VIIIIn 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 thefiancéeof 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.IXFour 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."
VIII
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 thefiancéeof 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.
IX
Four years and a half afterwards, on a mild, sunny December afternoon, Senator March, whilst walking through the still fashionable, fine old street in which his house was, saw a beautiful victoria, superbly horsed, drawn up to the sidewalk. In it sat a lady and gentleman, whom he instantly recognised as Sir Percy Carlyon, recently appointed Ambassador to Washington, and Lady Carlyon. They had stopped for a moment to speak to two beautiful little boys, three and two years of age, in the care of a stately nursemaid and her assistant. Senator March's eyes rested with longing upon the charming little children. He was passionately fond of children, and they were the only gift of Heaven which seemed denied to him. When the nurse moved away with her charges Senator March stepped up and grasped Sir Percy's hand, and then Lady Carlyon laid her little white-gloved hand in his.
"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."