"Are you going alone?" asked his mother.
"Why, yes, mother, unless you will go with me, and I know you won't. Whom else could I ask?"
"I thought that you might take Miss Catherwood," she replied without evasion.
"No chance there," replied Prescott, with a light laugh.
"Why not?"
"Miss Catherwood would scorn a humble individual like myself. The 'Beautiful Yankee' looks far higher. She will be escorted to-night by the brilliant, the accomplished, the powerful and subtle gentleman, the Honourable James Sefton."
"You surprise me!" said his mother, and her look was indeed full of astonishment and inquiry, as if some plan of hers had gone astray.
"I have heard the Secretary's name mentioned once or twice in connection with hers," she said, "but I did not know that his attentions had shifted completely from Helen Harley. Men are indeed changeable creatures."
"Are you just discovering that, at your age, mother?" asked Prescott lightly.
"I believe Lucia Catherwood too noble a woman to love a man like James Sefton," she said.