"So then I go on, Madam, and say we are the same. I am the agent of one idea, you of another. I ask you once more to choose. I know how you will choose." She went on, musing to herself. "Yes, there is a gulf between male and female, after all. As though what he said could be true! Listen!" She spoke up more sharply. "If results came as you liked, what difference would the motives make?" "How do you mean?" "Only this, Monsieur, that I am not so lofty as you think. I might do something. If so, 'twould need to be through some motive wholly sufficient to _myself_." "Search, then, your own conscience." "I have one, after all! It might say something to me, yes." "Once you said to me that the noblest thing in life was to pass on the torch of a great principle." "I lied! I lied!" she cried, beating her hands together. "I am a woman! Look at me!" She threw back her shoulders, standing straight and fearless. God wot, she was a woman. Curves and flame! Yes, she was a woman. White flesh and slumbering hair! Yes, she was a woman. Round flesh and the red-flecked purple scent arising! Yes, she was a woman. Torture of joy to hold in a man's arms! Yes, she was a woman! "How, then, could I believe"--she laid a hand upon her bosom--"how, then, could I believe that principle was more than life? It is for you, a _man_, to believe that. Yet even you will not. You leave it to me, and I answer that I will not! What I did I did, and I bargain with none over that now. I pay my wagers. I make my own reasons, too. If I do anything for the sake of this country, it will not be through altruism, not through love of principle! 'Twill be because I am a woman. Yes, once I was a girl. Once I was born. Once, even, I had a mother, and was loved!" I could make no answer; but presently she changed again, swift as the sky when some cloud is swept away in a strong gust of wind. "Come," she said, "I will bargain with you, after all!" "Any bargain you like, Madam." "And I will keep my bargain. You know that I will." "Yes, I know that." "Very well, then. I am going back to Washington." "How do you mean?" "By land, across the country; the way you came." "You do not know what you say, Madam. The journey you suggest is incredible, impossible." "That matters nothing. I am going. And I am going alone--No, you can not come with me. Do you think I would risk more than I have risked? I go alone. I am England's spy; yes, that is true. I am to report to England; yes, that is true. Therefore, the more I see, the more I shall have to report. Besides, I have something else to do." "But would Mr. Pakenham listen to your report, after all?" Now she hesitated for a moment. "I can induce him to listen," she said. "That is part of my errand. First, before I see Mr. Pakenham I am going to see Miss Elisabeth Churchill. I shall report also to her. Then I shall have done my duty. Is it not so?" "You could do no more," said I. "But what bargain--"