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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vultures, by Henry Seton Merriman
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Vultures
+
+Author: Henry Seton Merriman
+
+Release Date: April 13, 2006 [EBook #3805]
+Last Updated: March 12, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE VULTURES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE VULTURES
+
+A NOVEL
+
+By Henry Seton Merriman
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+ALL AT SEA
+
+Mr. Joseph P. Mangles, at his ease in a deck-chair on the broad
+Atlantic, was smoking a most excellent cigar. Mr. Mangles was a tall,
+thin man, who carried his head in the manner curtly known at a girls'
+school as “poking.” He was a clean-shaven man, with bony forehead,
+sunken cheeks, and an underhung mouth. His attitude towards the world
+was one of patient disgust. He had the air of pushing his way, chin
+first, doggedly through life. The weather had been bad, and was now
+moderating. But Mr. Mangles had not suffered from sea-sickness. He was
+a dry, hard person, who had suffered from nothing but chronic
+dyspepsia--had suffered from it for fifty years or so.
+
+“Fine weather,” he said. “Women will be coming on deck--hang the fine
+weather.”
+
+And his voice was deep and low like a growl.
+
+“Joseph,” said Miss Mangles, “growls over his meals like a dog.”
+
+The remark about the weather and the women was addressed to a man who
+leaned against the rail. Indeed, there was no one else near--and the
+man made no reply. He was twenty-five or thirty years younger than Mr.
+Mangles, and looked like an Englishman, but not aggressively so. The
+large majority of Britons are offensively British. Germans are no
+better; so it must be racial, this offensiveness. A Frenchman is at
+his worst, only comically French--a matter of a smile; but Teutonic
+characteristics are conducive to hostility.
+
+The man who leaned against the rail near to Joseph P. Mangles was six
+feet high, and rather heavily built, but, like many big men, he seemed
+to take up no more than his due share of room in this crowded world.
+There was nothing distinctive about his dress. His demeanor was quiet.
+When he spoke he was habitually asked to repeat his remark, which he
+did, with patience, in the same soft, inaudible voice.
+
+There were two men on board this great steamer who were not business
+men--Joseph P. Mangles and Reginald Cartoner; and, like two ships on a
+sea of commercial interests, they had drifted together during the four
+days that had elapsed since their departure from New York. Neither made
+anything, or sold anything, or had a card in his waistcoat-pocket ready
+for production at a moment's notice, setting forth name and address and
+trade. Neither was to be suspected of a desire to repel advances, and
+yet both were difficult to get on with. For human confidences must
+be mutual. It is only to God that man can continue telling, telling,
+telling, and getting never a word in return. These two men had nothing
+to tell their fellows about themselves; so the other passengers drifted
+away into those closely linked corporations characteristic of steamer
+life and left them to themselves--to each other.
+
+And they had never said things to each other--had never, as it were, got
+deeper than the surface of their daily life.
+
+Cartoner was a dreamy man, with absorbed eyes, rather deeply sunk under
+a strong forehead. His eyelids had that peculiarity which is rarely seen
+in the face of a man who is a nonentity. They were quite straight, and
+cut across the upper curve of the pupil. This gave a direct, stern look
+to dreamy eyes, which was odd. After a pause, he turned slowly, and
+looked down at his companion with a vague interrogation in his glance.
+He seemed to be wondering whether Mr. Mangles had spoken. And Mangles
+met the glance with one of steady refusal to repeat his remark. But
+Mangles spoke first, after all.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “the women will be on deck soon--and my sister Jooly.
+You don't know Jooly?”
+
+He spoke with a slow and pleasant American accent.
+
+“I saw you speaking to a young lady in the saloon after luncheon,” said
+Cartoner. “She had a blue ribbon round her throat. She was pretty.”
+
+“That wasn't Jooly,” said Mr. Mangles, without hesitation.
+
+“Who was it?” asked Cartoner, with the simple directness of those who
+have no self-consciousness--who are absorbed, but not in themselves, as
+are the majority of men and women.
+
+“My niece, Netty Cahere.”
+
+“She is pretty,” said Cartoner, with a spontaneity which would have
+meant much to feminine ears.
+
+“You'll fall in love with her,” said Mangles, lugubriously. “They all
+do. She says she can't help it.”
+
+Cartoner looked at him as one who has ears but hears not. He made no
+reply.
+
+“Distresses her very much,” concluded Mangles, dexterously shifting his
+cigar by a movement of the tongue from the port to the starboard side
+of his mouth. Cartoner did not seem to be very much interested in Miss
+Netty Cahere. He was a man having that air of detachment from personal
+environments which is apt to arouse curiosity in the human heart, more
+especially in feminine hearts. People wanted to know what there was in
+Cartoner's past that gave him so much to think about in the present.
+
+The two men had not spoken again when Miss Netty Cahere came on deck.
+She was accompanied by the fourth officer, a clean-built, clean-shaven
+young man, who lost his heart every time he crossed the Atlantic. He
+was speaking rather earnestly to Miss Cahere, who listened with an
+expression of puzzled protest on her pretty face. She had wondering blue
+eyes and a complexion of the most delicate pink and white which never
+altered. She was slightly built, and carried herself in a subtly
+deprecating manner, as if her own opinion of herself were small, and she
+wished the world to accept her at that valuation. She made no sign
+of having perceived her uncle, but nevertheless dismissed the fourth
+officer, who reluctantly mounted the ladder to the bridge, looking back
+as he went.
+
+Mr. Mangles threw his cigar overboard.
+
+“She don't like smoke,” he growled.
+
+Cartoner looked at the cigar, and absent-mindedly threw his cigarette
+after it. He had apparently not made up his mind whether to go or stay,
+when Miss Cahere approached her uncle, without appearing to notice that
+he was not alone.
+
+“I suppose,” she said, “that that was one of the officers of the ship,
+though he was very young--quite a boy. He was telling me about his
+mother. It must be terrible to have a near relation a sailor.”
+
+She spoke in a gentle voice, and it was evident that she had a heart
+full of sympathy for the suffering and the poor.
+
+“I wish some of my relations were sailors,” replied Mr. Mangles, in his
+deepest tones. “Could spare a whole crew. Let me introduce my friend,
+Mr. Cartoner--Miss Cahere.”
+
+He completed the introduction with an old-fashioned and ceremonious wave
+of the hand. Miss Cahere smiled rather shyly on Cartoner, and it was his
+eyes that turned away first.
+
+“You have not been down to meals,” he said, in his gentle, abrupt way.
+
+“No; but I hope to come now. Are there many people? Have you friends on
+board?”
+
+“There are very few ladies. I know none of them.”
+
+“But I dare say some of them are nice,” said Miss Cahere, who evidently
+thought well of human nature.
+
+“Very likely.”
+
+And Cartoner lapsed into his odd and somewhat disconcerting
+thoughtfulness.
+
+Miss Cahere continued to glance at him beneath her dark lashes--dark
+lashes around blue eyes--with a guileless and wondering admiration. He
+certainly was a very good-looking man, well set up, with that quiet air
+which bespeaks good breeding.
+
+“Have you seen the ship on the other side?” she asked, after a pause; “a
+sailing ship. You cannot see it from here.”
+
+As she spoke she made a little movement, as if to show him the spot
+from whence the ship was visible. Cartoner followed her meekly, and Mr.
+Mangles, left behind in his deck-chair, slowly sought his cigar-case.
+
+“There,” said Miss Cahere, pointing out a sail on the distant horizon.
+“One can hardly see it now. When I first came on deck it was much
+nearer. That ship's officer pointed it out to me.”
+
+Cartoner looked at the ship without much enthusiasm.
+
+“I think,” said Miss Cahere, in a lower voice--she had a rather
+confidential manner--“I think sailors are very nice, don't you?
+But . . . well, I suppose one ought not to say that, ought one?”
+
+“It depends what you were going to say.”
+
+Miss Cahere laughed, and made no reply. Her laugh and a glance seemed,
+however, to convey the comfortable assurance that whatever she had been
+about to say would not have been applicable to Cartoner himself. She
+glanced at his trim, upright figure.
+
+“I think I prefer soldiers,” she said, thoughtfully.
+
+Cartoner murmured something inaudible, and continued to gaze at the ship
+he had been told to look at.
+
+“Did you know my uncle before you came on board, or were you brave
+enough to force him to speak? He is so silent, you know, that most
+people are afraid of him. I suppose you had met him before.”
+
+“No. It was a mere accident. We were neither of us ill. We were both
+hungry, and hurried down to a meal. And the stewards placed us next to
+each other.”
+
+Which was a long explanation, without much information in it.
+
+“Oh, I thought perhaps you were in the diplomatic service,” said Miss
+Cahere, carelessly.
+
+For an instant Cartoner's eyes lost all their vagueness. Either Miss
+Cahere had hit the mark with her second shot, or else he was making a
+mental note of the fact that Mr. Mangles belonged to that amiable body
+of amateurs, the American Diplomatic Corps.
+
+Mr. Mangles had naturally selected the leeward side of the deck-house
+for his seat, and Miss Cahere had brought Cartoner round to the weather
+side, where a cold Atlantic breeze made the position untenable. Without
+explanation, and for her own good, he led the way to a warmer quarter.
+But at the corner of the deck-house a gust caught Miss Cahere, and held
+her there in a pretty attitude, with her two hands upraised to her hat,
+looking at him with frank and laughing eyes, and waiting for him to come
+to her assistance. The same gust of wind made the steamer lurch so that
+Cartoner had to grasp Miss Cahere's arm to save her from falling.
+
+“Thank you,” she said, quietly, and with downcast eyes, when the
+incident had passed. For in some matters she held old-fashioned notions,
+and was not one of the modern race of hail-fellow-well-met girls who are
+friendly in five minutes with men and women alike.
+
+When she came within sight of her uncle, she suddenly hurried towards
+him, and made an affectionate, laughing attempt to prevent his returning
+his cigar-case to his jacket pocket. She even took possession of the
+cigar-case, opened it, and with her own fingers selected a cigar.
+
+“No,” she said, firmly, “you are going to smoke again at once. Do you
+think I did not see you throw away the other? Mr. Cartoner--is it not
+foolish of him? Because I once said, without reflecting, that I did not
+care about the smell of tobacco, he never lets me see him smoke now.”
+
+As she spoke she laid her hand affectionately on the old man's shoulder
+and looked down at him.
+
+“As if it mattered whether I like it or not,” she said. “And I do like
+it--I like the smell of your cigars.”
+
+Mr. Mangles looked from Cartoner to his niece with an odd smile, which
+was perhaps the only way in which that lean countenance could express
+tenderness.
+
+“As if it mattered what I think,” she said, humbly, again.
+
+“Always like to conciliate a lady,” said Mr. Mangles, in his deep voice.
+
+“Especially when that lady is dependent on you for her daily bread and
+her frocks,” answered Netty, in an affectionate aside, which Cartoner
+was, nevertheless, able to overhear.
+
+“Where is your aunt Jooly?” inquired the old man, hurriedly. “I thought
+she was coming on deck.”
+
+“So she is,” answered Netty. “I left her in the saloon. She is quite
+well. She was talking to some people.”
+
+“What, already?” exclaimed the lady's brother. And Netty nodded her head
+with a mystic gravity. She was looking towards the saloon stairway, from
+whence she seemed to expect Miss Mangles.
+
+“My sister Jooly, sir,” explained Mr. Mangles to Cartoner, “is no doubt
+known to you--Miss Julia P. Mangles, of New York City.”
+
+Cartoner tried to look as if he had heard the name before. He had lived
+in the United States during some months, and he knew that it is possible
+to be famous in New York and quite without honor in Connecticut.
+
+“Perhaps she has not come into your line of country?” suggested Mr.
+Mangles, not unkindly.
+
+“No--I think not.”
+
+“Her line is--at present--prisons.”
+
+“I have never been in prison,” replied Cartoner.
+
+“No doubt you will get experience in course of time,” said Mr. Mangles,
+with his deep, curt laugh. “No, sir, my sister is a lecturer. She gets
+on platforms and talks.”
+
+“What about?” asked Cartoner.
+
+Mr. Mangles described the wide world, with a graceful wave of his cigar.
+
+“About most things,” he answered, gravely; “chiefly about women, I take
+it. She is great on the employment of women, and the payment of them.
+And she is right there. She has got hold of the right end of the stick
+there. She had found out what very few women know--namely, that when
+women work for nothing, they are giving away something that nobody
+wants. So Jooly goes about the world lecturing on women's employment,
+and pointing out to the public and the administration many ways in which
+women may be profitably employed and paid. She leaves it to the gumption
+of the government to discover for themselves that there is many a nice
+berth for which Jooly P. Mangles is eminently suited, but governments
+have no gumption, sir. And--”
+
+“Here is Aunt Julie,” interrupted Miss Cahere, walking away.
+
+Mr. Mangles gave a short sigh, and lapsed into silence.
+
+As Miss Cahere went forward, she passed another officer of the ship, the
+second in command, a dogged, heavy man, whose mind was given to the ship
+and his own career. He must have seen something to interest him in Netty
+Cahere's face--perhaps he caught a glance from the dark-lashed eyes--for
+he turned and looked at her again, with a sudden, dull light in his
+face.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+SIGNAL HOUSE
+
+Where Gravesend merges into Northfleet--where the spicy odors of
+chemical-fertilizing works mingle with the dry dust of the cement
+manufactories which throw their tall chimneys into an ever-gray
+sky--there stands a house known as the Signal House. Why it is so called
+no one knows and very few care to inquire. It is presumably a square
+house of the Jacobean period--presumably because it is so hidden by
+trees, so wrapped in grimy ivy, so dust-laden and so impossible to get
+at, that its outward form is no longer to be perceived.
+
+It is within sound of the bells that jingle dismally on the heads of
+the tram-car horses, plying their trade on the high-road, and yet it is
+haunted. Its two great iron gates stand on the very pavement, and they
+are never opened. Indeed, a generation or two of painters have painted
+them shut, and grime and dirt have laid their seals upon the hinges. A
+side gate gives entrance to such as come on foot. A door in the wall,
+up an alley, is labelled “Tradesman's Entrance,” but the tradesmen never
+linger there. No merry milkman leaves the latest gossip with his thin,
+blue milk on that threshold. The butcher's chariot wheels never tarry at
+the corner of that alley. Indeed, the local butcher has no chariot. His
+clients mostly come in a shawl, and take their purchases away with them
+wrapped in a doubtful newspaper beneath its folds. The better-class
+buyers wear a cloth cricketing cap, coquettishly attached to a knob of
+hair by a hat-pin.
+
+The milkman, moreover, is not a merry man, hurrying on his rounds. He
+goes slowly and pessimistically, and likes to see the halfpenny before
+he tips his measure.
+
+This, in a word, is a poor district, where no one would live if he could
+live elsewhere, with the Signal House stranded in the midst of it--a
+noble wreck on a barren, social shore. For the Signal House was once a
+family mansion; later it was described as a riverside residence, then as
+a quaint and interesting demesne. Finally its price fell with a crash,
+and an elderly lady of weak intellect was sent by her relations to live
+in it, with two servants, who were frequently to be met in Gravesend in
+the evening hours, at which time, it is to be presumed, the elderly lady
+of weak intellect was locked in the Signal House alone. But the house
+never had a ghost. Haunted houses very seldom have. The ghost was the
+mere invention of some kitchen-maid.
+
+Haunted or not, the house stood empty for years, until suddenly a
+foreigner took it--a Russian banker, it was understood. A very nice,
+pleasant-spoken little gentleman this foreigner, who liked quiet and
+the river view. He was quite as broad as he was long, though he was not
+preposterously stout. There was nothing mysterious about him. He was
+well known in the City. He had merely mistaken an undesirable suburb for
+a desirable one, a very easy mistake for a foreigner to make; and he was
+delighted at the cheapness of the house, the greenness of the old lawn,
+the height of the grimy trees within the red brick wall.
+
+He lived there all one summer, and the cement smoke got into his throat
+in the autumn and gave him asthma, for which complaint he had obviously
+been designed by Providence, for he had no neck. He used the Signal
+House occasionally from Saturday till Monday. Then he gave it up
+altogether, and tried to sell it. It stood empty for some years, while
+the Russian banker extended his business and lived virtuously elsewhere.
+Then he suddenly began using the house again as a house of recreation,
+and brought his foreign servants, and his foreign friends and their
+foreign servants, to stay from Saturday till Monday.
+
+And all these persons behaved in an odd, Continental way, and played
+bowls on the lawn at the back of the house on Sundays. The neighbors
+could hear them but could see nothing, owing to the thickness of the
+grimy trees and the height of the old brick wall. But no one worried
+much about the Signal House; for they were a busy people who lived all
+around, and had to earn their living, in addition to the steady and
+persistent assuagement of a thirst begotten of cement dust and the
+pungent smell of bone manure. One or two local amateurs had made sure
+of the fact that there was nothing in the house that would repay a
+burglarious investigation, which, added to the fact that the police
+station is only a few doors off, tended to allay a natural curiosity as
+to the foreign gentleman's possessions.
+
+When he came he drove in a close cab from Gravesend Station, and usually
+told the cabman when his services would again be required. He came
+thus with three friends one summer afternoon, some years ago, and came
+without luggage. The servants, who followed in a second cab, carried
+some parcels, presumably of refreshments. These grave gentlemen were,
+it appeared, about to enjoy a picnic at the Signal House--possibly a
+tea-picnic in the Russian fashion.
+
+The afternoon was fine, and the gentlemen walked in the garden at the
+back of the house. They were walking thus when another cab stopped at
+the closed iron gate, and the banker hurried, as fast as his build would
+allow, to open the side door and admit a seafaring man, who seemed to
+know his bearings.
+
+“Well, mister,” he said, in a Northern voice, “another of your little
+jobs?”
+
+The two men shook hands, and the banker paid the cabman. When the
+vehicle had gone the host turned to his guest and replied to the
+question.
+
+“Yes, my fren',” he said, “another of my little jobs. I hope you are
+well, Captain Cable?”
+
+But Captain Cable was not a man to waste words over the social
+conventions. He was obviously well--as well as a hard, seafaring life
+will make a man who lives simply and works hard. He was a short man,
+with a red face washed very clean, and very well shaven, except for a
+little piece of beard left fantastically at the base of his chin. His
+eyes were blue and bright, like gimlets. He may have had a soft heart,
+but it was certainly hidden beneath a hard exterior. He wore a thick
+coat of blue pilot-cloth, not because the July day was cold, but because
+it was his best coat. His hat was carefully brushed and of hard, black
+felt. It had perhaps been the height of fashion in Sunderland five years
+earlier. He wore no gloves--Captain Cable drew the line there. As for
+the rest, he had put on that which he called his shore-going rig.
+
+“And yourself?” he answered, mechanically.
+
+“I am very well, thank you,” replied the polite banker, who, it will
+have been perceived, was nameless to Captain Cable, as he is to the
+reader. The truth being that his name was so absurdly and egregiously
+Russian that the plain English tongue never embarked on that sea of
+consonants. “It is an affair, as usual. My friends are here to meet you,
+but I think they do not speak English, except your colleague, the other
+captain, who speaks a little--a very little.”
+
+As he spoke he led the way to the garden, where three gentlemen were
+awaiting them.
+
+“This is Captain Cable,” he said, and the three gentlemen raised their
+hats, much to the captain's discomfiture. He did not hold by foreign
+ways; but he dragged his hat off and then expectorated on the lawn,
+just to show that he felt quite at home. He even took the lead in the
+conversation.
+
+“Tell 'em,” he said, “that I'm a plain man from Sun'land that has a
+speciality, an' that's transshipping cargo at sea, but me hands are
+clean.”
+
+He held them out and they were not, so he must have spoken
+metaphorically.
+
+The banker translated, addressing himself to one of his companions,
+rather markedly and with much deference.
+
+“You're speakin' French,” interrupted Captain Cable.
+
+“Yes, my fren', I am. Do you know French?”
+
+“Not me,” returned Captain Cable, affably. “They're all one to me.
+They're all damn nonsense.”
+
+He was, it seemed, that which is called in these days of blatant
+patriotism a thorough Englishman, or a true Blue, according to the
+social station of the speaker.
+
+The gentleman to whom the translation had been addressed smiled. He was
+a tall and rather distinguished-looking man, with bushy white hair and
+mustache. His features were square-cut and strong. His eyes were dark,
+and he had an easy smile. He led the way to some chairs which had been
+placed near a table at the far end of the lawn beneath a cedar-tree, and
+his manner had something faintly regal in it, as if in his daily life he
+had always been looked up to and obeyed without question.
+
+“Tell him that we also are plain men with clean hands,” he said.
+
+And the banker replied:
+
+“Oui, mon Prince.”
+
+But the interpretation was taken out of his mouth by one of the others,
+the youngest of the group--a merry-eyed youth, with a fluffy, fair
+mustache and close-cropped, flaxen hair.
+
+“My father,” he said, in perfect English, “says that we also are plain
+men, and that your hands will not be hurt by touching ours.”
+
+He held out his hand as he spoke, and refused to withdraw it until it
+had been grasped, rather shame-facedly, by Captain Cable, who did not
+like these effusive foreign ways, but, nevertheless, rather liked the
+young man.
+
+The banker ranged the chairs round the table, and the oddly assorted
+group seated themselves. The man who had not yet spoken, and who sat
+down last, was obviously a sailor. His face was burned a deep brown,
+and was mostly hidden by a closely cut beard. He had the slow ways of a
+Northerner, the abashed manner of a merchant skipper on shore. The mark
+of the other element was so plainly written upon him that Captain Cable
+looked at him hard and then nodded. Without being invited to do so they
+sat next to each other at one side of the table, and faced the three
+landsmen. Again Captain Cable spoke first.
+
+“Provided it's nothing underhand,” he said, “I'm ready and willing.
+Or'nary risks of the sea, Queen's enemies, act o' God--them's my risks!
+I am uninsured. Ship's my own. I don't mind explosives--”
+
+“There are explosives,” admitted the banker.
+
+“Then they must be honest explosives, or they don't go below my hatches.
+Explosives that's to blow a man up honest, before his face.”
+
+“There are cartridges,” said the young man who had shaken hands.
+
+“That'll do,” said the masterful sailor. And pointing a thick finger
+towards the banker, added, “Now, mister,” and sat back in his chair.
+
+“It is a very simple matter,” explained the banker, in a thick, suave
+voice. “We have a cargo--a greater part of it weight, though there is
+some measurement--a few cases of light goods, clothing and such. You
+will load in the river, and all will be sent to you in lighters.
+There is nothing heavy, nothing large. There is also no insurance, you
+understand. What falls out of the slings and is lost overside is lost.”
+
+The banker paused for breath.
+
+“I understand,” said Captain Cable. “It's the same with me and my ship.
+There is no insurance, no tricking underwriters into unusual risks. It's
+neck or nothing with me.”
+
+And he looked hard at the breathless banker, with whom it was, in this
+respect, nothing.
+
+“I understand right enough,” he added, with an affable nod to the three
+foreigners.
+
+“You will sail from London with a full general cargo for Malmo or
+Stockholm, or somewhere where officials are not wide-awake. You meet in
+the North Sea, at a point to be fixed between yourselves, the _Olaf_,
+Captain Petersen--sitting by your side.”
+
+Captain Cable turned and gravely shook hands with Captain Petersen.
+
+“Thought you was a seafaring man,” he said. And Captain Petersen replied
+that he was “Vair pleased.”
+
+“The cargo is to be transshipped at sea, out of sight of land or
+lightship. But that we can safely leave to you, Captain Cable.”
+
+“I don't deny,” replied the mariner, who was measuring Captain Petersen
+out of the corner of his eye, “that I have been there before.”
+
+“You can then go up the Baltic in ballast to some small port--just a
+sawmill, at the head of a fjord--where I shall have a cargo of timber
+waiting for you to bring back to London. When can you begin loading,
+captain?”
+
+“To-morrow,” replied the captain. “Ship's lying in the river now, and if
+these gentlemen would like to see her, she's as handy a--”
+
+“No, I do not think we shall have time for that!” put in the banker,
+hastily. “And now we must leave you and Captain Petersen to settle your
+meeting-place. You have your charts?”
+
+By way of response the captain produced from his pocket sundry folded
+papers, which he laid tenderly on the table. For the last ten years
+he had been postponing the necessity of buying new charts of certain
+sections of the North Sea. He looked round at the high walls and the
+overhanging trees.
+
+“Hope the wind don't come blustering in here much,” he said,
+apprehensively, as he unfolded the ragged papers with great caution.
+
+The fair-haired young man drew forward his chair, and Cable, seeing the
+action, looked at him sharply.
+
+“Seafaring man?” he inquired, with a weight of doubt and distrust in his
+voice.
+
+“Not by profession, only for fun.”
+
+“Fun? Man and boy, I've used the sea forty years, and I haven't yet
+found out where the fun comes in!”
+
+“This gentleman,” explained the banker, “his Ex--Mr.--” He paused, and
+looked inquiringly at the white-haired gentleman.
+
+“Mr. Martin.”
+
+“Mr. Martin will be on board the _Olaf_ when you meet Captain Petersen
+in the North Sea. He will act as interpreter. You remember that Captain
+Petersen speaks no English, and you do not know his language. The
+two crews, I understand, will be similarly placed. Captain Peterson
+undertakes to have no one on board speaking English. And your crew, my
+fren'?”
+
+“My crew comes from Sun'land. Men that only speak English, and precious
+little of that,” replied Captain Cable.
+
+He had his finger on the chart, but paused and looked up, fixing his
+bright glance on the face of the white-haired gentleman.
+
+“There's one thing--I'm a plain-spoken man myself--what is there for us
+two--us seafaring men?”
+
+“There is five hundred pounds for each of you,” replied the white-haired
+gentleman for himself, in slow and careful English.
+
+Captain Cable nodded his grizzled head over the chart.
+
+“I like to deal with a gentleman,” he said, gruffly.
+
+“And so do I,” replied the white-haired foreigner, with a bow.
+
+Captain Cable grunted audibly.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A SPECIALTY
+
+A muddy sea and a dirty gray sky, a cold rain and a moaning wind.
+Short-capped waves breaking to leeward in a little hiss of spray. The
+water itself sandy and discolored. Far away to the east, where the
+green-gray and the dirty gray merge into one, a windmill spinning in the
+breeze--Holland. Near at hand, standing in the sea, the picture of wet
+and disconsolate solitude, a little beacon, erect on three legs, like
+a bandbox affixed to a giant easel. It is alight, although it is broad
+daylight; for it is always alight, always gravely revolving, night and
+day, alone on this sandbank in the North Sea. It is tended once in three
+weeks. The lamp is filled; the wick is trimmed; the screen, which is
+ingeniously made to revolve by the heat of the lamp, is lubricated, and
+the beacon is left to its solitude and its work.
+
+There must be land to the eastward, though nothing but the spinning mill
+is visible. The land is below the level of the sea. There is probably
+an entrance to some canal behind the moving sandbank. This is one of the
+waste-places of the world--a place left clean on sailors' charts; no
+one passes that way. These banks are as deadly as many rocks which have
+earned for themselves a dreaded name in maritime story. For they never
+relinquish anything that touches them. They are soft and gentle in their
+embrace; they slowly suck in the ship that comes within their grasp.
+Their story is a long, grim tale of disaster. Their treasure is vast and
+stored beneath a weight, half sand, half water, which must ever baffle
+the ingenuity of man. Fog, the sailors' deadliest foe, has its home on
+these waters, rising on the low-lying lands and creeping out to sea,
+where it blows to and fro for weeks and weeks together. When all the
+world is blue and sunny, fog-banks lie like a sheet of cotton-wool on
+these coasts.
+
+“Barrin' fogs--always barrin' fogs!” Captain Cable had said as his last
+word on leaving the Signal House. “If ye wait a month, never move in a
+fog in these waters, or ye'll move straight to Davy Jones!”
+
+And chance favored him, for a gale of wind came instead of a fog, one
+of those May gales that sweep down from the northwest without warning or
+reason.
+
+At sunset the _Olaf_ had crept cautiously in from the west--a
+high-prowed, well-decked, square-rigged steamer of the old school, with
+her name written large amidships and her side-lights set aft. Captain
+Petersen was a cautious man, and came on with the leadsman working like
+a clock. He was a man who moved slowly. And at sea, as in life, he who
+moves slowly often runs many dangers which a greater confidence and
+a little dash would avoid. He who moves slowly is the prey of every
+current.
+
+Captain Petersen steamed in behind the beacon. He sighted the windmill
+very carefully, very correctly, very cautiously. He described a
+half-circle round the bank hidden a few feet below the muddy water. Then
+he steamed slowly seawards, keeping the windmill full astern and the
+beacon on his port quarter. When the beacon was bearing southeast he
+rang the engine-room bell. The steamer, hardly moving before, stopped
+dead, its bluff nose turned to the wind and the rustling waves. Then
+Captain Petersen held up his hand to the first mate, who was on the high
+forecastle, and the anchor splashed over. The _Olaf_ was anchored at
+the head of a submarine bay. She had shoal water all round her, and no
+vessel could get at her unless it came as she had come. The sun went
+down, and the red-gray clouds in the stormy west slowly faded into
+night. There was no land in sight. Even the whirligig windmill was below
+the horizon now. Only the three-legged beacon stood near, turning its
+winking, wondering eye round the waste of waters.
+
+Here the _Olaf_ rode out the gale that raged all through the night, and
+in the morning there was no peace, for it still rained and the northwest
+wind still blew hard. There was no depth of water, however, to make a
+sea big enough to affect large vessels. The _Olaf_ rode easily enough,
+and only pitched her nose into the yellow sea from time to time,
+throwing a cloud of spray over the length of her decks, like a bird at
+its bath.
