“You are a strange man, Orme,” I said, drawing a long breath.  “The most dangerous man, the most singular, the most immoral I ever knew.”

“No,” he said, reaching for his cigar case, “I was only born without what you call morals.  They are not necessary in abstruse thought.  Yet in some ways I retain the old influences of my own country.  For instance, I lie as readily as I speak the truth, because it is more convenient; but though I am a liar, I do not break my word of honor.  I am a renegade, but I am still an English officer!  You have caught that distinction.”

“Yes, I would trust you,” I said, “if you gave me your word of honor.”

He turned full upon me.  “By Jove, old chap,” he said, with a queer note in his voice, “you touch me awfully close.  You’re like men of my own family—­you stir something in me that I used to know.  The word of a fighting man—­that’s the same for yours and mine; and that’s why I’ve always admired you.  That’s the sort of man that wins with the best sort of women.”

“You were not worth the best sort of woman,” I said to him.  “You had no chance with Ellen Meriwether.”

“No, but at least every fellow is worth his own fight with himself.  I wanted to be a gentleman once more.  Oh, a man may mate with a woman of any color—­he does, all over the world.  He may find a mistress in any nationality of his own color, or a wife in any class similar to his own—­he does, all over the world.  But a sweetheart, and a wife, and a woman—­when a fellow even like myself finds himself honestly gone like that—­when he begins to fight inside himself, old India against old England, renegade against gentleman—­say, that’s awfully bitter—­when he sees the other fellow win.  You won—­”

“No,” said I, “I did not win.  You know that perfectly well.  There is no way in the world that I can win.  All I can do is to keep parole—­well, with myself, I suppose.”

“You touch me awfully close,” he mused again.  “You play big and fair.  You’re a fighting man and a gentleman and—­excuse me, but it’s true—­an awful ass all in one.  You’re such an ass I almost hesitate to play the game with you.”

“Thank you,” said I.  “But now take a very stupid fellow’s advice.  Leave this country, and don’t be seen about here again, for if so, you will be killed.”

“Precisely,” he admitted.  “In fact, I was just intending to arrange a permanent departure.  That was why I was asking you to promise me to—­in short, to keep your own promise.  There’s going to be war next spring.  The dreams of this strange new man Lincoln, out in the West, are going to come true—­there will be catastrophies here.  That is why I am here.  War, one of the great games, is something that one must sometimes cross the globe to play.  I will be here to have a hand in this one.”

“You have had much of a hand in it already,” I hazarded.  He smiled frankly.

“Yes,” he said, “one must live.  I admit I have been what you call a secret agent.  There is much money behind me, big politics, big commercial interests.  I love the big games, and my game and my task—­my duty to my masters, has been to split this country along a clean line from east to west, from ocean to ocean—­to make two countries of it!  You will see that happen, my friend.”