"What would become of your principles?" Lady Mary objected. "They would suffer," he curtly replied. "But I should do my best for them. At any rate, I should do less harm than any other conceivable head of a Liberal Cabinet." "You would be a fraud," she flashed. "Not without justification," he coolly answered. "Sophistry." "Not at all. Making the best of a bad business." Again there was silence. Wenderby found it difficult to come to the point. It was again Lady Mary who spoke. "Have you come to me for advice?" she asked. "Partly that." "Then I advise you to follow your conscience," she said decisively. "That is just the difficulty," he pleaded. "My conscience is vague." "It tells you to come over." Wenderby smiled. "Naturally you say that. My desertion now would shake the Government. Perhaps we might even pull them down. There's a chance." "Your duty is clear," she insisted. "I do not think so," he objected. "The Government may stand in spite of me. Then my moderating influence is destroyed. Is it my duty to put this uncertain thing to the proof?" There was a short silence. Lady Mary saw Wenderby's logical trap closing about her. He bent eagerly towards her, and a pleading note came into his voice. Lady Mary could not deny that it pleasurably moved her to detect under the steel of his manner the suspense of entire sincerity. He utterly depended upon her answer. "My conscience," he said, "does not help me. I cannot balance the right and wrong of this business. I want a better reason. I want the best reason in the world. I want you to be my wife." Lady Mary did not move. Wenderby's sincerity saved him from the protest with which she had thought to meet it. Nearly a minute passed. "You understand?" said Wenderby at last. "I think I understand," she slowly answered, "that this is not exactly what it seems." "Does it seem so terrible?" he pleaded. "Consider it from my point of view." "You say that, if I marry you, you will leave the Cabinet. That is my price." "Obviously, if you consented to marry me, it would be my crowning motive for coming to your people. It is a natural consequence." "It is my price," she insisted. "You are brutal," he said in a low voice. Lady Mary flushed a little. "You do not like my word. Shall we say inducement? You tell me you will leave the Cabinet, but you do not trouble to ask me whether I care for you." "Is that necessary?" said Wenderby, quite simply. "I know you too well. You like me and trust me. I think you admire me a little. I am forty-seven. I do not urge you to passion. I have appealed to you as a woman who can weigh the things of youth against other things, more important perhaps, certainly more enduring. I have been candid with you." Lady Mary sighed. "I wonder," she said, "how many English girls have been talked to in this way?" "You are not just an English girl. You are Lord Haversham's sister."