+
+Soon after daylight the Prince Martin Bukaty came on deck, gay and
+lively in his borrowed oilskins. His blue eyes laughed in the shadow of
+the black sou'wester tied down over his eyes, his slight form was lost
+in the ample folds of Captain Petersen's best oilskin coat.
+
+“It remains to be seen,” he said, peering out into the rain and spray,
+“whether that little man will come to us in this.”
+
+“He will come,” said Captain Petersen.
+
+Prince Martin Bukaty laughed. He laughed at most things--at the timidity
+and caution of this Norse captain, at good weather, at bad weather, at
+life as he found it. He was one of those few and happy people who find
+life a joy and his fellow-being a huge joke. Some will say that it is
+easy enough to be gay at the threshold of life; but experience tells
+that gayety is an inward sun which shines through all the changes and
+chances of a journey which has assuredly more bad weather than good. The
+gayest are not those who can be pointed out as the happiest. Indeed, the
+happiest are those who appear to have nothing to make them happy. Martin
+Bukaty might, for instance, have chosen a better abode than the stuffy
+cabin of a Scandinavian cargo-boat and cheerier companions than a grim
+pair of Norse seamen. He might have sought a bluer sky and a bluer sea,
+and yet he stood on the dripping deck and laughed. He clapped Captain
+Petersen on the back.
+
+“Well, we have got here and we have ridden out the worst of it, and we
+haven't dragged our anchors and nobody has seen us, and that exceedingly
+amusing little captain will be here in a few hours. Why look so gloomy,
+my friend?”
+
+Captain Petersen shook the rain from the brim of his sou'wester.
+
+“We are putting our necks within a rope,” he said.
+
+“Not your neck--only mine,” replied Martin. “It is a necktie that one
+gets accustomed to. Look at my father! One rarely sees an old man so
+free from care. How he laughs! How he enjoys his dinner and his wine!
+The wine runs down a man's throat none the less pleasantly because there
+is a loose rope around it. And he has played a dangerous game all his
+life--that old man, eh?”
+
+“It is all very well for you,” said Captain Petersen, gravely, turning
+his gloomy eyes towards his companion. “A prince does not get shot or
+hanged or sent to the bottom in the high seas.”
+
+“Ah! you think that,” said Prince Martin, momentarily grave. “One can
+never tell.”
+
+Then he broke into a laugh.
+
+“Come!” he said, “I am going aloft to look for that English boat. Come
+on to the fore-yard. We can watch him come in--that little bulldog of a
+man.”
+
+“If he has any sense he will wait in the open until this gale is over,”
+ grumbled Petersen, nevertheless following his companion forward.
+
+“He has only one sense, that man--a sense of infinite fearlessness.”
+
+“He is probably afraid--” Captain Petersen paused to hoist himself
+laboriously on to the rail.
+
+“Of what?” inquired Martin, looking through the ratlines.
+
+“Of a woman.”
+
+And Martin Bukaty's answer was lost in the roar of the wind as he went
+aloft.
+
+They lay on the fore-yard for half an hour, talking from time to time in
+breathless monosyllables, for the wind was gathering itself together for
+that last effort which usually denotes the end of a gale. Then Captain
+Petersen pointed his steady hand almost straight ahead. On the gray
+horizon a little column of smoke rose like a pillar. It was a steamer
+approaching before the wind.
+
+Captain Cable came on at a great pace. His ship was very low in the
+water, and kicked up awkwardly on a following sea. He swung round the
+beacon on the shoulder of a great wave that turned him over till
+the rounded wet sides of the steamer gleamed like a whale's back. He
+disappeared into the haze nearer the land, and presently emerged again
+astern of the _Olaf_, a black nozzle of iron and an intermittent fan
+of spray. He was crashing into the seas at full speed--a very different
+kind of sailor to the careful captain of the _Olaf_. His low decks were
+clear, and each sea leaped over the bow and washed aft--green and white.
+As the little steamer came down he suddenly slackened speed, and waved
+his hand as he stood alone on the high bridge.
+
+Then two or three oilskin-clad figures crept forward into the spray that
+still broke over the bows. The crew of the _Olaf_, crowding to the rail,
+looked down on the deeply laden little vessel from the height of their
+dry and steady deck. They watched the men working quickly almost under
+water on the low forecastle, and saw that it was good. Captain Cable
+stood swaying on the bridge--a little, square figure in gleaming
+oilskins--and said no word. He had a picked crew.
+
+He passed ahead of the _Olaf_ and anchored there, paying out cable as if
+he were going to ride out a cyclone. The steamer had no name visible, a
+sail hanging carelessly over the stern completely hid name and port
+of registry. Her forward name-boards had been removed. Whatever his
+business was, this seaman knew it well.
+
+No sooner was his anchor down than Captain Cable began to lower a boat,
+and Petersen, seeing the action, broke into mild Scandinavian profanity.
+“He is going to try and get to us!” he said, pessimistically, and went
+forward to give the necessary orders. He knew his business, too, this
+Northern sailor, and when, after a long struggle, the boat containing
+Captain Cable and two men came within reach, a rope--cleverly
+thrown--coiled out into the flying scud and fell across the captain's
+face.
+
+A few minutes later he scrambled on to the deck of the _Olaf_ and shook
+hands with Captain Petersen. He did not at once recognize Prince Martin,
+who held out his hand.
+
+“Glad to see you, Captain Cable,” he said. Cable finished drying the
+salt water from his face with a blue cotton handkerchief before he shook
+hands.
+
+“Suppose you thought I wasn't coming,” he said, suspiciously.
+
+“No, I knew you would.”
+
+“Glad to see me for my own sake?” suggested the captain, grimly smiling.
+
+“Yes, it always does one good to see a man,” answered Prince Martin.
+
+“They tell me you're a prince.”
+
+“That is all.”
+
+The captain measured him slowly with his eyes.
+
+“Makings of a man as well, perhaps,” he said, doubtfully. Then he turned
+to cast an eye over the _Olaf_.
+
+“Tin-kettle of a thing!” he observed, after a pause.
+
+“My little cargo won't be much in her great hold. Hatches are too small.
+Now, I'm all hatch. Can't open up in this weather. We can turn to and
+get our running tackle bent. It'll moderate before the evening, and if
+it does we can work all night. Will your Rile Highnes' be ready to work
+all night?”
+
+“I shall be ready whenever your High Mightiness is.”
+
+The captain gave a gruff laugh.
+
+“Dammy, you're the right sort!” he muttered, looking aloft at the
+rigging with that contempt for foreign tackle which is essentially the
+privilege of the British sailor.
+
+Cable gave certain orders, announced that he would send four men on
+board in the afternoon to bend the running tackle “ship-shape and
+Bristol fashion,” and refused to remain on board the _Olaf_ for
+luncheon.
+
+“We've got a bit of steak,” he said, conclusively, and clambered over
+the side into his boat. In confirmation of this statement the odor of
+fried onions was borne on the breeze a few minutes later from the small
+steamer to the large one.
+
+The men from Sunderland came on board during the afternoon--men who,
+as Captain Cable had stated, had only one language and made singularly
+small use of that. Music and seamanship are two arts daily practised in
+harmony by men who have no common language. For a man is a seaman or
+a musician quite independently of speech. So the running tackle was
+successfully bent, and in the evening the weather moderated.
+
+There was a half-moon, which struggled through the clouds soon after
+dark, and by its light the little English steamer sidled almost
+noiselessly under the shadow of her large companion. Captain Cable's
+crew worked quickly and quietly, and by nine o'clock that work was begun
+which was to throw a noose round the necks of Prince Bukaty, Prince
+Martin, Captain Petersen, and several others.
+
+Captain Cable divided the watches so that the work might proceed
+continuously. The dawn found the smaller steamer considerably lightened,
+and her captain bright and wakeful at his post. All through the day the
+transshipping went on. Cases of all sizes and all weights were slung out
+of the capacious hatches of the one to sink into the dark hold of the
+other vessel, and there was no mishap. Through the second night the
+creaking of the blocks never ceased, and soon after daylight the three
+men who had superintended the work without resting took a cup of coffee
+together in the cabin of the _Olaf_.
+
+“Likely as not,” said Captain Cable, setting down his empty cup, “we
+three'll not meet again. I have had dealings with many that I've never
+seen again, and with some that have been careful not to know me if they
+did see me.”
+
+“We can never tell,” said Martin, optimistically.
+
+“Of course,” the captain went on, “I can hold me tongue. That's
+agreed--we all hold our tongues, whatever the newspapers may be likely
+to pay for a word or two. Often enough I've read things in the newspaper
+that I could put a different name to. And that little ship of mine has
+had a hand in some queer political pies.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Martin, with his gay laugh, “and kept it clean all the
+same.”
+
+“That's as may be. And now I'll say good-bye. I'll be calling on your
+father for my money in three days' time--barrin' fogs. And I'll tell him
+I left you well. Good-bye, Petersen; you're a handy man. Tell him he's a
+handy man in his own langwidge, and I'll take it kindly.”
+
+Captain Cable shook hands, and clattered out of the cabin in his great
+sea-boots.
+
+Half an hour later the _Olaf_ was alone on that shallow sea, which
+seemed lonelier and more silent than ever; for when a strong man quits a
+room he often bequeaths a sudden silence to those he leaves behind.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+TWO OF A TRADE
+
+“His face reminds one of a sunny graveyard,” a witty Frenchwoman had
+once said of a man named Paul Deulin. And it is probable that Deulin
+alone could have understood what she meant. Those who think in French
+have a trick of putting great thoughts into a little compass, and, as
+the hollow ball of talk is tossing to and fro, it sometimes rings for a
+moment in a deeper note than many ears are tuned to catch.
+
+The careless word seized the attention of one man who happened to hear
+it--Reginald Cartoner, a listener, not a talker--and made that man Paul
+Deulin's friend for the rest of his life. As there is _point de culte
+sans mystere_, so also there can be no lasting friendship without
+reserve. And although these two men had met in many parts of the
+world--although they had in common more languages than may be counted on
+the fingers--they knew but little of each other.
+
+If one thinks of it, a sunny graveyard, bright with flowers and the gay
+green of spring foliage, is the shallowest fraud on earth, endeavoring
+to conceal beneath a specious exterior a thousand tragedies, a whole
+harvest of lost illusions, a host of grim human comedies. On the other
+hand, this is a pious fraud; for half the world is young, and will
+discover the roots of the flowers soon enough.
+
+Cartoner had met Deulin in many strange places. Together they had
+witnessed queer events. Accredited to a new president of a new republic,
+they once had made their bow, clad in court dress, and official dignity,
+to the man whom they were destined to see a month later hanging on his
+own flagstaff, out over the plaza, from the spare-bedroom window of
+the new presidency. They had acted in concert; they had acted in direct
+opposition. Cartoner had once had to tell Deulin that if he persisted
+in his present course of action the government which he (Cartoner)
+represented would not be able to look upon it with indifference, which
+is the language of diplomacy, and means war.
+
+For these men were the vultures of their respective Foreign Offices, and
+it was their business to be found where the carcass is.
+
+“The chief difference between the gods and men is that man can only be
+in one place at a time,” Deulin had once said to Cartoner, twenty years
+his junior, in his light, philosophic way, when a turn of the wheel had
+rendered a long journey futile, and they found themselves far from that
+place where their services were urgently needed.
+
+“If men could be in two places at the same moment, say once only during
+a lifetime, their lives would be very different from what they are.”
+ Cartoner had glanced quickly at him when he spoke, but only saw a ready,
+imperturbable smile.
+
+Deulin was a man counting his friends among all nationalities. The
+captain of a great steamship has perhaps as many acquaintances as may be
+vouchsafed to one man, and at the beginning of a voyage he has to assure
+a number of total strangers that he remembers them perfectly. Deulin,
+during fifty-odd years of his life, had moved through a maze of men,
+remembering faces as a ship-captain must recollect those who have sailed
+with him, without attaching a name or being able to allot one saving
+quality to lift an individual out of the ruck. For it is a lamentable
+fact that all men and all women are painfully like each other; it is
+only their faces that differ. For God has made the faces, but men have
+manufactured their own thoughts.
+
+Deulin had met a few who were not like the others, and one of these
+was Reginald Cartoner, who was thrown against him, as it were, in a
+professional manner when Deulin had been twenty years at the work.
+
+“I always cross the road,” he said, “when I see Cartoner on the other
+side. If I did not, he would go past.”
+
+This he did in the literal sense the day after Cartoner landed in
+England on his return from America. Deulin saw his friend emerge from
+a club in Pall Mall and walk westward, as if he had business in that
+direction. Like many travellers, the Frenchman loved the open air.
+Like all Frenchmen, he loved the streets. He was idling in Pall Mall,
+avoiding a man here and there. For we all have friends whom we are
+content to see pass by on the other side. Deulin's duty was, moreover,
+such that it got strangely mixed up with his pleasure, and it often
+happens that discretion must needs overcome a natural sociability.
+
+Cartoner saw his friend approaching; for Deulin had the good fortune,
+or the misfortune, to be a distinguished-looking man, with a tall,
+spare form, a trim white mustache and imperial, and that air of calm
+possession of his environment which gives to some paupers the manner of
+a great land-owner. He shook hands in silence, then turned and walked
+with Cartoner.
+
+“I permit myself a question,” he said. “When did you return from Cuba?”
+
+“I landed at Liverpool last night.”
+
+Cartoner turned in his abrupt way and looked his companion up and down.
+Perhaps he was wondering for the hundredth time what might be buried
+behind those smiling eyes.
+
+“I am in London, as you see,” said Deulin, as if he had been asked a
+question. “I am awaiting orders. Something is brewing somewhere, one may
+suppose. Your return to London seems to confirm such a suspicion. Let us
+hope we may have another little . . . errand together--eh?”
+
+As he spoke, Deulin bowed in his rather grand way to an old gentleman
+who walked briskly past in the military fashion, and who turned to look
+curiously at the two men.
+
+“You are dressed in your best clothes,” said Deulin, after a pause; “you
+are going to pay calls.”
+
+“I am going to call on one of my old chiefs.”
+
+“Then I will ask your permission to accompany you. I, too, have put on a
+new hat. I am idle. I want something to do. Mon Dieu, I want to talk to
+a clean and wholesome Englishwoman, just for a change. I know all your
+old chiefs, my friend. I know where you have been every moment since you
+made your mark at this business. One watches the quiet men--eh?”
+
+“She will be glad to see you,” said Cartoner, with his slow smile.
+
+“Ah! She is always kind, that lady; for I guess where we are going. She
+might have been a great woman . . . if she had not been a happy one.”
+
+“I always go to see them when I am in town,” said Cartoner, who usually
+confined his conversation to the necessaries of daily intercourse.
+
+“And he--how is he?”
+
+“He is as well as can be expected. He has worked so hard and so long in
+many climates. She is always anxious about him.”
+
+“It is the penalty a woman pays,” said Deulin. “To love and to be
+consumed by anxiety--a woman's life, my friend. Oddly enough, I should
+have gone there this afternoon, whether I had met you or not. I want her
+good services--again.”
+
+And the Frenchman shrugged his shoulders with a laugh, as if suddenly
+reminded of some grievous error in his past life.
+
+“I want her to befriend some friends of mine, if she has not done so
+already. For she knows them, of course. They are the Bukatys. Of course,
+you know the history of the Bukatys of Warsaw.”
+
+“I know the history of Poland,” answered Cartoner, looking straight in
+front of him with reflective eyes. He had an odd way of carrying his
+head a little bent forward, as if he bore behind his heavy forehead
+a burden of memories and knowledge of which his brain was always
+conscious--as a man may stand in the centre of a great library, and
+become suddenly aware that he has more books than he can ever open and
+understand.
+
+“Of course you do; you know a host of things. And you know more history
+that was ever written in books. You know more than I do, and Heaven
+knows that I know a great deal. For you are a reader, and I never look
+into a book. I know the surface of things. The Bukatys are in London. I
+give you that--to put in your pipe and smoke. Father and son. It is
+not for them that I seek Lady Orlay's help. They must take care of
+themselves--though they will not do that. It does not run in the family,
+as you know, who read history books.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” said Cartoner, pausing before crossing to the corner
+of St. James's Street, in the manner of a man whose life had not been
+passed in London streets. For it must be remembered that English traffic
+is different to the traffic of any other streets in the world.
+
+“There is a girl,” pursued the Frenchman. “Families like the Bukatys
+should kill their girls in infancy. Not that Wanda knows it; she is
+as gay as a bird, and quite devoted to her father, who is an old
+ruffian--and my very dear friend.”
+
+“And what do you want Lady Orlay to do for Princess Wanda?” inquired
+Cartoner, with a smile. It was always a marvel to him that Paul Deulin
+should have travelled so far down the road of life without losing his
+enthusiasm somewhere by the way.
+
+“That I leave to Lady Orlay,” replied Deulin, with an airy wave of his
+neat umbrella, which imperilled the eyesight of a passing baker-boy, who
+abused him. Whereupon Deulin turned and took off his hat and apologized.
+
+“Yes,” he said, ignoring the incident, “I would not presume to dictate.
+All I should do would be to present Wanda to her. 'Here is a girl who
+has the misfortune to be a Bukaty; who has no mother; who has a father
+who is a plotter and an old ruffian--a Polish noble, in fact--and a
+brother who is an enthusiast, and as brave as only a prince can be.' I
+should say, 'You see that circumstances have thrown this girl upon the
+world, practically alone--on the hard, hard upper-class world--with only
+one heart to break. It is only men who have a whole row of hearts on a
+shelf, and, when one is broken, they take down another, made, perhaps,
+of ambition, or sport, or the love of a different sort of woman--and,
+vogue la galere, they go on just as well as they did before.'”
+
+“And my accomplished aunt . . .” suggested Cartoner.
+
+“Would laugh at me, I know that. I would rather have Lady Orlay's laugh
+than another woman's tears. And so would you; for you are a man of
+common-sense, though deadly dull in conversation.”
+
+As if to prove the truth of this assertion, Deulin was himself silent
+until they had ascended St. James's Street and turned to the left in
+Piccadilly; and, sure enough, Cartoner had nothing to say. At last
+he broke the silence, and made it evident that he had been placidly
+following the stream of his own thoughts.
+
+“Who is Joseph P. Mangles?” he asked, in his semi-inaudible monotone.
+
+“An American gentleman--the word is applicable in its best sense--who
+for his sins, or the sins of his forefathers, has been visited with the
+most terrible sister a man ever had.”
+
+“So much I know.”
+
+Deulin turned and looked at his companion.
+
+“Then you have met him--that puts another complexion on your question.”
+
+“I have just crossed the Atlantic in the next chair to him.”
+
+“And that is all you know about him?”
+
+Cartoner nodded.
+
+“Then Joseph P. Mangles is getting on.”
+
+“What is he?” repeated Cartoner.
+
+“He is in the service of his country, my friend, like any other poor
+devil--like you or me, for instance. He spends half of his time kicking
+his heels in New York, or wherever they kick their heels in America.
+The rest of his time he is risking his health, or possibly his neck,
+wherever it may please the fates to send him. If he had been properly
+trained, he might have done something, that Joseph P. Mangles; for he
+can hold his tongue. But he took to it late, as they all do in America.
+So he has come across, has he? Yes, the storm-birds are congregating, my
+silent friend. There is something in the wind.”
+
+Deulin raised his long, thin nose into the dusty May air and sniffed it.
+
+“Was that girl with them?” he inquired presently--“Miss Netty Cahere?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“I always make love to Miss Cahere--she likes it best.”
+
+Cartoner stared straight in front of him, and made no comment. The
+Frenchman gave a laugh, which was not entirely pleasant. It was rare
+that his laugh was harsh, but such a note rang in it now. They did not
+speak again until they had walked some distance northward of Piccadilly,
+and stopped before a house with white window-boxes. Several carriages
+stood at the other side of the road against the square railings.
+
+“Is it her day?” inquired Deulin.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Deulin made a grimace expressive of annoyance.
+
+“And we shall see a number of people we had better not see. But, since
+we are here, let us go in--with a smile on the countenance, eh? my brave
+Cartoner.”
+
+“And a lie on the tongue.”
+
+“There I will meet you, too,” replied Deulin, looking into his
+card-case.
+
+They entered the house, and, as Deulin had predicted, there found a
+number of people assembled, who noted, no doubt, that they had come
+together. It was observable that this was not a congregation of
+fashionable or artistic people; for the women were dressed quietly, and
+the men were mostly old and white-haired. It was also dimly perceptible
+that there was a larger proportion of brain in the room than is allotted
+to the merely fashionable, or to that shallow mixture of the dramatic
+and pictorial, which is usually designated the artistic world. Moreover,
+scraps of conversation reached the ear that led the hearer to conclude
+that the house was in its way a miniature Babel.
+
+The two men separated on the threshold, and Deulin went forward to shake
+hands with a tall, white-haired woman, who was the centre of a vivacious
+group. Over the heads of her guests this lady had already perceived
+Cartoner, who was making his way more slowly through the crowd. He
+seemed to have more friends there than Deulin. Lady Orlay at length
+went to meet Cartoner, and as they shook hands, one of those slight and
+indefinable family resemblances which start up at odd moments became
+visible.
+
+“I want you particularly to-morrow night,” said the lady; “I have some
+people coming. I will send a card to your club this evening.”
+
+And she turned to say good-bye to a departing guest. Deulin was at
+Cartoner's elbow again.
+
+“Here,” he said, taking him by the sleeve and speaking in his own
+tongue, “I wish to present you to friends of mine. Prince Pierre
+Bukaty,” he added, stopping in front of a tall, old man, with bushy,
+white hair, and the air of a mediaeval chieftain, “allow me to present
+my old friend Cartoner.”
+
+The two men shook hands without other greeting than a formal bow. Deulin
+still held Cartoner by the sleeve, and gently compelled him to turn
+towards a girl who was looking round with bright and eager eyes. She had
+a manner full of energy and spirit, and might have been an English girl
+of open air and active tastes.
+
+“Princess Wanda,” said the Frenchman, “my friend Mr. Cartoner.”
+
+The eager eyes came round to Cartoner's face, of which the gravity
+seemed suddenly reflected in them.
+
+“He is the best linguist in Europe,” said Deulin, in a gay whisper;
+“even Polish; he speaks with the tongue of men and of angels.”
+
+And he himself spoke in Polish.
+
+Princess Wanda met Cartoner's serious eyes again, and in that place,
+where human fates are written, another page of those inscrutable books
+was folded over.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
+
+Prince Bukaty was an affable old man, with a love of good wine and a
+perfect appreciation of the humorous. Had he been an Englishman, he
+would have been an honest squire of the old Tory type, now fast fading
+before facilities for foreign travel and a cheap local railway service.
+But he was a Pole, and the fine old hatred which should have been
+bestowed upon the Radicals fell to the lot of the Russians, and the
+contempt hurled by his British prototype upon Dissent was cast upon
+Commerce as represented in Poland by the thrifty German _emigre_.
+
+The prince carried his bluff head with that air which almost invariably
+bespeaks a stormy youth, and looked out over mankind from his great
+height as over a fine standing crop of wild oats. As a matter of fact,
+he had grown to manhood in the years immediately preceding those wild
+early sixties, when all Europe was at loggerheads, and Poland seething
+in its midst, as lava seethes in the crater of a volcano.
+
+The prince had been to England several times. He had friends in London.
+Indeed, he possessed them in many parts of the world, and, oddly enough,
+he had no enemies. To his credit be it noted that he was not an exile,
+which is usually another name for a scoundrel. For he who has no abiding
+city generally considers himself exempt from the duties of citizenship.
+
+“They do not take me seriously,” he said to his intimate friends; “they
+do not honor me by recognizing me as a dangerous person; but we shall
+see.”
+
+And the Prince Bukaty was thus allowed to go where he listed, and live
+in Warsaw if he so desired. Perhaps the secret of this lay in the fact
+that he was poor; for a poor man has few adherents. In the olden times,
+when the Bukatys had been rich, there were many professing readiness to
+follow him to the death--which is the way of the world. “You have but to
+hold up your hand,” cries the faithful follower. But wise men know
+that the hand must have something in it. The prince had been young and
+impressionable when Poland was torn to pieces, when that which for eight
+centuries had been one of the important kingdoms of the world was wiped
+off the face of Europe, like writing off a slate. He was not a ruffian,
+as Deulin had described him; but he was a man who had been ruffled, and
+nothing could ever smooth him.
+
+He was too frank by nature to play a hopeless game with the cunning and
+the savor of spite which hopeless games require. If he liked a man, he
+said so; if he disliked one, he was equally frank about it. He liked
+Cartoner on the briefest of brief introductions, and said so.
+
+“It is difficult to find a man in London who speaks anything but
+English, and of anything but English topics. You are the narrowest
+people in the world--you Londoners. But you are no Londoner; I beg your
+pardon. Well, then, come and see me to-morrow. We are in a hotel in
+Kensington--will you come? That is the address.”
+
+And he held out a card with a small gold crown emblazoned in the corner,
+after the mode of eastern Europe. Cartoner reflected for a moment, which
+was odd in a man whose decisions were usually arrived at with lightning
+speed. For he had a slow tongue and a quick brain. There are few better
+equipments with which to face the world.
+
+“Yes,” he said at length; “it will give me much pleasure.”
+
+The prince glanced at him curiously beneath his bushy eyebrows. What was
+there to need reflection in such a small question?
+
+“At five o'clock,” he said. “We can give you a cup of the poisonous tea
+you drink in this country.”
+
+And he went away laughing heartily at the small witticism. People whose
+lives are anything but a joke are usually content with the smallest
+jests.
+
+It was scarcely five o'clock the next day when Cartoner was conducted by
+a page-boy to the Bukatys' rooms in the quiet old hotel in Kensington.
+The Princess Wanda was alone. She was dressed in black. There is in some
+Varsovian families a heritage of mourning to be worn until Poland is
+reinstated. She was slightly but strongly made. Like her father and her
+brother, there was a suggestion of endurance in her being, such as is
+often found in slightly made persons.
+
+“I came as early as I could,” said Cartoner, and, as he spoke, the clock
+struck.
+
+The princess smiled as she shook hands, and then perceived that she had
+not been intended to show amusement. Cartoner had merely made a rather
+naïve statement in his low monotone. She thought him a little odd, and
+glanced at him again. She changed color slightly as she turned towards a
+chair. He was quite grave and honest.
+
+“That is kind of you,” she said, speaking English without the least
+suspicion of accent; for she had had an English governess all her life.
+“My father will take it to mean that you wanted to come, and are not
+only taking pity on lonely foreigners. He will be here in a minute. He
+has just been called away.”
+
+“It was very kind of him to ask me to call,” replied Cartoner.
+
+There was a simple directness in his manner of speech which was quite
+new to the Princess Wanda. She had known few Englishmen, and her own
+countrymen had mostly the manners of the French. She had never met a
+man who conveyed the impression of purpose and of the habit of going
+straight towards his purpose so clearly as this. Cartoner had not come
+to pay an idle visit. She wondered why he had come. He did not rush into
+conversation, and yet his silence had no sense of embarrassment in it.
+His hair was turning gray above the temples. She could see this as
+he took a chair near the window. He was probably ten years older than
+herself, and gave the impression of experience and of a deep knowledge
+of the world. From living much alone he had acquired the habit of
+wondering whether it was worth while to say that which came into his
+mind--which is a habit fatal to social success.
+
+“Monsieur Deulin dined with us last night,” said the princess, following
+the usual instinct that silence between strangers is intolerable. “He
+talked a great deal of you.”
+
+“Ah, Deulin is a diplomatist. He talks too much.”
+
+“He accuses you of talking too little,” said Wanda, with some spirit.
+
+“You see, there are only two methods of leaving things unsaid,
+princess.”
+
+“Which is diplomacy?” she suggested.
+
+“Which is diplomacy.”
+
+“Then I think you are both great artists,” she said, with a laugh, as
+the door opened and her father entered the room.
+
+“I only come to ask you a question--a word,” said the prince. “Heavens!
+your English language! I have a man down-stairs--a question of
+business--and he speaks the oddest English. Now what is the meaning of
+the word jettison?”
+
+Cartoner gave him the word in French.
+
+“Ah!” cried the prince, holding up his two powerful hands, “of course.
+How foolish of me not to guess. In a moment I will return. You will
+excuse me, will you not? Wanda will give you some tea.”
+
+And he hurried out of the room, leaving Cartoner to wonder what a person
+so far removed above commerce could have to do with the word jettison.
+
+The conversation returned to Deulin. He was a man of whom people spoke
+continually, and had spoken for years. In fact, two generations had
+found him a fruitful topic of conversation without increasing their
+knowledge of him. If he had only been that which is called a public
+man, a novelist or a singer, his fortune would have been easy. All his
+advertising would have been done for him by others. For there was in him
+that unknown quantity which the world must needs think magnificent.
+
+“I want you to tell me all you know about him,” said the princess in her
+brisk way. “He is the only old man I have ever seen whose thoughts have
+not grown old too. And, of course, one wonders why. He is the sort
+of person who might do anything surprising. He might fall in love
+and marry, or something like that, you know. Papa says he is married
+already, and his wife is in a mad asylum. He says there is a tragedy.
+But I don't. He has no wife--unless he has two.”
+
+“I know nothing of that side of his life. I only know his career.”
+
+“I do not care about his career,” said the princess, lightly. “I go
+deeper than careers.”
