woman
in the world to underrate her rival, and with
discernment saw that this black-haired girl
with the milk-white skin was easily the most
attractive woman present.  Mrs. Chantrey and
Eleanor were the last to arrive.  The former
wore at least a quart of large diamonds strewn
over her person, and, recalling with triumph
that this was her third dinner at the Embassy
during the season, considered herself as good
as married to Lord Baudesert, and adopted
condescending airs towards weak Mrs. Vereker.
Alicia had claimed a woman's prescience
in matters of the heart.  She felt instinctively
that the beautiful Eleanor Chantrey was not
the woman whom Sir Percy loved.

Not a soul except herself at the long, brilliant
dinner-table suspected anything between Sir
Percy Carlyon and Lucy Armytage, who sat
opposite each other.  But Alicia Vernon's
violet eyes saw everything without watching.
She knew the English habit of not conversing
across the table, but she observed that Sir
Percy Carlyon spoke to Lucy Armytage once
or twice.  Lucy, herself, instead of answering
him with the gaiety and spirit she showed in
her conversation with her neighbours, replied
to Sir Percy with only a brilliant smile and a
word or two.  The indications were so slight
that not even the hawk-eyed Lord Baudesert
noticed them, but nothing escapes a jealous
woman.

Meanwhile, never had Alicia Vernon exerted
herself more to please.  She sat on Lord
Baudesert's right hand and on her left was Senator
March.  Mrs. Vernon was a better listener
than talker.  She had not the naïve
effervescence of the American women, but she had
a softness, a charming air of listening with
profound attention, which few American
women ever acquire.  Senator March, struck
from the beginning by her manner of the
highest breeding, admiring her mature beauty and
charmed by her subtle and even silent flattery,
thought it the pleasantest dinner he had ever
attended.  Eleanor Chantrey sat on the other
side of him and he experienced a glow of
pleasure which a man feels when he basks in
beauty's light.  But Eleanor Chantrey was not
much older than Lucy Armytage and her range
of conversation was strictly limited to what
had happened since she came out in society.
Senator March had passed his fiftieth birthday
and liked to talk about things which
happened twenty-five years before.  He had an
agreeable feeling with Mrs. Vernon of being
contemporaries, which he could not feel with
a younger woman.  Alicia Vernon, on her part,
recognised Senator March's virtues as a dinner
man and was tactful enough to keep to herself
the surprise she felt at finding an American so
accomplished.

When the ladies left the table and the
gentlemen's ranks were closed up for that
comfortable after-dinner conversation, which is still
the heritage of the Englishman, Lord Baudesert
took pains to bring General Talbott and
Senator March into conversation together.
Between the two men a good understanding
was instantly established.  General Talbott did
not lose interest in Senator March's eyes for
being the father of the charming woman who
had sat next him.  With the frank friendliness
of the American, he made greater
headway in General Talbott's acquaintanceship
during their half-hour's talk than many
Englishmen make in a month's companionship.
Simultaneously Senator March asked permission
to call, and General Talbott gave a cordial
invitation to him to do so.  Lord Baudesert was
in high feather.  The dinner had been pleasant
and agreeable and he was pleased that General
Talbott should see what admirable dinner
guests Americans of the best sort made.  Sir
Percy Carlyon appeared to be in his usual form,
but, as he sat smoking and talking pleasantly,
the thought that Lucy Armytage and Alicia
Vernon were at that moment in the same room,
on the same terms, and reckoned to be of the
same sort, gnawed him like some ravenous
beast.

Mrs. Vernon at that very time was sitting on
a sofa with Lucy Armytage, and with perfect
art and tact was finding out from her many
things which the girl was quite unconscious of
betraying.  Alicia Vernon was puzzled by the
fact of a secret engagement, because Sir Percy
had told her that the girl he loved had
promised to marry him, and this was evidently
unknown to the rest of the world.  Without the
least trouble, by asking a few half-laughing
questions about the custom of engagements in
America, Alicia Vernon discovered that such
things as unannounced engagements existed
and were not considered discreditable.  Lucy
answered readily, but in speaking her pale
cheeks took on a colour like the faint pink of
the azalea.  Alicia led her on without questions,
but with clever suggestions, to tell of her
employments, of the books she read and many
other things, which Lucy told frankly and
without the slightest suspicion that she was
being cross-examined, and was adding link by
link to the chain of evidence which had begun
with the mere probabilities of a guess.

Alicia Vernon's heart burned within her.  She
would like to have forgotten Sir Percy
Carlyon long ago, as she had forgotten many
others.  She knew that her feeling for him was
an infatuation, but in some strange manner he
had dominated her imagination from the
beginning.  It was the most dangerous, on account
of General Talbott, of all the affairs in which
she had ever been engaged; but all women like
Alicia Vernon have one tragic love.  The old
Greek superstition that those who defy love are
punished works out in a different civilisation
with those who dishonour love, paying for it in
blood and tears.

Alicia Vernon had said to Lucy:

"Sir Percy Carlyon and I are old friends.  We
met first in India twelve years ago."

Lucy had enough mother wit not to express
surprise or to betray how much she knew of
the incidents of Sir Percy's life.  But she was
no match in *finesse* for Alicia Vernon, who
found out, without the least trouble, that the
girl knew certain dates, places and events
which she could not have known except from
Sir Percy Carlyon.

The sight which greeted Sir Percy when he
entered the drawing-room was Alicia Vernon
and Lucy Armytage still sitting upon the small
sofa together, apparently conversing with
intimacy.  A tall, red-shaded lamp cast a rosy
glow over the woman and the girl, and fell upon
Alicia Vernon's rich hair, in which a few grey
threads showed.  Her beautiful eyes were fixed
upon Lucy with an expression which Sir Percy
Carlyon knew perfectly well.  He surmised in
a moment what had happened.  Lucy was
clever as girls are clever, but with Alicia
Vernon she was as a bird in the snare of the
fowler.  His poor little Lucy!

The irruption of the gentlemen into the
drawing-room was greeted with enthusiasm, as
it always is.  Mrs. Chantrey made a dive for
the Ambassador, and, wedging him into a
corner with a chair, leaned over it girlishly and
ogled him, much to Lord Baudesert's delight.
Nothing he had ever known in his life had
diverted him quite so much as Mrs. Chantrey's
determination to become Lady Baudesert if
she could possibly contrive it.  Lord Baudesert,
as usual, made plaint of his poverty outside of
his official income, and omitted to mention that
his private income was something like £10,000
a year.  Mrs. Chantrey then held forth
eloquently upon the worthlessness of money
except to help those one loves.  Lord Baudesert,
with *malice prepense*, led her to the verge of
an offer of marriage before making his escape.

Sir Percy Carlyon drew up a chair close to
the sofa on which sat the woman he hated and
the woman he loved, and smiling and outwardly
at ease, talked with both of them.  Senator
March, too, soon gravitated that way.  He
wished to see more of his late neighbour with
her low, delicious voice and her beautiful,
melancholy eyes.  Then quite naturally came out
the story of the late house party at his country
house, and what the guests did to amuse themselves.

"It is very quiet up there," said Senator
March; "we are in the Maryland mountains,
you see, and there are no ruined abbeys to visit,
no hunt balls, or anything of the sort.  We
simply walk and read and rest and talk; but
my friends who give me the privilege of their
company are so kind that I feel that they enjoy
their visits almost as much as I do."

Lucy hastened to corroborate this, and Sir
Percy added pleasantly:

"The pleasure you offer us is just what we
like best.  I remember those country walks in
which the ladies sometimes did us the honour
to join us.  Don't you remember them, Miss
Armytage?"

Alicia Vernon understood this as a cool defiance
of her.

"You must pay me another visit as soon as
possible," cried Senator March.  "The country
is looking beautiful, now that spring is
approaching.  Perhaps Mrs. Vernon and General
Talbott will do me the honour to join us?  Of
course, I count upon you, Miss Armytage and Sir Percy?"

Lucy accepted promptly.  So did Sir Percy,
with the mental reservation that Lucy should
stay away from any house-party of which
Alicia Vernon was to be a member.

As the guests were leaving, Alicia passed Sir
Percy and said to him, unheard by any one else:

"It is she."

Driving back in the carriage, General Talbott
expressed to Alicia his enjoyment of the
evening.

"I have not been to a pleasanter party for
a long time.  What a fine fellow Senator March
is!  He has an enormous fortune, Lord Baudesert
tells me, but lives very simply.  He has no
capacity for money-making, and the beginning
of his fortune was an inheritance, and he became
rich rather by accident than effort.  It is years
since I met a man who pleased me so well."

Then Alicia told the thought which had
occurred to her many times during the evening:

"I didn't think that Americans could have such
good manners as some of those people had."

But even while she was speaking her mind
was upon that strange problem, why could
she not cast off the memory, the passion for
Sir Percy Carlyon?  He hated her and she
knew it, but that only made her love him the
more, as she reckoned love--so curious a thing
is the heart of a woman.





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   VII

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The very next day Senator March called
upon General Talbott and Mrs. Vernon and
found them both at home.  Alicia seemed to
him even more charming than on the evening
before.  There are few occasions that a woman
appears better than when dispensing the simple
hospitality of her own tea-table, and it is a
charm which many Englishwomen possess.
Alicia Vernon had it in great perfection, and
her tea-table gave an air of home to the hotel
sitting-room.  Senator March remained a full
hour and enjoyed every minute of it.  Alicia
Vernon's voice was the soul of music, and her
soft and gracious manners completed the
charm of her voice.  Then, too, she was not so
ridiculously young.  Before Senator March
left, he had arranged for a dinner at his own
house, and also for a week-end at his country
place.  Just as he was leaving, Mrs. Chantrey
came fluttering in, and that meant still another
dinner for the English visitors, and Senator
March, being a court card, was at once grabbed
by Mrs. Chantrey for her dinner.  The next
week was to be one of Grand Opera, and
Senator March, who loved music, determined to
take the best box at the theatre, chiefly for the
pleasure of having Alicia Vernon in it.  Quite
naturally, in all these plans for pleasure, Sir
Percy Carlyon was included.  Senator March
and himself had become almost chums from
the beginning of their acquaintance, and what
could be more suitable than that Sir Percy
should be one of the party when his old friends
were entertained?  Then Senator March's
fondness for Lucy Armytage, and his
somewhat limited acquaintance among the younger
set, brought her into the circle.

At the dinner which Senator March gave in
his big, old-fashioned house Alicia saw, with
her own eyes, evidence of inherited as well as
acquired wealth.  There was a ton, more or
less, of family silver on the sideboards and
cabinets, while the portraits of three generations
hung upon the walls.

Among the twenty-five guests were Lord
Baudesert, Mrs. Vereker, Lucy Armytage and
Sir Percy Carlyon.  The second meeting with
Lucy Armytage made Alicia Vernon's
confirmation doubly sure; but there was a new
personality present which divided her interests
with Sir Percy Carlyon and Senator March:
this was Colegrove, the man whom Senator
March and Sir Percy Carlyon had passed in
the hotel lobby on the day of their second
meeting.  He sat directly across the table from
Alicia Vernon, who was on Senator March's
left, Mrs. Vereker being on his right.  The
mellow glow from the shaded candelabra fell
full upon Colegrove's head and shoulders.  He
was instantly struck with the beauty of Alicia
Vernon's eyes, as most men were, but Alicia
was no less struck with his.  They were clear,
so compelling--they were the eyes of the
commanding officer on the field of battle.  His
well-shaped, iron-grey head, his clear-cut
features, spoke power in the lines of their
contour.  Alicia Vernon found herself
involuntarily glancing across at her neighbour, and
whenever she looked at him she found his
glance fixed upon her.

When the ladies retired to the drawing-room
the conversation turned upon Colegrove, and
Alicia found out that he was one of the great
railway magnates of America, one of those
men of whom she had heard and read about,
who, beginning at the lowest rung of the
ladder, make their way up by sheer indomitable
force to the top, and then kick the ladder down
after them.  He had a wife, whom no one had
ever seen, stowed away somewhere in the West,
but was never known to speak of her, much
less to present her.  Fabulous tales were told
of his wealth and of the simplicity of his mode
of living.  His winters were generally spent at
Washington, in a comfortable but not
expensive hotel, where he had a modest suite of
rooms.  While the ladies were talking about
him, the gentlemen appeared from the dining-room.
Colegrove walked straight up to Alicia,
and, seating himself, plunged into conversation
with her.  Alicia, with infinite tact, led him to
speak of himself, his affairs, his wishes, his
aspirations, and listened so intelligently that
she bewitched him even more than she had
Roger March.

"I think," she said presently, in her slow,
sweet voice, "that I am getting new ideas all
the time in this country about money.  You
Americans are credited with thinking much
about it.  I never saw people who value money
so little."

"Why should we?" answered Colegrove,
smiling.  "We have no hereditary nobility, no
entailed property to keep up.  Every generation
here looks out for itself.  Then American
ladies don't give their husbands the best chance
of saving money."

"How can any woman save money?" asked
Alicia helplessly.  "I am always in want of
money, have been all my life, and yet it doesn't
seem to me as if I have many costly things or
expensive habits."

"Oh, the want of money with a woman is
chronic," replied Colegrove easily.  "The right
way to do would be to pay your bills and ask a
smile in return."

He looked at her with such frank admiration
that it brought the colour to Alicia Vernon's
face; but she was not displeased with him; on
the contrary, she rather liked the sense of
power, of innate force, which was so plainly
his.  How trifling to him would seem the
mountain of debt under which Alicia had
always laboured, and which she had only
managed to keep partially from her father's
knowledge.

"I shouldn't mind a woman spending money
on toilettes, jewelry, carriages and such
things.  That would be just like buying toys,"
he said, still smiling.  "I am a man of simple
tastes--you would be disgusted at the plainness
of my rooms at the hotel, but I can understand
that white birds should have downy nests."

Colegrove would have monopolised Mrs. Vernon,
but Senator March would by no means
have it so.  He came up and began to talk about
the coming house-party, taking Alicia into the
library to show her pictures of the place.  Then
her eyes fell upon pictures of Senator March's
family home, which was in a near-by Eastern
State, and the photographs he showed of it
proved that it was a fine old Colonial
house added to with taste and judgment until
it was a beautiful and spacious mansion.  Also
he had a ranch far off in the Northwest,
and his near-by country place in Maryland.

"You have as many homes as a great English noble."

"But they are not castles; they are only
houses; and a man alone, as I am, has no home.
This was my father's town house; he was in
the Senate before me, but you see that it is an
old barn compared with the splendid modern
houses in Washington.  Then the home, in my
native State, is where I was born, but I have
lived there very little.  After I left the
university I travelled for some years, and then
went into public life, and that has kept me
pretty close to Washington.  My own home is
too far away to go to for the week-end, so I have
this little place a hundred miles away in the
mountains.  I don't know exactly how I
happened to acquire the ranch.  I went into a land
purchase with some friends of mine, and the
first thing I knew was that I had a ranch, and
I don't yet quite understand how I came by it.
I didn't know what to do with it, but I went out
there, and found it a gloriously lonely place,
with an adobe house and a courtyard, stuck
up on the side of the mountain.  The people
out there told me to stock the place--I have
the title to a good part of the big valley--I got
a manager, and, strange to say, I haven't been
swindled.  Every year or two I try to go out
there for six weeks.  It's a superb climate and
I live on horseback, as I did when I was a boy.
I should like so much to show you the ranch
which I found in my pocket one day."

Alicia smiled and shook her head.

"There is so much to see, and one can't
stay in America for ever: it is so expensive."

Senator March looked at her with secret pity.
He thought what a nasty freak of Fate it was
that this exquisite creature should want what
he would so easily have given her, but could not.

Alicia Vernon, with a woman's subtlety,
noticed and liked this attitude of the
American toward women--the eternal readiness to
give.  It was distinctly different from that of
the Englishman, who is strictly just to his
womankind, but is not expected to be generous,
and the normal woman hates justice as much
as she loves generosity.  Alicia, with a sigh,
recalled the storms concerning money in which
her married life with Guy Vernon had been
passed, and the laborious subterfuges which
she was forced to employ to keep her father
from knowing the exact state of her finances.
And here were two Americans, strangers to
her, and with oceans of money, who were as
ready to give it to a wife as they would give
sugar-plums to children!

Colegrove determined to see more of his
charming *vis-à-vis*, and went up boldly to
General Talbott and asked permission to call on
him.  General Talbott, the kindliest of men
under his English reserve, cordially invited him.

It was a remarkably pleasant dinner to
everybody, with one exception--Sir Percy Carlyon.
His pride, his self-respect, his self-love,
suffered cruelly every moment that Lucy
Armytage was in the company of Alicia Vernon.  He
had taken Lucy in to dinner, and he could not
but see the advance she had made, even in the
short time, in tact and self-possession.  Not a
self-conscious word or look escaped her as she
sat talking charming nothings to the man
whose lips had been upon hers only the night
before, and no one would have dreamed that
Sir Percy Carlyon was upon any different
footing with her than any other woman at the
dinner.

The next week was the week of Grand Opera.
Senator March took a box for the whole week,
and three nights during that week Alicia
Vernon and her father were his guests.  As
Mrs. Vernon sat in the shadow of the box,
listening to the enchanting voice of one of the
greatest tenors in the world, it dawned upon
her mind how privileged was the position of
an American woman where men were concerned.
The social customs, which permitted
men to lie almost at the feet of a woman, were
entirely new to her, and when this was done
with the tact and high breeding of Senator
March, he appealed to the craving for luxury
in her which had been her undoing.  He had
asked her to name which operas in the week's
repertoire she would like to hear, and when she
had made her selection he called in his carriage
for her and her father, and she found a
beautiful bouquet waiting for her in the opera box
and a supper after the performance.

Whither Senator March was drifting was
plain to everybody except himself.  He had
grown accustomed to consider himself as a
bachelor for life.  He did not, himself, know
the cause of his bachelorhood.  Few women
pleased him thoroughly, and he had put off
from year to year the search for the other half
of his being, and suddenly he found himself
a middle-aged man.  He disliked the idea of
an inequality in age and felt no desire to make
any of the sparkling young girls he knew
Mrs. Roger March, and the women who were
suitable in age did not often retain the power to
please his æsthetic sense.  He had no fancy
for widows and did not care to be the object
of a woman's second love.  When he heard
Alicia Vernon's history, however, it occurred
to him that a woman's second husband might
possibly be her first love.

These things all came to him before the soft
spring days which Alicia Vernon, her father
and Sir Percy Carlyon spent at his country
place.  Senator March had particularly desired
Lucy Armytage's company.  He had been fond
of her from childhood, and she was one of the
few young girls who did not worry him with
the insistencies of youth, but Lucy, after
having accepted the first suggestion of the visit
with enthusiasm, was not now able to come.
Senator March explained why at dinner the
first evening of his house-party, which was as
large as his modest house could accommodate,
and numbered two ladies besides Alicia Vernon.

"I regret very much that my young friend,
Miss Armytage, is not one of us, but she found
herself obliged to go out to Kentucky for a
fortnight's visit to some relatives," he said.  "I
believe that in Kentucky people are in bondage
to their relations.  However, I shall hope to
have Miss Armytage at our next reunion, for
we must come here often.  Congress promises
to sit into the summer and we must take refuge
in the country as often as we can."

Alicia Vernon, sitting on Senator March's
right hand, with Sir Percy Carlyon on her
left, turned towards him with a look which held
a meaning.  It was Sir Percy who would not
let Lucy stay under the same roof with her,
Alicia Vernon.  No repulse he had ever given
her stung like this.  For the first time she felt
an impulse of fury towards him and a desire to
make him suffer.  She lay awake in her bed that
night, hot and cold with rage.

The next day was Sunday, and in the
afternoon the usual Sunday walk along the
mountains was proposed.  Senator March was too
accomplished a host to devote himself to any
lady of the party, and as there were not enough
to pair off all the gentlemen, he attached
himself to General Talbott for the afternoon.  A
little clever management on Alicia's part, in
the presence of her father, secured Sir Percy
Carlyon as her escort.  Sir Percy made no
effort to escape.  He knew that strange liking
which women have for opening the grave of a
dead passion and dragging the bones of it into
life, weeping and wringing their hands over it
and crying aloud to it, commanding it to live
again.

They walked together in the April afternoon
through the budding woods, looking down upon
the wide, peaceful valley before them, with the
blue peaks cutting the edge of the clear horizon.
It was the same walk which Sir Percy had
taken Lucy Armytage two months before on
the Sunday afternoon, and the recollection of
it, and the strangeness of Alicia Vernon being
his companion now, almost bewildered him.
When they came to a sunny spot on the hillside,
where a grey, flat rock afforded a resting-place
under the pine-trees, Alicia would have
stopped, but Sir Percy said to her almost roughly:

"Not here; we must go on farther."

