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.