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.

Not that Sir Percy Blakeney was unpopular with the fair sex. Far be it
from the veracious chronicler's mind even to suggest such a thing.