"Then be mine. Let me be your friend. You know my history. You know about me and my work. I throw my secret into your hands. You will not betray me? You warned me once, at Montreal. Will you not shield me once again?"
She nodded, smiling now in an amused way. "Monsieur always takes the most extraordinary times to visit me! Monsieur asks always the most extraordinary things! Monsieur does always the most extraordinary acts! He takes me to call upon a gentleman in a night robe! He calls upon me himself, of an evening, in dinner dress of hides and beads—"
"'Tis the best I have, Madam!" I colored, but her eye had not criticism, though her speech had mockery.
"This is the costume of your American savages," she said. "I find it among the most beautiful I have ever seen. Only a man can wear it. You wear it like a man. I like you in it—I have never liked you so well. Betray you, Monsieur? Why should I? How could I?"
"That is true. Why should you? You are Helena von Ritz. One of her breeding does not betray men or women. Neither does she make any journeys of this sort without a purpose."
"I had a purpose, when I started. I changed it in mid-ocean. Now, I was on my way to the Orient."
"And had forgotten your report to Mr. Pakenham?" I shook my head. "Madam, you are the guest of England."
"I never denied that," she said. "I was that in Washington. I was so in Montreal. But I have never given pledge which left me other than free to go as I liked. I have studied, that is true—but I have not reported."
"Have we not been fair with you, Baroness? Has my chief not proved himself fair with you?"
"Yes," she nodded. "You have played the game fairly, that is true."