I saw all this; but ere I had finished my first hurried glance I had accepted her, as always one must, just as she was; had accepted her surroundings, preposterously impossible as they all were from any logical point of view, as fitting to herself and to her humor. It was not for me to ask how or why she did these things. She had done them; because, here they were; and here was she. We had found England"s woman on the Columbia!
"Yes," said she at length, slowly, "yes, I now believe it to be fate."
She had not yet smiled. I took her hand and held it long. I felt glad to see her, and to take her hand; it seemed pledge of friendship; and as things now were shaping, I surely needed a friend.
At last, her face flushing slightly, she disengaged her hand and motioned me to a seat. But still we stood silent for a few moments.
"Have you _no_ curiosity?" said she at length.
"I am too happy to have curiosity, my dear Madam."
"You will not even ask me why I am here?" she insisted.
"I know. I have known all along. You are in the pay of England. When I missed you at Montreal, I knew you had sailed on the _Modeste_ for Oregon We knew all this, and planned for it. I have come across by land to meet you. I have waited. I greet you now!"
She looked me now clearly in the face. "I am not sure," said she at length, slowly.
"Not sure of what, Madam? When you travel on England"s warship," I smiled, "you travel as the guest of England herself. If, then, you are not for England, in G.o.d"s name, _whose friend are you?"_
"Whose friend am I?" she answered slowly. "I say to you that I do not know. Nor do I know who is my friend. A friend--what is that? I never knew one!"
"Then be mine. Let me be your friend. You know my history. You know about me and my work. I throw my secret into your hands. You will not betray me? You warned me once, at Montreal. Will you not shield me once again?"
She nodded, smiling now in an amused way. "Monsieur always takes the most extraordinary times to visit me! Monsieur asks always the most extraordinary things! Monsieur does always the most extraordinary acts!
He takes me to call upon a gentleman in a night robe! He calls upon me himself, of an evening, in dinner dress of hides and beads--"
""Tis the best I have, Madam!" I colored, but her eye had not criticism, though her speech had mockery.
"This is the costume of your American savages," she said. "I find it among the most beautiful I have ever seen. Only a man can wear it. You wear it like a man. I like you in it--I have never liked you so well.
Betray you, Monsieur? Why should I? How could I?"
"That is true. Why should you? You are Helena von Ritz. One of her breeding does not betray men or women. Neither does she make any journeys of this sort without a purpose."
"I had a purpose, when I started. I changed it in mid-ocean. Now, I was on my way to the Orient."
"And had forgotten your report to Mr. Pakenham?" I shook my head.
"Madam, you are the guest of England."
"I never denied that," she said. "I was that in Washington. I was so in Montreal. But I have never given pledge which left me other than free to go as I liked. I have studied, that is true--but I have _not_ reported."
"Have we not been fair with you, Baroness? Has my chief not proved himself fair with you?"
"Yes," she nodded. "You have played the game fairly, that is true."
"Then you will play it fair with us? Come, I say you have still that chance to win the grat.i.tude of a people."
"I begin to understand you better, you Americans," she said irrelevantly, as was sometimes her fancy. "See my bed yonder. It is that couch of husks of which Monsieur told me! Here is the cabin of logs.
There is the fireplace. Here is Helena von Ritz--even as you told me once before she sometime might be. And here on my wrists are the imprints of your fingers! What does it mean, Monsieur? Am I not an apt student? See, I made up that little bed with my own hands! I--Why, see, I can cook! What you once said to me lingered in my mind. At first, it was matter only of curiosity. Presently I began to see what was beneath your words, what fullness of life there might be even in poverty. I said to myself, "My G.o.d! were it not, after all, enough, this, if one be loved?" So then, in spite of myself, without planning, I say, I began to understand. I have seen about me here these savages--savages who have walked thousands of miles in a pilgrimage--for what?"
"For what, Madam?" I demanded. "For what? For a cabin! For a bed of husks! Was it then for the sake of ease, for the sake of selfishness?
Come, can you betray a people of whom you can say so much?"
"Ah, now you would try to tempt me from a trust which has been reposed in me!"
"Not in the least I would not have you break your word with Mr.
Pakenham; but I know you are here on the same errand as myself. You are to learn facts and report them to Mr. Pakenham--as I am to Mr. Calhoun."
"What does Monsieur suggest?" she asked me, with her little smile.
"Nothing, except that you take back all the facts--and allow them to mediate. Let them determine between the Old World and this New one--you satin couch and this rude one you have learned to make. Tell the truth only. Choose, then, Madam!"
"Nations do not ask the truth. They want only excuses."
"Quite true. And because of that, all the more rests with you. If this situation goes on, war must come. It can not be averted, unless it be by some agency quite outside of these two governments. Here, then, Madam, is Helena von Ritz!"
"At least, there is time," she mused. "These ships are not here for any immediate active war. Great Britain will make no move until--"
"Until Madam the Baroness, special agent of England, most trusted agent, makes her report to Mr. Pakenham! Until he reports to his government, and until that government declares war! "Twill take a year or more.
Meantime, you have not reported?"
"No, I am not yet ready."
"Certainly not. You are not yet possessed of your facts. You have not yet seen this country. You do not yet know these men--the same savages who once accounted for another Pakenham at New Orleans--hardy as buffaloes, fierce as wolves. Wait and see them come pouring across the mountains into Oregon. Then make your report to this Pakenham. Ask him if England wishes to fight our backwoodsmen once more!"
"You credit me with very much ability!" she smiled.
"With all ability. What conquests you have made in the diplomacy of the Old World I do not know. You have known courts. I have known none. Yet you are learning life. You are learning the meaning of the only human idea of the world, that of a democracy of endeavor, where all are equal in their chances and in their hopes. That, Madam, is the only diplomacy which will live. If you have pa.s.sed on that torch of principle of which you spoke--if I can do as much--then all will be well. We shall have served."
She dropped now into a chair near by a little table, where the light of the tall candles, guttering in their enameled sconces, fell full upon her face. She looked at me fixedly, her eyes dark and mournful in spite of their eagerness.
"Ah, it is easy for you to speak, easy for you who have so rich and full a life--who have all! But I--my hands are empty!" She spread out her curved fingers, looking at them, dropping her hands, pathetically drooping her shoulders.
"All, Madam? What do you mean? You see me almost in rags. Beyond the rifle at my cabin, the pistol at my tent, I have scarce more in wealth than what I wear, while you have what you like."
"All but everything!" she murmured; "all but home!"
"Nor have I a home."
"All, except that my couch is empty save for myself and my memories!"
"Not more than mine, nor with sadder memories, Madam."
"Why, what do you mean?" she asked me suddenly. "What do you _mean?_"
She repeated it again, as though half in horror.
"Only that we are equal and alike. That we are here on the same errand.
That our view of life should be the same."
"What do you mean about home? But tell me, _were you not then married?_"