I have had insight into documents which never became public.

I have seen treaties made.

I have seen the making of maps go forward.

This, indeed, I was in part to see that very night, and curiously, too.
How the Baroness von Ritz--beautiful adventuress as she was sometimes credited with being, charming woman as she was elsewhere described, fascinating and in some part dangerous to any man, as all admitted--could care to be concerned with this purely political question of our possible territories, I was not shrewd enough at that moment in advance to guess; for I had nothing more certain than the rumor she was England's spy.

I bided my time, knowing that ere long the knowledge must come to me in Calhoun's office even in case I did not first learn more than Calhoun himself.
Vaguely in my conscience I felt that, after all, my errand was justified, even though at some cost to my own wishes and my own pride.
The farther I walked in the dark along Pennsylvania Avenue, into which finally I swung after I had crossed Rock Bridge, the more I realized that perhaps this big game was worth playing in detail and without quibble as the master mind should dictate.