When the men returned to the drawing-room Lucy Armytage and Eleanor Chantrey were standing together on the hearthrug and talking with animation. Eleanor was resplendent in her beauty, but to Sir Percy Carlyon the slim, black-haired Lucy Armytage seemed to outshine her as a scintillant star, set high in the heavens, outshines the great, round, common-place moon. Later, driving back to the Embassy in the big, comfortable coach, Lord Baudesert said to Sir Percy: "Magnificent girl, Miss Chantrey. She has everything: beauty, breeding and fortune. If she were not an American I should advise you to pay your court in that direction." "But she is an American," replied Sir Percy, laughing, "and that is the unpardonable sin, according to my view of a diplomat’s career." That day two weeks Sir Percy Carlyon found himself at Senator March’s country place for the week end. The party was small but brilliant. Eleanor Chantrey, her mother and Lucy Armytage were the only ladies. Their amusements were simple, and consisted chiefly in the enjoyment of the country, open in winter, after a siege in town. Young Stanley, a personable, pleasant fellow, was among the guests, and his frank adoration of Lucy Armytage made everybody smile, except one person, the other man who was in love with her--Sir Percy Carlyon. Sir Percy was too well trained and well balanced to show the chagrin he felt and the Fates, and the exigencies of a house party, threw him more with Eleanor Chantrey. He was forced to admire her, but his admiration was cool and discriminating. On Eleanor’s part sprung up a strong admiration for Sir Percy Carlyon. She was not incapable of love, but her will and intellect were always dominant over her heart. And then the daughter repeated her mother’s dream of ambition, marked, however, by the enormous difference between the dream of a woman and the sense of a simpleton. Her beauty, her intelligence, her wealth, her prestige, had inspired her with what Sir Percy called "the princess attitude of mind," which looks around and chooses the man upon whom to bestow her hand. Sir Percy Carlyon was well fitted to please her, and she understood perfectly the really splendid position which would be his in time. She knew, also, he was a man of small estate, and it occurred to her, in her half-laughing, half-serious speculations, that her fortune would be well applied in maintaining the position of an Ambassadress. The idea that if she should indicate the slightest preference for Sir Percy she could not bring him to her feet did not occur to her. Her imagination, stimulated by her ambition, took hold of her, that Sir Percy would be eminently suitable for her, and she played with it, as women of the world do with such ideas quite as much as the veriest country lass.