"Let us not put it so bluntly."
"I shall not do anything that I do not wish to do," she said, with the old proud uplift of her head. "And listen! there is something which may soon shatter all your plans, Mr. Sefton."
She pointed backward, where the purplish clouds hung over the Wilderness, whence came the low, sullen mutter, almost as faint as the distant beat of waves on a coast.
The Secretary smiled deprecatingly.
"After all, you are like other women, Miss Catherwood. You suppose, of course, that I stake my whole fortune upon a single issue, but it is not so. I wish to live on after the war, whatever its result may be, and the tide of fortune in that forest may shift and change, but mine may not shift and change with it."
"You are at least frank."
"The South may lose, but if she loses the world will not end on that account. I shall still wish to play my part. Ah, here comes Captain Prescott."
Prescott liked little this long talk between Lucia and the Secretary and the deep interest each seemed to show in what the other said. He bore it with patience for a time, but it seemed to him, though the thought was not so framed in his mind, that he had a certain proprietary interest in her because he had saved her at great risk.
The Secretary received him with a pleasant smile, made some slight remark about duty elsewhere and dropped easily away. Prescott waited until he was out of hearing before he said:
"Do you like that man, Miss Catherwood?"