Thanks to this extraordinary generosity on General Talbott's part, Sir Percy's efforts had received prompt recognition. His first two years in India were brilliantly successful, and marked him as a rising man among his fellows. From that time onwards he had been what is called lucky--that is to say, when two courses were opened to him he took the sensible one. After a brief but distinguished service in India he was transferred to the diplomatic corps, and good fortune followed him.
But the greatest stroke of his life had come two years before, in the Balkans, that line upon which, as Lord Beaconsfield said, "England fights." The Foreign Office happened not to be as judicious in a certain juncture as its young representative; in fact, the Premier committed the most astounding blunder, which, if it had become known, would have sent him out of office amid the inextinguishable laughter of mankind. This blunder, however, was known only to four persons--the Prime Minister himself, his private secretary, a telegraph operator and Sir Percy Carlyon. What Sir Percy did was to wire back to the head of the Government:
"Message received, but unintelligible owing to telegraph operator's ignorance of English."
Then he proceeded to act upon his own account. Three days later the Russian envoy was on his way to St. Petersburg on an indefinite leave of absence and Sir Percy was domiciled with the reigning sovereign at his country place, and was in the saddle to stay.
Six months after he had an interview with the Prime Minister. Not much was said, but Sir Percy was asked in diplomatic language to name what he wanted. He named it, and it was to be First Secretary at Washington when his promotion was due, then service at some smaller European court as Minister, and to succeed Lord Baudesert on his retirement.
The Prime Minister was not startled at the proposition. He knew Sir Percy to be a man of lofty ambition and not likely to underrate himself. The scheme, moreover, had in it elements of fitness and common-sense. The Prime Minister was heartily tired of gouty old gentlemen in great diplomatic positions, and thought it rather a good idea to make a man an Ambassador before he got too old. Besides, nothing that Sir Percy Carlyon could have asked in reason would have been too much, considering from what the Premier had been saved. So it was arranged that he should go to Washington as First Secretary, and the rest of the plan was likely to be carried out even if there should be a change in the party in power. Eighteen months afterwards the appointment was made and the first step in the programme taken.
In looking back upon his career, Sir Percy saw nothing but good fortune--great and exceptional good fortune; so much so, that he began to ask himself whether, like the old Greeks, a price would not be demanded from him for all that had been given him. The idea, however, was unpleasing, and he began, Alnaschar-like, to plan what he should do when he became Ambassador. Then a thought stole into his mind which made his somewhat grim face relax; there ought to be an Ambassadress. He could see her in his mind's eye, a beautiful, stately English girl, looking like the elder sister of the tall, white lilies. She must be grave and dignified, and very reticent--a talkative Ambassadress would be a horror. He would like her to be of some great English home. Himself one of the best born men in England, he had a fancy, even a weakness, for distinguished birth. He had a strong prejudice against members of the diplomatic corps marrying outside of their countries, and especially he disapproved of diplomats rushing pell-mell into marriage with American girls. He had known a few of these feminine American diplomatists in his time, and there was not one he considered well fitted for her position. Most of them talked too much; and all of them dressed too much. Then many of them had shoals of relatives, whom they insisted on dragging around with them to the various European capitals, and these relations generally involved them in social battles which were anything but dignified. On the whole, Sir Percy had fully made up his mind to marry none but an Englishwoman.
By the time he had reached this point in his reverie he was striding fast through the woods in the bitter winter dusk towards the town. Suddenly a woman's face, like a face in a dream, passed before his mind. The thought of her brought his rapid walk to a dead stop, like a dagger thrust into his heart. The image of Alicia Vernon rose before him--Alicia, who was tall and fair, and had a flute-like voice and the deepest and darkest blue eyes he had ever seen--Alicia, the only child of the man who had befriended him more than all the men in the world--General Talbott.
True, he had been but twenty-six years of age when he met Alicia, who was two years his senior. True, that older and stronger men than he had succumbed to her beauty, her charm, her courage, her fitness, and her wantonness. Not one of them, however, but had better excuse than himself, so thought Sir Percy, his eyes involuntarily cast down with shame.
When he first met her, Alicia was already married to Guy Vernon, weak, worthless and rich. Sir Percy remembered, with a flush of self-abasement, how ready, nay, how eager, he had been to listen to the plausible stories Alicia told him of Guy Vernon's ill-treatment and neglect of her. But she had omitted to mention that she had squandered half of Guy Vernon's fortune within the first three years of their married life, and had compromised herself with at least half-a-dozen men since her marriage. True, also, that Alicia and Sir Percy were at a lonely post among the hills on the Afghan frontier, and that he and Guy Vernon's wife had been thrown together in an intimacy impossible anywhere else on the face of the globe. True, again, was it that Alicia Vernon's flattery had been insidious beyond words. Money was what she had heretofore required more than anything else on earth except the enslavement of men. Sir Percy's fortune, however, was only a modest patrimony, which would scarcely have sufficed for six months for what Alicia Vernon considered her actual needs.
As she had in reality seduced Sir Percy's honour, so, in a way, was she herself seduced by his powerful intelligence, by his brilliance and by his success, which, with a woman's prescience, she felt sure was only the presage of greater things. She inherited from her father a clear and trenchant mind, and she readily foresaw that the time would come when this young Indian civil servant would be heard of by all his world. She, however, was his first courtier.
It was impossible that a woman so gifted, so complex, so courageous as Alicia Vernon should not have at least one virtue in excess. That was her love for her father. False she was to him in many ways, but true she ever was in love of him. By the exercise of all her intelligence, and by eternal vigilance, she had succeeded in making General Talbott believe her the purest, the most injured woman alive. He always called her "my poor Alicia," and hated her husband with a mortal hatred, thinking him to have injured the gentlest and sweetest of women.
Sir Percy's infatuation for Alicia Vernon lasted but a few months, and, through Alicia's woman's wit, was unsuspected by the world, least of all by General Talbott, who adored his daughter. Then Sir Percy awoke once more to honour, and pitied the woman and hated himself for the brief downfall.
It is not every man who beats his breast and throws ashes on his head who is a true penitent. But no man felt bitterer remorse for his wrongdoing than did Sir Percy Carlyon. He applied the same judgment to himself that he did to other men, and while reckoning his fault at its full wickedness, also reckoned that sincere penitence was not entirely worthless. He had lived his life to that time of remorse in cheerful ignorance and a silent defiance of the Great First Cause; but upon the darkness of his soul stole a ray of light. He began to believe a little in a personal God, a father, a judge and a school-master who required justice and obedience of mankind. Sir Percy became secretly a religious man. He did not go to church any oftener than before, nor did he take refuge in Bible texts, but the prayer of the publican was often in his heart, "God be merciful to me a sinner."
After a pause of a minute or two he resumed his quick, swinging walk. The December night was upon him, although it was not yet six o'clock, and he had still five miles to tramp before reaching Washington. That night the initial ball of the season was to be given at the British Embassy, and Sir Percy was, for the first time, to see the kaleidoscopic Washington society. His rapid walk stimulated him and enabled him to put out of his mind that painful and humiliating recollection of his early lapse, which