exclaimed. "It will be better to do
so. I know that it will make it easier for you to help me. The document
you were bringing me was a treaty--a quite new treaty between Japan,
Russia and France: not a copy, but the original. England had been warned
that there was a secret understanding between the three countries,
unknown to her. There was no time to make a copy. And I stole the real
treaty from Raoul du Laurier, to whom I am engaged--whom I adore, Ivor,
as I didn't know it was in me to adore any man. You know his name,
perhaps--that he's Under Secretary in the Foreign Office, here in Paris.
Oh, I can read in your eyes what you're thinking of me, now. You can't
think worse of me than I think of myself. Yet I did the thing for
Raoul's sake. There's that in my defence--only that."

"I don't understand," I said, trying not to show the horror of Maxine's
treachery to a man who loved and trusted her, which I could not help
feeling.

"How could you?--except that I've betrayed him! But I'll tell you
everything--I'll go back a long way. Then you'll pity me, even if you
scorn me, too. You'll work for me--to save me, and him. For years I've
helped the British Government. Oh, I won't spare myself. I've been a
spy, sometimes against one Power, sometimes against another. When there
was anything to do against Russia, I was always glad, because my dear
father was a Pole, and you know how Poles feel towards Russia. Russia
ruined his life, and stripped it of everything worth having, not only
money, but--oh, well, that's not in this story of mine! I won't trouble
you or waste time in the telling. Only, when I was a very young girl, I
was already the enemy of all that's Russian, with a big debt of revenge
to pay. And I've been paying it, slowly. Don't think that the money I've
had for my work--hateful work often--has been used for myself. It's been
for my father's country--poor, sad country--every shilling of English
coin. As an actress I've supported myself, and, as an actress, it has
been easier for me to do the other secret work than it would have been
for a woman leading a more sheltered life, mingling less with
distinguished persons of different countries, or unable to be eccentric
without causing scandal. As for France, she's the friend of Russia, and
I haven't a drop of French blood in my veins, so, at least, I've never
been treacherous to my own people. Oh, I have made some great _coups_ in
the last eight or nine years, Ivor!...