Senator March looked at her with secret pity. He thought what a nasty freak of Fate it was that this exquisite creature should want what he would so easily have given her, but could not. Alicia Vernon, with a woman’s subtlety, noticed and liked this attitude of the American toward women--the eternal readiness to give. It was distinctly different from that of the Englishman, who is strictly just to his womankind, but is not expected to be generous, and the normal woman hates justice as much as she loves generosity. Alicia, with a sigh, recalled the storms concerning money in which her married life with Guy Vernon had been passed, and the laborious subterfuges which she was forced to employ to keep her father from knowing the exact state of her finances. And here were two Americans, strangers to her, and with oceans of money, who were as ready to give it to a wife as they would give sugar-plums to children! Colegrove determined to see more of his charming _vis-à-vis_, and went up boldly to General Talbott and asked permission to call on him. General Talbott, the kindliest of men under his English reserve, cordially invited him. It was a remarkably pleasant dinner to everybody, with one exception--Sir Percy Carlyon. His pride, his self-respect, his self-love, suffered cruelly every moment that Lucy Armytage was in the company of Alicia Vernon. He had taken Lucy in to dinner, and he could not but see the advance she had made, even in the short time, in tact and self-possession. Not a self-conscious word or look escaped her as she sat talking charming nothings to the man whose lips had been upon hers only the night before, and no one would have dreamed that Sir Percy Carlyon was upon any different footing with her than any other woman at the dinner. The next week was the week of Grand Opera. Senator March took a box for the whole week, and three nights during that week Alicia Vernon and her father were his guests. As Mrs. Vernon sat in the shadow of the box, listening to the enchanting voice of one of the greatest tenors in the world, it dawned upon her mind how privileged was the position of an American woman where men were concerned. The social customs, which permitted men to lie almost at the feet of a woman, were entirely new to her, and when this was done with the tact and high breeding of Senator March, he appealed to the craving for luxury in her which had been her undoing. He had asked her to name which operas in the week’s repertoire she would like to hear, and when she had made her selection he called in his carriage for her and her father, and she found a beautiful bouquet waiting for her in the opera box and a supper after the performance.