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 Vigee 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.
*IV*
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 naivete 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.