+
+She looked at Cartoner with a wise nod and a shrewd look in her gay,
+blue eyes.
+
+“A man's career is only the surface of his life.”
+
+“Then some men's lives are all surface,” said Cartoner.
+
+Wanda gave a little, half-pitying, half-contemptuous jerk of her head.
+
+“Some men have the soul of an omnibus-horse,” she replied.
+
+Cartoner reflected for a moment, looking gravely the while at this girl,
+who seemed to know so much of life and to have such singularly clear and
+decisive views upon it.
+
+“What would you have them do beyond going on when required and stopping
+when expedient--and avoiding collisions?” he inquired.
+
+“I should like them to break the omnibus up occasionally,” she answered,
+“and take a wrong turning sometimes, just to see if a little happiness
+lay that way.”
+
+“Yes,” he laughed. “You are a Pole and a Bukaty. I knew it as soon as I
+saw you.”
+
+“One must do something. We were talking of such things last night, and
+Monsieur Deulin said that his ideal combination in a man was an infinite
+patience and a sudden premeditated recklessness.”
+
+“Now you have come down to a mere career again,” said Cartoner.
+
+“Not necessarily.”
+
+The prince came into the room again at this moment.
+
+“What are you people discussing,” he asked, “so gravely?”
+
+He spoke in French, which was the language that was easiest to him, for
+he had been young when it was the fashion in Poland to be French.
+
+“I do not quite know,” answered Cartoner, slowly. “The princess was
+giving me her views.”
+
+“I know,” retorted the old man, with his rather hollow laugh. “They are
+long views, those views of hers.”
+
+Cartoner was still standing near the window. He turned absently and
+looked out, down into the busy street. There he saw something which
+caused him intense surprise, though he did not show it; for, like any
+man of strong purpose, his face had but one expression, and that of
+thoughtful attention. He saw Captain Cable, of the _Minnie_, crossing
+the street, having just quitted the hotel. This was the business
+acquaintance of Prince Bukaty's, who had come to speak of jettison.
+
+Cartoner knew Captain Cable well, and his specialty in maritime skill.
+He had seen war waged before now with material which had passed in and
+out of the _Minnie's_ hatches.
+
+The prince did not refer again to the affairs that had called him away.
+The talk naturally turned to the house where they had first met, and
+Wanda mentioned that her father and she were going to the reception
+given by the Orlays that evening.
+
+“You're going, of course?” said the prince.
+
+“Yes, I am going.”
+
+“You go to many such entertainments?”
+
+“No, I go to very few,” replied Cartoner, looking at Wanda in his
+speculative way.
+
+Then he suddenly rose and took his leave, with a characteristic omission
+of the usual “Well, I must be off,” or any such catch-word. He certainly
+left a great deal unsaid which this babbling world expects.
+
+He walked along the crowded streets, absorbed in his own thoughts, for
+some distance. Then he suddenly emerged from that quiet shelter, and
+accepted the urgent invitation of a hansom-cab driver to get into his
+vehicle.
+
+“Westminster Bridge,” he said.
+
+He quitted the cab at the corner of the bridge, and walked quickly down
+to the steamboat-landing.
+
+“Where do you want to go to?” inquired the gruff, seafaring
+ticket-clerk.
+
+“As far as I can,” was the reply.
+
+A steamer came almost at once, and Cartoner selected a quiet seat over
+the rudder. He must have known that the _Minnie_ was so constructed that
+she could pass under the bridges, for he began to look for her at once.
+It was six o'clock, and a spring tide was running out. All the passenger
+traffic was turned to the westward, and a friendly deck-hand, having
+leisure, came and gave Cartoner his views upon cricket, in which, as was
+natural in one whose life was passed on running water, his whole heart
+seemed to be absorbed. Cartoner was friendly, but did not take advantage
+of this affability to make inquiries about the _Minnie_. He knew,
+perhaps, that there is no more suspicious man on earth than a river-side
+worker.
+
+The steamer raced under the bridges, and at last shot out into the
+Pool, where a few belated barges were drifting down stream. A number of
+steamers lay at anchor, some working cargo, others idle. The majority
+were foreigners, odd-shaped vessels, with funnels like a steam
+threshing-machine, and gayly painted deck-houses.
+
+In one quiet corner, behind a laid-up excursion-boat and a file of
+North Sea fish-carriers, lay the _Minnie_, painted black, with nothing
+brighter than a deep brown on her deck-house, her boats painted a
+shabby green. She might have been an overgrown tug or a superannuated
+fish-carrier.
+
+Cartoner landed at the Cherry Orchard Pier, and soon found a boatman to
+take him to the _Minnie_.
+
+“Just took the skipper on board a few minutes ago, sir,” he said. “He
+must have come down by the boat before yours.”
+
+A few minutes later Cartoner stood on the deck of the _Minnie_, and
+banged with his fist on the cover of the cabin gangway, which was
+tantamount to ringing at Captain Cable's front door.
+
+The sailor's grim face appeared a moment later, emerging like the face
+of a hermit-crab from its shell. The frown slowly faded, and the deep,
+unwashed wrinkles took a kindlier curve.
+
+“It's you, Mr. Cartoner,” he said. “Glad to see you.”
+
+“I was passing in a steamer,” answered Cartoner, quietly, “and
+recognized the _Minnie_.”
+
+“I take it friendly of you, Mr. Cartoner, remembering the rum time
+you and me had together. Come below. I've got a drop of wine somewhere
+stowed away in a locker.”
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+THE VULTURES
+
+“I suppose,” Miss Mangles was saying--“I suppose, Joseph, that Lady
+Orlay has been interested in the work without our knowing it?”
+
+“It is possible, Jooly--it is possible,” replied Mr. Joseph P. Mangles,
+looking with a small, bright, speculative eye out of the window of his
+private sitting-room in a hotel in Northumberland Avenue.
+
+Miss Mangles was standing behind him, and held in her hand an
+invitation-card notifying that Lady Orlay would be at home that same
+evening from nine o'clock till midnight.
+
+“This invitation,” said the recipient, “accompanied as it is by a
+friendly note explaining that the shortness of the invitation lies in
+the fact that we only arrived the day before yesterday, seems to point
+to it, Joseph. It seems to indicate that England is prepared to give me
+a welcome.”
+
+“On the face of it, Jooly, it would seem--just that.”
+
+Mr. Mangles continued to gaze with a speculative eye into Northumberland
+Avenue. If, as Cartoner had suggested, the profession of which Mr.
+Joseph P. Mangles was a tardy ornament, needed above all things a
+capacity for leaving things unsaid, the American diplomatist was
+not ignorant in his art. For he did not inform his sister that the
+invitation to which she attached so flattering a national importance
+owed its origin to an accidental encounter between himself and Lord
+Orlay--a friend of his early senatorial days--in Pall Mall the day
+before.
+
+Miss Mangles stood with the card in her hand and reflected. No woman and
+few men would need to be told, moreover, the subject of her thoughts.
+Of what, indeed, does every woman think the moment she receives an
+invitation?
+
+“Jooly,” Mr. Mangles had been heard to say behind that lady's
+back--“Jooly is an impressive dresser when she tries.”
+
+But the truth is that Jooly did not always try. She had not tried this
+morning, but stood in the conventional hotel room dressed in a black
+cloth garment which had pleats down the front and back and a belt like a
+Norfolk jacket. Miss Mangles was large and square-shouldered. She was a
+rhomboid, in fact, and had that depressing square-and-flat waist which
+so often figures on the platform in a great cause. Her hair was black
+and shiny and straight; it was drawn back from her rounded temples by
+hydraulic pressure. Her mouth was large and rather loose; it had grown
+baggy by much speaking on public platforms--a fearsome thing in a woman.
+Her face was large and round and white. Her eyes were dull. Long
+ago there must have been depressing moments in the life of Julia P.
+Mangles--moments spent in front of her mirror. But, like the woman
+of spirit that she was, she had determined that, if she could not be
+beautiful, she could at all events be great.
+
+One self-deception leads to another. Miss Mangles sat down and accepted
+Lady Orlay's invitation in the full and perfect conviction that she owed
+it to her greatness.
+
+“Are they abstainers?” she asked, reflectively, going back in her mind
+over the causes she had championed.
+
+“Nay,” replied Joseph, winking gravely at a policeman in Northumberland
+Avenue.
+
+“Perhaps Lord Orlay is open to conviction.”
+
+“If you tackle Orlay, you'll find you've bitten off a bigger bit than
+you can chew,” replied Joseph, who had a singular habit of lapsing into
+the vulgarest slang when Julia mounted her high horse in the presence of
+himself only. When others were present Mr. Mangles seemed to take a sort
+of pride in this great woman. Let those explain the attitude who can.
+
+Lady Orlay's entertainments were popularly said to be too crowded, and
+no one knew this better than Lady Orlay.
+
+“Let us ask them all and be done with them,” she said; and had said it
+for thirty years, ever since she had begun a social existence with no
+other prospects than that which lay in her husband's brain--then plain
+Mr. Orlay. She had never “done with them,” had never secured that
+peaceful domestic leisure which had always been her dream and her
+husband's dream, and would never secure it. For these were two persons,
+now old and white-haired and celebrated, who lived in the great world,
+and had a supreme contempt for it.
+
+The Mangleses were among the first to arrive, Julia in a dress of
+rich black silk, with some green about it, and a number of iridescent
+beetle-wings serving as a relief. Miss Netty Cahere was a vision of pink
+and self-effacing quietness.
+
+“We shall know no one,” she said, with a shrinking movement of her
+shoulders as they mounted the stairs.
+
+“Not even the waiters,” replied Joseph Mangles, in his lugubrious bass,
+glancing into a room where tea and coffee were set out. “But they will
+soon know us.”
+
+They had not been in the room, however, five minutes before an
+acquaintance entered it, tall and slim, like a cheerful Don Quixote,
+with the ribbon of a great order across his shirt-front. He paused for a
+moment near Lord and Lady Orlay, and his entrance caused, as it usually
+did, a little stir in the room. Then he turned and greeted Joseph
+Mangles. Over the large, firm hand of that gentleman's sister he bowed
+in silence.
+
+“I have nothing to say to that great woman,” he sometimes said. “She is
+so elevated that my voice will not reach her.”
+
+Deulin then turned to where Miss Cahere had been standing. But she had
+moved away a few paces, nearer to a candelabrum, under which she was now
+standing, and a young officer in full German uniform was openly admiring
+her, with a sort of wonder on his foolish, Teutonic face.
+
+“Ah! I expected you had forgotten me,” she said, when Deulin presented
+himself.
+
+“Believe me--I have tried,” he replied, with great earnestness; but the
+complete innocence of her face clearly showed that she did not attach
+any deep meaning to his remark.
+
+“You must see so many people that you cannot be expected to remember
+them all.”
+
+“I do not remember them all, mademoiselle--only a very, very few.”
+
+“Then tell me, who is that lovely girl you bowed to as you came into the
+room?”
+
+“Is there another in the room?” inquired Deulin, looking around him with
+some interest.
+
+“Over there, with the fair hair, dressed in black.”
+
+“Ah! talking to Cartoner. Yes. Do you think her beautiful?”
+
+“I think she is perfectly lovely. But somehow she does not look like one
+of us, does she?” And Miss Cahere lowered her voice in a rather youthful
+and inexperienced way.
+
+“She is not like one of us, Miss Cahere,” replied Deulin.
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because we are plebeians, and she is a princess.”
+
+“Oh, then she is married?” exclaimed Miss Cahere, and her voice fell
+three semitones on the last word.
+
+“No. She is a princess in her own right. She is a Pole.”
+
+Miss Cahere gave a little sigh.
+
+“Poor thing,” she said, looking at the Princess Wanda, with a soft light
+of sympathy in her gentle eyes.
+
+“Why do you pity her?” asked Deulin, glancing down sharply.
+
+“Because princesses are always obliged to marry royalties, are they
+not--for convenience, I mean--not from . . . from inclination, like
+other girls?”
+
+And Miss Cahere's eyelids fluttered, but she did not actually raise her
+eyes towards her interlocutor. An odd smile flickered for an instant on
+Deulin's lips.
+
+“Ah!” he said, with a sharp sigh--and that was all. He bowed, and
+turned away to speak to a man who had been waiting at his elbow for some
+minutes. This also was a Frenchman, who seemed to have something special
+to report, for they walked aside together.
+
+It was quite late in the evening before Deulin succeeded in his efforts
+to get a few moments' speech with Lady Orlay. He found that unmatched
+hostess at leisure in the brief space elapsing between the arrival of
+the latest and the departure of the earliest.
+
+“I was looking for you,” she said; “you, who always know where everybody
+is. Where is Mr. Mangles? An under-secretary was asking for him a moment
+ago.”
+
+“Mangles is listening to the music in the library--comparatively happy
+by himself behind a barricade of flowers.”
+
+“And that preposterous woman?”
+
+“That preposterous woman is in the refreshment-room.”
+
+Thus they spoke of the great lecturer on Prison Wrongs.
+
+“You have seen the Bukatys?” inquired Lady Orlay. “I called on them the
+moment I received your note from Paris. They are here to-night. I have
+never seen such a complexion. Is it characteristic of Poland?”
+
+“I think so,” replied Deulin, with unusual shortness, looking away
+across the room.
+
+Lady Orlay's clever eyes flashed round for a moment, and she looked
+grave. It was as if she had pushed open the door of another person's
+room.
+
+“I like the old man,” she said, with a change of tone. “What is he?”
+
+“He is a rebel.”
+
+“Proscribed?”
+
+“No--they dare not do that. He was a great man in the sixties. You
+remember how in the great insurrection an unfailing supply of arms and
+ammunition came pouring into Poland over the Austrian frontier--more
+arms than the national government could find men for.”
+
+“Yes, I remember that.”
+
+“That is the man,” said Deulin, with a nod of his head in the direction
+of the Prince Bukaty, who was talking and laughing near at hand.
+
+“And the girl--it is very sad--I like her very much. She is gay and
+brave.”
+
+“Ah!” said Deulin, “when a woman is gay and brave--and young--Heaven
+help us.”
+
+“Thank you, Monsieur Deulin.”
+
+“And when she is gay and brave, and . . . old . . . milady--God keep
+her,” he said with a grave bow.
+
+“I liked her at once. I shall be glad to do anything I can, you know.
+She has a great capacity for making friends.”
+
+“She has already made a few--this evening,” put in the Frenchman, with a
+significant gesture of his gloved hand.
+
+“Ah!”
+
+“Not one who can hurt her, I think. I can see to that. The usual
+enemy--of a pretty girl--that is all.”
+
+He broke off with a sudden laugh. Once or twice he had laughed like
+that, and his manner was restless and uneasy. In a younger man, or one
+less experienced and hardened, the observant might have suspected some
+hidden excitement. Lady Orlay turned and looked at him curiously, with
+the frankness of a friendship which had lasted nearly half a century.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+He laughed--but he laughed uneasily--and spread out his hands in a
+gesture of bewilderment.
+
+“What is what?”
+
+Lady Orlay looked at her fan reflectively as she opened and closed it.
+
+“Reginald Cartoner has turned up quite suddenly,” she said. “Mr. Mangles
+has arrived from Washington. You are here from Paris. A few minutes
+ago old Karl Steinmetz, who still watches the nations en amateur, shook
+hands with me. This Prince Bukaty is not a nonentity. All the Vultures
+are assembling, Paul. I can see that. I can see that my husband sees
+it.”
+
+“Ah! you and yours are safe now. You are in the backwater--you and
+Orlay--quietly moored beneath the trees.”
+
+“Finally,” continued Lady Orlay, without heeding the interruption, “you
+come to me with a light in your eye which I have seen there only once
+or twice during nearly fifty years. It means war, or something very like
+it--the Vultures.”
+
+She gave a little shiver as she looked round the room. After a short
+silence Deulin rose suddenly and held out his hand.
+
+“Good-bye,” he said. “You are too discerning. Good-bye.”
+
+“You are going--?”
+
+“Away,” he answered, with a wave of the hand descriptive of space. “I
+must go and pack my trunks.”
+
+Lady Orlay had not moved when Mr. Mangles came up to say good-night.
+Miss Julia P. Mangles bowed in a manner which she considered impressive
+and the world thought ponderous. Netty Cahere murmured a few timid words
+of thanks.
+
+“We shall hope to see you again,” said Lady Orlay to Mr. Mangles.
+
+“'Fraid not,” he answered; “we're going to travel on the Continent.”
+
+“When do you start?” asked her ladyship.
+
+“To-morrow morning.”
+
+“Another one,” muttered Lady Orlay, watching Mr. Mangles depart. And her
+brief reverie was broken into by Reginald Cartoner.
+
+“You have come to say good-bye,” she said to him.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You are going away again?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you will not tell me where you are going.”
+
+“I cannot,” answered Cartoner.
+
+“Then I will tell you,” said Lady Orlay, who, as Paul Deulin had said,
+was very experienced and very discerning.
+
+“You are going to Russia, all of you.”
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+AT THE FRONTIER
+
+Daylight was beginning to contend with the brilliant electric
+illumination of the long platform as that which is called the Warsaw
+Express steamed into Alexandrowo Station. There are many who have never
+heard of Alexandrowo, and others who know it only too well.
+
+How many a poor devil has dropped from the footboard of the train
+just before these electric lights were reached--to take his chance of
+crossing the frontier before morning--history will never tell! How many
+have succeeded in passing in and out of that dread railway station with
+a false passport and a steady face, beneath the searching eye of
+the officials, Heaven only knows! There is no other way of passing
+Alexandrowo--of getting in or out of the kingdom of Poland--but by this
+route. Before the train is at a standstill at the platform each one
+of the long corridor carriages is boarded by a man in the dirty white
+trousers, the green tunic and green cap, the top-boots, and the majesty
+of Russian law. Here, whatever time of day or night, winter or summer,
+it is always as light as day, thanks to an unsparing use of electricity.
+There are always sentries on the outer side of the train. The platform
+is a prison-yard--the waiting rooms are prison-yards.
+
+With a passport in perfect order, vised for here and there and
+everywhere, with good clothes, good luggage, and nothing contraband in
+baggage or demeanor, Alexandrowo is easy enough. Obedience and patience
+will see the traveller through. There is no fear of his being left
+in the huge station, or of his going anywhere but to his avowed and
+rightful destination. But with a passport that is old or torn, with a
+visa which bears any but a recent date, with a restless eye or a hunted
+look, the voyager had better take his chance of dropping from the
+footboard at speed, especially if it be a misty night.
+
+Like sheep, the passengers are driven from the train in which not so
+much as a newspaper is left. Only the sleeping-car is allowed to go
+through, but it is emptied and searched. The travellers are penned
+within a large room where the luggage is inspected, and they are
+deprived of their passports. When the customs formalities are over they
+are allowed to find the refreshment-room, and there console themselves
+with weak tea in tumblers until such time as they are released.
+
+The train on this occasion was a full one, and the great
+inspection-room, with its bare walls and glaring lights, crammed to
+overflowing. The majority of the travellers seemed, as usual, to be
+Germans. There were a few ladies. And two men, better dressed than the
+others, had the appearance of Englishmen. They drifted together--just as
+the women drifted together and the little knot of shady characters who
+hoped against hope that their passports were in order. For the most
+part, no one spoke, though one German commercial traveller protested
+with so much warmth that an examination of his trunks was nothing but an
+intrusion on the officer's valuable time that a few essayed to laugh and
+feel at their ease.
+
+Reginald Cartoner, who had been among the first to quit Lady Orlay's,
+was an easy first across the frontier. He had twelve hours' start of
+anybody, and was twenty-four hours ahead of all except Paul Deulin,
+whose train had steamed into Berlin Station as the Warsaw Express left
+it. He seemed to know the ways of Alexandrowo, and the formalities to be
+observed at the frontier, but he was not eager to betray his knowledge.
+He obeyed with a silent patience the instructions of the white-aproned,
+black-capped porter who had a semi-official charge of him. He made no
+attempt to escape an examination of his luggage, and he avoided the
+refreshment-room tea.
+
+Cartoner glanced at the man, whose appearance would seem to indicate
+that he was a fellow-countryman, and made sure that he did not know him.
+Then he looked at him again, and the other happened to turn his profile.
+Cartoner recognized the profile, and drew away to the far corner of
+the examination-room. But they drifted together again--or, perhaps, the
+younger man made a point of approaching. It was, at all events, he who,
+when all had been marshalled into the refreshment-room, drew forward a
+chair and sat down at the table where Cartoner had placed himself.
+
+He ordered a cup of coffee in Russian, and sought his cigarette-case. He
+opened it and laid it on the table in front of Cartoner. He was a fair
+young man, with an energetic manner and the clear, ruddy complexion of a
+high-born Briton.
+
+“Englishman?” he said, with an easy and friendly nod.
+
+“Yes,” answered Cartoner, taking the proffered cigarette. His manner was
+oddly stiff.
+
+“Thought you were,” said the other, who, though his clothes were English
+and his language was English, was nevertheless not quite an Englishman.
+There was a sort of eagerness in his look, a picturesque turn of the
+head--a sense, as it were, of the outwardly pictorial side of existence.
+He moved his chair, in order to turn his back on a Russian officer who
+was seated near, and did it absently, as if mechanically closing his eye
+to something unsightly and conducive to discomfort. Then he turned to
+his coffee with a youthful spirit of enjoyment.
+
+“All this would be mildly amusing,” he said, “at say any other hour of
+the twenty-four, but at three in the morning it is rather poor fun. Do
+you succeed in sleeping in these German schlafwagens?”
+
+“I can sleep anywhere,” replied Cartoner, and his companion glanced at
+him inquiringly. It seemed that he was sleepy now, and did not wish to
+talk.
+
+“I know Alexandrowo pretty well,” the other volunteered, nevertheless,
+“and the ways of these gentlemen. With some of them I am quite on
+friendly terms. They are inconceivably stupid; as boring as--the
+multiplication-table. I am going to Warsaw; are you? I fancy we have the
+sleeping-car to ourselves. I live in Warsaw as much as anywhere.”
+
+He paused to feel in his pocket, not for his cigarettes this time, but
+for a card.
+
+“I know who you are,” said Cartoner, quietly: “I recognized you from
+your likeness to your sister. I was dancing with her forty-eight hours
+ago in London.”
+
+“Wanda?” inquired the other, eagerly. “Dear old Wanda! How is she? She
+was the prettiest girl in the room, I bet.”
+
+He leaned across the table.
+
+“Tell me,” he said, “all about them. But, first, tell me your name.
+Wanda writes to me nearly every day, and I hear about all their
+friends--the Orlays and the others. What is your name? She is sure to
+have made mention of it in her letters.”
+
+“Reginald Cartoner.”
+
+“Ah! I have heard of you--but not from Wanda.”
+
+He paused to reflect.
+
+“No,” he added, rather wonderingly, after a pause. “No, she never
+mentioned your name. But, of course, I know it. It is better known
+out of England than in your own country, I fancy. Deulin--you know
+Deulin?--has spoken to us of you. No doubt we have dozens of other
+friends in common. We shall find them out in time. I am very glad to
+meet you. You say you know my name--yes, I am Martin Bukaty. Odd that
+you should have recognized me from my likeness to Wanda. I am very glad
+you think I am like her. Dear old Wanda! She is a better sort than I am,
+you know.”
+
+And he finished with a frank and hearty laugh--not that there was
+anything to laugh at, but merely because he was young, and looked at
+life from a cheerful standpoint.
+
+Cartoner sipped his coffee, and looked reflectively at his companion
+over the cup. “Cartoner,” Paul Deulin had once said to a common friend,
+“weighs you, and naturally finds you wanting.” It seemed that he was
+weighing Prince Martin Bukaty now.
+
+“I saw your father also,” he said, at length. “He was kind enough to ask
+me to call, which I did.”
+
+“That was kind of you. Of course we know no one in London--no one, I
+mean, who speaks anything except English. That is a thing which is never
+quite understood on the Continent--that if you go to London you must
+speak English. If you cannot, you had better hang yourself and be done
+with it, for you are practically in solitary confinement. My father does
+not easily make friends--you must have been very civil to him.”
+
+“According to my lights, I was,” admitted Cartoner.
+
+Martin laughed again. It is a gay heart that can be amused at three in
+the morning.
+
+“The truth is,” continued Martin, in his quick and rather heedless way,
+“that we Poles are under a cloud in Europe now. We are the wounded man
+by the side of the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and there is a
+tendency to pass by on the other side. We are a nation with a bad want,
+and it is nobody's business to satisfy it. Everybody is ready, however,
+to admit that we have been confoundedly badly treated.”
+
+He tossed off his coffee as he spoke, and turned in his chair to nod
+an acknowledgment to the profound bows of a gold-laced official who had
+approached him, and who now tendered an envelope, with some murmured
+words of politeness.
+
+“Thank you--thank you,” said Prince Martin, and slipped the envelope
+within his pocket.
+
+“It is my passport,” he explained to Cartoner, lightly. “All the rest of
+you will receive yours when you are in the train. Mine is the doubtful
+privilege of being known here, and being a suspected character. So they
+are doubly polite and doubly watchful. As for you, at Alexandrowo
+you rejoice in a happy obscurity. You will pass in with the crowd, I
+suppose.”
+
+“I always try to,” replied Cartoner. Which was strictly true.
+
+“You see,” went on Martin, not too discreetly, considering their
+environments, “we cannot forget that we were a great nation before there
+was a Russian Empire or an Austrian Empire or a German Empire. We are
+a landlady who has seen better days; who has let her lodgings to three
+foreign gentlemen who do not pay the rent--who make us clean their boots
+and then cast them at our heads.”
+
+The doors of the great room had now been thrown open, and the passengers
+were passing slowly out to the long, deserted platform. It was almost
+daylight now, and the train was drawn up in readiness to start, with a
+fresh engine and new officials. The homeliness of Germany had vanished,
+giving place to that subtle sense of discomfort and melancholy which
+hangs in the air from the Baltic to the Pacific coast.
+
+“I hope you will stay a long time in Warsaw,” said Martin, as they
+walked up the platform. “My father and sister will be coming home before
+long, and will be glad to see you. We will do what we can to make the
+place tolerable for you. We live in the Kotzebue, and I have a horse for
+you when you want it. You know we have good horses in Warsaw, as good as
+any. And the only way to see the country is from the saddle. We have the
+best horses and the worst roads.”
+
+“Thanks, very much,” replied Cartoner. “I, of course, do not know how
+long I shall stay. I am not my own master, you understand. I never know
+from one day to another what my movements may be.”
+
+“No,” replied Martin, in the absent tone of one who only half hears.
+“No, of course not. By-the-way, we have the races coming on. I hope you
+will be here for them. In our small way, it is the season in Warsaw
+now. But, of course, there are difficulties--even the races present
+difficulties--there is the military element.”
+
+He paused and indicated with a short nod the Russian officer who was
+passing to his carriage in front of them.
+
+“They have the best horses,” he explained. “They have more money than we
+have. We have been robbed, as you know. You, whose business it is.”
+
+He turned, with his foot on the step of the carriage. He was so
+accustomed to the recognition of his rank that he went first without
+question.
+
+“Yes,” he said, with a laugh, “I had quite forgotten that it is your
+business to know all about us.”
+
+“I have tried to remind you of it several times,” answered Cartoner,
+quietly.
+
+“To shut me up, you mean?” asked the younger man.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Martin was standing at the door of Cartoner's compartment. He turned
+away with a laugh.
+
+“Good-night,” he said. “Hope you will get some more sleep. We shall meet
+again in a few hours.”
+
+He closed the sliding door, and as the train moved slowly out of
+the station Cartoner could hear the cheerful voice--of a rather high
+timbre--in conversation with the German attendant in the corridor. For,
+like nearly all his countrymen, Prince Martin was a man of tongues. The
+Pole is compelled by circumstances to learn several languages: first,
+his own; then the language of the conqueror, either Russian or German,
+or perhaps both. For social purposes he must speak the tongue of the
+two countries that promised so much for Poland and performed so
+little--England and France.
+
+Cartoner sat on the vacant seat in his compartment, which had not been
+made up as a bed, and listened thoughtfully to the pleasant tones. It
+was broad daylight now, and the flat, carefully cultivated land was
+green and fresh. Cartoner looked out of the window with an unseeing
+eye, and the sleeping-carriage lumbered along in silence. The Englishman
+seemed to have no desire for sleep, though, not being an impressionable
+man, he was usually able to rest and work, fast and eat at such times
+as might be convenient. He was considered by his friends to be a rather
+cold, steady man, who concealed under an indifferent manner an almost
+insatiable ambition. He certainly had given way to an entire absorption
+in his profession, and in the dogged acquirement of one language after
+another as occasion seemed to demand.
+
+He had been, it was said, more than usually devoted to his profession,
+even to the point of sacrificing friendships which, from a social and
+possibly from an ambitious point of view, could not have failed to be
+useful to him. Martin Bukaty was not the first man whom he had kept at
+arm's-length. But in this instance the treatment had not been markedly
+successful, and Cartoner was wondering now why the prince had been so
+difficult to offend. He had refused the friendship, and the effect had
+only been to bring the friend closer. Cartoner sat at the open window
+until the sun rose and the fields were dotted here and there with the
+figures of the red-clad peasant women working at the crops. At seven
+o'clock he was still sitting there, and soon after Prince Martin
+Bukaty, after knocking, drew back the sliding door and came into the
+compartment, closing the door behind him.
+
+“I have been thinking about it,” he said, in his quick way, “and it
+won't do, you know--it won't do. You cannot appear in Warsaw as our
+friend. It would never do for us to show special attention to you.
