"As though she hated me; as though she hated herself and all the world. Yet not quite that, either. As though she would have wept—that is the truth. I do not pretend to understand her. She is a puzzle such as I have never known."
"Nor are you apt to know another her like. Look, here she is, the paid spy, the secret agent, of England. Additionally, she is intimately concerned with the private life of Mr. Pakenham. For the love of adventure, she is engaged in intrigue also with Mexico. Not content with that, born adventuress, eager devourer of any hazardous and interesting intellectual offering, any puzzle, any study, any intrigue—she comes at midnight to talk with me, whom she knows to be the representative of yet a third power!"
"And finds you in your red nightcap!" I laughed.
"Did she speak of that?" asked Mr. Calhoun in consternation, raising a hand to his head. "It may be that I forgot—but none the less, she came!
"Yes, as I said, she came, by virtue of your long legs and your ready way, as I must admit; and you were saved from her only, as I believe—Why, God bless Elisabeth Churchill, my boy, that is all! But my faith, how nicely it all begins to work out!"
"I do not share your enthusiasm, Mr. Calhoun," said I bitterly. "On the contrary, it seems to me to work out in as bad a fashion as could possibly be contrived."
"In due time you will see many things more plainly. Meantime, be sure England will be careful. She will make no overt movement, I should say, until she has heard from Oregon; which will not be before my lady baroness shall have returned and reported to Mr. Pakenham here. All of which means more time for us."
I began to see something of the structure of bold enterprise which this man deliberately was planning; but no comment offered itself; so that presently, he went on, as though in soliloquy.
"The Hudson Bay Company have deceived England splendidly enough. Doctor McLaughlin, good man that he is, has not suited the Hudson Bay Company. His removal means less courtesy to our settlers in Oregon. Granted a less tactful leader than himself, there will be friction with our high-strung frontiersmen in that country. No man can tell when the thing will come to an issue. For my own part, I would agree with Polk that we ought to own that country to fifty-four forty—but what we ought to do and what we can do are two separate matters. Should we force the issue now and lose, we would lose for a hundred years. Should we advance firmly and hold firmly what we gain, in perhaps less than one hundred years we may win all of that country, as I just said to Mr. Polk, to the River Saskatchewan—I know not where! In my own soul, I believe no man may set a limit to the growth of the idea of an honest government by the people. And this continent is meant for that honest government!"
"We have already a Monroe Doctrine, Mr. Calhoun," said I. "What you enunciate now is yet more startling. Shall we call it the Calhoun Doctrine?"