"Why do I make the offer to you? Well, because I should like to please you, because you are a sort of woman I like—a regular good girl, I think, without any nonsense or affectation about you. Now that's the whole reason why I offer this to you. I don't care much myself either way, except to annoy my brother, and that can be done in fifty other ways without half the trouble to me. I was inclined to draw out of the whole affair, until I remembered that you knew both the fellows, and I thought you might have a wish for one of them to go in in preference to the other—they can't both go in, you see—and so I made up my mind to give you the chance of saying which it should be. Now then, Miss Grey, name your man."
He put his hands into his pockets, and coolly waited for an answer. He had not the appearance of being in the least amused at her perplexity. He took the whole affair in a calm, matter-of-fact way, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Minola was perplexed. She did not see what right he could have to control the coming contest in any way, and still less, what right she could have to influence him in doing so. The dilemma was one in which no previous experience could well guide her. She much wished she had Mr. Money at hand to give her a word of counsel.
"Come, Miss Grey, make up your mind—or rather tell me what you have already made up your mind to, for I am sure you have not been waiting until now to form an opinion. Which of these two men do you want to see in Parliament?"
There did not seem any particular reason why Minola or any girl might not say in plain words which of two candidates she would rather see successful.
Mr. St. Paul appeared to understand her difficulty, for he said in an encouraging way—
"After all, you know, if you had women's rights and all that sort of thing, you would have to give your vote for one or other of these fellows, and I dare say you would be expected to take the stump for your favorite candidate. So there really can't be any very serious objection to your telling me in confidence which of the two you want to win."
Minola could not see how there could be any objection on any moral principle she could think of just then—being in truth a little confused and puzzled—to her giving a voice to the wish she had formed about the election.
"It's not the speaking out of my wish that gives me any doubt," she said; "it is the condition under which you want me to speak. I seem to be doing something that I have no right to do—that is, Mr. St. Paul, if you are serious."
"I remember reading, long ago," he said, "some Arabian Nights' story, or something of the kind, about a king, I think it was, who was brought at night to some mysterious place and told to cut a rope there, and that something or other would happen, he did not know what or when. The thing seemed very simple, and yet he didn't quite like to do it without knowing why, and how, and all about it. It strikes me that you seem to be in the same sort of fix."