+Anywhere else in the world, you understand, I am your friend, but not in
+Warsaw.”
+
+“Yes,” said Cartoner, “I understand.”
+
+He rose as he spoke, for Prince Martin was holding out his hand.
+
+“Good-bye,” he said, in his quiet way, and they shook hands as the train
+glided into Warsaw Station.
+
+In the doorway Martin turned and looked back over his shoulder.
+
+“All the same, I don't understand why Wanda did not mention your name to
+me. She might have foreseen that we should meet. She is quick enough, as
+a rule, and has already saved my father and me half a dozen times.”
+
+He waited for an answer, and at length Cartoner spoke.
+
+“She did not know that I was coming,” he said.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+IN A REMOTE CITY
+
+The Vistula is the backbone of Poland, and, from its source in the
+Carpathians to its mouth at Dantzic, runs the whole length of that which
+for three hundred years was the leading power of eastern Europe. At
+Cracow--the tomb of many kings--it passes half round the citadel, a
+shallow, sluggish river; and from the ancient capital of Poland to the
+present capital--Warsaw--it finds its way across the great plain,
+amid the cultivated fields, through the quiet villages of Galicia and
+Masovia.
+
+Warsaw is built upon two sides of the river, the ancient town looking
+from a height across the broad stream to the suburb of Praga. In
+Praga--a hundred years ago--the Russians, under Suvaroff, slew thirteen
+thousand Poles; in the river between Praga and the citadel two thousand
+were drowned. Less than forty years ago a crowd of Poles assembled in
+the square in front of the castle to protest against the tyranny of
+their conquerors. They were unarmed, and when the Russian soldiery fired
+upon them they stood and cheered, and refused to disperse. Again, in
+cold blood, the troops fired, and the Warsaw massacre continued for
+three hours in the streets.
+
+Warsaw is a gay and cheerful town, with fine streets and good shops,
+with a cold, gray climate, and a history as grim as that of any city in
+the world save Paris. Like most cities, Warsaw has its principal street,
+and, like all things Polish, this street has a terrible name--the
+Krakowski Przedmiescie. It is in this Krakowski Faubourg that the Hotel
+de l'Europe stands, where history in its time has played a part, where
+kings and princes have slept, where the Jew Hermani was murdered,
+where the bodies of the first five victims of the Russian soldiery were
+carried after the massacre and there photographed, and, finally, where
+the great light from the West--Miss Julie P. Mangles--alighted one May
+morning, looking a little dim and travel-stained.
+
+“Told you,” said Mr. Mangles to his sister, who for so lofty a soul was
+within almost measurable distance of snappishness--“told you you would
+have nothing to complain of in the hotel, Jooly.”
+
+But Miss Mangles was not to be impressed or mollified. Only once before
+had her brother and niece seen this noble woman in such a frame
+of mind--on their arrival at the rising town of New Canterbury,
+Massachusetts, when the deputation of Women Workers and Wishful Waiters
+for the Truth failed to reach the railway depot because they happened
+on a fire in a straw-hat manufactory on their way, and heard that the
+newest pattern of straw hat was to be had for the picking up in the open
+street.
+
+There had been no deputation at Warsaw Station to meet Miss Mangles.
+London had not recognized her. Berlin had shaken its official head when
+she proposed to visit its plenipotentiaries, and hers was the ignoble
+position of the prophet--not without honor in his own country--who
+cannot get a hearing in foreign parts.
+
+“This is even worse than I anticipated,” said Miss Mangles, watching the
+hotel porters in a conflict with Miss Netty Cahere's large trunks.
+
+“What is worse, Jooly?”
+
+“Poland!” replied Miss Mangles, in a voice full of foreboding, and yet
+with a ring of determination in it, as if to say that she had reformed
+worse countries than Poland in her day.
+
+“I allow,” said Mr. Mangles, slowly, “that at this hour in the morning
+it appears to be a one-horse country. You want your breakfast, Jooly?”
+
+“Breakfast will not put two horses to it, Joseph,” replied Miss Mangles,
+looking not at her brother, but at the imposing hotel concierge with a
+bland severity indicative of an intention of keeping him strictly in his
+place.
+
+Miss Netty quietly relieved her aunt of the small impedimenta of travel,
+with a gentle deference which was better than words. Miss Cahere seemed
+always to know how to say or do the right thing, or, more difficult
+still, to keep the right silence. Either this, or the fact that Miss
+Mangles was conscious of having convinced her hearers that she was as
+expert in the lighter swordplay of debate as in the rolling platform
+period, somewhat alleviated the lady's humor, and she turned towards the
+historic staircase, which had run with the blood of Jew and Pole, with a
+distinct air of condescension.
+
+“Tell me,” said Mr. Joseph Mangles to the concierge, in a voice of deep
+depression which only added to the incongruity of his French, “what
+languages you speak.”
+
+“Russian, French, Polish, German, English--”
+
+“That'll do to go on with,” interrupted Mangles, in his own tongue.
+“We'll get along in English. My name is Mangles.”
+
+Whereupon the porter bowed low, as to one for whom first-floor rooms and
+a salon had been bespoken, and waved his hand towards the stairs, where
+stood a couple of waiters.
+
+Of the party, Miss Cahere alone appeared cool and composed and neat. She
+might, to judge from her bright eyes and delicate complexion, have slept
+all night in a comfortable bed. Her hat and her hair had the appearance
+of having been arranged at leisure by a maid. Miss Netty had on the
+surface a little manner of self-depreciating flurry which sometimes
+seemed to conceal a deep and abiding calm. She had little worldly
+theories, too, which she often enunciated in her confidential manner;
+and one of these was that one should always, in all places and at all
+times, be neat and tidy, for no one knows whom one may meet. And, be it
+noted in passing, there have been many successful human careers based
+upon this simple rule.
+
+She followed the waiter up-stairs with that soft rustle of the dress
+which conveys even in the obtuse masculine mind a care for clothes and
+the habit of dealing with a good dressmaker. At the head of the stairs
+she gave a little cry of surprise, for Paul Deulin was coming along
+the broad corridor towards her, swinging the key of his bedroom and
+nonchalantly humming an air from a recent comic opera. He was, it
+appeared, as much at home here as in London or Paris or New York.
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle!” he said, standing hat in hand before her, “who could
+have dreamed of such a pleasure--here and at this moment--in this sad
+town?”
+
+“You seemed gay enough--you were singing,” answered Miss Cahere.
+
+“It was a sad little air, mademoiselle, and I was singing flat. Perhaps
+you noticed it?”
+
+“No, I never know when people are singing flat or not. I have no ear
+for music. I only know when I like to hear a person's voice. I have no
+accomplishments, you know,” said Netty, with a little humble drawing-in
+of the shoulders.
+
+“Ah!” said Deulin, with a gesture which conveyed quite clearly his
+opinion that she had need of none. And he turned to greet Miss Mangles
+and her brother.
+
+Miss Mangles received him coldly. Even the greatest of women is liable
+to feminine moments, and may know when she is not looking her best. She
+shook hands, with her platform bow--from the waist--and passed on.
+
+“Hallo!” said Joseph Mangles. “Got here before us? Thought you'd turn
+up. Dismal place, eh?”
+
+“You have just arrived, I suppose?” said Deulin.
+
+“Oh, please don't laugh at us!” broke in Netty. “Of course you can see
+that. You must know that we have just come out of a sleeping-car!”
+
+“You always look, mademoiselle, as if you had come straight from
+heaven,” answered Deulin, looking at Miss Cahere, whose hand was at her
+hair. It was pretty hair and a pretty, slim, American hand. But she did
+not seem to hear, for she had turned away quickly and was speaking to
+her uncle. Deulin accompanied them along the corridor, which is a long
+one, for the Hotel de l'Europe is a huge quadrangle.
+
+“You startled me by your sudden appearance, you know,” she said, turning
+again to the Frenchman, which was probably intended for an explanation
+of her heightened color. She was one of those fortunate persons who
+blush easily--at the right time. “I am sure Uncle Joseph will be pleased
+to have you in the same hotel. Of course, we know no one in Warsaw. Have
+you friends here?”
+
+“Only one,” replied Deulin--“the waiter who serves the Zakuska counter
+down-stairs. I knew him when he was an Austrian nobleman, travelling for
+his health in France. He does not recognize me now.”
+
+“Will you stay long?”
+
+“I did not intend to,” replied Deulin, “when I came out of my room this
+morning.”
+
+“But you and Mr. Cartoner have Polish friends, have you not?” asked
+Netty.
+
+“Not in Warsaw,” was the reply.
+
+“Suppose we shall meet again,” broke in Joseph Mangles at this moment,
+halting on the threshold of the gorgeous apartment. He tapped the number
+on the door in order to draw Deulin's attention to it. “Always welcome,”
+ he said. “Funny we should meet here. Means mischief, I suppose.”
+
+“I suppose it does,” answered Deulin, looking guilelessly at Netty.
+
+He took his leave and continued his way down-stairs. Out in the
+Krakowski Faubourg the sun was shining brightly and the world was
+already astir, while the shops were opening and buyers already hurrying
+home from the morning markets. It is a broad street, with palaces and
+churches on either side. Every palace has its story; two of them were
+confiscated by the Russian government because a bomb, which was thrown
+from the pavement, might possibly have come from one of the windows.
+Every church has rung to the strains of the forbidden Polish hymn--“At
+Thy altar we raise our prayer; deign to restore us, O Lord, our free
+country.” Into almost all of them the soldiers have forced their way to
+make arrests.
+
+Paul Deulin walked slowly up the faubourg towards the new town. The
+clocks were striking the hour. He took off his hat, and gave a little
+sigh of enjoyment of the fresh air and bright sun.
+
+“Just Heaven, forgive me!” he said, with upturned eyes. “I have already
+told several lies, and it is only eight o'clock. I wonder whether I
+shall find Cartoner out of bed?”
+
+He walked on in a leisurely way, brushing past Jew and Gentile, gay
+Cossack officers, and that dull Polish peasant who has assuredly lived
+through greater persecution than any other class of men. He turned
+to the right up a broad street and then to the left into a narrower,
+quieter thoroughfare, called the Jasna. The houses in the Jasna
+are mostly large, with court-yards, where a few trees struggle for
+existence. They are let out in flats, or in even smaller apartments,
+where quiet people live--professors, lawyers, and other persons,
+who have an interest within themselves and are not dependent on the
+passer-by for entertainment.
+
+Into one of these large houses Deulin turned, and gave his destination
+to the Russian doorkeeper as he passed the lodge. This was the second
+floor, and the door was opened by a quick-mannered man, to whom the
+Frenchman nodded familiarly.
+
+“Is he up yet?” he inquired, and called the man by his Christian name.
+
+“This hour, monsieur,” replied the servant, leading the way along a
+narrow corridor. He opened a door, and stood aside for Deulin to pass
+into a comfortably furnished room, where Cartoner was seated at a
+writing-table.
+
+“Good-morning,” said the Frenchman. As he passed the table he took up a
+book and went towards the window, where he sat down in a deep arm-chair.
+“Don't let me disturb you,” he continued. “Finish what you are doing.”
+
+“News?” inquired Cartoner, laying aside his pen. He looked at
+Deulin gravely beneath his thoughtful brows. They were marvellously
+dissimilar--these friends.
+
+“Bah!” returned Deulin, throwing aside the book he had picked
+up--Lelewel's _History of Poland_, in Polish. “I trouble for your
+future, Cartoner. You take life so seriously--you, who need not work
+at all. Even uncles cannot live forever, and some day you will be in a
+position to lend money to poor devils of French diplomatists. Think of
+that!”
+
+He reflected for a moment.
+
+“Yes,” he said, after a pause, “I have news of all sorts--news which
+goes to prove that you are quite right to take an apartment instead
+of going to the hotel. The Mangles arrived here this morning--Mangles
+frere, Mangles soeur, and Miss Cahere. I say, Cartoner--” He paused, and
+examined his own boots with a critical air.
+
+“I say, Cartoner, how old do you put me?”
+
+“Fifty.”
+
+“All that, mon cher?--all that? Old enough to play the part of an old
+fool who excels all other fools.”
+
+Cartoner took up his pen again. He had suddenly thought of something to
+put down, and in his odd, direct way proceeded to write, while Deulin
+watched him.
+
+“I say,” said the Frenchman at length, and Cartoner paused, pen in
+hand--“what would you think of me if I fell in love with Netty Cahere?”
+
+“I should think you a very lucky man if Netty Cahere fell in love with
+you,” was the reply.
+
+The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Yes,” he said. “I have known you a good many years, and have gathered
+that that is your way of looking at things. You want your wife to be in
+love with you. Odd! I suppose it is English. Well, I don't know if there
+is any harm done, but I certainly had a queer sensation when I saw Miss
+Cahere suddenly this morning. You think her a nice girl?”
+
+“Very nice,” replied Cartoner, gravely.
+
+Deulin looked at him with an odd smile, but Cartoner was looking at the
+letter before him.
+
+“What I like about her is her quiet ways,” suggested Deulin,
+tentatively.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Then they lapsed into silence, while Cartoner thought of his letter.
+Deulin, to judge from a couple of sharp sighs which caught him unawares,
+must have been thinking of Netty Cahere. At length the Frenchman rose
+and took his leave, making an appointment to dine with Cartoner that
+evening.
+
+Out in the street he took off his hat to high heaven again.
+
+“More lies!” he murmured, humbly.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+THE SAND-WORKERS
+
+At the foot of the steep and narrow Bednarska--the street running down
+from the Cracow Faubourg to the river--there are always many workers.
+It is here that the bathing-houses and the boat-houses are. Here lie the
+steamers that ply slowly on the shallow river. Here, also, is a trade in
+timber where from time to time one of the smaller rafts that float from
+the Carpathians down to Dantzic is moored and broken up. Here, also, are
+loafers, who, like flies, congregate naturally near the water.
+
+A few hundred yards higher up the river, between the Bednarska and the
+spacious Jerozolimska Alley, many carts and men work all day in the sand
+which the Vistula deposits along her low banks. The Jerozolimska starts
+hopefully from the higher parts of the city--the widest, the newest,
+the most Parisian street in the town, Warsaw's only boulevard--down the
+hill, as if it expected to find a bridge at the bottom. But there is
+no bridge there, and the fine street dwindles away to sandy ruts and a
+broken tow-path. Here horses struggle vainly to drag heavy sand-carts
+from the ruts, while their drivers swear at them and the sand-workers
+lean on their spades and watch. A cleaner sand is dredged from the
+middle or brought across in deep-laden punts from the many banks that
+render navigation next to impossible--a clean, hard sand, most excellent
+for building purposes.
+
+It was the hour of the mid-day dinner--for Polish hours are the hours of
+the early Victorian meals. Horses and men were alike at rest. The horses
+nibbled at the thin grass, while the men sat by the water and ate their
+gray bread, which only tastes of dampness and carraway-seeds. It was
+late autumn, and the sun shone feebly through a yellow haze. The scene
+was not exhilarating. The Vistula, to put it plainly, is a dismal river.
+Poland is a dismal country. A witty Frenchman, who knew it well, once
+said that it is a country to die for, but not to live in.
+
+It was only natural that the workmen should group together for their
+uninteresting meal. The sand-bank offered a comfortable seat. Their
+position was in a sense a strategetical one. They were in full view of
+the bridge and of the high land behind them, but no one could approach
+within half a mile unperceived.
+
+“Yes,” one of the workmen was saying, “those who know say that there
+will inevitably be a kingdom of Poland again. Some day. And if some day,
+why not now? Why not this time?”
+
+His hearers continued to eat in silence. Some were slightly built,
+oval-faced men--real Poles; others had the narrower look of the
+Lithuanian; while a third type possessed the broad and placid face that
+comes from Posen. Some were born to this hard work of the sand-hills;
+others had that look in the eyes, that carriage of the head, which
+betokens breeding and suggests an ancestral story.
+
+“The third time, they say, is lucky,” answered a white-haired man, at
+length. He was a strong man, with the lines of hunger cut deeply in his
+face. The work was nothing to him. He had labored elsewhere. The others
+turned and looked at him, but he said no more. He glanced across the
+river towards the spires of Praga pointing above the brown trees.
+Perhaps he was thinking of those other times, which he must have seen
+fifty and twenty years ago. His father must have seen Praga paved with
+the dead bodies of its people. He must have seen the river run sluggish
+with the same burden. He may have seen the people shot down in the
+streets of Warsaw only twenty years before. His eyes had the dull look
+which nearly always betokens some grim vision never forgotten. He seemed
+a placid old man, and was known as an excellent worker, though cruel to
+his horses.
+
+He who had first spoken--a boatman known as Kosmaroff--was a spare man,
+with a narrow face and a long, pointed chin, hidden by a neat beard.
+He was not more than thirty-five years old, and presented no outward
+appearance of having passed through hardships. His manner was quick and
+vivacious, and when he laughed, which was not infrequent, his mouth gave
+an odd twist to the left. The corner went upwards towards the eye. His
+smile was what the French call a pale smile. At times, but very rarely,
+a gleam of recklessness passed through his dark eyes. He had been a
+raftsman, and was reputed to be the most daring of those little-known
+watermen at flood-times and in the early thaw. He glanced towards the
+old man as if hoping that more was coming.
+
+“Yes, it will be the third time,” he said, when the other had lapsed
+into a musing silence, “though few of us have seen it with our own eyes.
+But we have other means of remembering. We have also the experience of
+our forefathers to guide us--though we cannot say that our forefathers
+have told us--”
+
+He broke off with a short laugh. His grandfather had died at Praga; his
+father had gone to Siberia to perish there.
+
+“We shall time it better,” he said, “than last time. We have men
+watching the political world for us. The two emperors are marked as
+an old man is marked by those who are named in his will. If anything
+happened to Bismarck, if Austria and Russia were to fall out, if the
+dogs should quarrel among themselves--the three dogs that have torn
+Poland to pieces! Anything would do! They knew the Crimean War was
+coming. England and France were so slow. And they threw a hundred
+thousand men into Warsaw before they turned to the English. That showed
+what they thought of us!”
+
+The others listened, looking patiently at the river. The spirit of some
+was broken. There is nothing like hunger for breaking the spirit. Others
+looked doubtful, for one reason or another. These men resembled a board
+of directors--some of them knew too little, others too much. It seemed
+to be Kosmaroff's mission to keep them up to a certain mark by his
+boundless optimism, his unquestioning faith in a good cause.
+
+“It is all very well for you,” said one, a little fat man with beady
+eyes. Fat men with beady eyes are not usually found in near proximity
+to danger of any sort--“you, who are an aristocrat, and have nothing to
+lose!”
+
+Kosmaroff ate his bread with an odd smile. He did not look towards the
+speaker. He knew the voice perhaps, or he knew that the great truth that
+a man's character is ever bubbling to his lips, and every spoken word is
+a part of it running over.
+
+“There are many who can be aristocrats some day--with a little
+good-fortune,” he said, and the beady eyes brightened.
+
+“I lost five at Praga,” muttered an elderly man, who had the subdued
+manner of the toiler. “That is enough for me.”
+
+“It is well to remember Praga,” returned Kosmaroff, in a hard monotone.
+“It is well to remember that the Muscovites have never kept their word!
+There is much to remember!”
+
+And a murmur of unforgetfulness came from the listeners. Kosmaroff
+glanced sideways at two men who sat shoulder to shoulder staring
+sullenly across the river.
+
+“I may be an aristocrat by descent,” he said, “but what does that come
+to? I am a raftsman. I work with my hands, like any other. To be a
+Polish aristocrat is to have a little more to give. They have always
+done it. They are ready to do it again. Look at the Bukatys and a
+hundred others, who could go to France and live there peaceably in the
+sunshine. I could do it myself. But I am here. The Bukatys are here.
+They will finish by losing everything--the little they have left--or
+else they will win everything. And I know which they will do. They will
+win! The prince is wise. Prince Martin is brave; we all know that!”
+
+“And when they have won will they remember?” asked one of the two
+smaller men, throwing a brown and leathery crust into the river.
+
+“If they are given anything worth remembering they will not forget it.
+You may rely on that. They know what each gives--whether freely or with
+a niggard hand--and each shall be paid back in his own coin. They give
+freely enough themselves. It is always so with the aristocrats; but they
+expect an equal generosity in others, which is only right!”
+
+The men sat in a row facing the slow river. They were toil-worn and
+stained; their clothing was in rags. But beneath their sandy hair more
+than one pair of eyes gleamed from time to time with a sudden anger,
+with an intelligence made for higher things than spade and oar. As they
+sat there they were like the notes of a piano, and Kosmaroff played the
+instrument with a sure touch that brought the fullest vibration out of
+each chord. He was a born leader; an organizer not untouched perchance
+by that light of genius which enables some to organize the souls of men.
+
+Nor was he only a man of words, as so many patriots are. He was that
+dangerous product, a Pole born in Siberia. He had served in a Cossack
+regiment. The son of convict No. 2704, he was the mere offspring of a
+number--a thing not worth accounting. In his regiment no one noticed him
+much, and none cared when he disappeared from it. And now here he was
+back in Poland, with a Russian name for daily use and another name
+hidden in his heart that had blazed all over Poland once. Here he was, a
+raftsman plying between Cracow and Warsaw, those two hot-beds of Polish
+patriotism--a mere piece of human driftwood on the river. He had made
+the usual grand tour of Russia's deadliest enemies. He had been to
+Siberia and Paris and London. He might have lived abroad, as he said, in
+the sunshine; but he preferred Poland and its gray skies, manual labor,
+and the bread that tastes of dampness. For he believed that a kingdom
+which stood in the forefront for eight centuries cannot die. There are
+others who cherish the same belief.
+
+“This time,” he went on, after a pause, “I have news for you. We are a
+little nearer. It is our object to be ready, and then to wait patiently
+until some event in Europe gives us our opportunity. Last time they
+acted at the wrong moment. This time we shall not do that, but we shall
+nevertheless act with decision when the moment arrives. We are a step
+nearer to readiness, and we owe it to Prince Martin Bukaty again. He is
+never slow to put his head in the noose, and laughs with the rope around
+his neck. And he has succeeded again, for he has the luck. We have five
+thousand rifles in Poland--”
+
+He paused and looked down the line of grimy faces, noting that some
+lighted up and others drooped. The fat little man with the beady eyes
+blinked as he stared resolutely across the river.
+
+“In Warsaw!” he added, significantly. “So, if there are any who think
+that the cause is a dead one, they had better say so now--and take the
+consequences.” He concluded rather grimly, with his one-sided smile.
+
+No one seemed disposed to avail himself of this invitation.
+
+“And there is ammunition enough,” continued Kosmaroff, “to close the
+account of every Muscovite in Warsaw!”
+
+His voice vibrated as he spoke, with the cold and steady hatred of the
+conquered; but on his face there only rested the twisted smile.
+
+“I tell you this,” he went on, “because I am likely to go to Cracow
+before long, and so that you may know what is expected of you. Certain
+events may be taken beforehand as a sure signal for assembly--such as
+the death of either emperor, of the King of Prussia, or of Bismarck, the
+declaration of war by any of the great powers. There is always something
+seething on the Indian frontier, and one day the English will awake.
+The Warsaw papers will not have the news; but the _Czas_ and the other
+Cracow journals will tell you soon enough, and you can all see the
+Galician papers when you want to, despite their censors and their
+police!”
+
+A contemptuous laugh from the fat man confirmed this statement. This was
+his department. In many men cunning takes the place of courage.
+
+At this moment the steam-whistle of the iron-works farther up the river
+boomed out across the plain. The bells of the city churches broke out
+into a clanging unanimity as to the time of day, and all the workers
+stirred reluctantly. The dinner-hour was over.
+
+Kosmaroff rose to his feet and stretched himself--a long, lithe, wiry
+figure.
+
+“Come,” he said. “We must go back to work.”
+
+He glanced from face to face, and any looking with understanding at his
+narrow countenance, his steady, dark eyes, and clean-cut nose must have
+realized that they stood in the presence of that rare and indefinable
+creation--a strong man.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+A WARNING
+
+It is a matter of history that the division of Poland into three saved
+many families from complete ruin. For some suffered confiscation in the
+kingdom of Poland and saved their property in Galicia; others, again in
+Posen had estates in Masovia, which even Russian justice could not lay
+hands upon--that gay justice of 1832, which declared that, in protesting
+against the want of faith of their conquerors, the Poles had broken
+faith. The Austrian government had sympathized with the discontent of
+those Poles who had fallen under Russian sway, while in Breslau it was
+permitted to print and publish plain words deemed criminal in Cracow and
+Warsaw. The dogs, in a word, behaved as dogs do over their carrion, and,
+having secured a large portion, kept a jealous eye on their neighbor's
+jaw.
+
+The Bukatys had lost all in Poland except a house or two in Warsaw, but
+a few square miles of fertile land in Galicia brought in a sufficiency,
+while Wanda had some property in the neighborhood of Breslau bequeathed
+to her by her mother. The grim years of 1860 and 1861 had worn out this
+lady, who found the peace that passeth man's understanding while Poland
+was yet in the horrors of a hopeless guerilla warfare.
+
+“Russia owes me twenty years of happiness and twenty million rubles,”
+ the old prince was in the habit of saying, and each year on the
+anniversary of his wife's death he reckoned up afresh this debt. He
+mentioned it, moreover, to Russian and Pole alike, with that calm
+frankness which was somehow misunderstood, for the administration never
+placed him among the suspects. Poland has always been a plain-speaking
+country, and the Poles, expressing themselves in the roughest of
+European tongues, a plain-spoken people. They spoke so plainly to Henry
+of Valois when he was their king that one fine night he ran away to
+mincing France and gentler men. When, under rough John Sobieski, they
+spoke with their enemy in the gate of Vienna, their meaning was quite
+clear to the Moslem understanding.
+
+The Prince Bukaty had a touch of that rough manner which commands
+respect in this smooth age, and even Russian officials adopted a
+conciliatory attitude towards this man, who had known Poland without one
+of their kind within her boundaries.
+
+“You cannot expect an old man such as I to follow all the changes of
+your petty laws, and to remember under which form of government he
+happens to be living at the moment!” he had boldly said to a great
+personage from St. Petersburg, and the observation was duly reported in
+the capital. It was, moreover, said in Warsaw that the law had actually
+stretched a point or two for the Prince Bukaty on more than one
+occasion. Like many outspoken people, he passed for a barker and not a
+biter.
+
+It does not fall to the lot of many to live in a highly civilized town
+and submit to open robbery. Prince Bukaty lived in a small palace in
+the Kotzebue street, and when he took his morning stroll in the Cracow
+Faubourg he passed under the shadow of a palace flying the Russian
+flag, which palace was his, and had belonged to his ancestors from time
+immemorial. He had once made the journey to St. Petersburg to see in
+the great museum there the portraits of his fathers, the books that his
+predecessors had collected, the relics of Poland's greatness, which were
+his, and the greatness thereof was his.
+
+“Yes,” he answered to the loquacious curator, “I know. You tell me
+nothing that I do not know. These things are mine. I am the Prince
+Bukaty!”
+
+And the curator of St. Petersburg went away, sorrowful, like the young
+man who had great possessions.
+
+For Russia had taken these things from the Bukatys, not in punishment,
+but because she wanted them. She wanted offices for her bureaucrats on
+the Krakowski Przedmiescie, in Warsaw, so she took Bukaty Palace. And to
+whom can one appeal when Caesar steals?
+
+Poland had appealed to Europe, and Europe had expressed the deepest
+sympathy. And that was all!
+
+The house in the Kotzebue had the air of an old French town-house, and
+was, in fact, built by a French architect in the days of Stanislaus
+Augustus, when Warsaw aped Paris. It stands back from the road behind
+high railings, and, at the farther end of a paved court-yard, to which
+entrance is gained by two high gates, now never opened in hospitality,
+and only unlocked at rare intervals for the passage of the quiet
+brougham in which the prince or Wanda went and came. The house is
+just round the corner of the Kotzebue, and therefore faces the Saski
+Gardens--a quiet spot in this most noisy town. The building is a low
+one, with a tiled roof and long windows, heavily framed, of which the
+smaller panes and thick woodwork suggest the early days of window-glass.
+Inside, the house is the house of a poor man. The carpets are worn thin;
+the furniture, of a sumptuous design, is carefully patched and mended.
+The atmosphere has that mournful scent of better days--now dead and
+past. It is the odor of monarchy, slowly fading from the face of a world
+that reeks of cheap democracy.
+
+The air of the rooms--the subtle individuality which is impressed by
+humanity on wood and texture--suggested that older comfort which has
+been succeeded by the restless luxury of these times.
+
+The prince was, it appeared, one of those men who diffuse tranquillity
+wherever they are. He had moved quietly through stirring events; had
+acted without haste in hurried moments. For the individuality of the
+house must have been his. Wanda had found it there when she came back
+from the school in Dresden, too young to have a marked individuality
+of her own. The difference she brought to the house was a certain
+brightness and a sort of experimental femininity, which reigned supreme
+until her English governess came back again to live as a companion with
+her pupil. Wanda moved the furniture, turned the house round on its
+staid basis, and made a hundred experiments in domestic economy before
+she gave way to her father's habits of life. Then she made that happiest
+of human discoveries, which has the magic power of allaying at one
+stroke the eternal feminine discontent which has made the world uneasy
+since the day that Eve idled in that perfect garden--she found that she
+was wanted in the world!
+
+The prince did not tell her so. Perhaps his need of her was too obvious
+to require words. He had given his best years to Poland, and now that
+old age was coming, that health was failing and wealth had vanished,
+Poland would have none of him.
