Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/145



UTH stood galvanized for a second. The man, beyond doubt, was a German agent; he had addressed her as a spy. There was no other possible explanation.

When the woman at Mrs. Corliss' had disclosed herself as an enemy, Ruth had balanced the harm the woman might do to America against the harm she, herself, might do Germany, and Ruth had decided, rightly or wrongly, to remain quiet. Now she could not do so. A German spy in Chicago was a distant, only indirectly dangerous person; a spy in Paris did most direct things―such as setting colored lights at the bottoms of chimneys to guide the great black-crossed Gothas which bombed Paris by night, blowing down those buildings in the ruins of which Ruth had seen men frantically digging by the early morning light; they did things such as. . . . Ruth did not delay to catalog in that flash the acts of Germans in Paris. She knew that man must be arrested at whatever cost to herself.

She started after him down the Rue St. Jacques in the first spur of this impulse. Fortunately, after leaving her, he did not gaze back, but proceeded alertly along the street. A man and a woman spoke to him; he bowed. Another passerby bowed to him with the deference shown a gentle-