It was a piteous sight to see her with clasped hands and the glory of an undying hope in her eyes and voice. To make her believe that the end had come long since between Sir Percy Carlyon and herself was like fighting a shadow. The resolve took possession of Sir Percy to tell her of Lucy Armytage, and then she might realise the inevitable.
"We will speak no more of the past," he said, "and I will tell you what has happened in the present. I have met a woman whom I truly love, and she has promised to marry me."
Alicia Vernon turned deathly pale, and stood looking at him with eyes like those of Dido when she saw Æneas sail away from her. She walked steadily to the window and looked with unseeing eyes at the glory of red and gold in which the sun was sinking. Sir Percy Carlyon, standing where she had left him, had to battle with his common-sense. Reason told him that he had done this woman no injury--rather she had injured him--and although Alicia Vernon's protestation of love for him carried with it conviction of truth, it had not kept her in the straight path. Nevertheless he felt as if he had struck her a physical blow. Presently she came from the window towards the fire, and said to Sir Percy what any woman of forty would say:
"The girl you love is young?"
"Yes."
"That is the way of the world," cried Alicia--"youth is everything. What is it François Coppée says? 'There is nothing for women but a little love when they are young.' I ask, however, one thing of you. You can scarcely refuse it." Sir Percy remained silent. He did not refuse it, but he was too much on his guard to promise it. "Only this, let me see this woman whom you prefer to me. You think it childish? Very well; all women have something of the child in them."
Sir Percy went towards the door, and his face, already dark and flushed, grew still darker. Alicia came up to him and said with pleading in her voice:
"You can't suppose that I would let her suspect anything? I think I have shown that I know how to keep the secrets of my life. I would hardly be so foolish as to betray myself to this girl who has succeeded where I have failed."
Then came one of the most exquisitely painful moments of Sir Percy Carlyon's life. The thought of bringing Lucy Armytage into the same room with Alicia Vernon filled him with rage and shame. Rather than see Lucy Armytage become what Alicia Vernon was he would have killed her with his own hand. Something of this dawned upon Alicia's mind as she looked at him. It flashed from her eyes and burst into words.
"It is the old story. You are worthy to marry her, but I am not worthy to speak to her. Oh, what a world it is!"