"Why not?" asked Alicia.  "Was it because
you and Lucy Armytage once rested here and
therefore I am not worthy to stop for a moment
in this place?"

It was a chance shot, but it went home.  Sir
Percy turned his back, and Alicia, with a
feeling of triumph, seated herself upon the flat
stone where Lucy had first heard the words of
love from Sir Percy Carlyon.  When he turned
round she saw in his face, dark and displeased,
that she had scored against him.

"I wish I could forget you," she said, "and
not care whether I can hurt you or not, but I
can't.  You see, there are some parts of a
woman's life which she can live only once, and
the memory is always tormenting her.  This is
the first walk we have taken together since--since
that time in India.  It was a hilly country
somewhat like this."

Sir Percy made no answer; the rage in his
heart against Alicia Vernon had received an
accession in the last fortnight.

"Of course," she continued in a voice of
suppressed anger, "you forbade Miss Armytage
to come here.  You didn't wish her to be
under the same roof with me.  One would
think that I were the only sinner in the world."

"I sinned as much and more than you,"
replied Sir Percy, "but I have repented."

"That is to say, you grew weary of your
passion for me.  I think that is what men call
penitence."

Sir Percy looked at her, amazed for the
thousandth time.  Outwardly she could observe
every canon of dignity and refinement, but
secretly, like every woman who had ever gone
wrong, as far as Sir Percy Carlyon's
experience went, she had lost all sense of justice, of
proportion, of reticence, of discipline, and even
of sound sense.  He had heard stories of
women who trod the downward path and then
retrieved themselves, but he had never met one.
These women and Alicia Vernon, with her
heritage of the best birth and breeding, "were
sisters under their skins."  The thing which
really surprised him was that Alicia
maintained so outwardly and unbrokenly the high
standard of her birth and breeding, and was
still capable of disinterested affection--her love
for her father.

As Sir Percy would not reply, Mrs. Vernon
said no more for a while.  She leaned against
the mass of rock at her back and looked around
at the still woods, in which only a few trilling
bird notes broke the golden silence, across the
sunlit valley and then at Sir Percy Carlyon.
What strange fate had brought them from one
end of the world to the other that they might
meet alone in such a place?  She was so still
that Sir Percy presently looked around to see
if she were there.  She was sitting quite
motionless, looking with deep, inscrutible eyes
straight before her.  She turned her gaze to
him and said:

"I know no more than you do why I could
speak to you in this way, or why I could ever
think of you again.  I am like a child who has
got hold of some pretty, shiny thing, which
turns out to be a jewel, and the child
weeps and struggles when the jewel is taken away."

Sir Percy could not but be sorry for her; he
often had moments and hours of silent rage
with her, but it would not hold against her in
the presence of her despair.  Presently she
arose and came toward him, smiling.

"Look around you," she said; "this spot, I
know, I feel, is associated with the image of
that girl.  Now you will be unable to think of
it without thinking of me also.  I will not have
it that I only shall think of you; I mean that
you shall not be able to escape the thought of
me.  Come, it is late; let us be going."

They turned and walked back towards the
house.  Farther along the mountain path they
met Senator March and General Talbott; quite
naturally the party divided, and Sir Percy
joined General Talbott, while Senator March
ranged himself with Mrs. Vernon.  They fell
behind, as Senator March was pointing out the
features and general historic points of the
landscape, while Sir Percy and General Talbott
went ahead.  When they were quite far in
advance and walking down the country lane
bordered with the mountain ash, now with little
brown buds upon the bare white branches, and
the whole air scented with the coming spring,
General Talbott said:

"I think this journey, my dear fellow, to be
one of the pleasantest, and even one of the most
fortunate, that I ever made.  It has been a long
time since I have seen my poor child so like
her earlier self.  She is interested and amused.
The social customs over here permit a woman
to enjoy a great many pleasures and to receive
a great many attentions from men without
exciting remark.  My daughter is, as you know,
extremely careful in her conduct, often
prudish.  Not that I would wish her otherwise, but
still I am glad when she finds herself in an
environment that permits her a little innocent
enjoyment.  Those parties at the opera were
extremely pleasant, but no such attention could
be offered or accepted in Europe."

"You are quite right; socially American
customs are extremely pleasant.  They embody
liberty without license."

"I agree with you from what I have seen."

As General Talbott spoke, Sir Percy observed
in him a cheerfulness and note of pleasure in
his voice which always followed when Alicia
seemed to be at ease and a little happy.

Sir Percy Carlyon left early on the Monday
morning and returned to Washington in advance
of the rest of the party.  It was still some
days before Lucy Armytage arrived from
Kentucky.  At their first meeting afterwards
Lucy asked no questions whatever about
Senator March's house-party, and the delicate
reticence which she showed on this point was
not unnoticed by Sir Percy, who volunteered
to tell her all of which he could speak.  He
did not avoid Alicia Vernon's name, but
whenever he spoke of her Lucy saw that peculiar
expression of his eye which indicated dislike.
She asked, however, a great many questions
about Senator March and then said:

"I wonder if Mrs. Vernon will marry him
when he asks her."

Sir Percy was thunderstruck; no such idea
had entered his thoroughly masculine mind,
and after a moment he said so.

"How stupid!" remarked Lucy, eyeing him
with profound contempt.  "It was perfectly
obvious the first night they met.  Everybody
in town is talking about it."

"They are?" replied Sir Percy after a moment,
and then quickly turned the conversation
into another channel.

Meanwhile his mind was in a tumult.  Alicia
Vernon married to Senator March, or to any
man of honour, for that matter, and Senator
March, chivalrous, high-minded, taking everything
for granted in the case of the woman he
loved!  It was staggering to Sir Percy Carlyon;
the whole thing was anomalous, inexplicable.
But for him Senator March and Alicia Vernon
would never have met.  His mind went back to
those early days in India: how the web then
formed not only entangled him, but caught
others, innocent and helpless, in its meshes.
He would be forced to stand silently by and see
a man who loved his honour better than his life
take to his heart a woman unworthy of him.
This thought possessed Sir Percy, and brought
with it the fiercest stings of remorse.  He went
about that day with a strange sense of unreality
concerning everything.  Alicia Vernon might
indeed have married even an honourable man,
but to see a man as proud and sensitive as
Senator March lay his honest, tender heart at
the feet of Alicia Vernon was an incredible
thing to Sir Percy Carlyon.  That evening at
the club the first person he saw in the
smoking-room was General Talbott.

"I am very glad to have come across you this
evening," said General Talbott.  "I wish to
speak with you confidentially.  How are
marriages arranged over here?"

"With the least possible trouble," answered
Sir Percy with a glimmer of a smile, "and
totally unlike marriages anywhere else.  They
are supposed to be on a basis of pure sentiment,
and the question of money is handled in the
most gingerly manner."

General Talbott smiled and then continued:

"To be quite confidential with you, my dear
fellow, I have seen lately that Senator March
takes an uncommon interest in my daughter.
Whether Alicia would marry him or not I
can't say.  This afternoon Senator March
called to see me, to tell me, what I had suspected
for some little time past, that he is deeply
attached to my daughter.  I needn't tell you
that the idea was quite acceptable to me.  I am
an old man, and at my death my child would
be unprotected in the world; she is one of those
delicate creatures unfitted to stand alone, and
what I most desired for her was the protection
of a good man's arm."

Sir Percy listened with quiet attention, but all
the while a sense of unreality deepened upon
him; nevertheless he said quite coolly:

"As far as the man himself goes, it would be
hard to find Senator March's superior, and,
as you probably know, he has a great fortune,
honestly come by."

"I am not in love with money myself," said
General Talbott, and then stopped and looked
meditatively at Sir Percy.

The idea had occurred to him many times
since Alicia's widowhood that the friendship,
which was all that General Talbott knew had
existed between Alicia and Sir Percy, might
bring them into a closer relationship.  It would
have been an ideal marriage for Alicia, her
father thought, except that Sir Percy Carlyon
was a poor man and Alicia, as her father
always said deprecatingly, had little idea of the
value of money.  He would rather, he thought,
that Alicia should marry in her own country,
but, recalling Sir Percy's modest income and
expectations, General Talbott dismissed the
half-formed wish from his mind.  No; Alicia
was not the wife for a poor man in public life.

"To be still more confidential with you, my
dear Carlyon," he said, laying his hand on Sir
Percy's knee, "nothing could have been more
generous in every way than March's proposition
to me.  The law makes a liberal provision
in America for the wife, I find, but Senator
March, knowing our customs, volunteered to
make settlements, splendid in their generosity,
upon my daughter.  She will have an independent
income of her own, every year, far
exceeding the entire income of Guy Vernon's
estates, and for a woman of my daughter's
luxurious tastes that is a great consideration.
She is so high-minded, however, that I scarcely
think she took this in, although after Senator
March left I talked with her quite frankly on
the subject.  Of course, she isn't a young girl
any longer, and has realised painfully all her
life the restrictions of a modest income."

"But she will marry Senator March?"

"I think so; she has asked a little time for
consideration, but you know what that means
with ladies.  March had the good feeling to
say to me that, if she would consent to marry
him, he would promise in advance that she
should visit England once a year to see me, and
he hopes that I will agree to spend a part of
each year with them--most considerate of a
father's feelings."

As General Talbott talked, Sir Percy saw in
him a deep feeling of gratification and even of
relief.  The only fault her father could find
with Alicia was her reckless expenditure, but
if she married Senator March she would be
far beyond all need of doing without anything--so
General Talbott in his simplicity thought.
Sir Percy's manner struck General Talbott as
being a little peculiar, but he thought he could
account for it: Sir Percy had his own private
disappointment to bear; such was General
Talbott's explanation.





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   VIII

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In Washington there is always an outbreak
of gaiety after Easter to atone for a slight
suppression during Holy Week.  It is then that the
results of the season are tabulated and the
coming June weddings announced.  Two such
announcements were made which surprised
society: that of Sir Percy Carlyon, First
Secretary of the British Embassy, to Miss Lucy
Armytage, whose name most of the smart set
heard for the first time; and that of Senator
March to Mrs. Vernon, the charming Englishwoman,
who had been received with open arms
by the smartest of the smart.  The first was
paralysing in the effect it produced.  The
British Embassy, and all that belongs to it, is
reckoned the peculiar property of the smart set,
and for any one attached to that Embassy to
go outside of the smart set for a bride seemed
almost a violation of international law, to say
nothing of diplomatic usage.  Every particular
about Miss Armytage, as the facts came to
light, was more appalling; she was from a
provincial Kentucky town, of which nobody,
outside of Kentucky, had ever heard; she was the
niece of a representative in Congress who lived
in a down-town hotel; she had never been to
Europe, and Newport and Lennox were
unknown ground to her.  Almost the only
fashionable house at which she had ever been
seen was that of the Chantreys, and society
had from the beginning bestowed Eleanor
Chantrey's hand upon Sir Percy Carlyon.

Deep in Eleanor's heart was a disappointed
dream of ambition.  She had herself too well
in hand to fall in love with Sir Percy Carlyon,
or any other man, until her love had been
asked, but his eligibility had been suggested to
her a great many times, chiefly by Mrs. Chantrey,
who had visions of possessing the British
Embassy, body and bones: herself the
Ambassadress, her daughter the wife of the First
Secretary.  Some hint of this Mrs. Chantrey
let drop to Eleanor when they sat together at
tea in Eleanor's yellow boudoir on the day that
Sir Percy Carlyon's engagement was announced.
There are ways by which a daughter,
as perfectly well-bred as Eleanor Chantrey,
can silence a garrulous mother, and this is what
Eleanor did.

"We must go this afternoon," she said
calmly, "and call on Miss Armytage.  I think
her a charming girl, quite clever enough to fill
any position whatever."

Mrs. Chantrey, being civilly bullied by her
daughter, the two drove down later to the
Armytages' hotel and, instead of merely
leaving cards, waited to know whether they could
see Mrs. and Miss Armytage.  They were
ushered up into the modest sitting-room, which
had been the scene of some halcyon hours to
Lucy and Sir Percy.

Eleanor Chantrey, the most sincere of women,
honestly admired Lucy Armytage, and the
quiet dignity and grace with which Lucy
received her congratulations confirmed Eleanor
in her previous opinion, that Lucy Armytage
would be equal to any position.  She thanked
Eleanor warmly for her good wishes and kind
interest, and the two girls were drawn closer
together by the innate nobility which both of
them possessed.

Meanwhile, Sir Percy was having what might
be called "a roaring time" at the Embassy with
Lord Baudesert, his Aunt Susan and Jane,
Sarah and Isabella.  Sometimes even sheep
will make a feint of butting, and, following
Lord Baudesert's tigerish assault, the Verekers
butted and prodded as viciously as they knew
how.  Sir Percy had chosen tea-time as the
hour to break the news to his family.  He first
had a private interview with Lord Baudesert
in his library.  The Ambassador happened to
have a real and not a diplomatic touch of gout,
and was correspondingly savage.  When Sir
Percy coolly, and without any preamble,
announced that he was engaged to Miss Armytage,
and that the wedding would take place at
Bardstown, Kentucky, in the middle of June,
Lord Baudesert almost jumped from his chair
with wrath and surprise, and then fell back
again overwhelmed with disgust.

"You swore to me," he bellowed, "that you
would never marry an American."

Sir Percy smiled and stroked his moustache.

"Well," he said, "I am of that opinion still.
This is the only American I would ever marry
under any possible circumstances and I don't
propose to do it but once."

"You know the disadvantages of it," cried
Lord Baudesert, thumping the table; "her
money will be tied up as tight as wax; you will
have a tail of relations following you all over
Europe, and the whole thing is the most
damnable mess I have ever heard of in my life."

"Call it anything you please," replied Sir
Percy, still smiling, "only be careful how you
mention Miss Armytage.  As for her money
being tied up, she has very little, so it really
doesn't matter."

This was like throwing a bushel of dynamite
into a burning house.  Lord Baudesert forgot
his gout and, getting up from his chair, strode
up and down the room, dragging his gouty leg
after him, and muttering savagely to himself,
with an occasional blast against American
marriages.  Presently Sir Percy rose and went
into the drawing-room, followed by Lord
Baudesert.  There sat Mrs. Vereker and the three
girls, and while Mrs. Vereker was handing Sir
Percy his tea, he remarked casually to her:

"Aunt Susan, I hope very much that you and
the girls will, as soon as you conveniently can,
call upon Miss Armytage, who has done me the
honour of promising to become my wife."

If the big chandelier in the middle of the room
had tumbled on the tea-table, and had been
followed by a patch of the blue sky, Mrs. Vereker
could not have been more astounded; her jaw
dropped, and the three girls, horror-stricken,
gazed at Sir Percy, who went on drinking his
tea with the most exasperating calmness.

"Engaged to Miss Armytage," murmured
Mrs. Vereker despairingly, when she found her
voice.  "A most incredible thing!  I think you
must be joking, and that you are really
engaged to Miss Chantrey."

"I assure you that I am not," replied Sir
Percy.  "Give me another cup of tea, please,
Isabella."

"Mamma," said Isabella, without paying the
slightest attention to Sir Percy's request, "he
is simply teasing us.  He certainly is engaged
to Miss Chantrey.  I have heard it suggested a
dozen times in the last month."

"But I am not," said Sir Percy, helping
himself to tea, which no one else was sufficiently
composed to give him.

Mrs. Vereker shook her head hopelessly.  "I
am sure it is Miss Chantrey."

This view of the matter acted upon Lord
Baudesert's smouldering rage like a stone in
front of a rushing railway train, which is at
once derailed and helpless.  Lord Baudesert
exploded into a short laugh.

"No such luck," he said; "Miss Chantrey has
a fortune; Miss Armytage has not."

Sir Percy, having finished his tea, put down
his cup and rose.

"I shall be very much obliged to you, Aunt
Susan, if you will do as I ask.  Lord Baudesert,
of course, will call to-morrow."

Lord Baudesert growled something between
his clenched teeth, which nobody could make
out, and Sarah cried:

"Oh, Cousin Percy, how many times have
I heard you say that you would never marry
an American;" and Jane chimed in, "No one
would have minded in the least if it had been
Eleanor Chantrey."

"Perhaps," remarked Sir Percy to Jane,
meanwhile looking Lord Baudesert full in the
eye, "you may yet have the pleasure of being
allied with the Chantreys.  Common report has
it that Lord Baudesert and Mrs. Chantrey are
to be married shortly.  Good-afternoon."  And
leaving this bomb behind him, he escaped into
the street.

Only to one other did he feel the necessity
of imparting the news himself.  This was to
General Talbott, and through him to Alicia
Vernon.  He walked to their hotel and was
shown to their sitting-room to await their
return from a drive.  He went to the window
and looked down on the street embowered with
trees, and with sidewalks full of gaily dressed
people, and smart carriages dashing to and fro
in the sunny spring afternoon.  He had heard
that day, as had everybody else, the announcement
of Alicia Vernon's engagement, and it
brought him no surprise, but only that strange
feeling as if such a thing could not be: that
Alicia Vernon should become the wife of an
honourable man.  While he was watching, the
carriage with General Talbott and Alicia drove
up, and the General, with his own portly grace,
assisted his daughter to alight.  In a moment
or two they entered the room together, and
General Talbott grasped Sir Percy's hand and
congratulated him from the bottom of an
honest and generous heart.

"We, too, have news for you," he said, smiling;
"I will leave it to Alicia to tell you, as it
is her affair."

Alicia fixed her violet eyes on Sir Percy
Carlyon, and in them was the light of triumph.
"I think, papa," she said, in the sweet,
affectionate voice which she always addressed her
father, "if you will leave me with Sir Percy for
ten minutes it would be kind.  I want to tell so
old a friend all about it.  So here is your
newspaper, and go into your own room for ten
minutes and then we shall be delighted to see you."

She took the afternoon newspaper off the
table and, thrusting it into General Talbott's
hand with an air of tender familiarity, led
him to the door and closed it after him, and
then she came back to where Sir Percy stood
near the window and began to pull off her long
gloves.

"Have you told Miss Armytage about that
summer at the hill station?" she asked calmly,
with a sidelong glance.  Sir Percy remained
silent, but it won for him no mercy.  "I see that
you haven't," she said.  "Yet you think it right
to marry that innocent girl without telling her
all?  Very well, I shall marry Senator March,
but neither shall I tell him all."

It occurred to Sir Percy to ask her if she
meant, like himself, to be so true, so devoted
in her marriage that she might have some little
ground upon which to ask forgiveness.  But
although he by no means adopted the specious
view that the law has no variation for men and
women, yet he felt that no one who had
violated the law in any part could rebuke his
fellow-sinner, and, therefore, remained
obstinately silent.  Mrs. Vernon had encountered
this mood before, but it made the situation
rather easier for her, as Sir Percy never
contradicted anything she said.  After a moment
or two she spoke again.

"It is a curious thing that people like Senator
March, who have never been tempted, put all
poor sinners in the wrong.  I feel it every
moment that I am with him.  I never had this
feeling with Guy Vernon, because from the
day I married him his wickedness and his
weakness were plain to me.  But there is a
compelling honesty about a man like Senator March
from which one can't get away; it is like my
father's.  Senator March thinks I am marrying
him for love; you think I am marrying him
for money.  This last is true, and I can't deny
it, but I also have a disinterested motive--it
will make my father happy and put him at ease
concerning me.  I have a good many debts of
which my father knows nothing, and which he
would pay, if he knew of them, with his last
shilling.  I couldn't keep them from him much
longer and I dreaded to tell him.  Now he is
spared all that.  I had the satisfaction of
dealing honestly with Senator March when I told
him that I must still give a part of my life to
my father.  He kissed my hand and told me
he loved me the better because I loved my
father so well."

Yes, it was the only redeeming love which
Alicia Vernon had ever known, and it had in it
a strange element of nobility and perfidy.

"I hope sincerely you may be happy," was all
that Sir Percy Carlyon said.

"I don't know whether I wish you to be happy
or not," Alicia replied in the same low voice.

"At least the past is now a closed book between us."

"Is the past ever a closed book?  Certainly
not to a woman.  There are some things which
are bloodstains upon the page of life and sink
through and through its pages until at the very
last there is still a red stain.  Anyway, I don't
hate Senator March and I don't wish to make
him unhappy.  That is as much as I can feel
for any man now, but I could chop him to pieces
for my father's sake or for--"  The sentence
remained unfinished.

