"Just what I think; just what I came to England resolved to do. I hate the idea of giving in; but people here discourage me. Money discourages me. He says the Government will never do anything unless I make myself troublesome." "Well, then, why not make yourself troublesome?" "I have made myself troublesome in one sense," he said, with a vexed kind of laugh, "by haunting ante-chambers, and trying to force people to see me who don't want to see me. But I can't do any more of that kind of work; I am sick of it. I am ashamed of having tried it at all." "Yes, I couldn't do that," Minola said gravely. "Then," Heron said, with a little embarrassment, "a man--a very kind and well-meaning fellow, an old friend of my father's--offered to introduce me to Lady Chertsey--a very clever woman, a queen of society, I am told, who gets all the world (of politics, I mean) into her drawing-room, and delights in being a sort of power, and all that. She could push a fellow, they say, wonderfully if she took any interest in him. But I couldn't do that, you know." "No? Why not?" "Well, I shouldn't care to be introduced to a lady's drawing-room with the secret purpose of trying to get her to do me a service. There seems something mean in that. Besides, I have a cause (at least, I think I have) which is too good to be served in that kind of way. If I can't get a hearing and justice from the Government of England and the people of England for the sake of right and for the claims I have, I will never try to get it through. Oh, well, perhaps, I ought not to say what I was going to say." "Why not?" Minola asked again. "I mean, perhaps I ought not to say it to you." "I don't know really. Tell me what it is, and then I'll tell you whether you ought to say it." He laughed. "Well, I was only going to say that I don't care to have my cause served by petticoat influence." "I think you are quite right. If I were a man, I should think petticoat influence in such a matter contemptible. But why should you not like to say so?" "Only because I was afraid you might think I meant to speak contemptuously of the influence and the advice of women. I don't mean anything of the kind. I have the highest opinion of the advice of women and their influence, as I have told you already; but I couldn't endure the idea of having a lady, who doesn't know or care anything about me and my claims, asked by somebody to say a word to some great man or some great man's wife, in order that I might get a hearing. I am sure you understand what I mean, Miss Grey." "Oh, yes, I never should have misunderstood it; and I know that you are quite right. It would be a downright degradation." "So I felt. Anyhow, I could not do it. Then there remains the making myself troublesome, as Money advises----" "Yes, what is that?"