Patricia spoke the truth. By supper-time Lichfield had so industriously
embroidered the Stapylton dinner and the ensuing marriage with
hypotheses and explanations and unparented rumors that none of the
participants in the affair but could advantageously have exchanged
reputations with Benedict Arnold or Lucretia Borgia, had Lichfield
believed a tithe of what Lichfield was repeating.
A duel was of course anticipated between Mr. Parkinson and Colonel
Musgrave, and the colonel indeed offered, through Major Wadleigh, any
satisfaction which Mr. Parkinson might desire.
The engineer, with garnishments of profanity, considered dueling to be a
painstakingly-described absurdity and wished "the old popinjay" joy of
his bargain.
Lichfield felt that only showed what came of treating poor-white trash
as your equals, and gloried in the salutary moral.