and her child-like face became a
shade paler than before. Marguerite took her hand and gave it a kindly
pressure. Juliette Marny, but lately come to England, saved from under
the very knife of the guillotine, by a timely and daring rescue, could
scarcely believe as yet that she and the man she loved were really out
of danger.

"There is Monsieur Deroulede," said Marguerite after a slight pause,
giving the young girl time to recover herself and pointing to a group of
men close by. "He is among friends, as you see."

They made such a pretty picture, these two women, as they stood together
for a moment on the green with the brilliant September sun throwing
golden reflections and luminous shadows on their slender forms.
Marguerite, tall and queen-like in her rich gown, and costly jewels,
wearing with glorious pride the invisible crown of happy wifehood:
Juliette, slim and girlish, dressed all in white, with a soft, straw
hat on her fair curls, and bearing on an otherwise young and child-like
face, the hard imprint of the terrible sufferings she had undergone, of
the deathly moral battle her tender soul had had to fight.

Soon a group of friends joined them. Paul Deroulede among these, also
Sir Andrew and Lady Ffoulkes, and strolling slowly towards them, his
hands buried in the pockets of his fine cloth breeches, his broad
shoulders set to advantage in a coat of immaculate cut, priceless lace
ruffles at neck and wrist, came the inimitable Sir Percy.

Chapter V: Sir Percy and His Lady

To all appearances he had not changed since those early days of
matrimony, when his young wife dazzled London society by her wit and by
her beauty, and he was one of the many satellites that helped to bring
into bold relief the brilliance of her presence, of her sallies and of
her smiles.

His friends alone, mayhap--and of these only an intimate few--had
understood that beneath that self-same lazy manner, those shy and
awkward ways, that half-inane, half-cynical laugh, there now lurked an
undercurrent of tender and passionate happiness.

That Lady Blakeney was in love with her own husband, nobody could fail
to see, and in the more frivolous cliques of fashionable London this
extraordinary phenomenon had oft been eagerly discussed.

"A monstrous thing, of a truth, for a woman of fashion to adore her own
husband!" was the universal pronouncement of the gaily-decked little
world that centred around Carlton House and Ranelagh.