+
+There was no Poland. At this moment Wanda burst upon him, so to speak,
+with a hundred desires that only he could fulfil, a hundred questions
+that only he could answer. And, as wise persons know, to fulfil desires
+and answer questions is the best happiness.
+
+Father and daughter lived a quiet life in the house that was called
+a palace by courtesy only. For Martin was made of livelier stuff, and
+rarely stayed long at home. He came and went with a feverish haste; was
+fond of travel, he said, and the authorities kept a questioning eye upon
+his movements.
+
+There are two doors to the Bukaty Palace. As often as not, Martin made
+use of the smaller door giving entrance to the garden at the back of the
+house, which garden could also be entered from an alley leading round
+from the back of the bank, which stands opposite the post-office in the
+busier part of Kotzebue Street.
+
+He came in by this door one evening and did not come alone, for he was
+accompanied by a man in working-clothes. The streets of Warsaw are well
+lighted and well guarded by a most excellent police, second only as the
+Russians are to the police of London. It is therefore the custom to go
+abroad at night as much as in the day, and the Krakowski is more crowded
+after dark than during the afternoon. Kosmaroff had walked some distance
+behind Prince Martin in the streets. Martin unlocked the gate of the
+garden and passed in, leaving the gate open with the key in the lock. In
+a minute Kosmaroff followed, locked the gate after him, and gave the key
+back to its owner on the steps of the garden door of the house, where
+Martin was awaiting him, latch-key in hand. They did it without comment
+or instruction, as men carry out a plan frequently resorted to.
+
+Martin led the way into the house, along a dimly lighted corridor, to
+a door which stood ajar. Outside the night was cold; within were warmth
+and comfort. Martin went into the long room. At the far end, beneath the
+lamp and near an open wood fire, the prince and Wanda were sitting. They
+were in evening dress, and the prince was dozing in his chair.
+
+“I have brought Kos to see you,” said Martin, and, turning, he looked
+towards the door. The convict's son, the convict, came forward with that
+ease which, to be genuine, must be quite unconscious. He apparently gave
+no thought to his sandy and wrinkled top-boots, from which the original
+black had long since been washed away by the waters of the Vistula. He
+wore his working-clothes as if they were the best habit for this or
+any other palace. He took Wanda's hand and kissed it in the old-world
+fashion, which has survived to this day in Poland. But the careless
+manner in which he raised her fingers to his lips would have showed
+quite clearly to a competent observer that neither Wanda nor any other
+woman had ever touched his heart.
+
+“You will excuse my getting up,” said the prince. “My gout is bad
+to-night. You will have something to eat?”
+
+“Thank you, I have eaten,” replied Kosmaroff, drawing forward a chair.
+
+Martin put the logs together with his foot, and they blazed up, lighting
+with a flickering glow the incongruous group.
+
+“He will take a glass of port,” said the prince, turning to Wanda, and
+indicating the decanter from which, despite his gout, he had just had
+his after-dinner wine.
+
+Wanda poured out the wine and handed it to Kosmaroff, who took it with a
+glance and a quick smile of thanks, which seemed to indicate that he was
+almost one of the family. And, indeed, they were closely related,
+not only in the present generation, but in bygone days. For Kosmaroff
+represented a family long since deemed extinct.
+
+“I have come,” he said, “to tell you that all is safe. Also to bid you
+good-bye. As soon as I can get employment I shall go down to Thorn to
+stir them up there. They are lethargic at Thorn.”
+
+“Ah!” laughed the prince, moving his legs to a more comfortable
+position, “you young men! You think everybody is lethargic. Don't move
+too quickly. That is what I always preach.”
+
+“And we are ready enough to listen to your preaching,” answered
+Kosmaroff. “You will admit that I came here to-night in obedience to
+your opinion that too much secrecy is dangerous because it leads to
+misunderstandings. Plain speaking and clear understanding was the
+message you sent me--the text of your last sermon.”
+
+With his quick smile Kosmaroff touched the rim of the prince's
+wineglass, which stood at his elbow, and indicated by a gesture that he
+drank his health.
+
+“That was not my text--that was Wanda's,” answered the prince.
+
+“Ah!” said Kosmaroff, looking towards Wanda. “Is that so? Then I will
+take it. I believe in Wanda's views of life. She has a vast experience.”
+
+“I have been to Dresden and to London,” answered Wanda, “and a woman
+always sees much more than a man.”
+
+“Always?” asked Kosmaroff, with his one-sided smile.
+
+“Always.”
+
+But Kosmaroff had turned towards the prince in his quick, jerky way.
+
+“By-the-way,” he asked, “what is Cartoner doing in Warsaw?”
+
+“Cartoner--the Englishman who speaks so many languages? We met him in
+London,” answered the prince. “Who is he? Why should he not be here?”
+
+“I will tell you who he is,” answered Kosmaroff, with a sudden light in
+his eyes. “He is the man that the English send when they suspect that
+something is going on which they can turn to good account. He has a
+trick of finding things out--that man. Such is his reputation, at all
+events. Paul Deulin is another, and he is here. He is a friend of yours,
+by-the-way; but he is not dangerous, like Cartoner. There is an American
+here, too. His instructions are Warsaw and Petersburg. There is either
+something moving in Russia or else the powers suspect that something may
+move in Poland before long. These men are here to find out. They must
+find out nothing from us.”
+
+The prince shrugged his shoulders indifferently. He did not attach much
+importance to these foreigners.
+
+“Of course,” went on Kosmaroff, “they are only watchers. But, as Wanda
+says, some people see more than others. The American, Mangles, who has
+ladies with him, will report upon events after they have happened. So
+will Deulin, who is an idler. He never sees that which will give him
+trouble. He does not write long despatches to the Quai d'Orsay, because
+he knows that they will not be read there. But Cartoner is different.
+There are never any surprises for the English in matters that Cartoner
+has in hand. He reports on events before they have happened, which is a
+different story. I merely warn you.”
+
+As he spoke, Kosmaroff rose, glancing at the clock.
+
+“There are no instructions?”
+
+“None,” answered the prince. “Except the usual one--patience!”
+
+“Ah yes,” replied Kosmaroff, “we shall be patient.”
+
+He did not seem to think that it might be easier to be patient in this
+comfortable house than on the sand-hills of the Vistula in the coming
+winter months.
+
+“But be careful,” he added, addressing Martin more particularly, “of
+this man Cartoner. He will not betray, but he will know--you understand.
+And no one must know!”
+
+He shook hands with Martin and Wanda and then with the prince.
+
+“You met him in London, you say?” he said to the prince. “What did you
+think of him?”
+
+“I thought him--a quiet man.”
+
+“And Wanda?” continued Kosmaroff, lightly, turning to her--“she who sees
+so much. What did she think of him?”
+
+“I was afraid of him!”
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+AN AGREEMENT TO DIFFER
+
+The Saxon Gardens are in the heart of Warsaw, and, in London, would be
+called a park. At certain hours the fashionable world promenades beneath
+the trees, and at all times there is a thoroughfare across from one
+quarter of the town to another.
+
+Wanda often sat there in the morning or walked slowly with her father
+at such times as the doctor's instructions to take exercise were still
+fresh upon his memory. There are seats beneath the trees, overlooking
+the green turf and the flowers so dear to the Slavonian soul. Later in
+the morning these seats are occupied by nurses and children, as in any
+other park in any other city. But from nine to ten Wanda had the alleys
+mostly to herself.
+
+The early autumn had already laid its touch upon the trees, and the
+leaves were brown. The flowers, laboriously tended all through the
+brief, uncertain summer, had that forlorn look which makes autumn in
+Northern latitudes a period of damp depression. Wanda had gone out
+early, and was sitting at the sunny side of the broad alley that divides
+the gardens in two from end to end. She was waiting for Martin, who had
+been called back at the door of the palace and had promised to follow
+in a few minutes. He had a hundred engagements during the day, a hundred
+friends among those unfortunate scions of noble houses who will not wear
+the Russian uniform, who cannot by the laws of their caste engage in
+any form of commerce, and must not accept a government office--who are
+therefore idle, without the natural Southern sloth that enables Italians
+and Spaniards to do nothing gracefully all day long. Wanda was wiser
+than Martin. Girls generally are infinitely wiser than young men. But
+the wisdom ceases to grow later in life, and old men are wiser than old
+women. Wanda was, in a sense, Martin's adviser, mentor, and friend. She
+had, as he himself acknowledged, already saved him from dangers into
+which his natural heedlessness and impetuosity would have led him. As
+to the discontent in which all Poland was steeped, which led the princes
+and their friends into many perils, Wanda had been brought up to it,
+just as some families are brought up to consumption and the anticipation
+of an early death.
+
+In her eminently practical, feminine way of looking at things, Wanda was
+much more afraid of Martin running into debt than into danger. Debt and
+impecuniosity would be so inconvenient at this time, when her father
+daily needed some new comfort, and daily depended for his happiness more
+and more upon his port wine and that ease which is only to be enjoyed by
+an easy mind.
+
+Wanda was thinking of these things in the Saski Gardens, and hardly
+heeded the passers-by, though--for the feminine instincts were strong in
+her--she looked with softer eyes on the children than she did on the
+Jew who hurried past, with bent back and a bowed head, from the
+richer quarter of the town to his own mysterious purlieus of the
+Franoiszkanska. The latter, perhaps, recalled the thoughts of Martin and
+his heedlessness; the former made her think of--she knew not what.
+
+She was looking towards the colonnade that marks the site of the King of
+Saxony's palace, when Cartoner came through the archway into the garden.
+She recognized him even at this distance, for his walk was unlike that
+of the nervous, quick-moving Pole or the lurking Jew. It was more like
+the gait of a Russian; but all the Russians in Warsaw wear a uniform.
+That is why they are there. There was a suggestion of determination in
+the walk of this Englishman.
+
+He came down the wide alley towards her, and then suddenly perceived
+her. She saw this without actually looking at him, and knew the precise
+moment when he first caught sight of her. It was presumably upon
+experience that Wanda based her theory that women see twice as much as
+men. She saw him turn, without hesitation, away from her down a narrower
+alley leading to the right. It was his intention to avoid her. But the
+only turning he could take was that leading to the corner of Kotzebue
+Street, and Martin was at the other end of it, coming towards him.
+Cartoner was thus caught in the narrow alley. Wanda sat still and
+watched the two men. She suddenly knew in advance what would happen, as
+it is often vouchsafed to the human understanding to know at a moment's
+notice what is coming; and she had a strange, discomforting sense that
+these minutes were preordained--that Martin and Cartoner and herself
+were mere puppets in the hands of Fate, and must say and do that which
+has been assigned to them in an unalterable scheme of succeeding events.
+
+She watched the two men meet and shake hands, in the English fashion,
+without raising their hats. She could see Cartoner's movements to
+continue his way, and Martin's detaining hand slipped within the
+Englishman's arm.
+
+“What does it matter?” Martin was saying. “There is no one to see us
+here, at this hour in the morning. We are quite safe. There is Wanda,
+sitting on the seat, waiting for me. Come back with me.”
+
+And Wanda could divine the words easily enough from her brother's
+attitude and gestures. It ought to have surprised her that Cartoner
+yielded, for it was unlike him. He was so much stronger than Martin--so
+determined, so unyielding. And yet she felt no surprise when he turned
+and came towards her with Martin's hand still within his arm. She knew
+that it was written that he must come; divined vaguely that he had
+something to say to her which it was safer to say than to leave to be
+silently understood and perhaps misunderstood. She gave an impatient
+sigh. She had always ruled her father and brother and the Palace Bukaty,
+and this sense of powerlessness was new to her.
+
+While they approached, Martin continued to talk in his eager, laughing
+way, and Cartoner smiled slowly as he listened.
+
+“I saw you,” he said to Wanda, as he took off his hat, “and went the
+other way to avoid you.”
+
+And, having made this plain statement, he stood silently looking at
+her. He looked into her eyes, and she met his odd, direct gaze without
+embarrassment.
+
+“Cartoner and I,” Prince Martin hastened to explain, “travelled from
+Berlin together, and we agreed then that, much as we might desire it, it
+would be inconvenient for me to show him that attention which one would
+naturally want to show to an Englishman travelling in Poland. That is
+why he went the other way when he saw you.”
+
+Wanda looked at Cartoner with her quick, shrewd smile. It would have
+been the obvious thing to have confirmed this explanation. But Cartoner
+kept silent. He had acquired, it seemed, the fatal habit--very rare
+among men and almost unknown in women--of thinking before he spoke.
+Which habit is deadly for that which is called conversation, because if
+one decides not to give speech to the obvious and the unnecessary and
+the futile there is in daily intercourse hardly anything left.
+
+“You see,” said Martin, who always had plenty to say for himself,
+“in this province of Russia we are not even allowed to choose our own
+friends.”
+
+“Even in a free country one does not pick one's friends out, like the
+best strawberries from a basket,” said Wanda.
+
+“Not a question to be arranged beforehand,” put in Cartoner.
+
+“Not even by the governor-general of Poland?” asked Wanda, looking
+thoughtfully at the falling leaves which a sudden gust of wind had
+showered round them.
+
+“Not even by the Czar.”
+
+“Who, I am told, means well!” said Martin, ironically, and with a gay
+laugh, for irony and laughter may be assimilated by the young. “Poor
+man! It must be terrible to know that people are saying behind one's
+back that one means well! I hope no one will ever say that of me.”
+
+Wanda had sat down again, and was stirring the dead leaves with her
+walking-stick.
+
+“Martin and I are going for a tramp,” she said. “We like to get away
+from the noise and the dust--and the uniforms.”
+
+But Martin sat down beside her and made room for Cartoner.
+
+“We attract less attention than if we stand,” he explained. And Cartoner
+took the seat offered. “Such hospitality as our circumstances allow us
+to offer you,” commented the young prince, gayly, “a clean stone seat on
+the sunny side of a public garden.”
+
+“But let us understand each other,” put in Wanda, in her practical way,
+and looked from one man to the other with those gay, blue eyes that saw
+so much, “since we are conspirators.”
+
+“The better we understand each other the better conspirators we shall
+be,” said Cartoner.
+
+“I notice you don't ask, 'What is the plot?'” said Wanda.
+
+“The plot is simple enough,” answered Martin, for Cartoner said nothing,
+and looked straight in front of him. He did not address one more than
+the other, but explained the situation, as it were, for the benefit of
+all whom it might concern. He had lighted a cigarette--a little Russian
+affair, all gold lettering and mouthpiece, and as he spoke he jerked
+the ash from time to time so that it should not fly and incommode his
+sister.
+
+“Rightly or wrongly, we are suspected of being malcontents. The Bukatys
+have in the past been known to foster that spirit of Polish nationality
+which it has been the endeavor of three great countries to suppress for
+nearly a century. Despite Russia, Prussia, and Austria there is still
+a Polish language and a Polish spirit; despite the Romanoffs, the
+Hapsburgs, and the Hohenzollerns there are still a few old Lithuanian
+and Ruthenian families extant. And rightly or wrongly, those in
+authority are kind enough to blame, among others, the Bukatys for these
+survivals. Weeds, it seems, are hard to kill. Whether we are really to
+blame or not is of no consequence. It does not matter to the dog whether
+he deserves his bad name or not--after he is hanged. But it is not good
+to be a Bukaty and live in Poland just now, though some of us manage to
+have a good time despite them all--eh, Wanda?”
+
+And he laid his hand momentarily on his sister's arm. But she did not
+answer. She desired before all things that clear understanding which was
+part of her creed of life, and she glanced quickly from side to side for
+fear some interruption should approach.
+
+“Mr. Cartoner, on the other hand,” he continued, in his airy way, “is a
+most respectable man--in the employ of his country. That is what damns
+Mr. Cartoner. He is in the employ of his country. And he has a great
+reputation, to which I take off my hat.”
+
+And he saluted gayly Cartoner's reputation.
+
+“It would never do,” continued Martin, “for us, the suspects, to be
+avowedly the friend of the man who is understood to be an envoy in some
+capacity of his government. Whether he is really such or not is of no
+consequence. It matters little to the dog, you remember.”
+
+“But what are we to do?” asked Wanda, practically. “Let us have a clear
+understanding. Are we to pass each other in the streets?”
+
+“No,” answered Cartoner, speaking at length, without hesitation and
+without haste--a man who knew his own mind, and went straight to the
+heart of the question. “We must not meet in the streets.”
+
+“That may not be as easy as it sounds,” said Wanda, “in a small city
+like Warsaw. Are you so long-sighted that you can always make sure of
+avoiding us?”
+
+“I can, at all events, try,” answered Cartoner, simply. After a
+pause (the pauses always occurred when it happened, so to say, to be
+Cartoner's turn to speak) he rose from the stone seat, which was all
+that the Bukatys could offer him in Warsaw. “I can begin at once,” he
+said, gravely. And he took off his hat and went away.
+
+It was done so quickly and quietly that Wanda and Martin were left in
+silence on the seat, watching him depart. He went the way he had come,
+down the broad walk towards the colonnade, and disappeared between the
+pillars of that building.
+
+“A man of action, and not of words,” commented Martin, who spoke first.
+“I like him. Come, let us go for our walk.”
+
+And Wanda said nothing. They rose and went away without speaking, though
+they usually had plenty to say to each other. It almost seemed that
+Cartoner's silence was contagious.
+
+He, for his part, went into the Faubourg and crossed to the river side
+of that wide street. It thus happened that he missed seeing Mr. Joseph
+Mangles, sunning himself upon the more frequented pavement, and smoking
+a contemplative cigar. Mr. Mangles would have stopped him had they met.
+Paul Deulin was not far behind Mr. Mangles, idling past the shops, which
+could scarcely have had much interest for the Parisian.
+
+“Ah!” said the Frenchman to himself, “there is our friend Reginald. He
+is in one of his silent humors. I can see that from this distance.”
+
+He turned on the pavement and watched Cartoner, who was walking rather
+slowly.
+
+“If any woman ever marries that man,” the Frenchman said to himself,
+“she will have to allow a great deal to go without saying. But, then,
+women are good at that.”
+
+And he continued his leisurely contemplation of the dull shop-windows.
+
+Cartoner walked on to his rooms in the Jasna, where he found letters
+awaiting him. He read them, and then sat down to write one which was
+not an answer to any that he had received. He wrote it carefully and
+thoughtfully, and when it was written sealed it. For in Warsaw it
+is well to seal such letters as are not intended to be read at the
+post-office. And if one expects letters of importance, it is wiser not
+to have them sent to Poland at all, for the post-office authorities
+are kind enough to exercise a parental censorship over the travellers'
+correspondence.
+
+Cartoner's letter was addressed to an English gentleman at his country
+house in Sussex, and it asked for an immediate recall from Poland. It
+was a confession, for the first time, that the mission entrusted to him
+was more than he could undertake.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+CARTONER _VERSUS_ FATE
+
+It has been said that on the turf, and under it, all men are equal. It
+is, moreover, whispered that the crooked policy of Russia forwards the
+cause of horseracing at Warsaw by every means within its power, on the
+theory that even warring nationalities may find themselves reconciled
+by a common sport. And this dream of peace, pursued by the successor
+of that Czar who said to Poland: “Gentlemen--no dreams,” seems in part
+justified by the undeniable fact that Russians and Poles find themselves
+brought nearer together on the race-course than in any other social
+function in Warsaw.
+
+“Come,” cried Paul Deulin, breaking in on the solitude of Cartoner's
+rooms after lunch one day towards the end of October. “Come, and let
+us bury the hatchet, and smoke the cigarette of peace before the
+grand-stand at the Mokotow. Everybody will be there. All Poland and his
+wife, all the authorities and their wives, and these ladies will peep
+sideways at each other, and turn up their noses at each other's toilets.
+To such has descended the great strife in eastern Europe.”
+
+“You think so.”
+
+“Yes, I think so, or I pretend to think so, which comes to the same
+thing, and makes it a more amusing world for those who have no stake in
+it. Come with me, and I will show you this little world of Warsaw, where
+the Russians walk on one side and the Poles pass by on the other; where
+these fine Russian officers glance longingly across the way, only too
+ready to take their hearts there and lose them--but the Czar forbids it.
+And, let me tell you, there is nothing more dangerous in the world than
+a pair of Polish eyes.”
+
+He broke off suddenly; for Cartoner was looking at him with a
+speculative glance, and turned away to the window.
+
+“Come,” he said. “It is a fine day--St. Martin's summer. It is Sunday,
+but no matter. All you Englishmen think that there is no recording angel
+on the Continent. You leave him behind at Dover.”
+
+“Oh, I have no principles,” said Cartoner, rising from his chair, and
+looking round absent-mindedly for his hat.
+
+“You would be no friend of mine if you had. There is no moderation in
+principles. If a man has any at all, he always has some to spare for
+his neighbors. And who wants to act up to another man's principles?
+By-the-way, are you doing any good here, Cartoner?”
+
+“None.”
+
+“Nor I,” pursued Deulin; “and I am bored. That is why I want you to come
+to the races with me. Besides, it would be more marked to stay away than
+to go--especially for an Englishman and a Frenchman, who lead the world
+in racing.”
+
+“That is why I am going,” said Cartoner.
+
+“Then you don't like racing?”
+
+“Yes, I am very fond of it,” answered the Englishman, in the same absent
+voice, as he led the way towards the door.
+
+In the Jasna they found a drosky, where there is always one to be found
+at the corner of the square, and they did not speak during the drive
+up the broad Marszalkowska to the rather barren suburb of the Mokotow
+(where bricks and mortar are still engaged in emphasizing the nakedness
+of the land), for the simple reason that speech is impossible while
+driving through the streets of the worst-paved city in Europe. Which is
+a grudge that the traveller may bear against Russia, for if Poland
+had been a kingdom she would assuredly have paved the streets of her
+capital.
+
+The race-course is not more than fifteen minutes' drive from the heart
+of the town, and all Warsaw was going thither this sunny afternoon. At
+the entrance a crowd was slowly working its way through the turnstiles,
+and Deulin and Cartoner passed in with it. They had the trick, so rare
+among travellers, of doing this in any country without attracting undue
+attention.
+
+It was a motley enough throng. There were Polish ladies and gentlemen
+in the garb of their caste, which is to-day the same all the world over,
+though in some parts of Ruthenia and Lithuania one may still come across
+a Polish gentleman of the old school in his frogged coat and top-boots.
+German tradesmen and their families formed here and there one of those
+domesticated and homely groups which the Fatherland sends out into
+the world's trading centres. And moving amid these, as quietly and
+unobtrusively as possible, the Russian officers, who virtually had the
+management of the course--tall, fair, clean men, with sunburned faces
+and white skins--energetic, refined, and strong. They were mostly in
+white tunics with gold shoulder-straps, blue breeches, and much gold
+lace. Here and there a Cossack officer moved with long, free strides in
+his dressing-gown of a coat, heavily ornamented with silver, carrying
+high his astrakhan cap, and looking round him with dark eyes that had a
+gleam of something wild and untamed in them. It was a meeting-ground of
+many races, one of the market-places where men may greet each other who
+come from different hemispheres and yet owe allegiance to one flag: are
+sons of the empire which to-day gathers within one ring-fence the north,
+the south, the east, and the west.
+
+“France amuses me, England commands my respect, but Russia takes my
+breath away,” said Deulin, elbowing his way through the medley of many
+races. On all sides one heard different languages--German, the sing-song
+Russian--the odd, exclamatory tongue which three emperors cannot kill.
+
+“And Germany?” inquired Cartoner, in his low, curt voice.
+
+“Bores me, my friend.”
+
+He was pushing his way gently through into the paddock, where a number
+of men were congregated, but no ladies.
+
+“The Fatherland,” he added, “the heavy Fatherland! I killed a German
+once, when I was in the army of the Loire--a most painful business.”
+
+He was still shaking his head over this reminiscence when they reached
+the gateway of the paddock. He was passing through it when, without
+turning towards him, he grasped Cartoner's arm.
+
+“Look!” he said, “look!”
+
+There was a sudden commotion in the well-dressed crowd in the paddock,
+and above the gray coats and glossy hats the tossing colors of a jockey.
+The head of a startled horse and two gleaming shoes appeared above the
+heads of men for a moment. A horse had broken away with its jockey only
+half in the saddle.
+
+The throng divided, and dispersed in either direction like sheep before
+a dog--all except one man, who, walking with two sticks, could not move
+above a snail's pace.
+
+Then, because they were both quick men, with the instincts and a long
+practice of action in moments calling for a rapid decision, Deulin and
+Cartoner ran forward. But they could not save the catastrophe which
+they knew was imminent. The horse advanced with long, wild strides, and
+knocked the crippled old man over as if he were a ninepin. He came on
+at a gallop now, the jockey leaning forward and trying to catch a
+broken bridle, his two stirrups flying, his cap off. The little man was
+swearing in English. And he had need to, for through the paddock gate
+the crowd was densely packed and he was charging into it on a maddened
+horse beyond control.
+
+Deulin was nearer, and therefore the first to get to the horse; but
+Cartoner's greater weight came an instant later, and the horse's head
+was down.
+
+“Let go! let go!” cried the jockey through his teeth, as Cartoner and
+Deulin, one on each side, crammed the stirrups over his feet. “Let go!
+I'll teach him!”
+
+And they obeyed him, for the horse interested them less than the Prince
+Bukaty, lying half-stunned on the turf. They were both at his side in a
+moment and saw him open his eyes.
+
+“I am unhurt,” he said. “Help me up. No! sh--h! No, nothing is broken;
+it is that confounded gout. No, I cannot rise yet! Leave me for a
+minute. Go, one of you, and tell Wanda that I am unhurt. She is in box
+No. 18, in the grand-stand.”
+
+He spoke in French, to Deulin more particularly.
+
+“Go and tell her,” said the Frenchman, over his shoulder, in English.
+“Some busy fool has probably started off by this time to tell her that
+her father is killed. You will find us in the club-house when you come
+back.”
+
+So Cartoner went to the grand-stand to seek Wanda there, in the face of
+all Warsaw, with his promise to avoid her still fresh in his memory. As
+he approached he saw her in the second tier of boxes. She was dressed in
+black and white, as she nearly always was. It was only the Russians and
+the Germans who wore gay colors. He could see the surprise on her
+face and in Martin's eyes as he approached, and knew that there were
+a hundred eyes watching him, a hundred ears waiting to catch his words
+when he spoke.
+
+“Princess,” he said, “the prince has had a slight accident, and has sent
+me to tell you that he is unhurt, in case you should hear any report to
+the contrary. He was unable to avoid a fractious horse, and was knocked
+down. Mr. Deulin is with him, and they have gone to the club pavilion.”
+
+He spoke rather slowly in French, so that all within ear-shot could
+understand and repeat.
+
+“Shall we go to him?” asked Wanda, rising.
+
+“Only to satisfy yourself. I assure you he is unhurt, princess, and
+would come himself were he able to walk.”
+
+Wanda rose, and turned to take her cloak from the back of her chair.
+
+“Will you take us to him, monsieur?” she said.
+
+And the three quitted the grand-stand together in a rather formal
+silence. The next race was about to start, and the lawn, with its
+forlorn, autumnal flower-beds, was less crowded now as they walked along
+it towards the paddock.
+
+“It was very good of you to come and tell us,” said Martin, in English,
+“with the whole populace looking on. It will do you no good, you know,
+to do a kindness to people under a cloud. I suppose it was true what you
+said about the prince being unhurt?”
+
+“Almost,” answered Cartoner. “He is rather badly shaken. I think you
+will find it necessary to go home, but there is no need for anxiety.”
+
+“Oh no!” exclaimed Martin. “He is a tough old fellow. You cannot come in
+here, you know, Wanda. It is against the Jockey Club laws, even in case
+of accidents.”
+
+He stood at the gate of the club enclosure as he spoke.
+
+“Wait here,” he said, “with Cartoner, and I will be back in a few
+minutes.”
+
+So Cartoner and Wanda were left in the now deserted paddock, while the
+distant roar of voices announced that the start for the next race had
+been successfully accomplished.
+
+Wanda looked rather anxiously towards the little square pavilion into
+which her brother was hurrying, and Cartoner only looked at Wanda. He
+waited till she should speak, and she did not appear to have anything to
+say at that moment. Perhaps in this one case that clear understanding
+of which she was such a pronounced advocate was only to be compassed by
+silence, and not by speech. The roar of voices behind them came nearer
+and nearer as the horses approached the winning-post. The members of the
+club stood rigid beneath the pavilion awning, some with field-glasses,
+others with knitted brows and glittering eyes. All eyes were turned in
+one direction, except Wanda's and Cartoner's.
+
+Then, when the race was over and the roar had subsided, Martin came
+hurrying back, and one glance at his face told them that there was no
+need for anxiety.
+
+“He is laughing in there over a glass of cognac. He refuses absolutely
+to go home, and he wants me to help him up the stairs. He will sit under
+the awning, he says. And we are to go back to the grand-stand,” Martin
+said, as he approached.
+
+“See,” he added, pointing to the paddock where the crowd was hurrying to
+gather round the winning horse. “See, it is already a thing of the past.
+And he wants it to be so. He wants no fuss made about it. It is no good
+advertising the fact of the existence of a dog with a bad name, eh?
+Thank you all the same, Cartoner, for your good offices. You and Deulin,
+they say, averted a catastrophe. The incident is over, my dear Wanda. It
+is forgotten by all except us. Wait here a minute and I will come back
+to you.”
+
+With a nod to Cartoner, as if to say, “I leave her to your care,” he
+turned and left them again.
+
+Then at length Wanda spoke.
+
+“You see,” she said, “you are not so strong as--”
+
+“As what?” he asked, seeing that she sought a word.
