He moved hastily, passed through the door of the small apartment which, opened on the staircase, and was gone. Lydia Graham remained alone for a few moments, in a triumphant reverie, then she joined Gordon Graham and the bewitching widow, who had been making the most of the opportunity for indulging in her favourite florid style of flirtation. "I have won," Lydia said to herself; "and how easily! Poor fellow; his agitation was really painful. He did not even stop to shake hands with me." Mrs. Marmaduke took leave of her dearest Lydia, and her dearest Lydia's brother, soon after Douglas Dale had departed, and Miss Graham and her brother were left _tête-à-tête_. "Well," said Gordon Graham, with rather a sulky air, "you don't seem to have done much execution by your dinner-party, my young lady. Dale went off in a great hurry, which does not say much for your powers of fascination." Lydia gave her head a triumphant little toss as she looked at her brother. "You are remarkably clever, my dear Gordon," she said; "but you are apt to make mistakes occasionally, in spite of your cleverness. What should you say if I were to tell you that Mr. Dale has this evening almost made me an offer of his hand?" "You don't mean to say so?" "I do mean to say so," answered Lydia, triumphantly. "He is one of that eccentric kind of people who have their own manner of doing things, and do not care to tread the beaten track; or it may be that it is only his reserved nature which renders him strange and awkward in his manner of avowing himself." "Never mind how awkwardly the offer has been made, provided it is genuine," returned the practical Captain Graham. "But I don't like 'almosts.' Besides, you really must mind what you are about, Lydia; for I assure you there is no doubt at all about the fact of his engagement. He stated it himself." "Well, and suppose he did," said Lydia, "and suppose some good-for-nothing woman, in an equivocal position, _has_ trapped him into an offer. Is he the first man who has got into a dilemma of that kind, and got out of it? He thought I cared for Lionel, and that so there was no hope for him. I can quite understand his getting himself into an entanglement of the kind, under such circumstances."