"You are quite right; socially American customs are extremely pleasant. They embody liberty without license."
"I agree with you from what I have seen."
As General Talbott spoke, Sir Percy observed in him a cheerfulness and note of pleasure in his voice which always followed when Alicia seemed to be at ease and a little happy.
Sir Percy Carlyon left early on the Monday morning and returned to Washington in advance of the rest of the party. It was still some days before Lucy Armytage arrived from Kentucky. At their first meeting afterwards Lucy asked no questions whatever about Senator March's house-party, and the delicate reticence which she showed on this point was not unnoticed by Sir Percy, who volunteered to tell her all of which he could speak. He did not avoid Alicia Vernon's name, but whenever he spoke of her Lucy saw that peculiar expression of his eye which indicated dislike. She asked, however, a great many questions about Senator March and then said:
"I wonder if Mrs. Vernon will marry him when he asks her."
Sir Percy was thunderstruck; no such idea had entered his thoroughly masculine mind, and after a moment he said so.
"How stupid!" remarked Lucy, eyeing him with profound contempt. "It was perfectly obvious the first night they met. Everybody in town is talking about it."
"They are?" replied Sir Percy after a moment, and then quickly turned the conversation into another channel.
Meanwhile his mind was in a tumult. Alicia Vernon married to Senator March, or to any man of honour, for that matter, and Senator March, chivalrous, high-minded, taking everything for granted in the case of the woman he loved! It was staggering to Sir Percy Carlyon; the whole thing was anomalous, inexplicable. But for him Senator March and Alicia Vernon would never have met. His mind went back to those early days in India: how the web then formed not only entangled him, but caught others, innocent and helpless, in its meshes. He would be forced to stand silently by and see a man who loved his honour better than his life take to his heart a woman unworthy of him. This thought possessed Sir Percy, and brought with it the fiercest stings of remorse. He went about that day with a strange sense of unreality concerning everything. Alicia Vernon might indeed have married even an honourable man, but to see a man as proud and sensitive as Senator March lay his honest, tender heart at the feet of Alicia Vernon was an incredible thing to Sir Percy Carlyon. That evening at the club the first person he saw in the smoking-room was General Talbott.
"I am very glad to have come across you this evening," said General Talbott. "I wish to speak with you confidentially. How are marriages arranged over here?"