Alicia's wild, unreasoning passion, mingled
with revenge, regret and chagrin, died hard.
There had never been a moment in which she
would not have considered a marriage with Sir
Percy Carlyon as imprudent and even disastrous.
But there had never been a moment, not
even the present, when she would not have
rushed into this joyous madness.  She turned
and walked up and down the room once or
twice, saddened, as all sentient beings are,
when looking down an abyss in which they long
to throw themselves, struggling fiercely against
the restraining hand.  Sir Percy, quite immovable,
stood in the same place until Alicia turned
towards him and spoke in her usual, quiet tones.

"But I have this to say to you: if, after you
are married, you assume that your wife is too
good to breathe the same air with me, you may
expect me to resent it.  We may be in
Washington together, remember, for some time, and
if I am unjustly treated there will be a
catastrophe, and this you may count upon."

Just then General Talbott's bedroom door
opened and he walked in.

"The ten minutes are up," he said; "now sit
down, Carlyon, and let us talk about coming
events.  Alicia and I will call to see Miss
Armytage to-morrow, taking the privilege of old
friends."

"Thank you," said Sir Percy, and could not
force himself to say more.

"How strangely things fall out," continued
the General pleasantly.  "I had no thought
when I came to Washington that I should leave
Alicia behind me."

"You won't leave me for long, papa," replied
Alicia, "because I know in two or three months'
time I shall ask Senator March to take me to
England and then we will bring you back."

"Oh, yes!" replied General Talbott, smiling,
"there will be an eternal fetching and carrying,
and some day I shall be a rickety old fellow;
then you and March will probably throw me over."

Alicia only answered him with a look which
was eloquent.

General Talbott did not think Sir Percy's
silence strange; Englishmen are not likely to be
talkative under such circumstances; so General
Talbott, full of sympathy and kindliness, kept
on:

"After having seen Miss Armytage, my dear
fellow, one can safely congratulate you.  The
newspapers say the wedding comes off in the
middle of June."

"The newspapers are right for once,"
answered Sir Percy.  "The wedding is to take
place in Kentucky, so I am afraid I sha'n't have
the pleasure of Mrs. Vernon's presence and
yours."

"No; we shall have our own affairs to attend
to at that time.  We are to be married
ourselves, you know," answered General Talbott,
laughing, and then Sir Percy said good-bye
and went out.

When he was gone General Talbott said to
his daughter:

"Miss Armytage is indeed a charming girl,
but it is a pity she has not fortune and prestige
such as Miss Chantrey has, and fortune and
prestige are what Carlyon needs in a wife."

Alicia Vernon made no reply and General
Talbott, taking up a batch of newly arrived
English newspapers, retired to his own room to
read them.

Alicia Vernon, lying back in the depths of a
deep arm-chair, sat quite still, looking straight
before her.  From the street below came the
sound of voices, of traffic; outside her window
black and white sparrows were wheeling and
chattering, and a linden tree in full leaf close
by the broad window waved softly in the
breeze, making delicate green shadows pass
over the room and Alicia's pale face.  The
phase of existence on which she had entered
was as strange to her as if it were that of
another planet.  Senator March's offer of
marriage had not taken her by surprise; she had
seen it coming for weeks and had made up her
mind from the first to accept it.  Nevertheless,
when it came she was overwhelmed with the
strangeness of her new position.  Of all of
those who had ever made love to her, he was
the first man who believed her to be the soul
of truth and purity.  It produced in her a faint
stirring of a wish to be a little like what Roger
March thought her to be.  If only she could
put Sir Percy Carlyon out of her mind!  But
his presence, when he came to tell her of his
engagement to another woman, had agitated
her more than Senator March had been able
to do, even in the moment of asking her love.

Suddenly the door opened, and a boy ushered
in the person farthest from Alicia Vernon's
mind at that moment--Nicholas Colegrove.
His personality was so strong that he could not
come and go anywhere unnoticed.  The sight
of his handsome, iron-grey head, the grasp of
his firm hand, brought Alicia Vernon to her
feet and dispelled instantly the strange,
benumbing dream into which she had fallen.
Colegrove was saying in his rich voice:

"I took the liberty of a friend, albeit a new
one, in coming to offer you my felicitations on
what I heard this morning."

Alicia Vernon, now quite herself, smiled and
thanked him prettily and asked him to be
seated.

"Marriage is a very different thing between
men and women and between boys and girls,"
he said in a tone of good-humoured cynicism.
"When a full-grown man and woman marry,
I have often noticed they assume a defensive
attitude, one to the other; it is best in the
long run.  Of course, they don't admit
it--everything in this blessed country is on the
basis of the slightest sentiment--but it is a fact
just the same."

Alicia smiled and answered:

"I don't think that American men have ever
been on the defensive with women."

"Quite true in a way," answered Colegrove.
"My interest in the subject is purely academic.
I was married at nineteen to a pink-cheeked
girl three years older than myself.  We found
out our mistake at the end of a few years.  I
am not a brute and I am willing to give her
everything she wants, but she doesn't know
what she wants.  Sometimes she thinks it's a
divorce, but as soon as I agree to it she finds
out that she doesn't want it at all.  Of course,"
continued Colegrove, rising and walking about
the room, "the time may come when I shall
meet a woman who will mean a good deal to
me.  So far, however, not one of them has been
able to make any impression on me as deep
as the action of the Board of Directors of the
A.F.& O. Railroad.  If you don't mind my
saying it, however, now that it is too late, I was
very much impressed by you.  Your type, you
know, is very unusual."

Yes; Alicia Vernon knew that her type was
very unusual and never in her life had her
pride and self-love been more flattered than by
Colegrove's frank and debonair admission.

"However," he said, coming and standing
before her, "it won't keep me from being friends
with Senator March; he is a very strong man
in every way, and I hope you will let me be a
friend of yours, too.  Recollect, if you ever get
into a financial tangle, I can give you some
good advice."

"I have been in a financial tangle all my life,"
murmured Alicia, "but now that is past."

"Not if you have been in it all your life, my
dear lady; those things are matters of temperament
and bear a very indirect relation to the
rise and fall of one's income.  That's one thing
in which I have been always very indulgent
towards women.  Very few of them have any
real idea of the value of money, and the
charming and beautiful among them should have it
just as they should have plenty of air and
sunlight."

This sentiment was peculiarly acceptable to
Alicia Vernon.

Colegrove remained twenty minutes longer,
and when he left Alicia reflected that in him
was embodied that American type of which she
had heard so much--men who can deny nothing
to women.

The next day Lord Baudesert, cursing and
swearing, and Mrs. Vereker, sighing and
lamenting, while Jane, Sarah and Isabella
sighed and lamented at home, went to call
upon Lucy Armytage as the *fiancée* of Sir
Percy Carlyon.  Luckily Lucy was not at home,
for which mercy Mrs. Vereker was humbly
thankful.  The visit, however, had to be
returned, and within the week Mrs. Armytage
and Lucy drove in a hired carriage to the
British Embassy and were shown into the
drawing-room.  Never was there a meeting
with greater elements of danger.  Besides
Mrs. Vereker and the three girls, they had General
Talbott, Alicia Vernon and Senator March.  It
was enough to disconcert a trained woman of
the world, but Lucy Armytage, with the
natural tact and self-control which was her
heritage, bore herself beautifully.  She had
long since divined that the three Vereker girls
followed their mother as if she were a bell cow,
while Lord Baudesert was the supreme arbiter
of their destinies.  Lucy took up the best
possible strategic position--a chair next to Lord
Baudesert.  The Ambassador, in spite of his
tendency to harass his womenkind, was a
gentleman, and while cursing Lucy from the
bottom of his heart, treated her with courtly
attention.  Something in the softness of her
manner and the fearlessness of her eyes struck
Lord Baudesert with a sneaking admiration.
Lucy Armytage had neither great beauty,
great talents, nor great fortune, but she was a
conqueror of hearts and her empire was over
men.  No man had ever withstood her charm
when she deliberately chose to exercise it.  On
this occasion she proceeded with infinite tact
to captivate Lord Baudesert.  Sir Percy,
secretly diverted in spite of himself, watched
Lucy serenely walking into the good graces of
the Ambassador, and that by a path which
few had the courage to tread--the path of
polite disagreement with him.  Mrs. Vereker
turned pale when she heard Lucy say, smilingly,
to Lord Baudesert concerning a certain
public question then under discussion:

"I speak with much ignorance and more prejudice,
but just the same I can't agree with you."

And Lord Baudesert, instead of eating her
up in two mouthfuls on the spot, answered
amiably:

"My dear young lady, you are no more ignorant
and prejudiced than nine men out of ten
who have discussed it."

Then Lucy told him, with quiet drollery, of
her own views and opinions on the subject and
the various others which she had heard
expressed by the public men who discussed it,
and Lord Baudesert laughed with appreciation.
And then they found a book or two in common,
and Lord Baudesert made the amazing
discovery that a girl might browse about in a
library and get hold of interesting odds and
ends of knowledge, which she knew how to use
without pedantry or affectation.  Lucy's
information about the Indian Mutiny was a mine of
gold to her.  Lord Baudesert had been a cornet
in the days when there were still cornets, and
had been both at Delhi and Lucknow, and sewn
upon the breast of his court costume was the
medal of the Alighur, which he would not have
exchanged for the blue ribbon of the Garter.
Lucy was the first woman he had met in
America who even knew the date of the
Mutiny, and Lord Baudesert therefore soon
reckoned her above and beyond the rest of the
nation.

The visit was to Lucy a little triumph of her
own, which was not lost upon any one present,
least of all Alicia Vernon.  The manner
between these two women was perfect.  Lucy had
not forgotten Sir Percy Carlyon's word of
warning.  She knew not why he had no desire
for her to be intimate with Mrs. Vernon, but
his wishes were respected.  Each was carefully
polite to the other, and the little shade of
reserve was too delicate to be noticed by any one
present except Sir Percy Carlyon; Senator
March did not notice it in the least, but came
up to Lucy as she was leaving, and said in a
low voice:

"I hope that you and Mrs. Vernon will become
great friends.  I owe Sir Percy a debt of
gratitude: it was through him, you know, I met
Mrs. Vernon."

"Thank you," replied Lucy.  "Sir Percy is
always laying people under obligations to him,"
and she turned away smiling.

When, after a short visit, Mrs. Armytage
rose to go, Lord Baudesert tried to pin Lucy
down.  Lucy stayed a little longer, but not
even Lord Baudesert's blandishments made
her commit the blunder of staying too long.

Lord Baudesert's first remark on finding
himself alone in the bosom of his family was to
Mrs. Vereker:

"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.





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   IX

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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.

"I didn't know you had arrived," said Senator
March.  "I watched the newspapers, and so
has Mrs. March, thinking that we would not
let twenty-four hours go by without seeing you."

"We reached town only last night," said Sir
Percy; "and we were speaking of you five
minutes ago when we drove past your house."

While Sir Percy was speaking, Senator
March, man-like, kept his eyes fixed upon Lady
Carlyon.  One glance showed to him that she
had found herself; she was far prettier than
she had ever been before, and there was a new
meaning and intelligence in her black eyes
and added charm in her agreeable and
well-cultivated voice.  She seemed to have
grown taller, and she had a sweet, unaffected
dignity of wifehood and motherhood.  The
dainty, high-bred girl had become a woman,
had developed into an Ambassadress worthy of
the name.  It was she who said to Senator March:

"I hope Mrs. March is well, and of course she
is happy?"

"She appears to be both," replied Senator
March, smiling; "perhaps it is only her
British pluck which enables her to stand the
American husband."

"I shall hope to see her very soon," said Lady
Carlyon, and then Sir Percy inquired about
General Talbott.

"We are expecting him in the spring.  As
you may imagine, Mrs. March does not let any
long interval pass between her visits to
General Talbott in England and his visits to us.
By the way, what an odd fatality has always
interfered with our seeing you and Lady
Carlyon when we have been in Europe.  We
seemed to be playing a game of hide-and-seek,
but now there will be no escaping each other,
and we must see as much as we can of you and
Lady Carlyon."

"Thank you," answered Sir Percy, with the
utmost cordiality, but it was Lady Carlyon who
added: "Yes, pray remember us to Mrs. March,
and we shall look forward to seeing General
Talbott as soon as he arrives.  We shall expect
to see you very shortly."

Then after a few moments more of conversation
the carriage drove away.

A victoria, with a coachman and footman in
hearing, is no place for a private conversation,
and nothing was said about Senator March and
his wife until Sir Percy and Lady Carlyon had
reached home and were alone in Sir Percy's
library.

"Dearest," said Lady Carlyon, laying her
little hand upon his sleeve, "there is but one
attitude to take: we must be friendly with her.
Remember Senator March's position and how
you stand with General Talbott."

"I know it all," answered Sir Percy doggedly.

They were standing together, and Sir Percy
took his wife's hand and kissed it.

"You are the better diplomatist of the two,"
he said; "I could not bring myself to mention
Alicia March's name.  If it hadn't been for
your readiness Senator March must have
suspected something.  It must be hard for you?"

"Very!  But I have been preparing myself
for this complication ever since you told me
that story.  After all, it is quite natural that
Mrs. March should make a fight for her
position in the world.  It isn't every woman who
has it in her to be a Louise la Vallière."

"It is certainly not in Alicia March; however,
there is nothing so cowardly as for a man to
complain of a woman.  I should be glad to take
all the pain of my own wrongdoing, but you,
poor, innocent child, must suffer too."

"Let us not think of it," said Lady Carlyon,
drawing her husband's lips to hers.

Sir Percy said nothing, but his kiss and his
eyes were eloquent of love and gratitude.  Then
Lady Carlyon went into the drawing-room and
Sir Percy followed her.  Deep in his heart he
was a sentimentalist, and he loved his wife with
single-hearted devotion.  He could not but
compare her, as she moved about the room, her
white cloth gown trailing upon the floor, with
the slim, pretty and inconsequent young girl
whose waltzing had first charmed him.  She
was still slim and pretty, but she had grown
wise with soft, sweet wisdom.  It was she, now,
who thought for him, smoothed over the rough
places, practised an easy and graceful
self-control, and was all that the wife of an
Ambassador should be.

The tea-tray was brought in, and Lady
Carlyon gave Sir Percy his tea, a thing
comforting in itself, with the same gracious air
that she would have handed it to the
Ambassador of France.

"It was in the ball-room that I first saw you,
waltzing with young Stanley, the naval officer,"
said Sir Percy, drinking his tea with calm
deliberation, "and it was in the library that Lord
Baudesert warned me that a diplomat should
never marry an American, and I swore to him
I never would."

"It is all wrong in principle," replied Lady
Carlyon, making a pretty little grimace--she
retained for Sir Percy's benefit alone all the
little roguish tricks and airs which made Lucy
Armytage so charming, but would scarcely
have been becoming in Lady Carlyon--"I
never thought that anything would induce me
to marry any man outside of Kentucky.  I have
often been shocked by your want of knowledge
of horses."

Sir Percy tweaked her ear.  The form and
ceremony with which horses were treated in
England had been a revelation to Lady Carlyon,
and Sir Percy himself was no mean judge of
a horse.  Nevertheless, Lady Carlyon, when
she chose to be once more Lucy Armytage,
would give herself supercilious airs to Sir
Percy upon all equine subjects.

"You hardly know a horse from a cow, my
Lady Lucy," he said.

This was the name by which he called his wife
when they were alone.  He had explained to
her at the beginning of their married life, when
instructing her in titles, that she could not
really be Lady Lucy Carlyon unless she were
an earl's daughter, to which Lucy replied
demurely that she had always supposed every
gentleman in Kentucky to be the equal of the
biggest earl in England.  The small joke
amused Sir Percy, and from that on she
became to him "Lady Lucy."  In some way Lord
Baudesert had also caught the name, which so
pleased his fancy that "Lady Lucy" became
applied in tenderness to Lady Carlyon.  It
recalled Lord Baudesert, and Lady Carlyon said,
as she gave Sir Percy his second cup of tea:

"I don't think your uncle will be able to keep
away long from Washington.  He will be sure
to come back here as a visitor.  He declares
that he finds London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin
dull after Washington."

"Perhaps it is because he is no longer an
Ambassador, or else that the English, French,
German and Austrian sense of humour is not
so acute as he found the American, and my
uncle can't have the ambassadorial joke as he
did here."

"And Mrs. Chantrey is still unmarried," said
Lady Carlyon, and then they both laughed.

Lady Carlyon kept away from the hateful
subject of Mrs. March, but Sir Percy understood
well that his wife would shoulder the burden
and carry it bravely and quietly.  The idea of
Alicia March being under his roof was odious
and humiliating to Sir Percy Carlyon, but he
saw no way out of it.  His immediate departure
for England after his marriage, and thence to
his Continental post, had kept Lady Carlyon
and Alicia March apart.  The Carlyons had
not been to America but once since, and then
only for a few weeks, within a year of their
marriage.  Colonel Armytage had been stricken
with paralysis, and Lady Carlyon, with Sir
Percy, had hastened to him, arriving in time to
find him conscious, but dying.  Mrs. Armytage
had followed her husband within a fortnight,
her last days tended by Lady Carlyon, to whom
she had been a mother.  Within a month all
was over and Lady Carlyon returned to
Europe without going near Washington.  The
chapter of accidents which Senator March
mentioned as having kept him and his wife
from meeting the Carlyons in Europe had been
really a series of clever stratagems on the part
of the latter.  When the Marches were on the
Continent, especially at the Capitol, where Sir
Percy Carlyon took his preliminary canter as
Minister before winning the blue ribbon of an
Embassy, he and Lady Carlyon had found it
convenient to be absent at those times.  Then
when the Marches went to London the
Carlyons managed to be on the Continent.  Sir
Percy could not possibly put himself in the
position of avoiding General Talbott, who had
visited him at his Continental post, and had
been made an honoured guest.  Only one
person suspected why the Marches and the
Carlyons had never met, and that was Alicia
March.  Nor were the Carlyons the only
persons who avoided her, but of this her husband
remained entirely ignorant.

The stories of Senator March's wealth made
a sensation in the sphere of General Talbott's
and Mrs. March's acquaintances.  Mrs. March
herself gave evidence of it in the splendour of
her jewels and the cost and exquisiteness of
her costumes.  She spent with a lavish hand,
and the world knew it.  Sir Percy Carlyon,
hearing rumours of this, thought to himself:
"It is the same Alicia, whose passion for
spending has grown by what it feeds on."  Sir Percy
Carlyon turned these things over in his mind
while drinking tea on this December afternoon,
but he said nothing of them.

Then when tea was over, following the custom
established after the birth of their first boy, the
Carlyons went upstairs to pay a visit to the
nursery.  In saying good-night to the two
beautiful little children, Lady Carlyon knelt down
by their cribs and made a silent prayer, and Sir
Percy, standing near her, did likewise, and
thought himself the happiest of men, but for
one thing--that which had happened in the
far-away hill-country of India long years ago.

Meanwhile, on parting from the Ambassador
and Lady Carlyon, Senator March soon
reached his own door.  The outward aspect
of the house had been changed and wonderfully
improved.  The adjoining house on each
side had been demolished, and wings built out
in the same simple but dignified style of
architecture of the original house.  One wing was
a ball-room and the other was a picture gallery.
As Senator March entered the hall a footman
handed him a box which contained a bouquet;
this was Roger March's daily tribute to his
wife ever since his marriage.  Within the
house the note of luxury was struck, and it
increased in an ascending scale until it came
to Alicia March's boudoir, which was part of
the new building.  Senator March's quarters
alone had escaped the tide of splendour, and
his own rooms remained as simple as in his
bachelor days.

He knocked at the door of 'his wife's boudoir
and Alicia bade him enter.  The four years
and a half, which had developed Lucy Armytage
into an Ambassadress worthy of the name,
had also made a subtle change in Alicia March.
She was apparently no older than on the day
when she had first seen Roger March.  She
was an admirable subject for the great London
and Paris dressmakers, and she had reached
that stage of a woman's existence where dress
ceases to be a passion and becomes a fine art.
Time had left no mark on her, but her eyes--her
beautiful violet eyes--had an expression
of apprehension, even of fear, in them, and she,
heretofore the most placid and self-controlled
of women, had become strangely nervous.  She
started as her husband entered, but smiled as
she received his gift of flowers with the graceful
thanks which she never omitted.  Then Senator
March asked her how the day had passed.

"Very well," she replied.  "I didn't wish to
go out until you had come in.  What have you
been doing to-day?"

"I worked like a cart horse until three o'clock,
then walked uptown for exercise, and whom
do you think I saw half-a-square away?"

