They talked together a few minutes, and then Lucy and Colonel Armytage passed on to the cloak-room. When Lucy Armytage was gone the crowded rooms seemed empty to Sir Percy Carlyon. He walked home through the still and quiet streets at midnight and then smoked savagely for an hour before his study fire. No man was ever more surprised, annoyed and chagrined than was Sir Percy Carlyon to find himself bewitched by this captivating, provincial girl, and one amazing thing had happened--she had driven away the image--the hateful image--of Alicia Vernon. Alicia was the only woman who had ever deeply impressed herself upon Sir Percy Carlyon, until he met Lucy Armytage. There was warfare between these two ideals. It seemed to Sir Percy as if Alicia’s wantonness had, in a way, cast a shade over all women. If a creature outwardly so modest, so refined, so high-bred, could be at heart a wanton, how could he ever believe in the purity of any woman’s heart and mind? He dallied with the false suggestion that, if a woman were dull, she might be good, but if she were clever, her mind might range afar into the forbidden paths. Lucy Armytage, however, from the moment he met her, seemed to restore his shattered ideal of women. He had not reasoned, and could not reason, upon this, but he felt deeply the strong, unconscious and unacknowledged influence of this girl. Sir Percy, sitting before his fire, repeated to himself that, in spite of Lucy’s charm, there was every conceivable reason why he should not seek to marry her. She was an American to begin with, she had never seen a European capital, she was not a linguist, and her only accomplishment, as far as he had seen, was that of dancing, which was scarcely what an Ambassadress, as his wife would become, would find the most useful accomplishment in the world. He was a poor man for his position, and there was no indication that Lucy had a fortune. Then it suddenly occurred to him that, even if he gave rein to his passion, Lucy might scorn him. She had not been trained to appreciate what he had to offer, and she might classify him with Stanley and the other youngsters whom he had seen dancing attendance upon her.