Alicia Vernon, lying back in the depths of a deep arm-chair, sat quite still, looking straight before her. From the street below came the sound of voices, of traffic; outside her window black and white sparrows were wheeling and chattering, and a linden tree in full leaf close by the broad window waved softly in the breeze, making delicate green shadows pass over the room and Alicia’s pale face. The phase of existence on which she had entered was as strange to her as if it were that of another planet. Senator March’s offer of marriage had not taken her by surprise; she had seen it coming for weeks and had made up her mind from the first to accept it. Nevertheless, when it came she was overwhelmed with the strangeness of her new position. Of all of those who had ever made love to her, he was the first man who believed her to be the soul of truth and purity. It produced in her a faint stirring of a wish to be a little like what Roger March thought her to be. If only she could put Sir Percy Carlyon out of her mind! But his presence, when he came to tell her of his engagement to another woman, had agitated her more than Senator March had been able to do, even in the moment of asking her love. Suddenly the door opened, and a boy ushered in the person farthest from Alicia Vernon’s mind at that moment--Nicholas Colegrove. His personality was so strong that he could not come and go anywhere unnoticed. The sight of his handsome, iron-grey head, the grasp of his firm hand, brought Alicia Vernon to her feet and dispelled instantly the strange, benumbing dream into which she had fallen. Colegrove was saying in his rich voice: "I took the liberty of a friend, albeit a new one, in coming to offer you my felicitations on what I heard this morning." Alicia Vernon, now quite herself, smiled and thanked him prettily and asked him to be seated. "Marriage is a very different thing between men and women and between boys and girls," he said in a tone of good-humoured cynicism. "When a full-grown man and woman marry, I have often noticed they assume a defensive attitude, one to the other; it is best in the long run. Of course, they don’t admit it--everything in this blessed country is on the basis of the slightest sentiment--but it is a fact just the same." Alicia smiled and answered: "I don’t think that American men have ever been on the defensive with women."