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."

"A week ago. You've been engaged only a week?" I broke in.

"Not many days more. I guessed, I hoped, long ago that Raoul cared, but
he wouldn't have told me, even the day he did tell, if he hadn't lost
his head a little. He hadn't meant to speak, it seems, for he's poor,
and he thought he had no right. But what's a man worth who doesn't lose
his head when he loves a woman? I adored him for it. We decided not to
let anyone know until a few weeks before we could marry, as I didn't
care to have my engagement gossipped about, for months on end. There
were reasons why--more than one: but the man of all others whom I didn't
want to know the truth found out, or, rather, suspected what had
happened, the very da