"The Secretary is very much in love with the 'Beautiful Yankee,'" said Mrs. Markham. "He thought once that he was in love with Helen Harley, but his imagination deceived him. Even so keen a man as the Secretary can deceive himself in regard to the gossamer affair that we call love, but his infatuation with Lucia Catherwood is genuine."
"Will he win her?" asked Prescott. Despite himself, his heart throbbed as he waited for her answer.
"I do not know," she replied; "but any woman may be won if a man only knows the way of winning."
"A Delphic utterance, if ever there was one," he said, and laughed partly in relief. She had not said that Mr. Sefton would win her.
He left Mrs. Markham at her door and went home, informing his mother by and by that he was going to a meeting of the Mosaic Club in the evening.
"I am to take a lady," he said.
"A very natural thing for a young man to do," she replied, smiling at him. "Who is it to be, Miss Catherwood or Miss Harley?"
"Neither."
"Neither?"
"No; I am in bad grace with both. The lady whom I am to have the honour, the privilege, etc., of escorting is Mrs. Markham."