"I'll even help you——"
"No! Just let me alone. That is all I ask of you." Her youthful face grew graver. "But that is quite enough to ask of you. Because by letting me alone you are incurring danger to yourself.
"Why do you tell me?"
"Because I wish to be honest with you. If you retain me as your servant and accept me and my friends as such,—even if you live here quietly and blamelessly, obeying the local and Federal laws and making no inquiries concerning me or my three friends,—yet, nevertheless, you may find yourself in very serious trouble before many days."
"Political trouble?"
"All kinds of trouble, Mr. O'Ryan."
There was a silence; she sat there with slender fingers tightly interlocked as though under some sort of nervous tension, but the faint hint of a smile in the corners of her mouth—which seemed to be part of her natural expression—remained.
She said: "And more than that: if you let us remain as your servants, we shall trust to you and to Mr. Smith that neither one of you by look or word or gesture would ever convey to anybody the slightest hint that I and my friends are not exactly what we appear to be—your household servants."
"Thusis," said I, "what the deuce are you up to?"
"What am I up to?" She laughed outright:—"Let me see! First—" counting on her fingers, "I am trying to find a way to live up to my ideals; second, I am going to try to bring happiness to many, many people; third, I am prepared to sacrifice myself, my friends, my nearest and dearest." ... She lifted her clear eyes: "I am quite ready to sacrifice you, too," she said.