"When do you think Grant will advance again?" he asked.
"Advance?" replied Winthrop hotly. "Advance? Why, he can't advance."
"But he came through the Wilderness."
"If he did he lost a hundred thousand men, more than Lee had altogether, and now he's checkmated."
"He'll never see Richmond unless he comes to Libby," said Redfield coarsely.
"I'm not so sure," said Raymond gravely. "Whatever we say to the people and however we try to hold up their courage, we ought not to conceal the facts from ourselves. The ports of the Confederacy are sealed up by the Yankee cruisers. We have been shattered down South and here we are blockaded in Richmond and Petersburg. It takes a cartload of our money to buy a paper collar and then it's a poor collar. When I bring out the next issue of my newspaper—and I don't know when that will be—I shall say that the prospects of the Confederacy were never brighter; but I warn you right now, gentlemen, that I shall not believe a single one of my own words."
Thus they talked, but Prescott did not follow them, his mind dwelling on Lucia and the Secretary. He was affected most unpleasantly by what he had heard and sorry now that he had come to the hotel. When he could conveniently do so he excused himself and went home.
He was gloomier than ever at supper and his mother uttered a mild jest or two on his state of mind.
"You must have failed to find any friends in the city," she said.
"I found too many," he replied. "I went to the Spotswood Hotel, mother, and I listened there to some tiresome talk about whipping the Yankees out of their boots in the next five minutes."