“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!... for I began before I was sixteen, and now I’m twenty-six.  Once or twice England has had to thank me for giving her news of the most vital importance.  You’re shocked to hear what my inner life has been?”

“If I were shocked, no doubt the feeling would be more than half conventional.  One hardly knows how conventional one’s opinions are until one stops to think,” said I.

“Once, I gloried in the work,” Maxine went on.  “But that was before I fell in love.  You and I have played a little at being in love, but that was to pass the time.  Both of us were flirting.  I’d never met Raoul then, and I’ve never really loved any man except him.  It came at first sight, for me:  and when he told me that he cared, he said it had begun when he first saw me on the stage; so you see it is as if we were meant for each other.  From the moment I gave him my promise, I promised myself that the old work should be given up for ever:  Raoul’s fiancee, Raoul’s wife, should not be the tool of diplomatists.  Besides, as he’s a Frenchman, his wife would owe loyalty to France, which Maxine de Renzie never owed.  I wanted—­oh, how much I wanted—­to be only what Raoul believed me, just a simple, true-hearted woman, with nothing to hide.  It made me sick to think that there was one thing I must always conceal from him, but I did the best I could.  I vowed to myself that I’d break with the past, and I wrote a letter to the British Foreign Secretary, who has always been a good friend of mine.  I said I was engaged, and hoped to begin my life all over again in a different way, though he might be sure that I’d know how to keep his secrets as well as my own.  Oh, Ivor, to think that was hardly more than a week ago!  I was happy then.  I feel twenty years older now.”