"Do you know," he smiled, "that with you the art of writing genuine love-letters amounts to a gift? I am sure your father--and let's say Mayne--would be astonished and delighted to read the ones I have. They are unequaled. Human documents, heart-interest, delicate and piquant sex-tang--the very sort of thing the dear public devours. I told you once they meant a great deal to me, remember? They're going to mean more. Come about four, please." He lifted his hat, bowed, and was gone. Mary Virginia went to his office at four o'clock the next afternoon, as he had planned she should. She wanted to know exactly what he meant, and she fancied he meant to make her buy back the letters he claimed not to have destroyed. The bare idea of anybody on earth reading those insane vaporings sickened her. Hunter's manner subtly allowed her to understand that he had known she would come, and this angered her inexpressibly; it gave him an advantage. "Instead of wasting time in idle persiflage," he said when he had handed her a chair, "let's get right down to brass tacks. You naturally desire to know why I kept your letters? For one reason, because they are a bit of real literature. However, I propose to return them now--for a consideration." He leaned forward, idly drumming on the polished desk, and regarded her with a sort of impersonal speculation. A little smile crept to his lip. "The whirligig of time does bring in its revenges, doesn't it?" he mused aloud. Mary Virginia's lips curled. "I do not follow you," she said coldly. "I am not even sure you have the letters--that is why I am here. I must see them with my own eyes before I agree to pay for them. That is what you expect me to do, is it not?" "Oh, I have them all right--that is very easily proven," said he, unruffled. "Now listen carefully, please, while I explain the real reason for your presence here this afternoon. Mr. Inglesby, for reasons of his own, desires to don the senatorial toga; why not? Also, even more vehemently, Mr. Inglesby desires to lead to the altar Miss Mary Virginia Eustis: yourself, dear lady, your charming self: again, why not? Who can blame him for so natural and laudable an ambition? "As to his ever persuading you to become Mrs. Inglesby, without some--ah--moral suasion, why, you know what his chance would be better than I do. As to his persuading the state to send him to Washington, it would have been a certainty, a sure thing, if our zealous young friend Mayne hadn't egged your father into the game. How Mayne managed that, heaven knows, particularly with your father's affairs in the condition they are. Now, Eustis is a fine man. Far too fine to be lost in the shuffle at Washington, where he'd be a condemned nuisance--just as he sometimes is here at home. Do you begin to comprehend?" "Why, no," said she, blankly. "And I certainly fail to see where my silly letters--"