depths were in her eyes and Prescott felt a thrill
despite himself.

"Why not," was his thought. "All the others have cast me aside. She
chooses me. If I am to be attacked on Mrs. Markham's account--well, I'll
give them reason for it."

The defiant spirit was speaking then, and he said aloud:

"If two people are alone they should go together and then they won't be
alone any more. You have invited me to the club to-night, Mrs. Markham,
now double your benefaction and let me take you there."

"On one condition," she said, "that we go in my pony carriage. We need
no groom. The pony will stand all night in front of Mr. Peyton's house
if necessary. Come at eight o'clock."

Before she reached her home she spoke of Lucia Catherwood as one comes
to a subject in the course of a random conversation, and connected her
name with that of the Secretary in such a manner that Prescott felt a
thrill of anger rise, not against Mrs. Markham, but against Lucia and
Mr. Sefton. The remark was quite innocent in appearance, but it
coincided so well with his own state of mind in regard to the two that
it came to him like a truth.

"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."

Her face fell.

"I am sorry to hear it," she said frankly.

Prescott, for the first time since his childhood, felt some anger toward
his mother.

"Why not, mother?" he asked. "We are al