She looked distressed. "Oh, do you think so?" she said. "But anyhow I can't tell you. I can only tell you up to where the Secret comes in, and then—if I never see you again, you can think about it; and any time you write to me for the Secret, I'll send it to you to help you when you need it most."
"I need it now," he urged.
"No, you don't," she answered. "I thought I needed it right away, but I wouldn't have understood it or believed it if I'd heard it then." And she told him how it was whispered to her, after she had been kind to the man of many millions.
"And does it work?" he asked, laughing at her story of the toast and tea.
"I don't know, yet," she admitted, "I'm just trying it. That's another reason I can't tell you now. I have to wait until I've tried it thoroughly."
"You're a nice, modest young person from the backwoods," laughed Godmother when they were going home, "selecting the largest, livest lion of the evening and running off with him to the safe shelter of the hall."
"Lion?" said Mary Alice, wonderingly. "What lion?"
"The young man you kept so shamelessly to yourself nearly all evening."
"I didn't know he was any kind of a lion," apologized Mary Alice, humbly. "He just seemed to be——" She stopped, and her eyes danced delightedly. "I was trying the Secret on him," she went on, "and I believe it worked."
"I think it must have," said Godmother, "for he came up to me, before I left, and exhibited all the signs of a gentleman who wants to be asked to call. So I invited him to come in to-morrow for a cup of tea."