"The Carlyons," answered Mrs. March
calmly.  "I saw them drive past.  Did you
speak to them?"

"Oh, yes!  I was delighted to see them again.
You know I have a special reason for gratitude
to Carlyon, as it was through him I met you."

Mrs. March turned her beautiful eyes on her
husband with a look which every woman's eyes
have when she receives a sincere compliment.

Senator March continued:

"Sir Percy is looking very well; that man has
had unbroken good fortune of the most brilliant
sort.  I believe him to be the youngest
Ambassador in the diplomatic service, and Lady
Carlyon!--bless me--she is Lucy Armytage
and yet she is not Lucy Armytage--that is to
say, she has grown up.  She has a charming
dignity without the slightest pretension, and
one can see at a glance that she will do well
anywhere.  They had stopped the carriage for
a moment to speak to their children, two fine boys."

"I saw them, too," said Mrs. March; "they
looked quite adorable.  Did Sir Percy ask for
me or send me any message?"

Senator March tried to recall.

"I really can't remember anything special.
Both of them were most cordial, and Lady
Carlyon particularly said she hoped to see us
very soon."

Mrs. March smiled.

"Sir Percy has forgotten, perhaps," she said
softly after a moment, "his first six months in
India."

"Oh, I think not!  He told me during our first
acquaintance all about that and the enormous
obligations he was under to your father.  We
must call and see the Carlyons very soon, and
have them here to dinner."

Then Alicia suddenly changed the subject, and
began to ask him about his day's work.

"There is a tremendous amount of work on
hand for the committee, as there is a great
mass of information to be mastered before one
can treat intelligently this whole railway
subject, for instance."

Then Senator March went on to describe the
pitfalls and obstacles in the way of certain
intended legislation concerning railways.  His
wife listened with the deepest attention,
occasionally putting in an intelligent question.
Presently the Senator said:

"I believe you know as much about the matter
as I do.  You should be an interstate commerce
commissioner."

Alicia smiled, she rarely laughed.

"That is the way with Englishwomen: we
accommodate ourselves to our husbands
instead of requiring them to mould themselves
to us."

"It is a very pleasant way," replied Senator
March gallantly, and then, being full of his
subject, he went on talking about it until,
suddenly recalling himself, he said: "You have not
been for your drive and it is already growing
dark.  I can't go with you to-day; I have a lot
more of this business on hand in my study."

"I don't think I shall drive this afternoon,"
replied Mrs. March.  "I think I shall walk for
half-an-hour.  You wish to be undisturbed
until dinner?"

"Yes," said Senator March, going into his
own quarters.

Ten minutes later Mrs. March, in a plain
walking dress, with a thin black veil over her
face, went out of her own door, and when she
was well around the corner called a cab and
gave the address of a plain hotel in the lower
part of the city.  As she leaned back in the
ramshackle cab she drew her veil still more
closely over her face and tried to collect her
thoughts for the interview which she sought,
but her mind wandered to all manner of
subjects.  How strange it was that she, the wife
of one of the richest men in the Senate, with
an allowance which was a fortune in itself,
should be at that moment harassed for money!
She never remembered the time in her life that
such had not been the case.  When she married
Senator March it was with the expectation that
never again as long as she lived would she ever
want for money, but within the year the old
emptiness of purse returned.  Money slipped
through her fingers she knew not how.  She
loved pearls and diamonds and beautiful things
with an insatiable love.  Senator March had
loaded her with jewels, but she wanted more.
It seemed to her that wealth was not wealth if
one had to consider how it was spent.  That
principle had caused her to spend not only a
splendid income, but had piled up debts to
which her old burdens were a mere nothing.
The same principle of shame and even fear
that she had felt toward her father prevented
her from opening her heart to her husband,
the soul of indulgence.  There was a kind of
rigid morality about Roger March, and the
idea that she had made debts which she
concealed from him she knew would appear as a
crime in his eyes.  He would, of course, pay
them--of that she felt quite certain--but in
spite of her husband's love and gentleness, he
had always inspired her with a certain fear,
just as her father did, and General Talbott
would know the whole story which she so
shrank from telling.  She found a curious lack
of power in herself to stop spending money.
Then came Nicholas Colegrove's opportunity.

He had seen Alicia March several times
during the first winter of her marriage, when she
immediately became one of the great hostesses
of Washington.  Colegrove was by nature
social, and liked, as well as any one, a good
dinner, a good glass of wine and a pretty
woman on each side of him.  His position as the
moving spirit of an association of great
railways, which some people called a conspiracy,
placed him somewhat at a disadvantage with
public men in Washington.  Senator March,
however, liked Colegrove well enough, and was
by no means afraid of him, and if Alicia March
wanted to have him at her brilliant dinners
her husband made no objection.  Senator
March was chairman of the committee which
was dealing with Colegrove and his associates,
but so far nothing had been discovered of a
nature damaging to Colegrove or his friends.
As he good-humouredly told Senator March,
the railways asked only to be let alone; and
Senator March, with equal good humour,
replied that was the very thing that the
committee did not mean to do.

As the committee would not agree to let
Colegrove alone, but persisted in asking prying
questions, the next best thing for him was to
find out exactly what the committee knew, and
how it proposed to act.  Alicia March was the
instrument ready to his hand.  Colegrove, who
had a vast quantity of that semi-divine gift
known as common-sense, was under no illusion
respecting Alicia March's influence over her
husband.  Senator March was deeply devoted
to his wife, but neither she nor any other
human being who ever lived could swerve
Roger March from his duty, or cause him to
betray the smallest trust.  He was not,
however, on guard against his wife, and Colegrove
knew it.

When he passed the March house late at night
and saw the lights burning in Senator March's
study, and knew that he was at work there with
his clerk and a stenographer, Colegrove longed
to know what they were writing.  How easy it
would be for Mrs. March to make a few copies
of the letters and memoranda, which would be
immensely useful to the A.F.&O.!  Reflecting
on this, Colegrove cultivated Mrs. March's
society.  Being a man of acute observation, he
found out some things about Alicia March
which not even her husband knew.  He
discovered that she had a strange sense of
dislocation in her new place.  She had been forced,
as she thought, in her previous life to have
many concealments, and she still had them, but
they gave her a vague sense of discomfort
which she had never known before.  Still the
habit was upon her, and she had the conviction
that concealment, however wrong, was
absolutely necessary.

Colegrove alone of all the men she had ever
known seemed to penetrate at once into
everything which she wished to keep secret.  He had
got out of her the fact that she was pressed for
money within a year of her marriage.  This
he proposed to remedy in a manner at once
easy, simple and honourable: to get hold of
stocks which would cost next to nothing to
buy, and would sell for a fortune, and this
he would do for Alicia March in his own name.
He made the condition, however, that she
should not mention it to her husband, and to
this Alicia March agreed readily enough,
knowing the transaction could not take place
unless it were kept a secret from Senator
March.  Then money flowed into her hands,
not enough to make her independent of Colegrove,
but enough to ease the perpetual strain.
At this point Colegrove had asked her to get
copies of certain letters which he knew were
in Senator March's desk in his study.  At this
Alicia recoiled and then refused, but when
payment was demanded for a couple of black pearls
which she had bought, and her dividends from
her stocks were not forthcoming, Colegrove told
her plainly that he must have copies of those
letters before any more money was paid.  Alicia
had realised some time before that she was
playing a dangerous game, but who fears the
danger of a game as long as one is winning?
It was ridiculously easy to get what Colegrove
wanted, and love for the black pearls was
stronger in Alicia March than honour or fear.
Colegrove got his copies and Alicia's stock
suddenly, according to Colegrove, declared a
tremendous dividend.

Colegrove congratulated himself on what he
had accomplished with Mrs. March and
incidentally was scorched.  All men are dreamers
of dreams, and at last the dream took shape
with Colegrove that he should force a wedge
between Roger March and his wife.  As for
Colegrove's own wife, the fretful lady in a
far-away western city, that was easily
managed--he could drive her into a divorce any
day he liked.  He was the last man on earth
who would betray himself, and what seemed
an unguarded outbreak of passion for Alicia
March was really a carefully calculated
procedure.  Alicia received it with a calmness and
capacity to deal with the situation which
showed him that she was no apprentice in such
matters.  She held him off, but she did not
break with him.  Each was too useful to the
other to come to an open rupture, and so
matters had gone on for more than three years.

In that time no human being, not even Roger
March, suspected that Alicia March and Colegrove
ever met except in the presence of others,
and generally at dinners.  Nevertheless, they
had brief interviews, chiefly relating to bills
and their payment, and papers were handed
over to Colegrove, and crisp new bills for
considerable amounts were received by Alicia.
These meetings generally took place in
unfrequented streets and parks at twilight, and
might easily be explained as accidental.  Those
were not occasions of sentiment, but when
Alicia and Colegrove met in drawing-rooms
Colegrove then said things which conveyed to
Alicia that her husband was puritanical in his
ideas, which Colegrove was not, and when she
should find Roger March intolerable there was
a refuge waiting her.  It seemed quite natural
to Alicia March to hear these veiled
declarations from Colegrove.  She admired the
ingenuity with which he made them and listened
to them with a smiling composure, the meaning
of which not all Colegrove's acuteness could
discover.  Alicia herself did not know her own
feeling towards her husband, nor had the
brilliant life upon which she had entered
acquired any true sense of reality and proportion.
She felt as if she were living in a dream, silent,
changeful, exciting, but still a dream.

As the cab jogged along over the streets Alicia
turned all these things over in her mind.  It
was the first time she had ever had a meeting
with Colegrove which was open to the slightest
suspicion, but Colegrove had written to her
that he did not desire it to be known that he
was in Washington while the great railroad
legislation was pending until he should be
called as a witness, and for that reason he
would come to Washington for a few hours,
stopping at a plain hotel where he was not
known, when he was supposed to be on a
hunting trip in Pennsylvania.

It was almost dark when she stepped out of
the cab in front of the hotel where Colegrove
was staying.  He was watching for her and
came down the steps to meet her.  Time had
dealt lightly with him, and he was the same
strong, supple, keen-eyed man of four years
before, with the same captivating frankness of
manner, which did not reveal himself, but
revealed others to him.

"Now," he said, when Alicia and he were
in the lobby of the little hotel, "you won't mind
coming to my sitting-room, where we can talk
privately?"

"I mind very much," replied Alicia coolly.
"There must be a public drawing-room somewhere
about, and we can talk there."

"Here it is," replied Colegrove, opening a
door near by and entering a large, showily
furnished room glaring with gas.  "But this is
a very public drawing-room," said Colegrove,
smiling, "and it is not to be supposed that
Mrs. March is not known by sight to a great many
people who are not on her visiting list.  You
had better come to my sitting-room."

Without a word Alicia followed him to the
lift and they ascended one flight.  Colegrove's
sitting-room was a small replica of the
drawing-room below.

"It is a good many years since I entertained
a lady in a place like this, but I hope you will
excuse it.  I don't want your husband's
committee to know that I am within a hundred
miles of this town.  Before we begin talking
business, tell me how you have been.  You are
looking blooming, as well as I can see under
that veil."

"I remembered that you told me," was Alicia's
reply, "that you must have copies of the
correspondence.  I never have any trouble in
getting copies, but it always makes me
ashamed."

Colegrove paid no attention to the latter
sentence, but stored up the first, and thought it a
lucky admission on Alicia's part.  She opened
the costly little bag which she carried in her
hand, and took out half-a-dozen letters, which
Colegrove read rapidly, and with an air of
satisfaction.  Then, putting them in his breast
pocket, he said pleasantly:

"By the way, that A.F.&O. stock has gone
sky-high, and will soon go down in a hole in
the ground.  I sold a thousand shares of that
investment of yours which stands in my name,
and here is the money for it.  You understand
why I am obliged to give it to you in money
instead of a cheque?"

He handed out a roll of bills, naming a
considerable sum, and Alicia, without counting it,
put it into her bag.  Colegrove, having transacted
the business part of the interview, would
have liked to have had half-an-hour's conversation
with Mrs. March, whose charming voice
and speaking eyes had a steady and increasing
fascination for him, but Alicia would not stay.

"We can talk," she said, "when you come to
Washington openly.  My husband, I think,
likes you very much, and he says he is warring
on the corporation, not on individuals."

"Will you ask me to dinner, Mrs. March?"

"With pleasure," replied Alicia, smiling faintly.

"I am glad it gives you a little pleasure; it
gives me a great deal," replied Colegrove.
"When a man has led the life that I have led,
and has to do with large affairs, most women
appear to him like children whose range of
ideas is soon exhausted.  Not so with you,
however."

"I never was reckoned a clever woman,"
responded Alicia.

"Oh, Lord!  I hate cleverness in both men
and women.  It assumes to be everything and
takes the place of nothing.  But you have lived
from the very hour you made that unlucky first
marriage.  No one admires Senator March
more than I do, but he ought to have married
a purely conventional person, like Miss
Chantrey, for example, whom I have met at your
house.  There must be a good many things you
can't talk about to your husband."

Colegrove's words were guarded, but something
in his tone expressed a subtle contempt
for Senator March.  Suddenly, and without
the slightest premonition, Alicia March felt
herself colouring with anger at Colegrove's
words.  He dared to say one word against her
husband in her presence!  It was the first
strong feeling she had ever experienced where
Roger March was concerned, and it lighted up
her eyes, and brought the blood to her face, and
she answered him sharply:

"I am not worthy of my husband, you and
I both know it," and walked out of the room.

Colegrove followed her, hat in hand, and full
of apologies, professing ignorance as to how he
had offended her.  She allowed him to assist her
into the cab, but merely bade him a chilly
good-bye.  Colegrove watched the cab as it fumbled
off in the dusk and then said to himself:

"I shall let her get into a tighter place than
ever for money before I give her another lift.
But, by Jove! if I were in March's place I would
have had that woman's confidence long ago."

Then it occurred to him that there was in
reality a great gulf between Senator March
and the woman who was his wife, and a man
like himself.  This did not disconcert
Colegrove in the least, as it was his invariable
practice to see things as they were and never
to blink the truth.

It was half-past six o'clock before Alicia
March entered the door of her home.  Instead
of going to her boudoir, she went into Senator
March's study.  He was at his desk hard at
work--he was known as the hardest worked
man in the Senate--but he had not failed to
notice his wife's absence.

"Really," he said, turning in his chair and
taking her hand as she came forward into the
circle of light cast by the old-fashioned student
lamp which burned upon his desk, "you must
not stay out so late.  If I had known in what
direction you had walked, I should have gone
to meet you at six o'clock."

"You are fanciful," replied Alicia, and, for
almost the first time in their married life, gave
him an unasked caress, passing her arm around
his neck and stooping to kiss him.  It was not
lost on Senator March.

"You know how to win pardon," he said,
"but--but don't do it again.  Since you have
been gone I have been studying up some of the
performances of your friend Colegrove, and I
can't make out whether he is a virtuous sufferer
or a very able and accomplished scamp."

"I met Mr. Colegrove while I was out," said
Alicia, remembering the sum in her little bag,
which would by no means pay all her bills, "and
I promised to ask him to dinner," and then
suddenly remembered that Colegrove had told her
not to mention his presence in Washington.
She had in truth been thinking more of her
husband than of Colegrove for the last half-hour.

Senator March, however, did not observe any
significance in his wife's casual words, and
answered:

"Oh, very well!  I am not down on Colegrove
personally; he is a very good dinner guest, and
there isn't any reason why you shouldn't ask
him if you wish to.  Will you invite him to
meet the Carlyons?"

Alicia March turned a little pale at the
suggestion.  She had begun to be somewhat afraid
of Colegrove's singular acuteness and power
to make her tell things she did not mean to tell
him.  He might divine something of that past
which had existed between Sir Percy Carlyon
and herself.  And Sir Percy, having known her
long before either Colegrove or her husband,
might suspect something between Colegrove
and herself.  She had, however, been used to
these complications for many years, and could
readily bring herself to meet them.  Her sense
of humour was small, but she had a glimmer
when she said to her husband:

"Yes; we can have Mr. Colegrove and the
Carlyons together."





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   X

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Within a week Senator and Mrs. March one
afternoon paid their first visit to the British
Embassy.  At the moment of greeting,
Mrs. March saw that Lady Carlyon knew all of the
story of what had occurred sixteen years
before.  Not that Lady Carlyon showed the
slightest haughtiness or restraint on meeting
Mrs. March; on the contrary, her bearing was
perfect and her dignity and grace could not
have been surpassed.  Lady Carlyon was by no
means the Lucy Armytage whom Mrs. March,
as Alicia Vernon, had cross-examined so easily
four years before.  But there is a psychic
understanding between women, a glance of the
eye, a note of the voice, which tells the story
to which the words may give a flat contradiction.

It cannot be said, however, that Sir Percy
Carlyon's demeanour was perfect in spite of
his sixteen years' training in diplomacy.  The
deep resentment which burned within him
against Mrs. March was kindled into new life
when he saw her shaking hands with his wife,
and his greeting showed a certain restraint;
nor was he over-cordial to Senator March, but
this passed unobserved.  There were other
visitors present, and nothing in the least
awkward occurred.  Alicia had one moment of that
revenge which is the sweetest draught a woman
can quaff when, as the visit drew to a close,
she said smilingly to Lady Carlyon and Sir
Percy:

"Senator March tells me that you have promised
to give us the pleasure of dining with us
before long.  Can you fix the date now?"

Sir Percy remained silent, but Lady Carlyon
replied readily:

"I shall have to look at our book of engagements
and I will write.  You are most kind to
ask us."

"Thank you," answered Alicia, with a peculiar
inflection of pleasure in her voice.

It would be one of the most triumphant
moments of her life when she forced Sir Percy
Carlyon to bring his wife to dine with her.
Senator March, standing by, expressed a frank
and cordial pleasure at the prospect of seeing
the Carlyons under his own roof.  Man-like, he
had observed nothing in the attitude of Sir
Percy and Lady Carlyon, either towards himself
or his wife, and Alicia was the last person
on earth to enlighten him.

Within a day or two a pretty note came from
Lady Carlyon saying that she and Sir Percy
would have the pleasure of dining with Senator
and Mrs. March on the thirtieth of January,
if that date would be convenient to their
hostess.  Alicia passed the note over to her
husband across the tea-table in her boudoir,
and smiled as she tried to realise the effort it
had caused the wife of the British Ambassador
to write it.

Every incident connected with the dinner was
an added triumph to Mrs. March.  She
collected a brilliant company, even in that place
of brilliant dinners--Washington--and
Colegrove was among the invited guests.  She had
engaged a great singer to lend the magic of
his voice to the evening afterwards.  In every
detail she had the kindest interest of her
husband.  She was an Englishwoman entertaining,
for the first time, the Ambassador from her
own country, and Senator March determined
that she should do it well.  He even gave his
attention to his wife's gown and jewels, which
were consequently superb.

On the evening of the dinner, Alicia March
was dressed and in her splendid drawing-room
half-an-hour before the guests were
due.  She was conscious of looking her best;
splendour became her mature beauty.  Like
most Englishwomen of her class she knew
how to wear jewels, her hair glittered with
diamonds which fell in a glorious *rivière* upon
her bosom, and sparkled on her arms.  Senator
March, coming down later, paid her a sincere
compliment in saying that he had never seen
her look so handsome.  They went into the
dining-room, a superb apartment in Pompeian
red, and glanced into the ball-room, where the
music was to take place after dinner.  All was
satisfactory to Senator March and more than
satisfactory to his wife.  With the nicety of
courtesy, the first guests to arrive were the
Carlyons.  Lady Carlyon seemed, as Senator
March had said, to have grown taller, certainly
her air and figure had gained great beauty in
the four years of her married life.  She wore
an exquisitely fitting, but perfectly simple,
white gown, with a bouquet of violets on her
breast; not a jewel of any description shone
upon her.  She had jewels, of course, as every
woman of position would have, and Mrs. March
happened to know that there were some
very nice family jewels which Sir Percy's wife
must have, but not one of them did Lady
Carlyon wear on this occasion.  She was a good
diplomatist, as Lord Baudesert predicted she
would become, but, like all women, there was a
point with her where diplomacy gave way to
feeling.  Lady Carlyon had schooled herself to
meet Alicia March, had fought and outwardly
conquered the deep repugnance and disdain she
felt for the woman who had made a blot upon
her husband's life; but when she had the
chance Lady Carlyon, like Achilles, could not
forbear dragging her dead enemy at her
chariot wheels.  She knew that Alicia March
would blaze with splendour, and therefore
elected to dress with marked simplicity.  She
was as simply gowned as on that memorable
night in her girlhood when she attended her
first Embassy ball, and met her fate.