+
+“As Fate, I suppose,” she answered, and her eyes were grave as she
+looked across the mournful level land towards the west, where the sun
+was sinking below parallel bars of cloud to the straight line of the
+horizon. Sunset over a plain is one of nature's tragic moments.
+
+“Is it Fate?” she asked, with a sudden change of manner.
+
+“Even Fate can be hampered in its movements, princess,” answered
+Cartoner.
+
+“By what?”
+
+“By action. I have written for my recall.”
+
+He was looking towards the pavilion. It seemed that it was he, and not
+his companion, who was now anxious for Martin to return. Wanda was still
+looking across the course towards the sinking sun.
+
+“You have asked to be recalled from Warsaw?” she said.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then,” she said, after a pause, “it would have been better for you if
+we had not met at Lady Orlay's, in London. Monsieur Deulin once said
+that you had never had a check in your career. This is the first check.
+And it has come through--knowing us.”
+
+Cartoner made no answer, but stood watching the door of the pavilion
+with patient, thoughtful eyes.
+
+“You cannot deny it,” she said.
+
+And he did not deny it.
+
+Then she turned her head, and looked at him with clever, speculative
+keenness.
+
+“Why have you asked for your recall?” she asked, slowly.
+
+And still Cartoner made no answer. He was without rival in the art of
+leaving things unsaid. Then Martin came to them, laughing and talking.
+And across the course, amid the tag-rag and bobtail of Warsaw, the eyes
+of the man called Kosmaroff watched their every movement.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE WHEELS OF CHANCE
+
+When Martin and Wanda returned to the grand-stand they found the next
+box to theirs, which had hitherto been empty, occupied by a sedate party
+of foreigners. Miss Mangles had come to the races, not because she cared
+for sport, but because she had very wisely argued in her mind that one
+cannot set about to elevate human nature without a knowledge of those
+depths to which it sometimes descends.
+
+“And this,” she said, when she had settled herself on the chair
+commanding the best view, “this is the turf.”
+
+“That,” corrected Mr. Mangles, pointing down to the lawn with his
+umbrella, “is the turf. This is the grand-stand.”
+
+“The whole,” stated Miss Mangles, rather sadly, and indicating with a
+graceful wave of her card, which was in Russian and therefore illegible
+to her, the scene in general, “the whole constitutes the turf.”
+
+Joseph P. Mangles sat corrected, and looked lugubriously at Netty, who
+was prettily and quietly dressed in autumnal tints, which set off her
+delicate and transparent complexion to perfection. Her hair was itself
+of an autumnal tint, and her eyes of the deep blue of October skies.
+
+“And these young men are on it,” concluded Miss Mangles, with her usual
+decision. One privilege of her sex she had not laid aside--the privilege
+of jumping to conclusions. Netty glanced beneath her dark lashes in the
+direction indicated by Miss Mangles's inexorable finger; but some of the
+young men happening to look up, she instantly became interested in the
+Russian race-card which she could not read.
+
+“It is very sad,” she said.
+
+Miss Mangles continued to look at the young men severely, as if making
+up her mind how best to take them in hand.
+
+“Don't see the worst of 'em here,” muttered Mr. Mangles, dismally. “It
+isn't round about the grand-stand that young men come to grief--on the
+turf. That contingent is waiting to be called up into the boxes, and
+reformed--by the young women.”
+
+Netty looked gently distressed. At times she almost thought Uncle Joseph
+inclined to be coarse. She looked across the lawn with a rather wistful
+expression, eminently suited to dark blue eyes. The young men below were
+still glancing up in her direction, but she did not seem to see them.
+At this moment Wanda and Martin returned to their box. Wanda was
+preoccupied, and sat down without noticing the new-comers. Several
+ladies leaned over the low partitions and asked questions, which were
+unintelligible to Netty, and the news was spread from mouth to mouth
+that the Prince Bukaty was not hurt.
+
+Joseph P. Mangles looked at the brother and sister beneath his heavy
+brows. He knew quite well who they were, but did not consider himself
+called upon to transmit the information.
+
+“Even the best people seem to lend their countenance to this,” said Miss
+Mangles, in an undertone.
+
+“You are right, Jooly.”
+
+But Miss Mangles did not hear. She was engaged in bowing to Paul Deulin,
+who was coming up the steps. She was rather glad to see him, for the
+feeling had come over her that she was quite unknown to all these
+people. This is a feeling to which even the greatest are liable, and it
+is most unpleasant. For the heart of the celebrated is apt to hunger
+for the nudge of recognition and the surreptitious sidelong glance which
+convey the gratifying fact that one has been recognized. Paul Deulin
+would serve to enlighten these benighted people, and some little good
+might yet be done by a distinct and dignified attitude of disapproval
+towards the turf.
+
+“One would scarcely expect to see you here, Mr. Deulin,” she said,
+shaking hands, with a playful shake of the head.
+
+“Since you are here,” he answered, “there can be no harm. It is only a
+garden-party, after all.”
+
+And he bowed over Netty's head with an empressement which would have
+conveyed to any one more versed in the ways of men the reason why he had
+come.
+
+“Do you bet, Mr. Deulin?” inquired Jooly.
+
+“Never, unless I am quite sure,” he answered.
+
+“There is,” observed Miss Mangles, who was inclined to be
+gracious--“there is perhaps less harm in that.”
+
+“And less risk,” explained Deulin gravely. “But surely,” he said, in a
+lower tone, turning to Netty, “you know the Princess Wanda? Did you not
+meet her at Lady Orlay's?”
+
+Netty had already displayed some interest in Martin Bukaty, which was
+perhaps indiscreet. For a young man's vanity is singularly alert, and he
+was quite ready to return the interest with interest, so to speak.
+
+“Yes,” she replied, “we met her at Lady Orlay's. But I think she does
+not remember--though she seemed to recollect Mr. Cartoner, whom she met
+at the same time.”
+
+Deulin looked at her with his quick smile as he nodded a little,
+comprehending nod, and Netty's eyes looked into his innocently.
+
+“Be assured,” he answered, “that she has not seen you, or she would not
+fail to remember you. You are sitting back to back, you observe. The
+princess is rather distrait with thoughts of her father, who has just
+had a slight mishap.”
+
+He bent forward as he spoke and touched Wanda on the shoulder.
+
+“Wanda,” he said, “this young lady remembers meeting you in London.”
+
+Wanda turned and, rising, held her hand over the low barrier that
+divided the two boxes.
+
+“Of course,” she said, “Miss Cahere. You must excuse my sitting down so
+near to you without seeing you. I was thinking of something else.”
+
+“I hardly expect you to recollect me,” Netty hastened to say. “You must
+have met so many people in London. Is it not odd that so many who were
+at Lady Orlay's that night should be in Warsaw to-day?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Wanda, rather absently. “Are there many?”
+
+“Why, yes. Mr. Deulin was there, and yourself and the prince and we
+three and--Mr. Cartoner.”
+
+She looked round as she spoke for Cartoner, but only met Martin Bukaty's
+eyes fixed upon her with open admiration. When speaking she had much
+animation, and her eyes were bright.
+
+“I am sure you are here with your brother. The likeness is unmistakable.
+I hope the prince is not hurt?” she said, in her little, friendly,
+confidential way to Wanda.
+
+“No, he is not hurt, thank you. Yes, that is my brother. May I introduce
+him? Martin. Miss Cahere--my brother.”
+
+And the introduction was effected, which was perhaps what Netty wanted.
+She did not take much notice of Martin, but continued to talk to Wanda.
+
+“It must be so interesting,” she said, “to live in Warsaw and to be able
+to help the poor people who are so down-trodden.”
+
+“But I do nothing of that sort,” replied Wanda. “It is only in books
+that women can do anything for the people of their country. All I can
+do for Poland is to see that one old Polish gentleman gets what he likes
+for dinner, and to housekeep generally--just as you do when you are at
+home, no doubt.”
+
+“Oh,” protested Netty, “but I am not so useful as that. That is what
+distresses me. I seem to be of no use to anybody. And I am sure I could
+never housekeep.”
+
+And some faint line of thought, suggested perhaps by the last remark,
+made her glance in passing at Martin. It was so quick that only Martin
+saw it. At all events, Paul Deulin appeared to be looking rather
+vacantly in another direction.
+
+“I suppose Miss Mangles does all that when you are at home?” said Wanda,
+glancing towards the great woman, who was just out of ear-shot.
+
+“My dear Wanda,” put in Deulin, in a voice of gravest protest, “you
+surely do not expect that of a lady who housekeeps for all humanity.
+Miss Mangles is one of our leaders of thought. I saw her so described in
+a prominent journal of Smithville, Ohio. Miss Mangles, in her care for
+the world, has no time to think of an individual household.”
+
+“Besides,” said Netty, “we have no settled home in America. We live
+differently. We have not the comfort of European life.”
+
+And she gave a little sigh, looking wistfully across the plain. Martin
+noticed that she had a pretty profile, and the tenderest little droop of
+the lips.
+
+At this moment a race, the last on the card, put a stop to further
+conversation, and Netty refused, very properly, to deprive Martin of the
+use of his field-glasses.
+
+“I can see,” she said, in her confidential way, “well enough for myself
+with my own eyes.”
+
+And Martin looked into the eyes, so vaunted, with much interest.
+
+“I am sure,” she said to Wanda, when the race was over, “that I saw Mr.
+Cartoner a short time ago. Has he gone?”
+
+“I fancy he has,” was the reply.
+
+“He did not see us. And we quite forgot to tell him the number of our
+box. I only hope he was not offended. We saw a great deal of him on
+board. We crossed the Atlantic in the same ship, you know.”
+
+“Indeed!”
+
+“Yes. And one becomes so intimate on a voyage. It is quite ridiculous.”
+
+Deulin, leaning against the pillar at the back of the box, was
+thoughtfully twisting his grizzled mustache as he watched Netty. There
+was in his attitude some faint suggestion of an engineer who has set
+a machine in motion and is watching the result with a contemplative
+satisfaction.
+
+Martin was reluctantly making a move. One or two carriages were allowed
+to come to the gate of the lawn, and of these one was Prince Bukaty's.
+
+“Come, Wanda,” said Martin. “We must not keep him waiting. I can see
+him, with his two sticks, coming out of the club enclosure.”
+
+“I will go with you to make sure that he is none the worse,” said
+Deulin, “and then return to the assistance of these ladies.”
+
+He did not speak as they moved slowly through the crowd. Nor did he
+explain to Wanda why he had reintroduced Miss Cahere. He stood watching
+the carriages after they had gone.
+
+“The gods forbid,” he said, piously, to himself, “that I should attempt
+to interfere in the projects of Providence! But it is well that Wanda
+should know who are her friends and who her enemies. And I think she
+knows now, my shrewd princess.”
+
+And he bowed, bareheaded, in response to a gay wave of the hand from
+Wanda as the carriage turned the corner and disappeared. He turned on
+his heel, to find himself cut off from the grand-stand by a dense throng
+of people moving rather confusedly towards the exit. The sky was black,
+and a shower was impending.
+
+“Ah, well!” he muttered, philosophically, “they are capable of taking
+care of themselves.”
+
+And he joined the throng making for the gates. It appeared, however,
+that he gave more credit than was merited; for Netty was carried along
+by a stream of people whose aim was a gate to the left of the great
+gate, and though she saw the hat of her uncle above the hats of the
+other men, she could not make her way towards it. Mr. Mangles and
+his sister passed out of the large gateway, and waited in the first
+available space beyond it. Netty was carried by the gentle pressure of
+the crowd to the smaller gate, and having passed it, decided to wait
+till her uncle, who undoubtedly must have seen her, should come in
+search of her. She was not uneasy. All through her life she had always
+found people, especially men, ready, nay, anxious, to be kind to her.
+She was looking round for Mr. Mangles when a man came towards her. He
+was only a workman in his best suit of working clothes. He had a narrow,
+sunburned face, and there was in his whole being a not unpleasant
+suggestion of the seafaring life.
+
+“I am afraid,” he said, in perfect English, as he raised his cap, “that
+you have lost the rest of your party. You are also in the wrong course,
+so to speak. We are the commoner people here, you see. Can I help you to
+find your father?”
+
+“Thank you,” answered Netty, without concealing her surprise. “I think
+my uncle went out of the larger gate, and it seems impossible to get at
+him. Perhaps--”
+
+“Yes,” answered Kosmaroff, “I will show you another way with pleasure.
+Then that tall gentleman is not your father?”
+
+“No. Mr. Mangles is my uncle,” replied Netty, following her companion.
+
+“Ah, that is Mr. Mangles! An American, is he not?”
+
+“Yes. We are Americans.”
+
+“A diplomatist?”
+
+“Yes, my uncle is in the service.”
+
+“And you are at the Europe. Yes, I have heard of Mr. Mangles. This way;
+we can pass through this alley and come to the large gate.”
+
+“But you--you are not a Pole? It is so kind of you to help me,” said
+Netty, looking at him with some interest. And Kosmaroff, perceiving this
+interest, slightly changed his manner.
+
+“Ah! you are looking at my clothes,” he said, rather less formally. “In
+Poland things are not always what they seem, mademoiselle. Yes, I am a
+Pole. I am a boatman, and keep my boat at the foot of Bednarska Street,
+just above the bridge. If you ever want to go on the river, it is
+pleasant in the evening, you and your party, you will perhaps do me the
+great honor of selecting my poor boat, mademoiselle?”
+
+“Yes, I will remember,” answered Netty, who did not seem to notice that
+his glance was, as it were, less distant than his speech.
+
+“I knew at once--at once,” he said, “that you were English or American.”
+
+“Ah! Then there is a difference--” said Netty, looking round for her
+uncle.
+
+“There is a difference--yes, assuredly.”
+
+“What is it?” asked Netty, with a subtle tone of expectancy in her
+voice.
+
+“Your mirror will answer that question,” replied Kosmaroff, with his
+odd, one-sided smile, “more plainly than I should ever dare to do. There
+is your uncle, mademoiselle, and I must go.”
+
+Mr. Mangles, perceiving the situation, was coming forward with his hand
+in his pocket, when Kosmaroff took off his cap and hurried away.
+
+“No,” said Netty, laying her hand on Mr. Mangle's arm, “do not give him
+anything. He was rather a superior man, and spoke a little English.”
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+SENTENCED
+
+Like the majority of Englishmen, Cartoner had that fever of the horizon
+which makes a man desire to get out of a place as soon as he is in it.
+The average Englishman is not content to see a city; he must walk out of
+it, through its suburbs and beyond them, just to see how the city lies.
+
+Before he had been long in Warsaw, Cartoner hired a horse and took
+leisurely rides out of the town in all directions. He found suburbs more
+or less depressing, and dusty roads innocent of all art, half-paved,
+growing wider with the lapse of years, as in self-defence the
+foot-passengers encroached on the fields on either side in search of a
+cleaner thoroughfare. To the north he found that the great fort which a
+Russian emperor built for Warsaw's good, and which in case of emergency
+could batter the city down in a few hours, but could not defend it from
+any foe whatever. Across the river he rode through Praga, of grimmest
+memory, into closely cultivated plains. But mostly he rode by the
+riverbanks, where there are more trees and where the country is less
+uniform. He rode more often than elsewhere southward by the Vistula, and
+knew the various roads and paths that led to Wilanow.
+
+One evening, when clouds had been gathering all day and the twilight was
+shorter than usual, he was benighted in the low lands that lie parallel
+with the Saska Island. He knew his whereabouts, however, and soon struck
+that long and lonely river-side road, the Czerniakowska, which leads
+into the manufacturing districts where the sugar-refineries and the
+iron-foundries are. It was inches deep in dust, and he rode in
+silence on the silent way. Before him loomed the chimney of the large
+iron-works, which clang and rattle all day in the ears of the idlers in
+the Lazienki Park.
+
+Before he reached the high wall that surrounds these works on the land
+side he got out of the saddle and carefully tried the four shoes of
+his horse. One of them was loose. He loosened it further, working at it
+patiently with the handle of his whip. Then he led the horse forward and
+found that it limped, which seemed to satisfy him. As he walked on, with
+the bridle over his arm, he consulted his watch. There was just light
+enough to show him that it was nearly six.
+
+The iron-foundries were quiet now. They had been closed at five. From
+the distant streets the sound of the traffic came to his ears in a long,
+low roar, like the breaking of surf upon shingle far away.
+
+Cartoner led his horse to the high double door that gave access to the
+iron-foundry. He turned the horse very exactly and carefully, so that
+the animal's shoulder pressed against that half of the door which opened
+first. Then he rang the bell, of which the chain swung gently in the
+wind. It gave a solitary clang inside the deserted works. After a few
+moments there was the sound of rusted bolts being slowly withdrawn, and
+at the right moment Cartoner touched the horse with his whip, so that it
+started forward against the door and thrust it open, despite the efforts
+of the gate-keeper, who staggered back into the dimly lighted yard.
+
+Cartoner looked quickly round him. All was darkness except an open
+doorway, from which a shaft of light poured out, dimly illuminating
+cranes and carts and piles of iron girders. The gate-keeper was
+hurriedly bolting the gate. Cartoner led his horse towards the open
+door, but before he reached it a number of men ran out and fell on
+him like hounds upon a fox. He leaped back, abandoning his horse, and
+striking the first-comer full in the chest with his fist. He charged
+the next and knocked him over; but from the third he retreated, leaping
+quickly to one side.
+
+“Bukaty!” he cried; “don't you know me?”
+
+“You, Cartoner!” replied Martin. He spread out his arms, and the men
+behind him ran against them. He turned and said something to them in
+Polish, which Cartoner did not catch. “You here!” he said. And there was
+a ring in the gay, rather light voice, which the Englishman had never
+heard there before. But he had heard it in other voices, and knew the
+meaning of it. For his work had brought him into contact with refined
+men in moments when their refinement only serves to harden that grimmer
+side of human nature of which half humanity is in happy ignorance, which
+deals in battle and sudden death.
+
+“It is too risky,” said some one, almost in Martin's ear, in Polish, but
+Cartoner heard it. “We must kill him and be done with it.”
+
+There was an odd silence for a moment, only broken by the stealthy
+feet of the gate-keeper coming forward to join the group. Then Cartoner
+spoke, quietly and collectedly. His nerve was so steady that he had
+taken time to reflect as to which tongue to make use of. For all had
+disadvantages, but silence meant death.
+
+“This near fore-shoe,” he said in French, turning to his horse, “is
+nearly off. It has been loose all the way from Wilanow. This is a
+foundry, is it not? There must be a hammer and some nails about.”
+
+Martin gave a sort of gasp of relief. For a moment he had thought there
+was no loop-hole.
+
+Cartoner looked towards the door, and the light fell full upon his
+patient, thoughtful face. The faces of the men standing in a half-circle
+in front of him were in the dark.
+
+“Good! He's a brave man!” muttered the man who had spoken in Martin's
+ear. It was Kosmaroff. And he stepped back a pace.
+
+“Yes,” said Martin, hastily, “this is a foundry. I can get you a
+hammer.”
+
+His right hand was opening and shutting convulsively. Cartoner glanced
+at it, and Martin put it behind his back. He was rather breathless, and
+he was angrily wishing that he had the Englishman's nerve.
+
+“You might tell these men,” he said, in French, “of my mishap; perhaps
+one of them can put it right, and I can get along home. I am desperately
+hungry. The journey had been so slow from Wilanow.”
+
+He had already perceived that Kosmaroff understood both English and
+French, and that it was of him that Martin was afraid. He spoke slowly,
+so as to give Martin time to pull himself together. Kosmaroff stepped
+forward to the horse and examined the shoe indicated. It was nearly off.
+
+Martin turned, and explained in Polish that the gentleman had come for
+a hammer and some nails--that his horse had nearly lost a shoe. Cartoner
+had simply forced him to become his ally, and had even indicated the
+line of conduct he was to pursue.
+
+“Get a hammer--one of you,” said Kosmaroff, over his shoulder, and
+Martin bit his lip with a sudden desire to speak--to say more than was
+discreet. He took his cue in some way from Cartoner, without knowing
+that wise men cease persuading the moment they have gained consent.
+Never comment on your own victory.
+
+Never had Cartoner's silent habit stood him in such good stead as during
+the following moments, while a skilled workman replaced the lost
+shoe. Never had he observed so skilled a silence, or left unsaid such
+dangerous words. For Kosmaroff watched him as a cat may watch a bird.
+Behind, were the barred gates, and in front, the semicircle of men,
+whose faces he could not see, while the full light glared through the
+open doorway upon his own countenance. Two miles from Warsaw--a dark
+autumn night, and eleven men to one. He counted them, in a mechanical
+way, as persons in face of death nearly always do count, with a cold
+deliberation, their chances of life. He played his miserable little
+cards with all the skill he possessed, and his knowledge of the racial
+characteristics of humanity served him. For he acted slowly, and gave
+his enemies leisure to see that it would be a mistake to kill him. They
+would see it in time; for they were not Frenchmen, nor of any other
+Celtic race, who would have killed him first and recognized their
+mistake afterwards. They were Slavs--of the most calculating race the
+world had produced--a little slow in their calculations. So he gave
+them time, just as Russia must have time; but she will reach the summit
+eventually, when her farsighted policy is fully evolved--long, long
+after reader and writer are dust.
+
+Cartoner gave the workman half a rouble, which was accepted with a
+muttered word of thanks, and then he turned towards the great doors,
+which were barred. There was another pause, while the gate-keeper looked
+inquiringly at Kosmaroff.
+
+“I am very much obliged to you,” said Cartoner to Martin, who went
+towards the gate as if to draw back the bolt. But at a signal from
+Kosmaroff the gate-keeper sprang forward and opened the heavy doors.
+
+Martin was nearest, and instinctively held the stirrup, while Cartoner
+climbed into the saddle.
+
+“Saved your life!” he said, in a whisper.
+
+“I know,” answered Cartoner, turning in his saddle to lift his hat to
+the men grouped behind him. He looked over their heads into the open
+doorway, but could see nothing. Nevertheless, he knew where were
+concealed the arms brought out into the North Sea by Captain Cable in
+the _Minnie_.
+
+“More than I bargained for,” he muttered to himself, as he rode away
+from the iron-foundry by the river. He put his horse to a trot and
+presently to a canter along the deserted, dusty road. The animal was
+astonishingly fresh and went off at a good pace, so that the man sent
+by Kosmaroff to follow him was soon breathless and forced to give up the
+chase.
+
+Approaching the town, Cartoner rode at a more leisurely pace. That his
+life had hung on a thread since sunset did not seem to affect him much,
+and he looked about him with quiet eyes, while the hand on the bridle
+was steady.
+
+He was, it seemed, one of those fortunate wayfarers who see their road
+clearly before them, and for whom the barriers of duty and honor, which
+stand on either side of every man's path, present neither gap nor gate.
+He had courage and patience, and was content to exercise both, without
+weighing the changes of reward too carefully. That he read his duty in
+a different sense to that understood by other men was no doubt only that
+which this tolerant age calls a matter of temperament.
+
+“That Cartoner,” Deulin was in the habit of saying, “takes certain
+things so seriously, and other things--social things, to which I give
+most careful attention--he ignores. And yet we often reach the same end
+by different routes.”
+
+Which was quite true. But Deulin reached the end by a happy guess, and
+that easy exercise of intuition which is the special gift of the Gallic
+race, while Cartoner worked his way towards his goal with a steady
+perseverance and slow, sure steps.
+
+“In a moment of danger give me Cartoner,” Deulin had once said.
+
+On more than one occasion Cartoner had shown quite clearly, without
+words, that he understood and appreciated that odd mixture of heroism
+and frivolity which will always puzzle the world and draw its wondering
+attention to France. The two men never compared notes, never helped each
+other, never exchanged the minutest confidence.
+
+Joseph P. Mangles was different. He spoke quite openly of his work.
+
+“Got a job in Russia,” he had stolidly told any one who asked him.
+“Cold, unhealthy place.” He seemed to enter upon his duties with the
+casual interest of the amateur, and, in a way, exactly embodied the
+attitude of his country towards Europe, of which the many wheels
+within wheels may spin and whir or halt and grind without in any degree
+affecting the great republic. America can afford to content herself with
+the knowledge of what has happened or is happening. Countries nearer to
+the field of action must know what is going to happen.
+
+Cartoner rode placidly to the stable where he had hired his horse, and
+delivered the beast to its owner. He had no one in Warsaw to go to and
+relate his adventures. He was alone, as he had been all his life--alone
+with his failures and his small successes--content, it would seem, to be
+a good servant in a great service.
+
+He went to the restaurant of the Hotel de France, which is a quiet place
+of refreshment close to the Jasna, which has no political importance,
+like the restaurant of the Europe, and there dined. The square was
+deserted as he stumbled over the vile pavement towards his rooms. The
+concierge was sitting at the door of the quiet house where he had taken
+an apartment. All along the street the dvornik of every house thus
+takes his station at the half-closed door at nightfall. And it is so all
+through the town. It is a Russian custom, imported among others into
+the free kingdom of Poland, when the great empire of the north cast
+the shadow of its protecting wing over the land that is watered by
+the Vistula. So, no man may come or go in Warsaw without having his
+movements carefully noted by one who is directly responsible to the
+authorities for the good name of the house under his care.
+
+“The poet is in. There is a letter up-stairs,” said the door-keeper to
+Cartoner, as he passed in. Cartoner's servant was out, and the lamps
+were turned low when he entered his sitting-room. He knew that the
+letter must be the reply to his application for a recall. He turned
+up the lamp, and, taking the letter from the table where it lay in a
+prominent position, sat down in a deep chair to read it at leisure.
+
+It bore no address, and prattled of the crops. Some of it seemed to be
+nonsense. Cartoner read it slowly and carefully. It was an order, in
+brief and almost brutal language, to stay where he was and do the work
+intrusted to him. For a man who writes in a code must perforce avoid
+verbosity.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+A TALE HALF TOLD
+
+The heart soon accustoms itself to that existence which is called living
+upon a volcano. Prince Bukaty had indeed known no other life, and to
+such as had daily intercourse with him he was quite a peaceful and
+jovial gentleman. He had brought up his children in the same atmosphere
+of strife and peril, and it is to be presumed that the fit had survived,
+while the unfit princess, his wife, had turned her face to the wall
+quite soon, not daring to meet the years in which there could be no hope
+of alleviation.
+
+The prince's friends were not in Warsaw; many were at the mines. Some
+lived in Paris; others were exiled to distant parts of Russia. His
+generation was slowly passing away, and its history is one of the
+grimmest stories untold. Yet he sat in that bare drawing-room of a poor
+man and read his _Figaro_ quite placidly, like any bourgeois in the
+safety of the suburb, only glancing at the clock from time to time.
+
+“He is late,” he said once, as he folded the paper, and that was all.
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock, and Martin had been expected to return
+to dinner at half-past six. Wanda was working, and she, too, glanced
+towards the clock at intervals. She was always uneasy about Martin,
+whose daring was rather of the reckless type, whose genius lay more in
+leadership than in strategy. As to her father, he had come through
+the sixties, and had survived the persecution and the dangers of
+Wielopolski's day--he could reasonably be expected to take care of
+himself. With regard to herself, she had no fear. Hers was the woman's
+lot of watching others in a danger which she could not share.
+
+It was nearly half-past eleven when Martin came in. He was in
+riding-costume and was covered with dirt. His eyes, rimmed with dust,
+looked out of a face that was pale beneath the sunburn. He threw himself
+into a chair with an exclamation of fatigue.
+
+“Had any dinner?” asked his father.
+
+Wanda looked at her brother's face, and changed color herself. There
+was a suggestion of the wild rose in Wanda's face, with its delicate,
+fleeting shades of pink and white, while the slim strength of her limbs
+and carriage rather added to a characteristic which is essentially
+English or Polish. For American girls suggest a fuller flower on a
+firmer stem.
+
+“Something has happened,” said Wanda, quietly.
+
+“Yes,” replied Martin, stretching out his slight legs.
+
+The prince laid aside his newspaper, and looked up quickly. When his
+attention was thus roused suddenly his eyes and his whole face were
+momentarily fierce. Some one had once said that the history of Poland
+was written on those deep-lined features.
+
+“Anything wrong?” he asked.
+
+“Nothing that affects affairs,” replied Martin. “Everything is safe.”
+
+Which seemed to be catch-words, for Kosmaroff had made use of almost the
+identical phrases.
+
+“I am quite confident that there is no danger to affairs,” continued
+Martin, speaking with the haste and vehemence of a man who is anxious to
+convince himself. “It was a mere mischance, but it gave us all a horrid
+fright, I can tell you--especially me, for I was doubly interested.
+Cartoner rode into our midst to-night.”
+
+“Cartoner?” repeated the prince.
+
+“Yes. He rang the bell, and when the door was opened--we were expecting
+some one else--he led his horse into our midst, with a loose shoe.”
+
+“Who saw him?” asked the prince.
+
+“Every one.”
+
+“Kosmaroff?”
+
+“Yes. And if I had not been there it would have been all up with
+Cartoner. You know what Kosmaroff is. It was a very near thing.”
+
+“That would have been a mistake,” said the prince, reflectively. “It was
+the mistake they made last time. It has never paid yet to take life in
+driblets.”
+
+“That is what I told Kosmaroff afterwards, when Cartoner had gone. It
+was evident that it could only have been an accident. Cartoner could
+not have known. To do a thing like that, he must have known all--or
+nothing.”
+
+“He could not have known all,” said the prince. “That is an
+impossibility.”
