"Let me make it plainer. You and your silly letters put the game into Mr. Inglesby's hands, swing the balance in his favor. _You_ pay _me_? Heavens, no! _We_ pay _you_--and a thumping price at that!" For a long moment they looked at each other. "My dear Miss Eustis," he put the tips of his fine fingers together, bent forward over them, and favored her with a white-toothed smile, "behold in me Mr. Inglesby's ambassador--the advocate of Cupid. Plainly, I am authorized to offer you Mr. Inglesby's heart, his hand, and--his check-book. Let us suppose you agree to accept--no, don't interrupt me yet, please. And keep your seat, Miss Eustis. You may smile, but I would advise you to consider very seriously what I am about to say to you, and to realize once for all that Mr. Inglesby is in dead earnest and prepared to go to considerable lengths. Well, then, as I was about to say: suppose you agree to accept his proposal! Being above all things a business man, Mr. Inglesby realizes that gilt-edged collateral should be put up for what you have to offer--youth, beauty, charm, health, culture, family name, desirable and influential connections, social position of the highest. In exchange he offers the Inglesby millions, his absolute devotion to yourself, and his hearty support to all your father's plans and interests. Observe the last, please; it is highly important. Besides this, Mayne and Eustis want reform, progress, Demos-with-a-full-dinner-pail, all the wearisome rest of that uplift stuff? Inglesby will see that they get an undiluted dose of it. More yet: if you have any scruples about Mayne, Inglesby will get behind that young man and boost him until he can crow on the weathervane--when you are Mrs. Inglesby. A chap like Mayne would be valuable, properly expurgated. Come, Miss Eustis, that's fair enough. If you refuse--well, it's up to you to make Eustis understand that he must eliminate himself from politics--and look out for himself," he finished ominously. Mary Virginia rose impetuously. "I am no longer seventeen, Mr. Hunter. What, do you honestly think you can frighten a grown woman into believing that a handful of silly letters could possibly be worth all that? Well, you can't. And--let me remind you that blackmailing women isn't smiled upon in Carolina. A hint of this and you'd be ostracized." "So would you. And why use such an extreme term as blackmailing for what really is a very fair offer?" said he, equably. "The letters are not the only arrows in my quiver, Miss Eustis. But as you are more interested in them than anything else just now, suppose we run over a few, just to remind you of their amazing nature?" He rose leisurely, opened the safe in a corner of the room, took from the steel money-vault a package, and Mary Virginia recognized her own writing. Always keeping them under his own hand, he yet allowed her to lean forward and verify what he chose to read.