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 Boheme_. 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 AEneas 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 Francois Coppee 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!"
[Illustration: "'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.
*VI*
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.