On the afternoon before the party broke up a walk was proposed. As the case always is, the party paired off, and Eleanor Chantrey considered herself ridiculously mismated with Stanley, who was equally dissatisfied. Sir Percy Carlyon found himself walking with Lucy Armytage through the winter woods in the red February afternoon. The dead leaves were thick underfoot and drowned the sound of footfalls. Unconsciously the two voices grew low, and it was like the fulfilment of Sir Percy’s dream. An impulse, stronger than himself, made him try all his powers on this girl, with her innocent guile, her unworldly coquetry. Suddenly he found she vibrated to him as a violin answers the bow. That was too much for the resolution of Sir Percy Carlyon, or for any other man with red blood in his veins. They were the last to return, and at dinner that night Lucy Armytage’s usually pale cheeks were flooded with a deep colour. She had promised to be Sir Percy Carlyon’s wife. *V* Sir Percy Carlyon’s mystification with his American _fiancée_ began within twenty-four hours of the time she had given him her first kiss. "Above all things," she said earnestly, as they were supposed to be exchanging commonplaces in the train, "nothing must be said of this, not one word to a soul. After a while I will break it to my uncle and aunt." Sir Percy stared at her, and wondered whether he were dreaming or she raving. He expected, after the English custom, to announce the engagement immediately to Colonel and Mrs. Armytage, and what did Lucy mean by "breaking" it to them? His name, his position and his prospects were such that the greatest match in England might not have been reckoned unequal for him, and here was a girl from Bardstown, Kentucky, who proposed to wait for an auspicious moment when she could "break" this direful news to her aunt and uncle! Something of his involuntary surprise showed in his face, and Lucy studied it gravely and then suddenly laughed. "I see," she whispered, "you don’t understand. This is _our_ secret: the world has nothing to do with it." "I thought," answered Sir Percy, infatuated, but still retaining some of the vestiges of conventionality, "that marriages were quite public affairs. One has to get a license and be married in church." "But this isn’t being married," explained Lucy; "this is only being engaged." Then the two looked at each other with adoring but uncomprehending eyes. Lucy’s woman’s wit, however, came to her rescue. "I think," she said gravely, "that perhaps you know more about the ways of the world than I do, and, after all, there are other ways than those of Bardstown, Kentucky. So that it shall be as you wish."