When the two women stood contrasted, Alicia
March knew at once what Lady Carlyon's
studied simplicity meant, and felt herself
overdressed and bedizened, but she gave no hint of
her chagrin.  As each guest arrived Alicia
March felt as if she were paying off the score
between the Carlyons and herself.  Her
position and prestige as Senator March's wife must
be obvious to the Carlyons.  The last person to
arrive was Colegrove.  He was certainly the
handsomest man present, but by no means the
most distinguished, and could not have the
place of honour on Alicia's left hand.
When Mrs. March took Sir Percy Carlyon's
arm to go in to dinner it was the first time
she had so touched him since those days on
the frontier of Afghanistan.  She gave him a
look, half mirthful, half menacing, but wholly
triumphant, which Sir Percy understood.  His
manner to her was rather an indifferent piece
of acting, but this was not observed by any one
except Mrs. March and Lady Carlyon.

The dinner was splendid--rather too splendid
Alicia realised; her tendency was somewhat to
excess.  The conversation was agreeable and
sparkling.  Alicia was an accomplished hostess;
without great brilliance and *esprit* herself, she
knew how to bring out these qualities in others,
and Senator March shone in his own house.
Colegrove, sitting on the opposite side of the
vast round table, saw nothing at first, except
the natural desire of an Englishwoman to do
honour to her own Ambassador and Ambassadress,
but he noted the extreme simplicity of
Lady Carlyon's gown, and thought her the
handsomer for it.  Nevertheless it puzzled him,
but as soon as his eyes fell on his hostess a light
dawned upon him.  There was some rivalry
between these two women.  With that first
thread to go on, he observed his hostess and
her guests more closely.

When the ladies rose Mrs. March led the way
into the picture gallery.  Lady Carlyon did not,
as Mrs. March supposed she would, subtly
avoid her hostess.  On the contrary, she
remained close to Alicia, whom she asked to tell
her the names of the artists whose pictures were
on the wall, Lady Carlyon listening with
smiling attention.  Presently it dawned upon Alicia
March's mind that Lady Carlyon was making
her exhibit her possessions and give a list of
them--it was Lady Carlyon now who had the
upper hand and not Alicia.  Mrs. March,
however, went around the gallery with Lady
Carlyon, and by that time the men appeared,
and a few other guests invited for the
after-dinner music.  Colegrove was now watching
with all his eyes.  Senator March in his hearty,
outspoken way, had mentioned the friendship
of General Talbott and Sir Percy Carlyon in
those early days on the Afghan frontier, and
Colegrove knew that Alicia had been with her
father at that time.  Sir Percy shied off
from the subject very obviously, and this was
not lost on Colegrove.  All of this made
Colegrove suspect that there had been an affair
between Sir Percy Carlyon and Mrs. March.
He recollected that she had never mentioned
Sir Percy to him, although she had spoken
freely of persons and events in her life.  He
sat turning these things over in his mind with
the interest with which everything concerning
Alicia awakened in him, at the time he was
listening to the great tenor whose every note
was worth a bank-note.

When the evening was over, and most of the
guests had taken their departure, Colegrove,
going up to Mrs. March, said to her smilingly:

"You look quite superb to-night.  Lady
Carlyon evidently didn't wish to be in the
competition.  When a woman wears a simple white
gown and a bunch of violets she means
something by it."

Alicia smiled faintly.

"Perhaps Lady Carlyon thought the occasion
not important enough for jewels," she said.

"She won't find a more important occasion,"
replied Colegrove, laughing, "not even at the
White House, as that is purely perfunctory,
you know, when she goes in on the same
footing as the Chinese Ambassador and the Korean
Minister.  I am afraid Lady Carlyon is slightly
unappreciative.  Good-night, and thank you
for a charming evening."

After accepting the Marches' dinner invitation
it was inevitable that they should be placed
upon the dinner list of the British Embassy, so
Lady Carlyon told Sir Percy, as they drove
back through the January night to the
Embassy, and it must be done at once; for Senator
March was a man who could not be ignored
either socially or politically, Lady Carlyon
reminded Sir Percy, urging him at the same time
to be more cordial to Senator March.

"I never saw a man I liked better than
March," replied Sir Percy; "he was the first
friend I made in Washington, but I admit that
it staggers me to look at him in the light of
Alicia Vernon's husband."

"I am afraid," answered Lady Carlyon, "that
it will be observed in spite of all that I can do
to smooth things over."

"I don't think I could have managed it at all
without you," replied Sir Percy; "you are the
better diplomatist of the two."

"Oh, you may always expect something great
from Bardstown, Kentucky!" replied Lady
Carlyon, and was Lucy Armytage again,
looking with sweet, laughing eyes into her
husband's sombre face.

Within a fortnight an invitation to dine at the
British Embassy came for Senator March and
his wife, and it was accepted.  It was not to be
supposed, however, that the Marches and the
Carlyons had not met many times during that
fortnight.  They moved in the same orbit and
were continually within sight of each other.
Sir Percy, bearing in mind Lady Carlyon's
caution, was more cordial in his manner to Senator
March.  He found no difficulty in being so, for
the two men met, as they often did in the
society of men alone, at men's dinners, at the
club, and like places.  Sir Percy, following the
example of Lord Baudesert, was an indefatigable
student of American affairs, and Senator
March was a mine of information.

It was a source of some surprise to Senator
March that there was nothing like intimacy
between the Carlyons and his wife and
himself.  He could see that his wife and Sir Percy
Carlyon did not stand to each other in the
relation of old friends, although they were old
acquaintances.  And there was something
guarded in the attitude of Lady Carlyon and
Alicia March towards each other.  He would
have liked very much to have renewed his old
friendship and even fondness for Lady
Carlyon, but although she met him with
unvarying sweetness, she did not take up the
thread of intimacy which had existed between
them from the days when she was a school-girl
and he was a senator.  Senator March had
lived long enough to know that there are
strange convolutions in personal relations,
especially between women.  It soon became
plain that Alicia March and Lady Carlyon
were not drawn together.  Senator March's
confidence in his wife was such that he felt
sure that her course was regulated by good
taste and good sense, and that was enough for him.

The dinner at the Embassy was brilliant, and
Lady Carlyon did the honours with extraordinary
grace.  This time she wore very handsome
jewels, although nothing to compare with
those of Alicia March.

Senator March had intended to suggest to
Alicia that she should invite the Carlyons to
spend the week-end at the country place where
their romance had culminated, but, seeing the
futility of his plan, did not mention it even to
his wife.  Meanwhile great affairs pressed
upon him.  The big railways had been finally
brought to bay and Senator March, as chairman
of the committee of investigation, had his
hands full.  Colegrove was in town continuously
and spent many days explaining the
inexplicable before the committee.

Senator March, listening, tabulating and
making notes, began to have a very high admiration
for Colegrove's abilities and even a belief in the
man.  Great corporations, Senator March
knew, are not associations of archangels for the
benefit of the human race, but commercial
organisations, with an eye to profit.  All of this
was taken into account by Senator March in
judging Colegrove and his *confrères*.  One
thing, however, was certain: Colegrove was the
real man who was making the fight.  His
colleagues showed great confidence in him, and it
was plain that he had organised, and was
directing, the campaign.  He had contrived,
however, to arouse the antagonism of certain
members of the committee; the investigation
threatened to become a prosecution, and
Senator March found himself often in the position
of defending, and bespeaking a fair show for,
Colegrove.  The interest of the public in the
railway question was widespread and intense.
The Presidential election was less than a year
off, and the party in power was relying upon
its treatment of two or three great questions,
of which this was one, to secure the next
administration.  In fact, politics entered so
largely into the railway question that many
public men lost sight of justice.  Not so Senator
March.  He had no higher ambition than the
senatorship, and laughed when it was
suggested that he should enter the presidential
race, but swore when he was asked to consider
the vice-presidency.  He was entirely satisfied
with his place as senator, of which he was now
serving his third term, and believed that he
could hold it as long as he desired it.  He had,
in short, reached that lofty height--always a
dangerous point in human affairs--when his
life, his surroundings, his career, everything
satisfied him exactly.  He had no children, and
that alone was a disappointment.

The thought that all his wishes and ambitions
were satisfied came over him one afternoon in
March when he reached his own door.  Alicia
was waiting for him in her splendid victoria,
perfectly turned out in every particular.  She
looked uncommonly handsome, and greeted
him, as always, with the greatest amiability.
Senator March getting into the carriage, they
drove off toward the park.  Alicia wore a
particularly charming white hat, and her husband
told her so.

"I was afraid the hat was too young for me,"
she replied, smiling.

"Not at all," protested Senator March; "a
charming woman is always young.  It is one
of my greatest sources of happiness that you
are not a girl-wife who would drag me around
to tea parties and balls, and not have any
respect for my years."

"Have you had a hard day's work?" asked
Alicia.

"Very.  So much so that I have not been able
to glance at the afternoon papers.  If you will
excuse me, I will look at the headlines."

By that time they had reached the beautiful
wooded park, where, fifteen minutes from the
fashionable quarter of Washington, one can
be in the heart of the woods.  The afternoon
was balmy and the scent of the spring was in
the air; all the earth was brown and green, and
on the southern slopes of the hillsides little
leaves were coming out shyly; already the blue
birds and robins were riotous with song, and
between the interlacing tree-tops, full of brown
buds, the sky shone blue with the blueness of
spring.  The stream, swollen by the melting
snows, rushed and swirled, and the little
waterfalls laughed and danced madly in the golden
sunlight.  The park was full of smart carriages,
automobiles and men and girls on  horseback.

Senator March, taking the newspaper out of
his pocket, adjusted his glasses and began to
read.  Alicia March lay back in her corner of
the carriage, seeing neither her husband nor
the beauty and glory of earth and sky around
her.  It was the old story, she knew not where
to turn for money, and the sum she had spent
and what she had to show for it bewildered
her.  Colegrove, for the third or fourth time,
had demanded copies of certain letters and
documents, and Alicia knew that no money would
be forthcoming until she had secured them.
Colegrove had not become in the least insolent
in his manner; on the contrary, Alicia saw,
with the eye of experience, that he was
becoming more ingratiating.  She even suspected that
Colegrove was after another kind of stake, and
more delicate plunder than legislation
favourable to railways.  She felt a singular and
growing dislike to deceiving her husband.  It was
new to her, and was a part of that strange
dislocation and unreality of life that she should
have scruples.  Formerly she had not known
what scruples meant and had no fears
whatever, but now she was troubled with both
scruples and fears, which bewildered and
tormented her.  If she ceased to hold any
communication with Colegrove it meant a
revelation of her debts, her duns, and complications
to her husband, and if she continued upon the
path in which she had entered a precipice lay
before her.

Alicia March and her husband sat silent for
half-an-hour as the thoroughbred horses,
champing their bits, trotted slowly along the
wooded road.  All at once Alicia glanced at
her husband; his face had turned an ashen
grey, and his eyes, with a strange expression
in them, were fixed upon the newspaper before
him and he was as motionless as a dead man.
Then as Alicia watched him with amazed and
terrified eyes, he glanced at her and silently laid
the newspaper in her lap.

On the front page, with great headlines, was
a double-leaded article of several columns
devoted to Colegrove.  In it was laid bare
Colegrove's whole career, especially his management
of the great railway interests confided to
him.  As Senator March had seen long before,
Colegrove had gained a complete ascendancy
over his associates, who followed his
leadership like so many schoolboys.  Then came the
most singular part of all--the assertion that
Colegrove had got advance information, which
was invaluable to him, through the wife of a
certain public man, and although Senator
March's name was not mentioned, it was so
plainly indicated that it was impossible to
mistake who was meant.  Then came a history of
Colegrove's alleged transactions in stocks for
the benefit of the senator's wife, and many
other particulars, which Alicia had supposed
were known only to herself and Colegrove.
She read the article through rapidly, to the
accompaniment of the steady beat of the horse's
hoofs on the park road and the soft carolling
of the woodland birds.  She felt herself
growing benumbed like a person being paralysed by
inches; when she finished reading the article
she made an effort to speak, which seemed to
cost her all her strength.

"Stop," she said to the footman, and then
turning to her husband said: "Let us walk a
little way in the woods down by the water."

The carriage stopped and the footman jumped
down and assisted Senator March to alight,
and Mrs. March followed him.  The two
walked together into a path which led down
to the water where there was a bench concealed
by some shrubbery.  They both looked so pale,
and Senator March moved so heavily, that the
footman exchanged looks with the coachman
and remarked, putting his finger on his nose:

"Something is up between 'em."

Down by the water Senator March dropped
upon the bench and Alicia seated herself
beside him.

"It is a great blow," he said after a minute,
"a very great blow.  It is the first aspersion
cast upon me or any of my family during the
thirty years of my public life.  It is easy enough
to disprove it, but it is humiliating and terrible
that such things should be said of you and me,
my poor, innocent Alicia."

It was the very phrase which General Talbott
had so often used in Alicia's presence, and it
always moved and touched her, but not as it
did now.  With her father, Alicia had ever felt
a sense of triumph that she had saved him the
knowledge of much that would have maddened
him, but with her husband she felt a strange
impulse to confess all.  She was, however, not
a woman to act on such impulses and she
remained silent, turning her head away.  She
could feel at first the pity in Senator March's
glance, and then by intuition she felt, rather
than saw, her husband's look change from pity
to startled inquiry and then to dreadful
certainty.  Presently he said, in a voice so stern
that she scarcely recognised it as his own:

"Tell me, is it true?  If you will deny it, I
will take your word against that of the whole
world."

It would have been so easy to say "No," and
Alicia could have said it readily enough to
any person on earth except her husband, but
something seemed to rise within her to forbid
the lie, and she remained silent: she either
could not or would not speak.  All around them
was the silence of the woods, and they were
themselves so still that a robin, more daring
than his fellows, hopped close by their feet and
chirruped a sweet little song.  After a long
pause Senator March repeated, in the same
voice:

"Will you not speak?  Am I to believe--"  He
stopped, and Alicia longed to speak, but as
before no words came to her.

She rose as if to walk towards the carriage,
but she swayed so that her husband took her
arm to support her.  Then they went up the
hill and, entering the waiting carriage, were
driven towards the city.  Not a word was
spoken during the homeward drive.  When
they reached the asphalted streets Senator
March directed the coachman to drive to the
smart hotel where Colegrove had a splendid
suite of rooms.  Alicia's trembling heart sank
lower; she thought it a fearful blunder that
Senator March's carriage should be seen at
Colegrove's hotel, but Senator March had
never in his life concealed anything, and he
was too stunned to adopt any of the small
precautions of fear.  When they reached the hotel
he alighted and said with somewhat of his usual
composure to the footman:

"Mrs. March will drive home," and then, lifting
his hat to Alicia, he walked into the hotel.

Entering the lift, the Senator went straight to
Colegrove's apartments.  He opened the door
without knocking and turned into the study
of the suite, and there found Colegrove sitting
at a large table, covered with books and papers,
with a couple of the greatest railways' lawyers
in America sitting with him.  March bowed to
them politely, and then, without sitting down,
said coldly to Colegrove:

"I must be allowed to interrupt these gentlemen
for a few minutes while I speak with you alone."

All three men had risen as Senator March
entered; he was too important a man to be
received with other than the highest respect,
nor did Colegrove make the slightest objection
to leading the way into the next room.  The
light of battle was in his eye, and it was plain
that he was prepared to fight.  After closing
the door he said at once:

"You have, of course, seen the story in the
afternoon newspapers?  Much of it, I need
hardly say, is a batch of lies, a part of it we
have no reason to conceal, and the rest can be
explained.  There is no occasion for anybody
to fall into a panic."

"I didn't come here to discuss that with you,"
replied Senator March, looking fixedly at Colegrove.

"You wish to know about your wife's
transactions with me?" calmly asked Colegrove,
carrying the war into Africa according to his
invariable custom.

Senator March remained silent; he could not
bring himself to put into words what he had
come to ask.  Colegrove went back into the
next room and, returning in a minute, brought
a tin box, which he opened.  Out of it he took
every copy, every paper and letter which he
had received from Alicia March, and every
note in which she acknowledged receiving
money from him.  Then from a little book he
read the statement of every dollar he had ever
paid Alicia March.  The Senator, sitting at the
table with Colegrove, read every piece of
writing in the tin box, then, gathering them up in
his hands, he put them carefully in his breast
pocket.  Colegrove, watching him meanwhile,
prepared to throw himself, with a vigour
acquired in his college days from a good boxing
master, upon Senator March if he attempted to
leave the room without returning the papers.

"To-morrow," said March without a tremor,
"when the Senate is convened, I shall acknowledge
every charge against me.  I shall also
claim that every penny which went out of your
pocket to my wife was paid to me, and I shall
resign my seat in the Senate, telegraphing the
Governor of the State to-night."

"You are a madman!" cried Colegrove.

"It is the sanest act of my life," answered
Senator March.

"There is but one thing to do," persisted
Colegrove, "and that is to deny everything and call
for proof."

Senator March smiled slightly.

"I think, Mr. Colegrove, we have different
standards.  I see in your eye that you mean
to attack me in order to get these letters and
documents.  Well, it would be of no use,
because my confession and resignation will not
call for proof."

Colegrove, for once staggered and at a loss,
allowed Senator March to open the door into
the next room, where the two lawyers stood
talking in low voices.  The moment for using
force was lost and, besides, the Senator's
promise of confession and resignation put so new a
phase on the case that Colegrove was bewildered.





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   XI

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Senator March went downstairs and
passed through the hotel lobby, where
everybody stared at him open-mouthed, and went
out into the streets.  The sun lay low in the
west, and the streets were full of people,
walking and driving.  Many persons turned and
looked at him, some with pity, some with
contempt, some with incredulity.  In ten minutes
he reached his own door; as he entered it he
said to the footman:

"Don't admit any one to-night," and passed
upstairs.

He knocked at the door of his wife's boudoir,
but receiving no answer, entered the luxurious
little room and found it empty, but through
the door leading into her bedroom he caught
sight of Alicia walking up and down the floor.
She had not removed her hat or even her
gloves, and was nervously twisting the handle
of her lace parasol as she walked restlessly
about the room.  The bedroom, if possible, was
more luxurious than the boudoir.  The red silk
hangings, which had once belonged to the
Empress Eugénie, had been paid for, not by
Senator March's money, as he had imagined, but
with money made by the alleged sale of stocks
by Colegrove.  The mantel clock and
candelabra, real Louis Quinze gems, had come
from the same source, as had the great
silver-framed mirror on the dressing-table which
reflected Alicia's pale face.

Senator March entered the room without
ceremony and took from his breast pocket the
packet of letters and documents in Alicia's
handwriting, and handed them to her silently.
She took them in her trembling hands, glanced
at them and then gave them back to him.  His
face, although perfectly composed, had the
same strange greyness about it which she had
noticed as they sat together on the bank of the
stream in the park.  For the first time in her
life Alicia March felt a desire to throw wide
the doors of her soul and make a confession.
She was frightened at the impulse, and would
have restrained it, but her will power, usually
so strong, was as feeble over this impulse as the
hand of a child over a maddened horse.  So
far she had not spoken a word since the
moment, less than an hour before, when the
discovery had been made, but now she burst forth:

"I don't know what to say--he invested some
money for me," she began breathlessly, and
then went on, blundering, stammering and
sobbing, to tell him her transactions with Colegrove.

Her husband heard her incoherent story
through, and when she stopped, panting and
wringing her hands, he remained silent for a
few minutes.  Alicia turned her agonised face
away from him, covering it with her hands.
Presently the Senator spoke in a quiet voice:

"Say not one word of this to any one.  To-morrow
I will acknowledge everything, only
saying that the money was paid to me instead
of to you, and that you are innocent.  I shall
resign my seat in the Senate--I am telegraphing
to-night to the Governor of the State to
that effect.  It is much better for us not to meet
again.  I shall go to my ranch in the Sierras.
I gave you a deed to this house when we were
married, you remember, so it is yours, with
everything in it, except my books, and I will
give you an income to support it and to supply
every reasonable wish you may have, but on
one condition only."

Alicia was looking at him with wide, wild eyes.

"What is that condition?" she gasped.

"That you make no effort whatever to see
or communicate with me again.  I shall leave
this house to-morrow morning, never to
re-enter it."

.. _`"'I shall leave this house to-morrow morning, never to re-enter it'"`:

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   :alt: "'I shall leave this house to-morrow morning, never to re-enter it'"

   "'I shall leave this house to-morrow morning, never to re-enter it'"

He turned and went into his own study, closed
and locked the door.