+
+“Then he must have known nothing,” put in Wanda, with a laugh, which at
+one stroke robbed the matter of much of its importance.
+
+“I do not know how much he perceived when he was in--as to his own
+danger, I mean--for he has an excellent nerve, and was steady; steadier
+than I was. But he knows that there was something wrong,” said Martin,
+wiping the dust from his face with his pocket-handkerchief. His hand
+shook a little, as if he had ridden hard, or had been badly frightened.
+“We had a bad half-hour after he left, especially with Kosmaroff. The
+man is only half-tamed, that is the truth of it.”
+
+“That is more to his own danger than to any one else's,” put in Wanda,
+again. She spoke lightly, and seemed quite determined to make as little
+of the incident as possible.
+
+“Then how do matters stand?” inquired the prince.
+
+“It comes to this,” answered Martin, “that Poland is not big enough to
+hold both Kosmaroff and Cartoner. Cartoner must go. He must be told to
+go, or else----”
+
+Wanda had taken up her work again. As she looked at it attentively, the
+color slowly faded from her face.
+
+“Or else--what?” she inquired.
+
+Martin shrugged his shoulders.
+
+“Well, Kosmaroff is not a man to stick at trifles.”
+
+“You mean,” said Wanda, who would have things plainly, “that he would
+assassinate him?”
+
+Wanda glanced at her father. She knew that men hard pressed are no
+sticklers. She knew the story of the last insurrection, and of the
+wholesale assassination, abetted and encouraged by the anonymous
+national government of which the members remain to this day unknown. The
+prince made an indifferent gesture of the hand.
+
+“We cannot go into those small matters. We are playing a bigger game
+that that. It has always been agreed that no individual life must be
+allowed to stand in the way of success.”
+
+“It is upon that principle that Kosmaroff argues,” said Martin,
+uneasily.
+
+“Precisely; and as I was not present when this happened--as it is,
+moreover, not my department--I cannot, personally, act in the matter.”
+
+“Kosmaroff will obey nobody else.”
+
+“Then warn Cartoner,” the prince said, in a final voice. His had always
+been the final word. He would say to one, go; and to another, come.
+
+“I cannot do it,” said Martin, looking at Wanda. “You know my
+position--how I am watched.”
+
+“There is only one person in Warsaw who can do it,” said Wanda--“Paul
+Deulin.”
+
+“Deulin could do it,” said the prince, thoughtfully. “But I never talk
+to Deulin of these matters. Politics are a forbidden subject between
+us.”
+
+“Then I will go and see Monsieur Deulin the first thing to-morrow
+morning,” said Wanda, quietly.
+
+“You?” asked her father. And Martin looked at her in silent surprise.
+The old prince's eyes flashed suddenly.
+
+“Remember,” he said, “that you run the risk of making people talk of
+you. They may talk of us--of Martin and me--the world has talked of the
+Bukatys for some centuries--but never of their women.”
+
+“They will not talk of me,” returned Wanda, composedly. “I will see to
+that. A word to Mr. Cartoner will be enough. I understood him to say
+that he was not going to stay long in Warsaw.”
+
+The prince had acquired the habit of leaving many things to Wanda. He
+knew that she was wiser than Martin, and in some ways more capable.
+
+“Well,” he said, rising. “I take no hand in it. It is very late. Let us
+go to bed.”
+
+He paused half-way towards the door.
+
+“There is one thing,” he said, “which we should be wise to
+recollect--that whatever Cartoner may know or may not know will go no
+farther. He is a diplomatist. It is his business to know everything and
+to say nothing.”
+
+“Then, by Heaven, he knows his business!” cried Martin, with his
+reckless laugh.
+
+There are three entrances to the Hotel de l'Europe, two beneath the
+great archway on the Faubourg, where the carriages pass through into the
+court-yard--where Hermani was assassinated--where the people carried
+in the bodies of those historic five, whose mutilated corpses were
+photographed and hawked all through eastern Europe. The third is a side
+door, used more generally by habitues of the restaurant. It was to this
+third door that Wanda drove the next morning. She knew the porter there.
+He was in those days a man with a history and Wanda was not ignorant of
+it.
+
+“Miss Cahere--the American lady?” she said. And the porter gave her the
+number of Netty's room. He was too busy a man to offer to escort her
+thither.
+
+Wanda mounted the stairs along the huge corridor. She passed Netty's
+room, and ascended to the second story. All fell out as she had wished.
+At the head of the second staircase there is a little glass-partitioned
+room, where the servants sit when they are unemployed. In this
+room, reading a French newspaper, she found Paul Deulin's servant,
+a well-trained person. And a well-trained French servant is the best
+servant in the world. He took it for granted that Wanda had come to see
+his master, and led the way to the spacious drawing-room occupied by
+Deulin, who always travelled _en prince_.
+
+“I am given for my expenses more money than I can spend,” he said, in
+defence of his extravagant habits, “and the only people to whom I want
+to give it are those who will not accept it.”
+
+Deulin was not in the room, but he came in almost as soon as Wanda had
+found a chair. She was looking at a book, and did not catch the flash of
+surprise in his eyes.
+
+“Did Jean show you in?” he said.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“That is all right. He will keep everybody else out. And he will lie. It
+would not do, you know, for you to be talked about. We all have enemies,
+Wanda. Even plain people have enemies.”
+
+Wanda waited for him to ask her why she had come.
+
+“Yes,” he said, glancing at her and drawing a chair up to the table near
+which she was sitting. “Yes! What is the matter?”
+
+“An unfortunate incident,” answered Wanda, “that is all.”
+
+“Good. Life is an unfortunate incident if we come to that. I hope I
+predicted it. It is so consoling to have predicted misfortune when it
+comes. Your father?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Martin?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Cartoner,” said Deulin, dropping his voice half a dozen tones, and
+leaning both elbows on the table in a final way, which dispensed with
+the necessity of reply.
+
+“Allons. What has Cartoner been doing?”
+
+“He has found out something.”
+
+“Oh, la! la!” exclaimed Deulin, in a whisper--giving voice to that
+exclamation which, as the cultured reader knows, French people reserve
+for a really serious mishap. “I should have thought he knew better.”
+
+“And I cannot tell you what it is.”
+
+“And I cannot guess. I never find out things, and know nothing. An
+ignorant Frenchman, you know, ignores more than any other man.”
+
+“It came to Martin's knowledge,” explained Wanda, looking at him across
+the table, with frank eyes. But Deulin did not meet her eyes. “Look
+a man in the eyes when you tell him a lie,” Deulin had once said to
+Cartoner, “but not a woman.”
+
+“It came to Martin's knowledge by chance, and he says that--” Wanda
+paused, drew in her lips, and looked round the room in an odd, hurried
+way--“that it is not safe for Mr. Cartoner to remain any longer in
+Warsaw, or even in Poland. Mr. Cartoner was very kind to us in London.
+We all like him. Martin cannot, of course, say anything for him. My
+father won't--”
+
+Deulin was playing a gay little air with his fingers on the table.
+His touch was staccato, and he appeared to be taking some pride in his
+execution.
+
+“Years ago,” he said, after a pause, “I once took it upon myself to
+advise Cartoner. He was quite a young man. He listened to my advice with
+exemplary patience, and then acted in direct contradiction to it--and
+never explained. He is shockingly bad at explanation. And he was right,
+and I was wrong.”
+
+He finished his gay little air with an imaginary chord, played with both
+hands.
+
+“Voila!” he said. “I can do nothing, fair princess.”
+
+“But surely you will not stand idle and watch a man throw away his
+life,” said Wanda, looking at him in surprise.
+
+He raised his eyes to hers for a moment, and they were startlingly
+serious. They were dark eyes, beneath gray lashes. The whole man was
+neat and gray and--shallow, as some thought.
+
+“My dear Wanda,” he said, “for forty years and more I have watched
+men--and women--do worse than throw their lives away. And it has quite
+ceased to affect my appetite.”
+
+Wanda rose from her chair, and Deulin's face changed again. He shot a
+sidelong glance at her and bit his lip. His eyes were keen enough now.
+
+“Listen!” he said, as he followed her to the door. “I will give him a
+little hint--the merest ghost of a hint--will that do?”
+
+“Thank you,” said Wanda, going more slowly towards the door.
+
+“Though I do not know why we should, any of us, trouble about this
+Englishman.”
+
+Wanda quickened her pace a little, and made no answer.
+
+“There are reasons why I should not accompany you,” said Deulin, opening
+the door. “Try the right-hand staircase, and the other way round.”
+
+He closed the door behind her, and stood looking at the chair which
+Wanda had just vacated.
+
+“Only the third woman who knows what she wants,” he said, “and yet I
+have known thousands--thousands.”
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+MUCH--OR NOTHING
+
+If we contemplate our neighbour's life with that calm indifference
+to his good or ill which is the only true philosophy, it will become
+apparent that the gods amuse themselves with men as children amuse
+themselves with toys. Most lives are marked by a series of events, a
+long roll of monotonous years, and perhaps another series of events. In
+some the monotonous years come first, while others have a long breathing
+space of quiet remembrance before they go hence and are no more seen.
+
+A child will take a fly and introduce him to the sugar-basin. He will
+then pull off his wings in order to see what he will do without them.
+The fly wanders round beneath the sugar-basin, his small mind absorbed
+in a somewhat justifiable surprise, and then the child loses all
+interest in him. Thus the gods--with men.
+
+Cartoner was beginning to experience this numb surprise. His life, set
+down as a series of events, would have made what the world considers
+good reading nowadays. It would have illustrated to perfection; for
+it had been full of incidents, and Cartoner had acted in these
+incidents--as the hero of the serial sensational novel plays his monthly
+part--with a mechanical energy calling into activity only one-half
+of his being. He had always known what he wanted, and had usually
+accomplished his desires with the subtraction of that discount which is
+necessary to the accomplishment of all human wishes. The gods had not
+helped him; but they had left him alone, which is quite as good, and
+often better. And in human aid this applies as well, which that domestic
+goddess, the managing female of the family, would do well to remember.
+
+The gods had hitherto not been interested in Cartoner, and, like the fly
+on the nursery window that has escaped notice, he had been allowed to
+crawl about and make his own small life, with the result that he had
+never found the sugar-basin and had retained his wings. But now, without
+apparent reason, that which is called fate had suddenly accorded him
+that gracious and inconsequent attention which has forever decided the
+sex of this arbiter of human story.
+
+Cartoner still knew what he wanted, and avoided the common error of
+wanting too much. For the present he was content with the desire to
+avoid the Princess Wanda Bukaty. And this he was not allowed to do. Two
+days after the meeting at the Mokotow--the morning following the visit
+paid by Wanda to the Hotel de l'Europe--Cartoner was early astir. He
+drove to the railway station in time to catch the half-past eight train,
+and knowing the ways of the country, he took care to arrive at
+ten minutes past eight. He took his ticket amid a crowd of
+peasants--wild-looking men in long coats and high boots, rough women in
+gay shades of red, in short skirts and top-boots, like their husbands.
+
+This was not a fashionable train, nor a through train to one of the
+capitals. A religious fete at a village some miles out of Warsaw
+attracted the devout from all parts, and the devout are usually the
+humble in Roman Catholic countries. Railways are still conducted in some
+parts of Europe on the prison system, and Cartoner, glancing into the
+third-class waiting room, saw that it was thronged. The second-class
+room was a little emptier, and beyond it the sacred green-tinted shades
+of the first-class waiting-room promised solitude. He went in alone.
+There was one person in the bare room, who rose as he came in. It was
+Wanda. The gods were kind--or cruel.
+
+“You are going away?” she said, in a voice so unguardedly glad that
+Cartoner looked at her in surprise. “You have seen Monsieur Deulin, and
+you are going away.”
+
+“No, I have not seen Deulin since the races. He came to my rooms
+yesterday, but I was out. My rooms are watched, and he did not come
+again.”
+
+“We are all watched,” said Wanda, with a short and careless laugh. “But
+you are going away--that is all that matters.”
+
+“I am not going away. I am only going across the frontier, and shall be
+back this afternoon.”
+
+Wanda turned and looked towards the door. They were alone in the room,
+which was a vast one. If there were any other first-class passengers,
+they were waiting the arrival of the train from Lemberg in the
+restaurant, which is the more usual way of gaining access to the
+platform. She probably guessed that he was going across the frontier to
+post a letter.
+
+“You must leave Warsaw,” she said; “it is not safe for you to stay here.
+You have by accident acquired some knowledge which renders it imperative
+for you to go away. Your life, you understand, is in danger.”
+
+She kept her eyes on the door as she spoke. The ticket-collector on duty
+at the entrance of the two waiting-rooms was a long way off, and could
+not hear them even if he understood English, which was improbable. There
+were so many other languages at this meeting-place of East and West
+which it was essential for him to comprehend. The room was absolutely
+bare; not so much as a dog could be concealed in it. It these two had
+anything to say to each other this was assuredly the moment, and this
+bare railway station the place to say it in.
+
+Cartoner did not laugh at the mention of danger, or shrug his shoulders.
+He was too familiar with it, perhaps, to accord it this conventional
+salutation.
+
+“Martin would have warned you,” she went on, “but he did not dare to.
+Besides, he thought that you knew something of the danger into which you
+had unwittingly run.”
+
+“Not unwittingly,” said Cartoner, and Wanda turned to look at him. He
+said so little that his meaning needed careful search.
+
+“I cannot tell you much--” she began, and he interrupted her at once.
+
+“Stop,” he said, “you must tell me nothing. It was not unwitting. I am
+here for a purpose. I am here to learn everything--but not from you.”
+
+“Martin hinted at that,” said Wanda, slowly, “but I did not believe
+him.”
+
+And she looked at Cartoner with a sort of wonder in her eyes. It was as
+if there were more in him--more of him--than she had ever expected.
+And he returned her glance with a simplicity and directness which were
+baffling enough. He looked down at her. He was taller than she, which
+was as it should be. For half the trouble of this troubled world comes
+from the fact that, for one reason or another, women are not always able
+to look up to the men with whom they have dealings.
+
+“It is true enough,” he said, “fate has made us enemies, princess.”
+
+“You said that even the Czar could not do that. And he is stronger than
+fate--in Poland. Besides----”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“You, who say so little, were indiscreet enough to confide something in
+your enemy. You told me you had written for your recall.”
+
+And again her eyes brightened, with an anticipating gleam of relief.
+
+“It has been refused.”
+
+“But you must go--you must go!” she said, quickly. She glanced at the
+great clock upon the wall. She had only ten minutes in which to make him
+understand. He was an eminently sensible person. There were gleams of
+gray in his closely cut hair.
+
+“You must not think that we are alarmists. If there is any family in the
+world who knows what it is to live peaceably, happily--quite gayly--”
+ she broke off with a light laugh, “on a volcano--it is the Bukatys. We
+have all been brought up to it. Martin and I looked out of our nursery
+window on April 8, 1861, and saw what was done on that day. My father
+was in the streets. And ever since we have been accustomed to unsettled
+times.”
+
+“I know,” said Cartoner, “what it is to be a Bukaty.” And he smiled
+slowly as she looked at him with gray, fearless eyes. Then suddenly her
+manner, in a flash, was different.
+
+“Then you will go?” she pleaded, softly, persuasively. And when he
+turned away his eyes from hers, as if he did not care to meet them,
+she glanced again, hurriedly, at the clock. There is a cunning bred of
+hatred, and there is another cunning, much deeper. “Say you will go!”
+
+And, sternly economical of words, he shook his head.
+
+“I do not think you understand,” she went on, changing her manner
+and her ground again. And to each attack he could only oppose his own
+stolid, dumb form of defence. “You do not understand what a danger to
+us your presence here is. It is needless to tell you all this,” with
+a gesture she indicated the well-ordered railway station, the hundred
+marks of a high state of civilization, “is skin deep. That things in
+Poland are not at all what they seem. And, of course, we are implicated.
+We live from day to day in uncertainty. And my father is such an old
+man; he has had such a hopeless struggle all his life. You have only to
+look at his face--”
+
+“I know,” admitted Cartoner.
+
+“It would be very hard if anything should happen to him now, after he
+has gone through so much. And Martin, who is so young in mind, and so
+happy and reckless! He would be such an easy prey for a political foe.
+That is why I ask you to go.”
+
+“Yes, I know,” answered Cartoner, who, like many people reputed clever,
+was quite a simple person.
+
+“Besides,” said Wanda, with that logic which men, not having the wit to
+follow it, call no logic at all, “you can do no good here, if all your
+care and attention are required for the preservation of your life. Why
+have they refused your recall? It is so stupid.”
+
+“I must do the best I can,” replied Cartoner.
+
+Wanda shrugged her shoulders impatiently, and tapped her foot on the
+ground. Then suddenly her manner changed again.
+
+“But we must not quarrel,” she said, gently. “We must not misunderstand
+each other,” she added, with a quick and uneasy laugh, “for we have only
+five minutes in all the world.”
+
+“Here and now,” he corrected, with a glance at the clock, “we have only
+five minutes. But the world is large.”
+
+“For you,” she said quickly, “but not for me. My world is Warsaw. You
+forget I am a Russian subject.”
+
+But he had not forgotten it, as she could see by the sudden hardening of
+his face.
+
+“My presence in Warsaw,” he said, as if the train of thought needed no
+elucidating, “is in reality no source of danger to you--to your father
+and brother, I mean. Indeed, I might be of some use. I or Deulin. Do
+not misunderstand my position. I am of no political importance. I am
+nobody--nothing but a sort of machine that has to report upon events
+that are past. It is not my business to prevent events or to make
+history. I merely record. If I choose to be prepared for that which
+may come to pass, that is merely my method of preparing my report. If
+nothing happens I report nothing. I have not to say what might have
+happened--life is too short to record that. So you see my being in
+Warsaw is really of no danger to your father and brother.”
+
+“Yes, I see--I see!” answered Wanda. She had only three minutes now. The
+door giving access to the platform had long been thrown open. The guard,
+in his fine military uniform and shining top-boots, was strutting the
+length of the train. “But it was not on account of that that we asked
+Monsieur Deulin to warn you. It does not matter about my father and
+Martin. It is required of them--a sort of family tradition. It is their
+business in life--almost their pleasure.”
+
+“It is my business in life--almost my pleasure,” said Cartoner, with a
+smile.
+
+“But is there no one at home--in England--that you ought to think of?”
+ in an odd, sharp voice.
+
+“Nobody,” he replied, in one word, for he was chary with information
+respecting himself.
+
+Wanda had walked towards the platform. Immediately opposite to her
+stood a carriage with the door thrown open. In those days there were no
+corridor carriages. Two minutes now.
+
+“We must not be seen together on the platform,” she said. “I am only
+going to the next station. We have a small farm there, and some old
+servants whom I go to see.”
+
+She stood within the open doorway, and seemed to wait for him to speak.
+
+“Thank you,” he said, “for warning me.”
+
+And that was all.
+
+“You must go,” he added, after a moment's pause.
+
+Still she lingered.
+
+“There is so much to say,” she said, half to herself. “There is so much
+to say.”
+
+The train was moving when Cartoner stepped into a carriage at the back.
+He was alone, and he leaned back with a look of thoughtful wonder in his
+eyes, as if he were questioning whether she were right--whether there
+was much to say--or nothing.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+IN THE SENATORSKA
+
+“It is,” said Miss Julie Mangles, “in the Franciszkanska that one lays
+one's hand on the true heart of the people.”
+
+“That's as may be, Jooly,” replied her brother, “but I take it that the
+hearts of the women go to the Senatorska.”
+
+For Miss Mangles, on the advice of a polyglot concierge, had walked down
+the length of that silent street, the Franciszkanska, where the Jews ply
+their mysterious trades and where every shutter is painted with
+bright images of the wares sold within the house. The street is a
+picture-gallery of the human requirements. The chosen people hurry to
+and fro with curved backs and patient, suffering faces that bear the
+mark of eighteen hundred years of persecution. No Christian would
+assuredly be a Jew; and no Jew would be a Polish Jew if he could
+possibly help it. For a Polish Jew must not leave the country, may not
+even quit his native town, unless it suits a paternal government that he
+should go elsewhere. He has no personal liberty, and may not exercise a
+choice as to the clothes that he shall wear.
+
+“I shall,” said Miss Mangles, “write a paper on the Jewish question in
+this country.”
+
+And Joseph changed the position of his cigar from the left-hand to the
+right-hand corner of his mouth, very dexterously from within, with
+his tongue. He saw no reason why Jooly should not write a paper on
+the Semitic question in Russia, and read it to a greedy multitude in a
+town-hall, provided that the town-hall was sufficiently far West.
+
+“Seen the Senatorska, Netty?” he inquired. But Netty had not seen the
+Senatorska, and did not know how to find it.
+
+“Go out into the Faubourg,” her uncle explained, “and just turn to the
+left and follow all the other women. It is the street where the shops
+are.”
+
+Two days later, when Miss Julie Mangles was writing her paper, Netty set
+out to find the Senatorska. Miss Mangles was just putting down--as the
+paper itself recorded--the hot impressions of the moment, gathered after
+a walk down the Street of the Accursed. For they like their impressions
+served hot out West, and this is a generation that prefers vividness to
+accuracy.
+
+Netty found the street quite easily. It was a sunny morning, and many
+shoppers were abroad. In a degree she followed her uncle's instructions,
+and instinct did the rest. For the Senatorska is not an easy street to
+find. The entrance to it is narrow and unpromising, like either end of
+Bond Street.
+
+The Senatorska does not approach Bond Street or the Rue de la Paix, and
+Netty, who knew those thoroughfares, seemed to find little to interest
+her in the street where Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski--that weak
+dreamer--built his great opera-house and cultivated the ballet. The
+shops are, indeed, not worthy of a close attention, and Netty was
+passing them indifferently enough when suddenly she became absorbed
+in the wares of a silver-worker. Then she turned, with a little cry of
+surprise, to find a gentleman standing hatless beside her. It was the
+Prince Martin Bukaty.
+
+“I was afraid you did not remember me,” said Martin. “You looked
+straight at me, and did not seem to recognize me.”
+
+“Did I? I am so short-sighted, you know. I had not forgotten you. Why
+should I?”
+
+And Netty glanced at Martin in her little, gentle, appealing way, and
+then looked elsewhere rather hastily.
+
+“Oh, you travellers must see so many people you cannot be expected to
+remember every one who is introduced to you at a race-meeting.”
+
+“Of course,” said Netty, looking into the silversmith's shop. “One meets
+a great number of people, but not many that one likes. Do you not find
+it so?”
+
+“I am glad,” answered Martin, “that you do not meet many people that you
+like.”
+
+“Oh, but you must not think that I dislike people,” urged Netty, in some
+concern; “I should be very ungrateful if I did. Everybody is so kind.
+Do you not find it so? I hate people to be cynical. There is much more
+kindness in the world than anybody suspects. Do you not think so?”
+
+“I do not know. It has not come my way, perhaps. It naturally would come
+in yours.”
+
+And Martin looked down at her beneath the pink shade of her parasol with
+that kindness in his eyes of which Netty had had so large a share.
+
+“Oh no!” she protested, with a little movement of the shoulders
+descriptive of a shrinking humility. “Why should I? I have done nothing
+to deserve it. And yet, perhaps you are right. Everybody is so kind--my
+uncle and aunt--everybody. I am very fortunate, I am sure. I wonder why
+it is?”
+
+And she looked up inquiringly into Martin's face as if he could tell
+her, and, indeed, he looked remarkably as if he could--if he dared. He
+had never met anybody quite like Netty--so spontaneous and innocent and
+easy to get on with. Conversation with her was so interesting and yet so
+little trouble. She asked a hundred questions which were quite easy to
+answer; and were not stupid little questions about the weather, but had
+a human interest in them, especially when she looked up like that from
+under her parasol, and there was a pink glow on her face, and her eyes
+were dark, almost as violets.
+
+“Ought I to be here?” she asked. “Going about the streets alone, I
+mean?”
+
+“You are not alone,” answered Martin, with a laugh.
+
+“No, but--perhaps I ought to be.”
+
+And Martin, looking down, saw nothing but the top of the pink parasol.
+
+“In America, you know,” said the voice from under the parasol, “girls
+are allowed to do so much more than in Europe. And it is always best to
+be careful, is it not?--to follow the customs of the country, I mean. In
+France and Germany people are so particular. I wanted to ask you what is
+the custom in Warsaw.”
+
+Martin stepped to one side in order to avoid the parasol.
+
+“In Warsaw you can do as you like. We are not French, and Heaven forbid
+that we should resemble the Germans in anything. Here every one goes
+about the streets as they do in England or America.”
+
+As if to confirm this, he walked on slowly, and she walked by his side.
+
+“I can show you the best shops,” he said, “such as they are. This is
+Ulrich's, the flower shop. Those violets are Russian. The only good
+thing I ever heard of that came from Russia. Do you like violets?”
+
+“I love them,” answered Netty, and she walked on rather hurriedly to the
+next shop.
+
+“You would naturally.”
+
+“Why?” asked Netty, looking with a curious interest at the packets of
+tea in the Russian shop next to Ulrich's.
+
+“Is it not the correct thing to select the flower that matches the
+eyes?”
+
+“It is very kind of you to say that,” said Netty, in a voice
+half-afraid, half-reproachful.
+
+“It is very kind of Heaven to give you such eyes,” answered Martin,
+gayly. He was more and more surprised to find how easy it was to get on
+with Netty, whom he seemed to have known all his life. Like many lively
+persons, he rather liked a companion to possess a vein of gravity, and
+this Netty seemed to have. He was sure that she was religious and very
+good.
+
+“You know,” said Netty, hastily, and ignoring his remark, “I am much
+interested in Poland. It is such a romantic country. People have done
+such great things, have they not, in Poland? I mean the nobles--and the
+poor peasants, too in their small way, I suppose?”
+
+“The nobles have come to great grief in Poland--that is all,” replied
+Martin, with a short laugh.
+
+“And it is so sad,” said Netty, with a shake of the head; “but I am
+sure it will all come right some day. Do you think so? I am sure you are
+interested in Poland--you and your sister and your father.”
+
+“We are supposed to be,” admitted Martin. “But no one cares for Poland
+now, I am afraid. The rest of the world has other things to think of,
+and, in England and America, Poland is forgotten now--and her history,
+which is the saddest history of any nation in the world.”
+
+“But I am sure you are wrong there,” said Netty, earnestly. “I know a
+great number of people who are sorry for the Poles and interested in
+them.”
+
+“Are you?” asked Martin, looking down at her.
+
+“Yes,” she replied, with downcast eyes. “Come,” she said, after a pause,
+with a sort of effort, “we must not stand in front of this shop any
+longer.”
+
+“Especially,” he said, with a laugh, as he followed her, “as it is a
+Russian shop. Wherever you see tea and articles of religion mixed up in
+a window, that is a Russian shop, and if you sympathize with Poland you
+will not go into it. There are, on the other hand, plenty of shops in
+Warsaw where they will not serve Russians. It is to those shops that you
+must go.”
+
+Netty looked at him doubtfully.
+
+“I am quite serious,” he said. “We must fight with what weapons we
+have.”
+
+“Yes,” she answered, indicating the shops, “these people, but not you.
+You are a prince, and they cannot touch you. They would not dare to take
+anything from you.”
+
+“Because there is nothing to take,” laughed Martin, gayly; “we were
+ruined long ago. They took everything there was to take in 1830, when
+my father was a boy. He could not work for his living, and I may not
+either; so I am a prince without a halfpenny to call his own.”
+
+“I am so sorry!” she said, in a soft voice, and, indeed, she looked it.
+
+Then she caught sight of Paul Deulin a long way off, despite her
+short sight, which was perhaps spasmodic, as short sight often is. She
+stopped, and half turned, as if to dismiss Martin. When Deulin perceived
+them he was standing in the middle of the pavement, as if they had
+just met. He came up with a bow to Netty and his hand stretched out to
+Martin--his left hand, which conveyed the fact that he was an old and
+familiar friend.
+
+“I suppose you are on your way back to the Europe to lunch?” he said to
+Netty. “I am in luck. I have come just in time to walk back with you, if
+you will permit it.”
+
+And he did not wait for permission, but walked on beside Netty, while
+Martin took off his hat and went in the opposite direction. It was not
+the way he wanted to go but something had made him think that Netty
+desired him to go, and he departed with a pleasant sensation as of
+a secret possessed in common with her. He walked back quickly to the
+flower-shop kept by Ulrich, in the Senatorska.
+
+A rare thing happened to Paul Deulin at this moment. He fell into a
+train of thought, and walked some distance by the side of Netty without
+speaking. It was against his principles altogether. “Never be silent
+with a woman,” he often said. “She will only misconstrue it.”
+
+“It was odd that I should meet you at that moment,” he said, at length,
+for Netty had not attempted to break the silence. She never took the
+initiative with Paul Deulin, but followed quite humbly and submissively
+the conversational lead which he might choose to give. He broke off and
+laughed. “I was going to say that it was odd that I should have met you
+at a moment that I was thinking of you; but it would be odder still if
+I could manage to meet you at a moment when I was not thinking of you,
+would it not?”
+
+“It was very kind of you,” said Netty, “to think of me at the
+race-meeting the other day, and to introduce me to the Bukatys. I am so
+interested in the princess. She is so pretty, is she not? Such lovely
+hair, and I think her face is so interesting--a face with a history, is
+it not?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Deulin, rather shortly, “Wanda is a nice girl.” He did
+not seem to find the subject pleasing, and Netty changed her ground.
+
+“And the prince,” she said, “the old one, I mean--for this one, Prince
+Martin, is quite a boy, is he not?”
