classified under no ordinary rule. Woman or secret agent
she was, and in one or other identity she could be my friend or my
powerful enemy, could aid my country powerfully if she had the whim; or
damage it irreparably if she had the desire. But--yes--as I studied her
that keen, tense, vital moment, she was woman!

A deep fire burned in her eyes, that was true; but on her face
was--what? It was not rage, it was not passion, it was not chagrin. No,
in truth and justice I swear that what I then saw on her face was that
same look I had noted once before, an expression of almost childish
pathos, of longing, of appeal for something missed or gone, though much
desired. No vanity could contemplate with pleasure a look like that on
the face of a woman such as Helena von Ritz.

I fancied her unstrung by excitement, by the strain of her trying labor,
by the loneliness of her life, uncertain, misunderstood, perhaps, as it
was. I wondered if she could be more unhappy than I myself, if life
could offer her less than it did to me. But I dared not prolong our
masking, lest all should be unmasked.

"It is nothing!" she said at last, and laughed gaily as ever.

"Yes, Madam, it is nothing. I admit my defeat. I shall ask no more
favors, expect no further information from you, for I have not earned
it, and I can not pay. I will make no promise that I could not keep."

"Then we part even!"

"As enemies or friends?"

"I do not yet know. I can not think--for a long time. But I, too, am
defeated."

"I do not understand how Madam can be defeated in anything."

"Ah, I am defeated only because I have won. I have your secret; you do
not have mine. But I laid also another wager, with myself. I have lost
it. Ceremony or not--and what does the ceremony value?--you _are_
married. I had not known marriage to be possible. I had not known
you--you savages. No--so much--I had not known."

"Monsieur, adieu!" she added swiftly.

I bent and kissed her hand. "Madam, _au revoir!_"

"No, _adieu!_ Go!"

CHAPTER XVII

A HUNTER OF BUTTERFLIES

I love men, not because they are men, but because they are not
women.--_Queen Christina_.

There was at that time in Montreal a sort of news room and public
exchange, which made a place of general meeting. It was supplied with
newspapers and the like, and kept up by subscriptions of the town
merchants--a spacious room made out of the old Methodist chapel on St.
Joseph Street. I knew this