Alicia's mood of terror changed suddenly to
one of fury.  She had heard of these people
who had no understanding of the temptations
that beset the weaker ones.  Her husband had
decided everything as if she were a child, or
rather as if she had not existed; he had hardly
listened to her stumbling regrets, her sobbed-out
confession.  In one short hour it seemed as
if his love had turned to the bitterest hate.  If
he would but have been reasonable something
might have been done, but without one
moment's hesitation he was sacrificing himself
and her, too.  She threw herself upon the bed,
torn with fury and remorse and a multitude of
emotions, which she could neither control nor
understand.

The servants in the house knew that
something had happened, and when dinner was
announced did not expect either the Senator or
Mrs. March to come down.  Senator March,
however, did so, with the same extraordinary
coolness and courage with which he would have
dined the night before his execution.  The
door-bell had been ringing constantly, and
cards, letters and telegrams had begun to
arrive in shoals.  No one had been admitted,
but half-a-dozen reporters were camped out on
the pavement.

When Senator March's solitary dinner was
over he returned to his study and called up by
telephone his man of business, James Watson,
arranging with him to come at ten o'clock with
his stenographer, prepared to work all night if
necessary.  As the evening wore on, the ringing
of the telephone and door-bells, the delivery
of despatches and letters increased, but only
one person was admitted other than Watson,
who arrived punctually at ten.  About eleven
o'clock an elderly gentleman, whom the
footman recognised as the Secretary of State,
called, and when the footman gave the
stereotyped message, that Senator March asked to
be excused, the Secretary paid no attention to
it, walked across the hall and upstairs into the
study.  Watson and the stenographer rose at
once, and left the floor clear for the great man
and the Senator.

"What about this yarn in the afternoon
newspapers?" asked the Secretary abruptly as soon
as the door closed.

"I have just telegraphed to the Governor of
the State that a vacancy will exist in the Senate
after twelve o'clock to-morrow," answered
Senator March; "I am prepared to confess
everything before the Senate to-morrow and
resign my seat."

"What have you to confess?" asked the
Secretary, "it was your----"

He had meant to say "your wife," but
something in Senator March's eyes stopped him.

"I am the guilty person," he said, looking the
Secretary steadily in the eye, "it is better for
me and better for the party that I should get
out now."

"What do you mean?" cried the Secretary of State.

"Just what I say.  Not a vote will be lost to
the party in the Senate as the state legislature
is ours, but I must go, and go quickly."

The Secretary began an impetuous argument
but presently stopped, saying:

"I fear it is useless for me to reason with you.
A Berserker madness possesses you."

"It is a question of honour," replied Senator
March.

The Secretary of State, who had been walking
about the room eyeing Senator March, went
up to him and offered his hand.

"It is useless for me to remain," he said.  "I
think I know the truth of the business, and
perhaps I should act just as you are acting.
Good-bye."

He grasped Senator March's hand, and the
two men, looking into each other's eyes,
understood perfectly.  If Senator March
had been guilty, as he proclaimed, the
Secretary of State was not the man to offer him a
hand.

Meanwhile, in these eventful hours, at the
White House, and at every other political
centre in Washington, the agitation was
profound, nor was it confined to those who had a
direct interest in Senator March's downfall.
That night there was a large dinner at the
British Embassy, and although the subject of
Senator March was uppermost in every mind
little was said about it, and that with bated
breath.  It was too astounding and not to be
intelligently discussed until Senator March had
been heard.  The general belief was not far
from the real truth.

When the last guest was gone, Sir Percy and
his wife went to Lady Carlyon's own sitting-room.
It was the first moment they had been
alone together since they had seen the startling
news in the evening journal.  As they entered
the room, Lady Carlyon gave her husband his
favourite chair, and drew the lamp shade so
that the light should not vex him--all those
graceful little attentions which are so soothing
to a wearied and perplexed man.  She knew by
intuition what his first words would be.

"It seems to me," he said, "as if I had brought
about this whole frightful catastrophe, as I
introduced Senator March to Alicia Vernon.
But for me, and for my folly and bad conduct
sixteen years ago, Alicia Vernon and Senator
March would probably never have met.  All
the consequences ought to have fallen upon me,
but you see they don't, they fall upon the man
who is the soul of truth and honour, and wreck
him while I sit in peace by my own fireside with you."

Lady Carlyon, being a true woman, would
rather the consequences of her husband's early
misdoing should fall anywhere than on him,
and with a woman's conception or misconception
of abstract justice said so to Sir Percy.
He felt, however, as if the Fates and Furies
had fallen upon the wrong man.  Lady Carlyon
combated this with tender sophistry, which did
not convince her husband.

"At all events," she said, "Senator March is
an innocent man, and can no doubt disprove all
these things.  I should like to hear his
disclaimer.  Would there be any objection to my
going to the Senate chamber, for of course the
matter will be taken up at once?"

Lady Carlyon had not been brought up in a
representative's family without knowing
something of the way things went on in Congress.

"I think you may go," replied Sir Percy.  "Of
course, Senator March is innocent, but it would
be just like him to sacrifice himself for his wife."

"As you or any other man, who is a man,
would do," responded Lady Carlyon.

"Yes; but men are not called upon to sacrifice
themselves for the right kind of women like
yourself, my dainty Lady Lucy," and then they
kissed each other, and forgot for a time all the
troubles and perplexities and remorses of life.

The next morning dawned clear and bright
and soft, an ideal spring morning in Washington.
Alicia March, who had not once lost herself
in sleep through all the miserable hours of
the night, rose early and dressed herself
without her maid.  Throughout the splendid house
was the sombre and intangible atmosphere of
calamity; the servants had read the
newspapers, and knew that disgrace and disaster
were at hand for the master and mistress of
that house.  They were full of curiosity, and
whispered among themselves, speculating upon
their chances of getting new places.

Alicia watched the whole of the early morning
for some communication from her husband in
his locked room, only two doors away from her,
but there was no message or letter.  Senator
March's own brougham always came for him
at half-past ten, and it was the same on this
fateful morning.  Alicia, looking out of the
window, saw some light luggage brought down
and placed upon the box.  She turned to her
desk, and writing a few appealing words, took
them herself to the door of the study and
knocked loudly.  She could hear voices
within--Senator March giving his directions to his
secretary and to Watson, his man of business.
No attention was paid to her, not even when
she thrust the note under the door.  There was,
however, a pause, and she thought perhaps her
husband was reading what she had to say.  She
did not hear another door of the study open and
the three men pass quickly down the softly
carpeted stair, but hearing the bang of the
carriage door, she ran toward the window and saw
her husband drive off alone.  A wild desire
took possession of her to see the tragedy
brought about by herself played to the end.
She rang the bell violently for her maid, and
with great agitation was dressed in the same
simple black gown and hat and thick veil she
had worn when going to Colegrove's hotel in
the winter.  As on that day, she went out as
if to walk, not caring for her carriage to be
seen at the Capitol, and, calling a cab, directed
the man to drive her to the dome-capped
building on the hill.

She had feared being recognised, but when
seeing the surging mass of people, those crowds
of the unknown who year in and year out
swarm through the Capitol, pack the galleries
and block the corridors, who seem strangers
to the town and to each other, she realised that
there was little danger of her identity being
known.  She joined the surging mass, and was
swept onward to the public gallery, where the
crowd was clamouring at the doors and the
doorkeepers were holding them back.  Alicia,
making her way toward one of the doorkeepers,
whispered:

"I am Mrs. March, and desire to go inside."

The man recognised her instantly; he had
often seen her passing through the corridors
on the way to and from the private gallery--Senator
March's wife was too important a person
to be unknown to the Capitol officials.  He
opened the door a foot or two, and, still
keeping the crowd back, passed Alicia into the
gallery.  There was scarcely standing room,
and Alicia was almost suffocated with the
pressure; nevertheless, standing at the very back
of the crowd, she was safe from observation.
She glanced around the great hall with its
grained-glass ceiling through which the yellow
sunlight filtered, casting a mellow glow upon
the scene.  Nearly every senator was in his
seat, and every gallery, even the one sacred to
the diplomats, was filled.  There on the front
bench sat Lady Carlyon.  Never had she
appeared more handsome; she wore a white gown
and a hat decked with roses, and seemed the
epitome of the spring.  She was smiling and
talking to the French Ambassador, who was
leaning over toward her.  To Alicia's miserable
eyes it seemed as if Lady Carlyon were there to
flaunt her happiness, her splendid position, her
youth and beauty, in the face of the storm and
shipwreck which would that day befall Alicia
March and her husband.

It was still half-an-hour before the
Vice-President's gavel would fall, and it was one of
the most painful half-hours in Alicia March's
life.  She cowered behind her neighbours and
dreaded to be seen, while Lady Carlyon seemed
to court the attention of which she was the
object.  Precisely at twelve o'clock the Senate
was called to order and the Chaplain offered
a short prayer.  Just as the prayer was
concluded, Senator March entered the chamber;
except for his deathly pallor, he gave no
indication of what he had undergone, nor of the
ordeal before him.  He walked to his desk and
sat down; every eye was fixed upon him, but
there was some pretence of beginning routine
business.  When he rose and, catching the
Vice-President's eye, asked to be heard upon
a point of the highest privilege, the
Vice-President bowed, and instantly silence like that
of death fell upon the Senate Chamber.
Senator March spoke in a perfectly composed
manner and his voice, though low and
agreeable, had a carrying power which made it
distinctly audible in every part of the vast hall
and galleries.  He alluded to the publication
of the charges affecting him, and then
declared, without a quaver, that there was enough
of truth in them to make it advisable that he
should resign his seat in the Senate, adding
that he had already telegraphed his resignation
to the Governor of the State.  He had nothing
to say in extenuation, and only one thing to say
in explanation; this last was that he alone was
concerned in the A.F.&O. transactions.

"There have been certain innuendos," he said,
raising his voice slightly, "against an innocent
person, a perfectly innocent and helpless
person, whom I now appear to defend.  To bring,
even by implication, the name of this person
into this matter was most cruel and unjustifiable,
and I hereby protest against it with all
my might.  I ask no consideration for myself,
but I demand it for that misjudged and blameless
person who has been attacked under the
cover of the public press.  I leave this chamber
never to return to it; if a lifetime of regret
can atone for what, I now feel, was not the
proper use of my position as senator, these
acts of mine will be atoned.  I can say no more,
and I can say no less."

The whole incident did not occupy five
minutes.  The breathless silence was maintained
as Senator March came out into the aisle and
bowed low to the Vice-President, by whom the
bow was scrupulously returned, and at the
same moment, acting by a common impulse,
every senator rose to his feet; this was
followed by a sound like the waves upon the
seashore, for every spectator in the galleries also
rose, moved by that spectacle of the most
high-minded of men taking upon himself the
burden of another's guilt.

Senator March stopped for a moment and
glanced around the chamber in which he had
had a place for nearly fifteen years.  The great
wave of sympathy and respect made itself
obvious to him.  The colour rushed to his pale
face, and then as suddenly departed, leaving
him whiter than before.  He walked with a
steady step towards the door and the door-keepers,
in throwing the leaves wide for him,
bowed low, a salute which Senator March
returned with formal courtesy.

Then the silence was broken by a faint cry
and a commotion in the public gallery; it was
thought that some one, overcome by the crowd
and excitement, had fainted.  Not so; it was
Alicia March who had uttered that faint cry,
but the next moment she had slipped through
the door and was making her way swiftly out
of the place.  No one stopped her or even
recognised her, and she made her way to the
ground-floor entrance, where Senator March's carriage
was drawn up.  She saw her husband pass out
directly in front of her.  His step was still
steady and his iron composure had not deserted
him.  He entered the waiting carriage, which
was driven rapidly off, and when it was out of
sight down the hill Alicia crept forth and
stepped into the shabby cab, in which the most
luxurious of women had gone, as it were, to
the place of execution.





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   XII

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It took half-an-hour for the decrepit cab horse
to drag the vehicle to the door of the splendid
home which was now Alicia March's alone.  As
she entered she met Watson.

"Is my husband here?" she asked.

Watson raised his eyebrows in cool contempt.

"He is on his way to his ranch in the West,
never to return.  May I see you now for a few
minutes to transact some necessary business?"

Alicia without a word led the way to her own
boudoir, passing the door of her husband's
study.  The desk was clear and already men
were at work packing the books which were
all that Roger March took from the noble
fittings of what had once been his home.  It
was so like removing the paraphernalia of a
dead man that Alicia shuddered as she passed
the door.  Seated at a table in her own rooms,
Watson passed over to her certain deeds,
papers, and a bank-book showing a large sum
of money deposited to her credit at the bank.

For all of these he required Alicia's signed
receipt, which she mechanically gave, understanding
little of the details of business.  When
it was over, Watson rose and took his hat.

"But," said Alicia, dazed and distraught by
all that had passed so quickly, and helpless in
the management of affairs, "what shall I do
with these things?  Will you take charge of
them?  I really don't--don't understand."

"Excuse me," answered Watson coldly, "it
is impossible for me to act further in your
affairs.  If you wish any more information,
and will notify me who is your man of business,
I will consult with him at any time."  And
without saying good-morning, and putting his
hat on in her presence, Watson left the room.

Alicia sat stunned, but dimly conscious of the
indignity and affront put upon her.  She was
of a caste accustomed to all the niceties of
respect, and she had managed to retain them until
now.  She began to ask herself, if she received
such treatment from Watson, what might she
expect from the whole world?  And then there
was an awful sense of loss in the mere absence
of her husband.  Often during the four years
of her last marriage it had seemed to her as if
her husband was the person who put everything
out of joint.  She had her establishment, her
money, her liberty, and could do as she pleased,
which was freely granted her, and life would
have been delightful, but close to her always
was this man before whom she must ever act
the part of a perfectly upright woman.  It was
that which had produced the curious sense of
dislocation and bewilderment which had always
haunted her.  Now that he was gone, however,
the dislocation and bewilderment seemed
greater than ever.  She came of good fighting
stock, and presently she found a little of her
courage, and began to think what was best to
do in order to save herself.  The first thing,
of course, was to have her father come to her.
She wrote out a long and urgent cablegram,
certain to bring General Talbott at once, and
then ringing for a servant, sent it off.  There
would be time enough before General Talbott's
arrival to consider what she should tell and
what should remain unknown.  Then the
thought that Sir Percy and Lady Carlyon must
surmise the truth came to her, and it was
poignant enough to make itself felt even in
those first hours of shock.  She was no more
able to rid herself of the involuntary hold
which Sir Percy Carlyon had upon her than she
had been a dozen years before.  With the
Carlyons, however, she had a strong card to
play in General Talbott, who would soon be
at hand.  She sent for the servants and calmly
informed them that her husband, whom she
called Mr. March for the first time, would be
absent indefinitely, and that the establishment
would be kept up, and they could retain their
positions if their conduct remained good.

In the afternoon Colegrove's card was
brought up to her.  She went down into one
of the vast, silent drawing-rooms to see him.
Colegrove was not pleased at this, and would
rather have seen her in her boudoir, but
nevertheless met her with a smile and debonair
manner.  Alicia looked pale, but her manner
was quite composed.

"I hope you will pardon me for saying that I
am afraid your husband has acted hastily,"
said Colegrove, when they were seated, "but of
course the career of a man like that can't be
closed so suddenly.  All this will blow over in
time, and five years from to-day we may see him
in the Senate again.  As far as I am concerned,
I have lost a good friend, and I shall
now be hounded into retirement, if not into prison."

He smiled as he spoke, showing his white even
teeth, and Alicia could not but admire his cool
courage in the face of what must have been to
him a catastrophe scarcely less than her own.
They were sitting in the embrasure of a
window, and their low voices were lost in the
expanse of the great room.  Nevertheless
Colegrove did not consider it an ideal place to say
what he had come to say.  He said it, however,
glancing through the wide-open doors to see
that no person was in hearing.

"March has accused himself of what no one
believes, but has left you to bear the real
burden.  That is really what his alleged confession
amounts to.  I don't think that you owe him
anything.  If he stays away, as you tell me
he means to, you may claim your freedom at
any time, and then perhaps you will consider
me, who would never leave you as March has
done.  For my own part, I, of course, can get
a divorce any day I choose."

The same strange feeling of indignation came
over Alicia which she felt when Colegrove had
once before made implication against Roger
March.  Still she did not repulse him, who was
the only human being that had voluntarily
come to her that day, and she felt intuitively
that he was the only one who would continue
to come.

"You must not speak of such things," she said
coldly, and rising.

Colegrove rose too.  He had implanted the
notion in her mind that March, after all, had
sacrificed her, and that she was nothing to him.
A new expression came into Alicia's speaking
eyes.  She looked fixedly at Colegrove and then
bent her head in reflection.

"I go now," said Colegrove, "to fight my
battle.  I don't know how, or when, or where
it will end, but if they drag me down I will,
like Samson, drag down all I can with me, and
the crash will be heard from one end of this
continent to the other.  Here is an address that
will always find me."

He lifted her passive hand to his lips, put a
card within it, and went away without another
word.

Alicia spent the intervening hours between
then and a solitary dinner walking up and down
the great drawing-rooms.  She did not give
Colegrove a thought; her mind, agonised and
tormented, was working upon the problem
whether or not March, in the intensity of his
anger, had deliberately sacrificed her.

The sense of fitness and good taste, which
had never left Alicia Vernon, remained with
Alicia March.  She did not run away from
Washington, but, having determined to take up
the attitude of an injured woman, remained in
her house, but in strict seclusion.  Every day
she took the air in a closed carriage, or, heavily
veiled, walked for hours.  She continually met
her acquaintances, who spoke to her coolly and
passed on, and Alicia did the same.  A few
persons, chiefly silly women and foolish young
men, left cards for her, but Mrs. March,
knowing that such backing was a detriment instead
of a help, was excused at the door.  She had
received an immediate response from her
father, who had taken the first steamer for
America.  Within a fortnight from the day
Roger March left his home General Talbott
arrived.  He knew of March's resignation
from the Senate, and Alicia, in the first hour
of her father's arrival, put in his hand the
newspaper which contained the charges and
*The Congressional Record*, with March's
speech, and left him to draw his own
conclusion.  General Talbott read them through
carefully, and then, taking Alicia's hand, said
to her with tears in his brave old eyes:

"My child, you have been singled out for
ill-treatment, and to bear the sins of others.
March's conduct was inherently wrong, but it
showed a cruel disregard of you not to make
some show of fight for his name.  Your father,
however, will remain your steadfast friend."

The presence of General Talbott sensibly
improved Alicia March's position in Washington.
His old friends, of whom he had many, called
to see him, and perforce left cards for
Mrs. March.  Among them was the card of Sir
Percy Carlyon, but no card was left for Alicia,
nor did Lady Carlyon's card accompany her
husband's.  Alicia observed this, but she did
not choose to notice it openly at present.  She
meant that considerable time should pass
before she began an active struggle to regain her
lost position.

Early in May the great house was shut up
and Alicia March and her father sailed for
England.  It was two years and a half before
she reappeared in Washington.  During that
interval no one in Washington heard of March,
except Watson, who received occasional
communications from him on business.  He seemed
to have dropped out of the world; the depths of
the Sierras is a very good hiding-place for a
broken-hearted man.

Those two years and a half seemed to be
unclouded for the Carlyons.  Sir Percy found his
mission exactly to his liking, and his prestige
was steadily increased by his management of
affairs.  It even met with the approval of Lord
Baudesert, who found himself unable to keep
away from his beloved Washington.  Mrs. Chantrey,
whose hopes of being an Ambassadress
had been dashed by Lord Baudesert's
retirement, still cherished dreams of being Lady
Baudesert, and was warmly encouraged in her
aspirations by that wicked old gentleman
during his whole visit to Washington.  Eleanor
Chantrey had remained unmarried.  Her beauty
and her fortune would have enabled her to
make a choice of many brilliant marriages, but
deep in her heart rankled something like
disappointment.  She had not been in love with
Sir Percy Carlyon, but she would have married
him if he had asked her, an attitude of mind
commoner among women towards men than is
generally supposed.  Eleanor was certainly
fitted to be an Ambassadress, but Lady Carlyon
had fitted herself with consummate address for
that lofty position.  Lord Baudesert was openly
delighted at the position which Lady Carlyon
had made for herself.  Her dignity, her
sweetness and good sense had given her also a
prestige which made her backing of the greatest
value.  Every woman in Washington society
whose social and personal record was not like
the driven snow was eager for the support of
Lady Carlyon.  With natural good judgment
and acquired prudence Lady Lucy, as Lord
Baudesert, like Sir Percy, called her, managed
to escape every pitfall.  She could neither be
used, nor worked, wheedled, nor bullied, but
pursued a course inspired alike by good taste
and good feeling.  Her two boys increased day
by day in beauty and intelligence, and Sir Percy
would have reckoned himself among the happiest
as well as the most successful of men but
for the memory of Alicia March.  He was
haunted by the thought, not without reason,
that he was responsible for the tragedy which
had befallen Roger March.  He could readily
imagine the motive which inspired March, and
the thought of him dragged down by his wife's
dishonour, seeking oblivion in the farthest
corner of the continent, was a keen and
ever-present regret to Sir Percy Carlyon.  He had
heard occasionally from General Talbott, who
was abroad with his daughter.  The great
March house remained closed but tenantless,
and Sir Percy surmised that Alicia March
would in time return to the scene of her
greatest triumphs and her deepest humiliation.

