"I don't know."
"Is he the man who stole Matthews's aeroplane?"
"I don't know."
"Is he the man who plotted to blow up my workshop?"
"I don't know."
"You are not telling the truth."
"I am telling the truth."
He was silent a moment; then he said, as if dazed by the thought: "I loved
you.... I could love you. I thought you were everything good and glowing
in the world. I worshiped you.... It was never you I loved, but a girl who
never existed, some one I mistook for you; ... some one who never could
have become what you have become; ... some one who was honest, not a
friend and partner of spies; ... some one who could never have been
touched by squalid defilement--"
She reached toward him and clutched both his cheeks with tense fingers,
drawing his face toward hers. "Could I help it?" she said, fiercely. "Was
it my fault? Could I say to God, I will not have this blood in my veins,
and force Him to change it?..."
"German blood," he said, moodily.
"German blood," she repeated after him. "Do you think I would keep a drop
of it if I could open a vein and let it out? It's there. I can never get
rid of it."
"But it doesn't compel you to this. It's possible to be German and loyal."
"I tell you I am loyal, Potter Waite--as loyal as you."
"Who is Cantor?" he said.
"I don't know," she answered.
"And you call yourself loyal.... This minute, if he is awake, he is
plotting to blow up the shops where I am making motors for America's
aeroplanes. He's plotting to blow up and destroy other factories that work
for the government.... What if he succeeds?... If he could destroy our
plant and half a dozen more it would be a greater victory for Germany than
the capture of an American army.... You can stop it. You can tell me what
you know--all you know. It will show me how to reach him, for I can't
reach him now.... I know he's guilty. You can tell me how to prove it."
"I can't. I tell you I don't know.... Suspicion? What is suspicion? You
don't know what you are asking."
"I'm asking what any American girl, who was true to her country, would
give gladly ... unless she loved the man."
"If Mr. Cantor were a spy and I could give him to you--if I could give him
to you without--" She stopped, bit her lips. She had almost said, "without
betraying my father." She went on, hurriedly, "I would let them kill me if
I could give him to you."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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