“I knew him well,” was the answer made as soon as readjustment was possible.
“Remember just how he looked?”
“Perfectly. He was a striking fellow. Women always said he had fascinating eyes.”
“Sort of slant downward on the outside corners—and black eyelashes sort o’ sweeping together?”
Palliser turned with a movement of surprise.
“How did you know? It was just that odd sort of thing.”
“Miss Alicia told me. And there’s a picture in the gallery that’s like him.”
Captain Palliser felt as embarrassed as Miss Alicia had felt, but it was for a different reason. She had felt awkward because she had feared she had touched on a delicate subject. Palliser was embarrassed because he was entirely thrown out of all his calculations. He felt for the moment that there was no calculating at all, no security in preparing paths. You never know where they would lead. Here had he been actually alarmed in secret! And the oaf stood before him undisturbedly opening up the subject himself.
“For a fellow like that to lose a girl as he lost Lady Joan was pretty tough,” the oaf said. “By gee! it was tough!”
He knew it all—the whole thing, scandal, tragically broken marriage, everything. And knowing it, he was laying his Yankee plans for getting the girl to Temple Barholm to look her over. It was of a grossness one sometimes heard of in men of his kind, and yet it seemed in its casualness to outleap any little scheme of the sort he had so far looked on at.