The echoes of the great railway scandal lasted
during all of these two years and a half.
Colegrove was not the man to go down without a
terrific struggle.  March's acknowledgment of
the charges and his resignation would have
been too strong for any except the strongest of
men to withstand, but Colegrove, finding
himself with his back to the wall, fought with a
desperation worthy of a better cause.  He had
the money, the courage and the adroitness to
drag everything into the courts, where the
law's delay was a great help to him.  So many
powerful interests were involved that they
made a bulwark around him.  At the end of
the two years and a half he was actually in
much better case than he had been when he had
first been pinned to the wall by his enemies, and
his supply of ammunition had been increased.
He had succeeded, by pouring out money like
water, in enmeshing everybody and everything
in a legal tangle from which no one could see
a way out.  His natural genius for making
money was such that he could always contrive
to make vast sums, and the wonder was, as
with a clever pickpocket, why he did not satisfy
himself with the brilliant success he could have
made legitimately.  Every two or three months
during that time he communicated with Alicia
March.  He had an apparent reason for doing
so, as he represented that the stocks held for
her in his name were always earning dividends,
and every letter contained a cheque.  One of
these letters informed her that his wife had got
a divorce from him.  The poor lady had in
truth been goaded into it.  Alicia March made
no reference to this in the brief replies she
sent to his letters.





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   XIII

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One afternoon in December, nearly three
years after Mrs. March had left Washington,
Lady Carlyon was driving through the fashionable
street in which the March house was situated.
Lord Baudesert, who was on his annual
visit to Washington, was in the carriage with her.

"Look, my Lady Lucy!" he said; "Mrs. March
has come back, like another Joan of Arc, to
defy her enemies.  By Jupiter! that woman is
as brave as Hector and Lord Nelson rolled in
one.  I have heard some pretty stories about her."

Some of these stories related to Lady
Carlyon's husband, but Lord Baudesert gave
no hint of this.  Lady Carlyon glanced out of
the carriage window and saw that the splendid
March house was occupied.  A handsome
carriage, with a pink and white footman and
coachman to match exactly, was standing
before the door, and at that moment Alicia
March, accompanied by General Talbott, came
out and entered the carriage.  Lady Carlyon,
whose eyes were quick, got a brief but complete
view of her.

"She seems quite unchanged," said Lady
Carlyon to Lord Baudesert, "and doesn't look
a day older than when she left Washington."

"How keen you women are about this thing
of looks," replied Lord Baudesert, his black
eyes twinkling under his beetling brows.

"It is you who make us value our youth and
looks so much," said Lady Carlyon in response,
smiling and composed, though all the while her
heart was beating with pain--pain for herself
and for her husband.

"Mrs. March, I see, has brought Talbott with
her, and Talbott's backing, I take it, is worth
that of ten ordinary men with pistols in their
pockets," was Lord Baudesert's next remark.

"Sir Percy can never forget his obligations
to General Talbott," replied Lady Carlyon.

"And Alicia March won't let him forget them
if he would."  Then, catching sight of
Mrs. Chantrey taking her constitutional, Lord
Baudesert halted the carriage, scrambled out, and
was soon promenading up and down Connecticut
Avenue with that eternally hopeful lady, to
her undisguised rapture.  She lamented to Lord
Baudesert Eleanor's hardness of heart toward
the other sex, and Lord Baudesert was lauding
the unexpected good sense of the three Vereker
girls, each one of whom had married a curate,
and could not expect to do any better.

Lady Carlyon, when she reached home, and
was alone with her husband, told him of the
new arrivals.

"You must prepare to meet them," she said
resolutely, "and even to have them to dinner."

Sir Percy sighed heavily.

"What have I not brought upon you, my poor
child?" he said.

"Nothing I cannot bear," responded Lady Carlyon.

Three days afterwards the expected happened--Alicia
March and General Talbott called at
the British Embassy.  They came at an hour
when they were sure to find the Carlyons at
home.  As Lady Carlyon had said, Mrs. March
gave no outward sign of the stress and storm
through which she must have passed.  She and
Lady Carlyon met and talked as do two women
of the world who mutually hate and distrust
each other, but who expect to meet at dinner.
Mrs. March spoke pleasantly of her travels
with her father.  They had spent two winters
in Egypt, and their summers cruising on the
Dalmatian coast, but, after all, she said,
Washington was the most agreeable place of all the
winter resorts she had ever known, and she
had determined to pass her winters there
hereafter.  She did not tell Lady Carlyon of the
strange desire she felt to get back to the same
orbit in which Sir Percy moved, nor of the
equally strange inability she had to forget her
husband.  She had every reason to remain
abroad, where the catastrophe of her Washington
life was little known, and where the prestige
of her father's name was greater and more
general, but that strange instinct which makes
a murderer return to the scene of his crime
will always make a woman like Alicia March
return to the scene of her adventures.

Lady Carlyon said to the General what she
could not very well avoid saying, that she
hoped he would soon come to dine with them,
but named no date.  It required all Sir Percy's
self-control to prevent General Talbott from
seeing how unwelcome his daughter was at the
British Embassy.  Nevertheless, this was
accomplished, and after a longish visit General
Talbott went away feeling that in Sir Percy
and Lady Carlyon his poor Alicia had two
staunch friends.

There was, however, no escape for the
Carlyons for the dinner invitation to Alicia
March with General Talbott, and a few days
afterwards it was despatched and promptly
accepted.  Mrs. March's presence at the British
Embassy did much to re-establish her, for there
were many persons, especially in public life,
who surmised the truth, and that Roger March
was simply lying like a gentleman when he took
the blame upon himself.  The smart set,
however, does not always keep labels on public men
and things, and besides its members have short
memories.  Roger March's name was never
mentioned by his wife or in her presence; Alicia
March took up the attitude of an injured woman
who bears in silence the defection of her
husband; therefore, by the exercise of tact,
courage and industry, knowing where to leave cards
and where not, she found herself steadily
regaining her former position in Washington
society.  When it was getting on best, however,
it was suddenly retarded by the appearance of
Colegrove, and his frequent visits to
Mrs. March.  Alicia knew the world too well not
to understand the risk of any association with
Colegrove.  But Colegrove, himself, had
impressed upon her at his first visit that she must
assume the attitude of a perfectly innocent
woman and not decline his visits.  He had in
him such power of coercing her that Alicia
accepted his views, as most others did when
brought into contact with him.

Alicia never saw him alone--she always had
her father to act as sheepdog.  When General
Talbott was not at home Colegrove was always
informed that Mrs. March asked to be excused.
Colegrove took his rebuffs coolly, and
continued to call during the visiting hours when
he was likely to be seen at Mrs. March's door.
He was in the act of pulling the bell on the
day when Lady Carlyon called to leave cards
on Mrs. March.  Twice afterwards in the same
week Lady Carlyon saw Colegrove evidently
coming from Mrs. March's house, and she
spoke of it to Sir Percy.  The very next day
came a dinner invitation from Alicia March
asking Lady Carlyon to name an evening when
she and Sir Percy could dine with Mrs. March
and General Talbott.  Sir Percy ground his
teeth when Lady Carlyon was writing a
conventional note of acceptance, naming a date
some weeks ahead.

The week before the dinner a note came from
Lady Carlyon saying that Sir Percy and
herself were asked to the White House to meet
a distinguished Englishman visiting the United
States, and must, therefore, ask to be excused
from Mrs. March's dinner.  Alicia replied with
an equally conventional note.  A fortnight later
she called at the Embassy, and with her
sweetest voice and manner asked Lady Carlyon to
name another date for dining with her.  Again
Lady Carlyon named a date.  The morning of
the dinner Sir Percy went into his wife's
boudoir, and after standing silent for a while
with an angry and sombre face, said to her:

"I can't have you dining with Alicia March.
I always hated it, and I find that man
Colegrove is at her house a great deal.  You must
have a headache, cold or something by which
you can excuse yourself.  I will go; I am not
better than Alicia March, but you are ten
thousand times better than she."

Usually Lady Carlyon could reason with her
husband, but on this occasion he was quite
intractable.  Lady Carlyon therefore wrote a
note of excuse and secluded herself for the day,
alleging illness.  Sir Percy went to the dinner,
and found an odd conglomeration of guests,
very much like that collected by the rich man
in the Bible for his son's wedding.  Alicia was
perfectly conscious of the collection she had
made, but bore herself with her usual dignity
and outward composure.  Even General
Talbott, who had felt a secret uneasiness
concerning Alicia's reception in Washington, was
conscious that her dinner guests were of a
somewhat mixed variety, and hinted as much to her
the next day.  He even mentioned that Colegrove's
visits to the house might be misunderstood.
Alicia was of the same opinion.  Colegrove
still possessed for her the interest a
woman feels for a man who is deeply interested
in her, and, besides, Colegrove was the only
man she had ever known who understood her
inability to make any income she might have
meet her expenses.  He never scolded her, but
seemed to think her continual want of money
an amiable weakness.  Nevertheless Alicia,
growing frightened at the changing attitude of
society toward her, wrote a note to Colegrove
imploring him not to come again to see her.
In reply, Colegrove called to ask for an
explanation.  He caught Alicia just as she was
entering the house.  Without waiting for an
invitation, he walked into the great drawing-room,
where their last private interview had
occurred, nearly three years before.

"Of course," said Alicia, when they were out
of hearing, though not out of sight, "you are
trying to compromise me."

"All is fair in love," replied Colegrove calmly;
"you had better let me come openly, and ask
me to dinner."

Alicia would make no promise, but when she
was alone in her boudoir she reflected upon
the strangeness of the American character.
Two Americans loved her; one had made a
stupendous sacrifice for her, and the other was
pursuing her with an ingenuity of persistence,
a handiness of resource, which was new and
puzzling to her English mind.  And then as
women do who know how to think, she began
to consider with a kind of sad wonder why she
could not emancipate herself from the
influence of Colegrove, and from that of Sir Percy
Carlyon, and, what was strangest of all, from
the memory of Roger March, and did not
realise that men only have the art of forgetting.

"No woman, alas! forgets," she thought to
herself, and, rising, went to her husband's
rooms, and, closing the door after her, she
walked about them aimlessly.  Roger March
had done her a fearful injury; such quixotism
as his could benefit no one.  She felt a deep
resentment against him, but that was far from
forgetting him.  In the four years and a half
of her life with Roger March there had been
a continual sense of discomfort; his
personality, agreeable though it was, seemed
perpetually at war with her secret self.  She had
taken him as the necessary adjunct of his
fortune, and she should have been glad to get
rid of him, if only she could forget him.  But
she found herself continually thinking about
him, wondering what kind of existence he led,
and if he ever felt any regret as to what he
had done.  She had thought herself the
coolest-headed and best-balanced of women, but she
seemed, as she grew older, to be losing rather
than gaining her self-possession.

Things had come to such a pass by the end
of the season that Alicia was slipping back
socially.  One thing which she felt necessary
for her to do, if she was to remain in
Washington, was to have Lady Carlyon seen at her
house.  She could not for ever go on giving
invitations which were cleverly evaded.  The
only thing was to seek Lady Carlyon and bring
the matter to an issue.  To do this it would be
necessary to take Lady Carlyon unawares, for
she would certainly excuse herself if
Mrs. March called at the Embassy at an unusual
time, and there would be no chance for her if
she went at the customary visiting hour.  Alicia
therefore watched for her opportunity and
determined to seize it anywhere and at any time.
It came most unexpectedly.

One night she and General Talbott were at
the theatre, and when the first act of the play
was half over Sir Percy and Lady Carlyon
appeared in an upper box alone.  Sir Percy,
after seating his wife comfortably, said a few
words and went out, carrying his hat and
great-coat.  Lady Carlyon, sitting far back in
the box, watched the play and was quite
unobserved by any one in the audience except Alicia
March.  When General Talbott went out of
the theatre after the curtain came down on the
first act, Alicia, seeing the way clear before her,
climbed the narrow stairs to the box and walked
in on Lady Carlyon.  Never did Lady Carlyon
have a more unwelcome guest, or one with
whom she less desired a private conversation.
She greeted Alicia politely, however,
and said:

"Sir Percy will return in a little while.  He
had an appointment for half-an-hour this
evening, and brought me to the play to await him."

"I am very glad," replied Alicia in her sweetest
voice, "that he is absent, because I wish
to ask you a question of the most private nature."

Then she took a chair, and the two women,
each perfect mistress of herself, began the
duello.  "It is," continued Alicia softly,
"whether you have any real objection to
entering my house?"

Lady Carlyon remained silent, and after a
minute Alicia March spoke again:

"I see you have; I may as well speak frankly.
As an Englishwoman, and strangely situated
as I am, I can't expect any recognition if the
British Ambassador, who is supposed to be one
of my oldest acquaintances, and certainly my
father's greatest friend, refuses to allow his
wife, or his wife refuses, to come to my house.
It is not much to ask."

"Sir Percy feels that it is a great deal to ask,"
replied Lady Carlyon, a faint colour appearing
in her usually pale cheeks.

Their voices were so low that not a person,
even those in the next box, could make out what
they were saying.  All over the theatre was the
buzz of conversation, and the brilliant lights
penetrated even the dim interior of the upper box.

"Sir Percy, then," said Alicia after a pause,
"has told you all?"

Lady Carlyon inclined her head silently, her
eyes lighting up with anger as she looked
resolutely in Alicia March's calm face.

"Tell him from me, please," Alicia continued
after a pause, while the two women steadily
eyed each other, "that he may take his choice,
either of sending you to my house or having
that early story between us made known to
certain persons in power.  You know these
Americans are a prudish people, and, ridiculous
as it may seem, the fact of the relations
between your husband and myself in our youth
being made known, and the fact that he has
been at my house and I have been to yours,
would cause an intimation to him that he had
better leave Washington.  You may tell Sir
Percy, also, that your absence from my house
is perplexing and troubling to my father, and
for that reason, if for no other, I mean that
you shall come to my house, or Sir Percy's
diplomatic career in Washington will be ended."

"Sir Percy is not a man to yield to threats,"
replied Sir Percy's wife.  By this time her
cheeks were crimson, but her voice was still
composed.

"These are not threats, but promises.  I grant
you I could not do this except in Washington.
I should be laughed at anywhere in Europe if
I attempted to make known certain facts about
Sir Percy's early life, and I could not do him
the slightest harm, but you see these people are
very different.  Ambassadors have been quietly
notified, before this, that their presence was
not acceptable.  The public are not taken into
the confidence of the people in power,
nevertheless Ambassadors are ruined.  There will not
be a public scandal; if there were my father
would know it, and I believe that he would
shoot himself.  All that I promise will be done
very quietly, but it will be done, if you and Sir
Percy continue obstinate.  I shall be at home
all day to-morrow and shall expect Sir Percy
to call to see me.  Good-evening."

She rose and left the box, and as she passed
through the narrow lobby outside she came
face to face with Sir Percy Carlyon.

"I have just had an interview with Lady
Carlyon," said Alicia March composedly, "and
I shall expect to see you at my house some
time to-morrow."

Sir Percy bowed in silence without showing
the least surprise, and stepped into the box.
Lady Carlyon had taken a chair well at the
front of the box, and with her slender, shapely
arm resting upon the ledge, was in full view of
the house.  Her face was quite calm, but a
deep flush upon her usually pale cheeks showed
Sir Percy that the interview between her and
Alicia March had been of an unusual nature.
Obeying an indication from his wife, Sir Percy
sat also in full view of the audience and of
Alicia March, once more among the audience.
She had reached her seat before General
Talbott's return, and he had no idea that she had
left it during his absence.

"Look, my love!" he said, "there are the
Carlyons.  Lady Carlyon is looking remarkably
handsome and animated to-night.  I think
I will go and speak with them during the next
interval."

Alicia smiled, but said nothing.  It would be
an added torment to the Carlyons to have
General Talbott with them.

When the curtain came down for the second
time General Talbott, as good as his word, went
to the Carlyons' box.  Alicia, from below, saw
him cordially received, and Lady Carlyon, all
smiles and composure, talking with him.  He
left the box just before the curtain went up,
and when the Carlyons were alone Sir Percy
said to his wife:

"Would you like to leave the theatre now?"

"By no means," answered Lady Carlyon
promptly; "we will remain through the play,
and you must wait until then to know what
has happened."

"You are a brave creature, my Lady Lucy,"
responded her husband.

The Carlyons were among the last people to
leave the theatre, and when they were in their
carriage Lady Carlyon told her husband what
had happened.  He heard it in silence and made
no comment.  Later, when they had reached
home and were alone, Lady Carlyon would
have spoken of it again, but Sir Percy stopped her.

"Not any more to-night," he said; "to-morrow
will be time enough."





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   XIV

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Next morning, although it was the beginning
of spring, the snow was falling, and a biting
northeast wind made the day look like one in
December.  Lady Carlyon was sitting in her
morning-room with her two beautiful children
at her knees when Sir Percy entered about
twelve o'clock.  Nothing is so beautiful and
interesting as a young mother with her
children, and Sir Percy, standing on the
hearth-rug, paid his wife the tribute of admiration.
She played with the children and danced about
the room with them as if she were a child
herself.  Sir Percy was not surprised at her
cheerfulness; he had ever found in her that
admirable quality of courage and gaiety of heart in
the presence of danger which is half the battle.
It is commonly observed that this presence of
danger produces in brave men a quickening of
the intellect as well as an exhilaration of
spirits, and it is equally true of brave women.
Lady Carlyon was singularly fearless; her
pride was up in arms.  Alicia March had made
claim to some part and lot in Sir Percy
Carlyon's life, a claim which Lady Carlyon
treated with fine scorn, and Alicia March had
made threats and had assumed the power of
disposing of Sir Percy Carlyon's career.  This
aroused in Lady Carlyon the spirit of defiance.
These things brought smiles to her face, a new
light to her eyes, and a haughtier carriage to
her delicate head.  Sir Percy knew well these
signs.  Presently, however, the children were
sent away and the husband and wife were alone.

"I am going now to see Mrs. March," said
Sir Percy coolly; "I think I may as well give
up the fight.  Alicia March is not the woman
to make idle threats, and she can do precisely
what she says she can.  Besides, General
Talbott has to be considered.  It will be difficult
to keep such an affair from him, and he is one
of these mediæval men, something like March
himself, of whom no one can predict anything
when a question of his own or his daughter's
honour is involved.  I can quietly resign and
go away.  We shall have enough to live upon
modestly, and in some quiet corner of England
we can forget Alicia March, and live for each
other and our children.  It is a downfall for
you, my Lady Lucy, and I am the one who has
brought it upon you."

Lady Carlyon went up to him, laying her hand
on his arm, and said with sparkling eyes:

"Give up the fight, do you mean, and let
Mrs. March drive you from your position?"

"There is nothing else to be done," replied
Sir Percy quietly.  "Think for a moment; I
can't make a fight without making it public.  If
I were alone I shouldn't care for the publicity,
but you--not for twenty ambassadorships
would I bring you into anything like this."

Lady Carlyon dropped her head upon his
shoulder and burst into tears, which wrung his
heart, but did not change his resolution.
Half-an-hour afterwards he was ushered into
Mrs. March's boudoir, where Alicia waited for him.
Sir Percy refused the chair which she offered
him and remained standing, hat in hand.  Alicia
March felt a sense of triumph which glowed
in her eyes; Sir Percy had wearied of her and
had scorned her, but in the end, when he had
reached the height of his ambition, she had
brought him to heel roundly after nearly
nineteen years.

"Lady Carlyon gave me your message," he
said, when the first cool greetings were
exchanged.  "You are quite able to do all that
you have threatened.  If I were alone I should
make a fight, but for Lady Carlyon's sake I
am willing to surrender.  I shall require a few
weeks to arrange matters and to give the Home
Government a chance to appoint my successor,
and then I shall leave the diplomatic service.
That, I think, should satisfy you."

Alicia March remained silent, looking down.
This then was her triumph!  It was not really
what she wanted.  She had desired the greater
triumph of having her way with Lady Carlyon.
After a moment or two she spoke:

"It is a small thing for which you are giving
up your diplomatic career--let me see, you are
not forty-five.  I ask only that your wife come
to my house once in a season."

To this Sir Percy, with a cool smile, made
answer:

"I would prefer to give up the
ambassadorship and retire from the diplomatic service."

His contempt for her pierced Alicia March's
soul, yet she began to have a dim apprehension
of the nature of such men as Sir Percy Carlyon
and Roger March, who could not be moved
from the point of honour.  Then, as there was
nothing more to say, Sir Percy Carlyon bowed
and left the room.  He had not been in the
house five minutes all told.

Alicia drew her chair up to the fireside and
watched the scurrying snow and listened to
the wind clattering wildly under the eaves.  She
did not know whether to feel herself victor or
vanquished.  The time was, only a few years
ago, when she would have glowed with the
beauty and completeness of her revenge--all
women are revengeful, but it is in general an
unsated passion.  Like most things ardently
desired and long delayed, her triumph over Sir
Percy Carlyon had lost its savour.  She would
be no better off if the Carlyons left Washington,
and she felt tolerably sure that the next
Ambassadress would be as equally obdurate
towards her as was Lady Carlyon.  Alicia
March sighed and looked out of the window,
where the fierce blasts tortured the budding
trees, and the tender young grass shivered
tinder the cruel sleet and snow.  Alicia had felt
herself strange in the position of an
honourable, honoured woman, which Roger March
had given her, but she felt more strange and
forlorn when suddenly cast down into the abyss
from which she had been raised.  Pursued by
intolerable loneliness, she returned to her own
room, only to find herself more lonely still.
While she sat in aimless reverie a letter in
Colegrove's handwriting was brought into her.
She looked at it with faint interest, but it lay
in her lap unopened for half-an-hour; then she
broke the seal and read:

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"I have just heard that Roger March has been
mortally ill for months, and is probably dead
by this time.  I must see you soon."

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An hour later the same footman who had
brought the note came to announce luncheon.
Alicia was sitting in the same position, her
eyes fixed upon the open letter.  A strange
leaven had been at work in her mind; an
overwhelming desire to see and be with Roger
March.  Suddenly Sir Percy Carlyon and
Colegrove had become insignificant to her; even her
father was, for once, forgotten.  She rose and
went downstairs, trying to shake from her this
new and strange obsession.  What insanity
would it be for her to go to Roger March!
Almost every penny she had in the world, her
house, her carriages, nine-tenths of her income,
would be forfeited by the least attempt to see
or communicate with her husband.  General
Talbott was awaiting her, and together they
sat down in the gorgeous dining-room to the
small round table which they commonly used
when alone.  General Talbott noticed nothing
out of the usual in his daughter except that
she was rather silent and ate nothing.  Alicia
herself scarcely recognised her own mind and
heart and soul engaged in a conflict with her
own closest and greatest interests.  When
luncheon was over, General Talbott said:

"This wintry weather will keep me indoors for
the afternoon."

To which Alicia replied:

"I, too, shall remain at home and shall not
see any visitors."

She went up to her boudoir, fighting at every
step the impulse within her to take the first
train for the Northwest.  As a bar to her
leaving the house, she rang for her maid and put
on a *négligée* robe and slippers, and lying down
among the pillows of a luxurious sofa, drawn
up to the fire, shut her eyes and tried to sleep.
It was in vain.  Before her came the vision of
her husband, "mortally ill," as Colegrove had
said.  She had never seen Roger March ill in
her life, but she had a prophetic vision of how
he looked, pale and grey, with a gentle stoicism,
a stern patience, and he was alone in an adobe
hut among the far-off hills of the Northwest.
If she went to him he would no doubt repulse
her.  She repeated this to herself resolutely,
and in the act of repeating it rose and dressed
herself, without the assistance of her maid, in
a travelling dress, and put a few things in a
travelling case.  Two voices, each trying to
drown the other, shrieked within her, the one
representing the madness of going to Roger
March, and the other dragging her against
her will.  She rang for her carriage and then,
sitting at her desk, wrote a few lines to her father:

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"I have heard that my husband is fatally ill.
I am going to him, although I lose most of what
I have by it."

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She rang for a footman, gave him the note,
and directed him not to give it to General
Talbott unless she should not return in time for
dinner.  The footman, wondering, carried the
travelling bag down and put it in the carriage.
Alicia, as all human beings do when leaving
their habitat for the last time, walked through
the rooms which, up to that time, had been hers.
They were exquisite in their beauty, luxury and
comfort.  In her bedroom she looked about her,
saying to herself:

"What madness is mine to jeopardise all of
this, or rather to sacrifice it!  I remember so
well how he looked when he told me that if I
ever attempted to see him I would sacrifice
everything but a bare living, and he is a man
of his word."

But even as these thoughts went through her
mind her feet bore her unwillingly towards the
door.  As she entered her boudoir she came
face to face with Colegrove.

"Don't blame the flunkey," he said; "he tried
to stop me, but I walked past him, and he knew
perfectly well that if he had laid a finger on
me I would knock him down.  I saw your
carriage at the door with luggage on it.  Where
are you going?"

"To my husband," replied Alicia in a low voice.

Alicia had expected a strong protest, even
that Colegrove would seek to restrain her, but,
on the contrary, he looked at her with a smile
in his keen eyes and said, as if answering a
question:

"Yes, I have nothing to say against your
going.  If Roger March is living you will lose
every penny you have except a paltry thousand
or so a year; then what I can offer you will
probably bring you to my arms.  Men who
don't know me think I am greedy for money.
So I am, but only to buy with it things more
precious than money.  But I would be glad to
see you sacrifice all the money that Roger
March gave you if it would bring you to me
with nothing but the clothes on your back."

Alicia had listened to him at first with a
preoccupied air, but when his meaning dawned
upon her she turned towards him with a look
which implied that gratitude and respect for a
man which every woman feels when he is ready
to sacrifice money for love.

"So you see," he continued in the same cool,
unmoved voice, "I sha'n't stop you; but I think,
from what I hear, that you won't find Roger
March alive.  Then remember I have a claim
on you, and it sha'n't grow rusty for want of
urging.  If you are ever my wife you needn't
be afraid of telling me of your debts, as you
were afraid to tell Roger March and General
Talbott.  I can live on five thousand a year, and
the rest of what I have is for you to spend, and
when that is spent I can make more.  May I
see you to your carriage?"

Alicia, like a sleep-walker, passed down the
stairs with him.  The thought occurred to her
that Colegrove's passion for her was like her
own early infatuation for Sir Percy Carlyon, a
thing which, rightly directed, might have
reached the sublimest height of self-abnegation.
But in the unfamiliar mood which possessed
her, body and soul, neither Colegrove
nor Sir Percy Carlyon seemed to matter.  Her
mind reverted to Roger March and remained
concentrated upon him.  When she was in the
carriage Colegrove held out his hand and
clasped Alicia's.  She looked at him with
strange and puzzled eyes.  If only he had tried
to keep her back; but, instead, he was rather
urging her on upon the new path she was now
treading.  The footman asked where she would
be driven, and Alicia replied mechanically:

"To the railway station."

In a little while, however, she remembered
that she had not even an idea of Roger
March's address, and changing the order, she
directed the coachman to take her to Watson's
offices.  On the way she was saying to herself:

"This is a dream; it is not possible that I
should really go to my husband; I will turn
back at the station or somewhere upon the long
journey.  This strange spirit will cease to
trouble me; I shall be myself again and will
return."

Watson's offices were in a building not far
from the railway station.  When Alicia March
alighted from her carriage and went into his
rooms, the clerk, a soft-spoken young man,
informed her that Mr. Watson was out, but was
expected to return at any moment.  Alicia sat
down in the comfortable and well-furnished
inner room, the walls covered with books, and
everything bespeaking the successful and
methodical man of business.  She began to
consider that Watson after all might refuse to
give her Roger March's address.  At that
moment her eye fell upon the table, where lay
Watson's address-book; in half-a-minute she
had found Roger March's address.  She had
no need to copy it--she could not have
forgotten it if she had tried.  Then going back into
the ante-room she said politely to the clerk:

"I think I need not trouble Mr. Watson after
all.  Good-day."

When she was in her carriage she looked at
her watch.  There was a train for the West
leaving within the hour.  She drove to the
station, dismissed her carriage, then, buying her
ticket, sat down to wait, feeling that she had
consummated the act of madness.  She
wondered what General Talbott would think of her,
whether she went or whether she stayed.  No
thought of Sir Percy Carlyon or Colegrove
entered her mind.  When the train was called
she found a porter to carry her bag and walked
through the gate.  Then the habit of a lifetime
made one last desperate effort; she walked back
through another gate and called a cab, firmly
resolving to go home.  She got as far as the
door of the station, and then, glancing at the
clock, saw that there was still one minute
before the train left.  She turned and ran the
length of the station through the gate towards
the train, which was just about to move.  The
conductor, seeing her running towards it,
caught her deftly by the arm and put her
aboard, stepping after her himself.  The porter
found her a seat, and Alicia sank into it
breathless and bewildered.

"I may yet turn back," she said to herself.
"It is impossible that this impulse will hold out
long enough for me to reach my husband."

At eight o'clock that evening, as General
Talbott was leaving his room for dinner, the
footman put Alicia's note into his hands.  He was
an old man and things shook him as they had
not done in the days when Sir Percy Carlyon
thought him the most resolute of men.
Nevertheless he maintained enough composure to say
coolly to the servant:

"Your mistress has been suddenly called out
of town, and may be absent a week or two."  Then
he went down to dinner.

When it was over, he did what an Englishman
regards as an act of emergency--went out
for an evening visit.  He rang the bell of the
British Embassy, asked to see Sir Percy
Carlyon, and was shown into the library.
When his card was handed to Sir Percy, who
was taking his coffee with Lady Carlyon in
the drawing-room, he said to her, growing a
little pale:

"It is General Talbott; it would be best for
me to see him alone."

They both thought that this meant another
step in Alicia March's programme to ruin Sir
Percy Carlyon.

Sir Percy went into the library, and as soon
as he had shaken hands General Talbott silently
handed him Alicia's note.  Sir Percy studied
it attentively.  He knew Alicia quite as well
as she knew herself, and was as much
astounded as she was at her action.  Likewise he
was incredulous that she should carry it
through.

"It is four or five days' journey to the region
where Roger March is," said Sir Percy to
General Talbott, "and Mrs. March may change her
mind in the meantime."

"Yes," replied General Talbott, "but did you
ever notice the strange appeal which bodily
suffering makes to a woman?  Anything on
earth might have happened to March, and my
daughter perhaps would have felt no inclination
to rejoin him; but for him to be ill, suffering,
dying, that was too much for her tender heart."

Sir Percy remained silent; he, too, had often,
noticed that few women can shut their ears
to the cry of bodily pain.

"It is very perplexing," was all he could say,
handing the note back to General Talbott.

"I am afraid, my dear fellow," said General
Talbott, smiling a little, "that I am growing
old, for I felt so agitated and disturbed when
I got this note that I was compelled to seek a
friend's companionship.  I will not say
counsel, for there is nothing to do in the matter.
There are circumstances connected with this of
a strictly private nature, which I do not feel at
liberty to mention, so I can scarcely ask for
advice."

"You can, however, be perfectly sure of my
sympathy, and if I can be of any assistance to
you, at any moment, I think you will allow me
the privilege.  Come into the drawing-room
now with me and see Lady Carlyon."

"Please excuse me," answered General Talbott.
"I scarcely feel equal to seeing any one
but yourself this evening," for the recollection
came to him that Lady Carlyon had not been
over friendly to his poor Alicia, and it gave his
honest old heart another pang.

Sir Percy kept him for half-an-hour, then
walked back with him through the silent
streets.  A thin mantle of snow was dissolving
in a ghostly white mist, which rose toward a
pallid night sky in which a haggard moon
shone dimly.  Sir Percy left General Talbott
at his own door and returned to the Embassy.
Lady Carlyon was still in the drawing-room,
and when he entered and told her what had
happened she remained silent and thoughtful.
Presently she said:

"Perhaps there is a regeneration for Mrs. March."

It is not in the nature of men to believe in
the reform of women, and Sir Percy said so,
but Lady Carlyon answered him with the old
feminine plea:

"Her husband is ill, is suffering; she cannot
remain away from him: she is a woman and not
a monster."





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   XV

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The early spring in the Sierras is still winter.
The great masses of snow yield only to the
burning sun of summer, and the air is as sharp
as a dagger so long as the snow lasts.  Black
cliffs, stern precipices and crevices holding cold
and darkness bar out the spring and turn a
stony face towards her caresses.  So thought
Alicia March, as in the wintry dusk she
alighted from the train at the lonely mountain
station.  All around her was desolation.  The
dusk was at hand, but on the far-off horizon a
pale green light still glowed upon the distant
peaks.  Below her lay the valleys, dark, sombre
and mysterious, with here and there a light
from some small homestead showing in the
twilight, and a waving line of sheep, huddling
together as they were driven towards the great
sheepfold.  The only house in sight upon the
mountain side was an adobe hut upon a little
plateau.  It was surrounded by melancholy
cedars and dark and bare-limbed ilex-trees.

"Can you tell me," she said, going up to the
station-master in his little box of an office,
"where Mr. Roger March lives?"

The station-master, a phlegmatic person in
buckskin clothes, answered her by jerking his
thumb over his shoulder towards the open door.

"That's his house," he said--"over there on
the hill."

His eyes fell upon Alicia, and his dull mind,
as little subject to curiosity as interest, was
suddenly moved.  The expression of longing
despair in her eyes penetrated him a little.  He
then surmised the question that Alicia would
have asked but could not.

"Mr. March is living, but in a pretty bad way,
so my wife says; he is a heap better than we
ever thought he would be.  My wife goes there
every day or two to look after him.  He was
mighty good to us when our shack was burnt."

Alicia, without another word, went out and
followed the rude path which led to the little
adobe house.  The station-master made no
comment; he was accustomed to strange
meetings and partings in his remote world.

The night had fallen when Alicia found
herself outside the 'door of the rude little house
where Roger March had hidden his broken
heart.  Long ago the voice of protest within
Alicia had been silenced.  She would have
fought and struggled to have gone to her
husband.  She stood trembling in the dusk outside,
afraid to raise the latch.  Close to her was an
uncurtained window, through which the light
of a fire gleamed.  She stole towards the
window and, looking in, saw Roger March for the
first time since he had repudiated her.  He sat
in a rough wooden chair, drawn up to the wide,
low fireplace; his face was white like that of a
dead man, and his shrunken figure was almost
lost in his clothes.  His eyes alone appeared
to have life in them as he gazed steadily at the
fire.  Sadness, hopelessness and humiliation
were in his gaze, but he was still sentient,
living, breathing.

The first thought that occurred to Alicia was
that he yet had strength enough left to repulse
her.  The evening had grown sharper, and she
stood so long outside the door that the cold
penetrated to the very marrow of her bones,
and it was this, at last, which gave her the
courage to raise the latch and enter.  She opened
the door of the room in which Roger March
sat and then closed it softly behind her, and
going towards her husband, stopped on the
other side of the fireplace some distance from
him.  March raised his eyes and started and
shuddered violently when his glance fell upon
Alicia, almost as pale as himself, shivering with
cold and agitation and involuntarily drawing
near the blazing fire.  He attempted to rise
from his chair, but fell back, unequal to the
effort.  As his head rested against the back
of his chair, Alicia, with downcast head, yet
saw the marks of illness and age and grief in
him, and it brought a pang to her heart such
as she had never felt before in her life.  Her
apparition, so strange and unexpected, agitated
March more than he could bear.  Alicia did not
speak for some minutes, and then she said in
the low, delicious voice which had not lost its
charm for the man who once adored her:

"I came because I couldn't help it.  I heard
that you were ill.  I know you hate me, and I
knew that I would lose all I had if I came, but
something stronger than myself brought me.  I
don't excuse what I have done, but--but I could
not keep away."

March's pallid lips formed one word.

"Colegrove?"

Alicia answered in the same quiet, despairing voice:

"He told me of your illness and reminded me
that if I tried to see you I would lose
everything, but I scarcely heard what he was saying.
I could not keep away.  He overtook me on the
journey yesterday morning and wished to make
me promise if I found you dead that I would
marry him--he is divorced.  I felt such rage
against him--"  She stopped and raised her
hands and clenched them with a gesture which
implied a hatred of Colegrove greater than
any words could convey.  "I never was worthy
of you, but perhaps if it had not been for
Nicholas Colegrove I should not have wrecked
and ruined you as I have done, so it is only just
that I should be wrecked and ruined, too."  Then
she came nearer to him and suddenly
burst into sobs and, clasping her hands, cried:
"Let me stay--let me stay, if only for this one
night.  It is so cold outside, and I know not
where to go.  I never wronged you with
Nicholas Colegrove except about money.  Let me
stay!  Would you drive me out like a houseless dog?"

She had not yet ventured near enough to her
husband to touch him.  March put his thin
hands over his face, his features were
convulsed, but he said no word.  Then Alicia,
laying her hand on the arm of his chair, cried:

"You haven't told me to go away.  You can't
do it.  I will go after a while, when you are
well, but even if you send me away I sha'n't
go very far, and something will always drag me
back to you."

March remained silent.  The wind outside
steadily rose and howled wolfishly around the
little house.  An ilex-tree, which overhung the
roof, was beating fiercely upon it, and its
strong branches tore at the little house like the
claws of a wild beast seeking to destroy it.

No, he could not turn her out like a houseless dog!

Then Alicia, kneeling by his chair, begged and
prayed him to let her stay.  March remained
silent as much from weakness as from the
tumult in his soul.  The wind grew fiercer and
the night wilder.  At last Alicia's hand timidly
sought her husband's.

"If you tell me to go, I will go," she
whispered between her sobs, but he could not tell
her to go.

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A year later, on a beautiful spring afternoon,
Sir Percy and Lady Carlyon were walking
together through the park at Washington.
Never had Lady Carlyon appeared brighter or
lovelier.  Health, happiness and beauty
radiated from her sparkling face and beautiful dark
eyes, and her graceful step and airy movements
were in themselves exhilarating.  Sir Percy,
too, looked like a man whose heart was at rest
as he walked by his wife's side through the
woods in which the mystery of the spring was
unfolding.

"It is just a year," said Lady Carlyon, turning
to her husband, "since you got that strange
letter from Mrs. March.  Remember it was not
I but you who gave up the fight.  Oh, how
much braver are women than men!"

"Yes," answered Sir Percy, "there is a time
when a man is ready to surrender, but I never
saw the time when you, my Lady Lucy, were
ready to surrender."

"Quite true," replied Lady Carlyon, smiling
and glancing at her husband under her long
lashes, "but, after all, wasn't Mrs. March
braver than I?"

"Perhaps so," answered Sir Percy.  "She is
altogether the strangest woman I ever knew.
I had thought her one of the worst, yet behold
she has buried herself in the wilderness with
March, has given over all that once seemed
essential to her, and has cried quits with the
world."

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The spring in the Sierras was not so far
advanced as in Washington, but the sun shone
bravely and the birds, who rested under the
southern eaves of the little adobe house on the
mountain-side, flashed back and forth merrily
in the clear, blue air.  The place had undergone
the subtle change which a woman's presence
makes everywhere.  Another room or two and
a rude veranda had been added to the
original structure.  Blooming plants at the open
windows leaned their bold, pretty faces to the
sun; a table on the veranda held magazines and
books, and a woman's shawl was thrown over
the back of a rustic chair.  A little dog--a
woman's dog--was racing gaily up and down
the sunny plateau on which the little house
stood.  All around was the serene stillness of
the mountains and far below in the valleys
could be heard through the thin, sharp air the
tinkle of a sheep bell and a faint echo of the
herdsman's voice.  Standing in the golden glow
of the sun was Roger March.  He had a book
in his hand, but was not reading it, and looked
towards a little garden which had been made on
the southern slope of the hillside.  A woman in
a garden hat was kneeling down before a bed
of violets picking a few blossoms which had
dared to show their downcast faces to the rude
world.  Roger March strolled towards the
kneeling woman, who rose and met him half
way, holding out her hand filled with violets.
It was Alicia.

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