+
+“Oh yes--quite a boy,” replied Deulin, absently, as he looked back over
+his shoulder and saw Martin hurry into the flower-shop where he had
+first perceived Netty and the young prince talking together.
+
+“It is so sad that they are ruined--if they are really ruined.”
+
+“There is no doubt whatever about that,” answered Deulin.
+
+“But,” said Netty, who was practical, “could nothing induce him--the
+young prince, I mean--to abandon all these vague political dreams and
+accept the situation as it is, and settle down to develop his estates
+and recover his position?”
+
+“You mean,” said Deulin, “the domestic felicities. Your fine and
+sympathetic heart would naturally think of that. You go about the world
+like an unemployed and wandering angel, seeking to make the lives of
+others happier. Those are dreams, and in Poland dreams are forbidden--by
+the Czar. But they are the privilege of youth, and I like to catch an
+occasional glimpse of your gentle dreams, my dear young lady.”
+
+Netty smiled a little pathetically, and glanced up at him beneath her
+lashes, which were dark as lashes should be that veil violet eyes.
+
+“Now you are laughing at me, because I am not clever,” she said.
+
+“Heaven forbid! But I am laughing at your dream for Martin Bukaty. He
+will never come to what you suggest as the cure for his unsatisfactory
+life. He has too much history behind him, which is a state of things
+never quite understood in your country, mademoiselle. Moreover, he has
+not got it in him. He is not stable enough for the domestic felicities,
+and Siberia--his certain destination--is not a good mise-en-scene for
+your dream. No, you must not hope to do good to your fellow-beings
+here, though it is natural that you should seek the ever-evasive
+remedy--another privilege of youth.”
+
+“You talk as if you were so very old,” said Netty, reproachfully.
+
+“I am very, very old,” he replied, with a laugh. “And there is no remedy
+for that. Even your kind heart can supply no cure for old age.”
+
+“I reserve my charity and my cures for really deserving cases,” answered
+Netty, lightly. “I think you are quite capable of taking care of
+yourself.”
+
+“And of evolving my own dreams?” he inquired. But she made no answer,
+and did not appear to notice the glance of his tired, dark eyes.
+
+“I know so little,” she said, after a pause, “so very little of Poland
+or Polish history. I suppose you know everything--you and Mr. Cartoner?”
+
+“Oh, Cartoner! Yes, he knows a great deal. He is a regular magazine
+of knowledge, while I--I am only a little stall in Vanity Fair, with
+everything displayed to the best advantage in the sunshine. Now, there
+is a life for you to exercise your charity upon. He is brilliantly
+successful, and yet there is something wanting in his life. Can you not
+prescribe for him?”
+
+Netty smiled gravely.
+
+“I hardly know him sufficiently well,” she said. “Besides, he requires
+no sympathy if it is true that he is the heir to a baronetcy and a
+fortune.”
+
+Deulin's eyebrows went up into his hat, and he made, for his own
+satisfaction, a little grimace of surprise.
+
+“Ah! is that so?” he inquired. “Who told you that?”
+
+But Netty could not remember where she had heard what she was ready to
+believe was a mere piece of gossip. Neither did she appear to be very
+interested in the matter.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+JOSEPH'S STORY
+
+Mr. Mangles gave a dinner-party the same evening. “It is well,” he
+had said, “to show the nations that the great powers are in perfect
+harmony.” He made this remark to Deulin and Cartoner, whom he met at
+the Cukiernia Lourse--a large confectioner's shop and tea-house in the
+Cracow Faubourg--which is the principal cafe in Warsaw. And he then and
+there had arranged that they should dine with him.
+
+“I always accept the good Mangles' invitations. Firstly, I am in love
+with Miss Cahere. Secondly, Julie P. Mangles amuses me consumedly. In
+her presence I am dumb. My breath is taken away. I have nothing to say.
+But afterwards, in the night, I wake up and laugh into my pillow. It
+takes years off one's life,” said Deulin, confidentially, to Cartoner,
+as they sipped their tea when Mr. Joseph P. Mangles had departed.
+
+As Deulin was staying under the same roof he had only to descend from
+the second to the first floor, when the clock struck seven. By some
+chance he was dressed in good time, and being an idle person, with a
+Gallic love of street-life, he drew back his curtain, and stood at the
+window waiting for the clock to strike.
+
+“I shall perhaps see the heir to the baronetcy arrive,” he said to
+himself, “and we can make our entry together.”
+
+It happened that he did see Cartoner; for the square below the windows
+was well lighted. He saw Cartoner turn out of the Cracow Faubourg into
+the square, where innumerable droskies stand. He saw, moreover, a man
+arrive at the corner immediately afterwards, as if he had been following
+Cartoner, and, standing there, watch him pass into the side door of the
+hotel.
+
+Deulin reflected for a moment. Then he went into his bedroom, and took
+his coat and hat and stick. He hurried down-stairs with them, and gave
+them into the care of the porter at the side door, whose business it is
+to take charge of the effects of the numerous diners in the restaurant.
+When he entered the Mangles' drawing-room a few minutes later he found
+the party assembled there. Netty was dressed in white, with some violets
+at her waistband. She was listening to her aunt and Cartoner, who were
+talking together, and Deulin found himself relegated to the society of
+the hospitable Joseph at the other end of the room.
+
+“You're looking at Cartoner as if he owed you money,” said Mr. Mangles,
+bluntly.
+
+“I was looking at him with suspicion,” admitted Deulin, “but not on that
+account. No one owes me money. It is the other way round, and it is not
+I who need to be anxious, but the other party, you understand. No, I was
+looking at our friend because I thought he was lively. Did he strike you
+as lively when he came in?”
+
+“Not what I should call a vivacious man,” said Mangles, looking dismally
+across the room. “There was a sort of ripple on his serene calm as he
+came in perhaps.”
+
+“Yes,” said Deulin, in a low voice. “That is bad. There is usually
+something wrong when Cartoner is lively. He is making an effort, you
+know.”
+
+They went towards the others, Deulin leading the way.
+
+“What beautiful violets,” said he to Netty. “Surely Warsaw did not
+produce those?”
+
+“Yes, they are pretty,” answered Netty, making a little movement to show
+the flowers to greater advantage to Deulin and to Cartoner also. Her
+waist was very round and slender. “They came from that shop in the
+Senatorska or the Wirzbowa, I forget, quite, which street. Ulrich, I
+think, was the name.”
+
+And she apparently desired to let the subject drop there.
+
+“Yes,” said Deulin, slowly. “Ulrich is the name. And you are fond of
+violets?”
+
+“I love them.”
+
+Deulin was making a silent, mental note of the harmless taste, when
+dinner was announced.
+
+“It was I who recommended Netty to investigate the Senatorska,” said Mr.
+Mangles, when they were seated. But Netty did not wish to be made the
+subject of the conversation any longer. She was telling Cartoner,
+who sat next to her, a gay little story, connected with some piece of
+steamer gossip known only to himself and her. Is it not an accepted
+theory that quiet men like best those girls who are lively?
+
+Miss Mangles dispensed her brother's hospitality with that rather
+labored ease of manner to which superior women are liable at such times
+as they are pleased to desire their inferiors to feel comfortable, and
+to enjoy themselves according to their lights.
+
+Deulin perceived the situation at once, and sought information
+respecting Poland, which was most graciously accorded him.
+
+“And you have actually walked through the Jewish quarter?” he said,
+noting, with the tail of his eye, that Cartoner was absent-minded.
+
+“I entered the Franciszkanska near the old church of St. John, and
+traversed the whole length of the street.”
+
+“And you formed an opinion upon the Semitic question in this country?”
+ asked the Frenchman, earnestly.
+
+“I have.”
+
+And Deulin turned to his salmon, while Miss Mangles swept away in a few
+chosen phrases the difficulties that have puzzled statesmen for fifteen
+hundred years.
+
+“I shall read a paper upon it at one of our historical Women's Congress
+meetings--and I may publish,” she said.
+
+“It would be in the interests of humanity,” murmured Deulin, politely.
+“It would add to the . . . wisdom of the nations.”
+
+Across the table Netty was doing her best to make her uncle's guest
+happy, seeking to please him in a thousand ways, which need not be
+described.
+
+“I know,” she was saying at that moment, in not too loud a voice, “that
+you dislike political women.” Heaven knows how she knew it. “But I am
+afraid I must confess to taking a great interest in Poland. Not the sort
+of interest you would dislike, I hope. But a personal interest in the
+people. I think I have never met people with quite the same qualities.”
+
+“Their chief quality is gameness,” said Cartoner, thoughtfully.
+
+“Yes, and that is just what appeals to English and Americans. I think
+the princess is delightful--do you not think so?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Cartoner, looking straight in front of him.
+
+“There must be a great many stories,” went on Netty, “connected with
+the story of the nation, which it would be so interesting to know--of
+people's lives, I mean--of all they have attempted and have failed to
+do.”
+
+Joseph was listening at his end of the table, with a kindly smile on his
+lined face. He had, perhaps, a soft place in that cynical and dry
+heart for his niece, and liked to hear her simple talk. Cartoner was
+listening, with a greater attention than the words deserved. He was
+weighing them with a greater nicety than experienced social experts
+are in the habit of exercising over dinner-table talk. And Deulin was
+talking hard, as usual, and listening at the same time; which is not by
+any means an easy thing to do.
+
+“I always think,” continued Netty, “that the princess has a story.
+There must, I mean, be some one at the mines or in Siberia, or somewhere
+terrible like that, of whom she is always thinking.”
+
+And Netty's eyes were quite soft with a tender sympathy, as she glanced
+at Cartoner.
+
+“Perhaps,” put in Deulin, hastily, between two of Julie's solemn
+utterances. “Perhaps she is thinking of her brother--Prince Martin. He
+is always getting into scrapes--ce jeune homme.”
+
+But Netty shook her head. She did not mean that sort of thought at all.
+
+“It is your romantic heart,” said Deulin, “that makes you see so much
+that perhaps does not exist.”
+
+“If you want a story,” put in Joseph Mangles, suddenly, in his deep
+voice, “I can tell you one.”
+
+And because Joseph rarely spoke, he was accorded a silence.
+
+“Waiter's a Finn, and says he doesn't understand English?” began
+Mangles, looking interrogatively at Deulin, beneath his great eyebrows.
+
+“Which I believe to be the truth,” assented the Frenchman.
+
+“Cartoner and Deulin probably know the story,” continued Joseph, “but
+they won't admit that they do. There was once a nobleman in this city
+who was like Netty; he had a romantic heart. Dreamed that this country
+could be made a great country again, as it was in the past--dreamed that
+the peasants could be educated, could be civilized, could be turned into
+human beings. Dreamed that when Russia undertook that Poland should be
+an independent kingdom with a Polish governor, and a Polish Parliament,
+she would keep her word. Dreamed that when the powers, headed by France
+and England, promised to see that Russia kept to the terms of the
+treaty, they would do it. Dreamed that somebody out of all that crew,
+would keep his word. Comes from having a romantic heart.”
+
+And he looked at Netty with his fierce smile, as if to warn her against
+this danger.
+
+“My country,” he went on, “didn't take a hand in that deal. Bit out of
+breath and dizzy, as a young man would be that had had to fight his own
+father and whip him.”
+
+And he bobbed his head apologetically towards Cartoner, as representing
+the other side in that great misunderstanding.
+
+“Ever heard the Polish hymn?” he asked, abruptly. He was not a good
+story-teller perhaps. And while slowly cutting his beef across and
+across, in a forlorn hope that it might, perchance, not give him
+dyspepsia this time, he recited in a sing-song monotone:
+
+“'O Lord, who, for so many centuries, didst surround Poland with the
+magnificence of power and glory; who didst cover her with the shield of
+Thy protection when our armies overcame the enemy; at Thy altar we raise
+our prayer: deign to restore us, O Lord, our free country!'”
+
+He paused, and looked slowly round the table.
+
+“Jooly--pass the mustard,” he said.
+
+Then, having helped himself, he lapsed into the monotone again, with
+a sort of earnest unction that had surely crossed the seas with those
+Pilgrim Fathers who set sail in quest of liberty.
+
+“'Give back to our Poland her ancient splendor! Look upon fields soaked
+with blood! When shall peace and happiness blossom among us? God of
+wrath, cease to punish us! At Thy altar we raise our prayer: deign to
+restore us, O Lord, our free country!'”
+
+And there was an odd silence, while Joseph P. Mangles ate sparingly of
+the beef.
+
+“That is the first verse, and the last,” he said at length. “And all
+Poland was shouting them when this man dreamed his dreams. They are
+forbidden now, and if that waiter's a liar, I'll end my days in Siberia.
+They sang it in the churches, and the secret police put a chalk mark on
+the backs of those that sang the loudest, and they were arrested when
+they came out--women and children, old men and maidens.”
+
+Miss Julie P. Mangles made a little movement, as if she had something to
+say, as if to catch, as it were, the eye of an imaginary chairman,
+but for once this great speaker was relegated to silence by universal
+acclaim. For no one seemed to want to hear her. She glanced rather
+impatiently at her brother, who was always surprising her by knowing
+more than she had given him credit for, and by interesting her, despite
+herself.
+
+“The dreamer was arrested,” he continued, pushing away his plate, “on
+some trivial excuse. He was not dangerous, but he might be. There was no
+warrant and no trial. The Czar had been graciously pleased to give
+his own personal attention to this matter which dispensed with all
+formalities and futilities . . . of justice. Siberia! Wife with great
+difficulty obtained permission to follow. They were young--last of
+the family. Better that they should be the last--thought the paternal
+government of Russia. But she had influential relatives--so she went.
+She found him working in the mines. She had taken the precaution of
+bringing doctor's certificates. Work in the mines would inevitably kill
+him. Could he not obtain in-door work? He petitioned to be made the
+body-servant of the governor of his district--man who had risen from
+the ranks--and was refused. So he went to the mines again--and died. The
+wife had in her turn been arrested for attempting to aid a prisoner to
+escape. Then the worst happened--she had a son, in prison, and all the
+care and forethought of the paternal government went for nothing. The
+pestilential race was not extinct, after all. The ancestors of that
+prison brat had been kings of Poland. But the paternal government was
+not beaten yet. They took the child from his mother, and she fretted and
+died. He had nobody now to care for him, or even to know who he was, but
+his foster-father--that great and parental government.”
+
+Joseph paused, and looked round the table with a humorous twinkle in his
+eyes.
+
+“Nice story,” he said, “isn't it? So the brat was mixed up with other
+brats so effectually that no one knew which was which. He grew up in
+Siberia, and was drafted into a Cossack regiment. And at last the race
+was extinct; for no one knew. No one, except the recording angel, who is
+a bit of a genealogist, I guess. Sins of the fathers, you know. Somebody
+must keep account of 'em.”
+
+The dessert was on the table now; for the story had taken longer in the
+telling than the reading of it would require.
+
+“Cartoner, help Netty to some grapes,” said the host, “and take
+some yourself. Story cannot interest you--must be ancient history.
+Well--after all, it was with the recording angel that the Russian
+government slipped up. For the recording angel gave the prison brat a
+face that was historical. And if I get to Heaven, I hope to have a word
+with that humorist. For an angel, he's uncommon playful. And the brat
+met another private in the Cossack regiment who recognized the face,
+and told him who he was. And the best of it is that the government has
+weeded out the dangerous growth so carefully that there are not half
+a dozen people in Poland, and none in Russia, who would recognize that
+face if they saw it now.”
+
+Joseph poured out a glass of wine, which he drank with outstretched chin
+and dogged eyes.
+
+“Man's loose in Poland now,” he added.
+
+And that was the end of the story.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+THE HIGH-WATER MARK
+
+Netty did not smoke. She confessed to being rather an old-fashioned
+person. Which is usually accounted to her for righteousness by men, who,
+so far as women are concerned, are intensely conservative--such men, at
+all events, whose opinion it is worth a woman's while to value.
+
+Miss Mangles, on the other hand, made a point of smoking a cigarette
+from time to time in public. There were two reasons. The ostensible
+reason, which she gave freely when asked for it, and even without
+the asking--namely, that she was not going to allow men to claim the
+monopoly of tobacco. There was the other reason, which prompts so many
+actions in these blatant times--the unconscious reason that, in going
+counter to ancient prejudices respecting her sex, she showed contempt
+for men, and meted out a bitter punishment to the entire race for having
+consistently and steadily displayed a complete indifference to herself.
+
+Miss Mangles announced her intention of smoking a cigarette this
+evening, upon which Netty rose and said that if they were not long over
+their tobacco they would find her in the drawing-room.
+
+The Mangles' salon was separated from the dining-room by Joseph's
+apartment--a simple apartment in no way made beautiful by his Spartan
+articles of dress and toilet. The drawing-room was at the end of the
+passage, and there was a gas-jet at each corner of the corridor. Netty
+went to the drawing-room, but stopped short on the threshold. Contrary
+to custom, the room was dark. The old-fashioned chandelier in the centre
+of the large, bare apartment glittered in the light of the gas-jet in
+the passage. Netty knew that there were matches on the square china
+stove opposite to the door, which stood open. She crossed the room, and
+as she did so the door behind her, which was on graduated hinges, swung
+to. She was in the dark, but she knew where the stove was.
+
+Suddenly her heart leaped to her throat. There was some one in the
+room. The soft and surreptitious footstep of a person making his way
+cautiously to the door was unmistakable. Netty tried to speak--to ask
+who was there. But her voice failed. She had read of such a failure in
+books, but it had never been her lot to try to speak and to find herself
+dumb until now.
+
+Instinctively she turned and faced the mysterious and terrifying sound.
+Then her courage came quite suddenly to her again. Like many diminutive
+persons, she was naturally brave. She moved towards the door, her small
+slippers and soft dress making no sound. As the fugitive touched the
+door-handle she stretched out her hand and grasped a rough sleeve.
+Instantly there was a struggle, and Netty fought in the dark with some
+one infinitely stronger and heavier than herself. That it was a man she
+knew by the scent of tobacco and of rough working-clothes. She had one
+hand on the handle, and in a moment turned it and threw open the door.
+The light from without flooded the room, and the man leaped back.
+
+It was Kosmaroff. His eyes were wild; he was breathless. For a moment
+he was not a civilized man at all. Then he made an effort, clinched his
+hands, and bit his lips. His whole demeanor changed.
+
+“You, mademoiselle!” he said, in broken English. “Then Heaven is
+kind--Heaven is kind!”
+
+In a moment he was at her feet, holding her two hands, and pressing
+first one and then the other to his lips. He was wildly agitated, and
+Netty was conscious that his agitation in some way reached her. In all
+her life she had never known what it was to be really carried away until
+that moment. She had never felt anything like it--had never seen a man
+like this--at her feet. She dragged at her hands, but could not free
+them.
+
+“I came,” he said--and all the while he had one eye on the passage to
+see that no one approached--“to see you, because I could not stay away!
+You think I am a poor man. That is as may be. But a poor man can love as
+well as a rich man--and perhaps better!”
+
+“You must go! you must go!” said Netty. And yet she would have been
+sorry if he had gone. The worst of reaching the high-water mark is
+that the ebb must necessarily be dreary. In a flash of thought she
+recollected Joseph Mangles' story. This was the sequel. Strange if
+he had heard his own story through the door of communication between
+Mangles' bedroom and the dining-room. For the other door, from the salon
+to the bedroom, stood wide open.
+
+“You think I have only seen you once,” said Kosmaroff. “I have not. I
+have seen you often. But the first time I saw you--at the races--was
+enough. I loved you then. I shall love you all my life!”
+
+“You must go--you must go!” whispered Netty, dragging at her hands.
+
+“I won't unless you promise to come to the Saski Gardens now--for five
+minutes. I only ask five minutes. It is quite safe. There are many
+passing in and out of the large door. No one will notice you. The
+streets are full. I made an excuse to come in. A man I know was coming
+to these rooms with a parcel for you. I took the parcel. See, there is
+the tradesman's box. I brought it. It will take me out safely. But I
+won't go till you promise. Promise, mademoiselle!”
+
+“Yes!” whispered Netty, hurriedly. “I will come!”
+
+Firstly, she was frightened. The others might come at any moment.
+Secondly--it is to be feared--she wanted to go. It was the high-water
+mark. This man carried her there and swept her off her feet--this
+working-man, in his rough clothes, whose ancestor had been a king.
+
+“Go and get a cloak,” he said. “I will meet you by the great fountain.”
+
+And Netty ran along the corridor to her room, her eyes alight, her heart
+beating as it had never beaten before.
+
+Kosmaroff watched her for a moment with that strange smile that
+twisted his mouth to one side. Then he struck a match and turned to the
+chandelier. The globe was still warm. He had turned out the gas when
+Netty's hand was actually on the handle.
+
+“It was a near thing,” he said to himself in Russian, which language
+he had learned before any other, so that he still thought in it. “And I
+found the only way out of that hideous danger.”
+
+As he thus reflected he was putting together hastily the contents of
+Joseph Mangles's writing-case, which were spread all over the table in
+confusion. Then he hurried into the bedroom, closed one or two drawers
+which he had left open, put the despatch-case where he had found it,
+and, with a few deft touches, set the apartment in order. A moment later
+he lounged out at the great doorway, dangling the tradesman's box on his
+arm.
+
+It was a fine moonlight night, and the gardens were peopled by shadows
+moving hither and thither beneath the trees. The shadows were mostly in
+couples. Others had come on the same errand as Kosmaroff--for a better
+motive, perhaps, or a worse. It was the very end of St. Martin's brief
+summer, and when winter lays its quiet mantle on these northern plains
+lovers must needs seek their opportunities in-doors.
+
+Kosmaroff arrived first, and sat down thoughtfully on a bench. He was
+one of the few who were not muffled in great-coats and wraps against the
+autumn chill. He had known a greater cold than Poland ever felt.
+
+“I suppose she will come,” he said in his mind, watching the gate
+through which Netty must enter the gardens. “It matters little if she
+does not. For I do not know what I shall say when she does come. Must
+leave that to the inspiration of the moment--and the moonlight. She is
+pretty enough to make it easy.”
+
+In a few moments Netty passed through the gate and came towards
+him--not hurriedly or furtively, as some maiden in a book to her first
+clandestine meeting--but with her head thrown back, and with an air of
+having business to transact, which was infinitely safer and less likely
+to attract the attention of the idle. It was she who spoke first.
+
+“I am going back at once,” she said. “It was very wrong to come. But you
+frightened me so. Was it very wrong? Do you think it was wrong of me to
+come, and despise me for it?”
+
+“You promised,” he whispered, eagerly; “you promised me five minutes.
+Out of a whole lifetime, what is it? For I am going away from Warsaw
+soon, and I shall never see you again perhaps, and shall have only the
+memory of these five minutes to last me all my life--these five minutes
+and that minute--that one minute in the hotel.”
+
+And he took her hand, which was quite near to him, somehow, on the stone
+bench, and raised it to his lips.
+
+“We are going away, too,” she said. She was thinking also of that one
+minute in the doorway of the salon, when she had touched high-water
+mark. “We are on our way to St. Petersburg, and are only waiting
+here till my uncle has finished some business affairs on which he is
+engaged.”
+
+“But he is not a business man,” said Kosmaroff, suddenly interested.
+“What is he doing here?”
+
+“I do not know. He never talks to me of his affairs. I never know
+whether he is travelling for pleasure, or on account of his business in
+America, or for political purposes. He never explains. I only know that
+we are going on to St. Petersburg.”
+
+“And I shall not see you again. What am I to do all my life without
+seeing you? And the others--Monsieur Deulin and that Englishman,
+Cartoner--are they going to St. Petersburg, too?”
+
+“I do not know,” answered Netty, hastily withdrawing her hand, because
+a solitary promenader was passing close by them. “They never tell me
+either. But . . .”
+
+“But what! Tell me all you know, because it will enable me, perhaps, to
+see you again in the distance. Ah! if you knew! If you could only see
+into my heart!”
+
+And he took her hand again in the masterful way that thrilled her, and
+waited for her to answer.
+
+“Mr. Cartoner will not go away from Warsaw if he can help it.”
+
+“Ah!” said Kosmaroff. “Why--tell me why?”
+
+But Netty shook her head. They were getting into a side issue assuredly,
+and she had not come here to stray into side issues. With that skill
+which came no doubt with the inspiration of the moment in which
+Kosmaroff trusted he got back into the straight path again at one
+bound--the sloping, pleasant path in which any fool may wander and any
+wise man lose himself.
+
+“It is for you that he stays here,” he said. “What a fool I was not to
+see that! How could he know you, and be near you, and not love you?”
+
+“I think he has found it quite easy to do it,” answered Netty, with an
+odd laugh. “No, it is not I who keep him in Warsaw, but somebody who is
+clever and beautiful.”
+
+“There is no one more beautiful than you in Warsaw.”
+
+And for a moment Netty was silenced by she knew not what.
+
+“You say that to please me,” she said at last. And her voice was quite
+different--it was low and uneven.
+
+“I say it because it is the truth. There is no one more beautiful than
+you in all the world. Heaven knows it.”
+
+And he looked up with flashing black eyes to that heaven in which he had
+no faith.
+
+“But who is there in Warsaw,” he asked, “whom any one could dream of
+comparing with you?”
+
+“I have no doubt there are hundreds. But there is one whom Mr. Cartoner
+compares with me--and even you must know that she is prettier than I
+am.”
+
+“I do not know it,” protested Kosmaroff, again taking her hand. “There
+is no one in all the world.”
+
+“There is the Princess Wanda Bukaty,” said Netty, curtly.
+
+“Ah! Does Cartoner admire her? Do they know each other? Yes, I remember
+I saw them together at the races.”
+
+“They knew each other in London,” said Netty. “They knew each other when
+I first saw them together at Lady Orlay's there. And they have often met
+here since.”
+
+Kosmaroff seemed to be hardly listening. He was staring in front of him,
+his eyes narrow with thought and suspicion. He seemed to have forgotten
+Netty and his love for her as suddenly as he had remembered it in the
+salon a few minutes earlier.
+
+“Is it that he has fallen in love--or is it that he desires information
+which she alone can give him?” he asked at length. Which was, after all,
+the most natural thought that could come to him at that moment and in
+that place. For every man must see the world through his own eyes.
+
+Before she could answer him the town clocks struck ten. Netty rose
+hastily and drew her cloak round her.
+
+“I must go,” she said; “I have been here much more than five minutes.
+Why did you let me stay? Oh--why did you make me come?”
+
+And she hurried towards the gate, Kosmaroff walking by her side.
+
+“You will come again,” he said. “Now that you have come once--you cannot
+be so cruel. Now that you know. I am nearly always at the river, at the
+foot of the Bednarska. You might walk past, and say a word in passing.
+You might even come in my boat. Bring that woman with the black hair,
+your aunt, if necessary. If would be safer, perhaps. Do you speak
+French?”
+
+“Yes--and she does not.”
+
+“Good--then we can talk. I must not go beyond the gate. Good-bye--and
+remember that I love you--always, always!”
+
+He stood at the gate and watched her hurry across the square towards the
+side door of the hotel, where the concierge was so busy that he could
+scarcely keep a note of all who passed in and out.
+
+“It is all fair--all fair,” said Kosmaroff to himself, seeking to
+convince himself. “Besides--has the world been fair to me?”
+
+Which argument has made the worst men that walk the earth.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+A LIGHT TOUCH
+
+Soon after ten o'clock Miss Mangles received a message that Netty,
+having a headache, had gone to her room. Miss Cahere had never given way
+to that weakness, which is, or was, euphoniously called the emotions.
+She was not old-fashioned in that respect.
+
+But to-night, on regaining her room, she was conscious, for the first
+time in her life, of a sort of moral shakiness. She felt as if she might
+do or say something imprudent. And she had never felt like that before.
+No one in the world could say that she had ever been imprudent. That
+which the lenient may call a school-girl escapade--a mere flight to the
+garden for a few minutes--was scarcely sufficient to account for this
+feeling. She must be unwell, she thought. And she decided, with some
+wisdom, not to submit herself to the scrutiny of Paul Deulin again.
+
+Mr. Mangles had not finished his excellent cigar; and although
+Miss Mangles did not feel disposed for another of those long,
+innocent-looking Russian cigarettes offered by Deulin, she had still
+some views of value to be pressed upon the notice of the inferior sex.
+
+Deulin had been glancing at the clock for some time, and, suspiciously
+soon after learning that they were not to see Netty again, he announced
+with regret that he had letters to write, and must take his leave.
+Cartoner made no excuse, but departed at the same time.
+
+“I will come down to the door with you,” said Deulin, in the passage.
+He was always idle, and always had leisure to follow his sociable
+instincts.
+
+At the side door, while Cartoner was putting on his coat, he stepped
+rather suddenly out into the street, and before Cartoner had found his
+hat was back again.
+
+“It is a moonlight night,” he said. “I will walk with you part of the
+way.”
+
+He turned, as he spoke, towards his coat and hat and stick, which were
+hanging near to where Cartoner had found his own. He did not seem to
+think it necessary to ask the usual formal permission. They knew each
+other too well for that. Cartoner helped the Frenchman on with his thin,
+light overcoat, and reaching out his hand took the stick from the rack,
+weighing and turning it thoughtfully in his hand.
+
+“That is the Madrid Stick,” said the Frenchman. “You were with me when I
+bought it.”
+
+“And when you used it,” added Cartoner, in his quietest tone, as he
+led the way to the door. “Generally keep your coat in the hall?” he
+inquired, casually, as they descended the steps.
+
+“Sometimes,” replied Deulin, glancing at the questioner sideways beneath
+the brim of his hat.
+
+It was, as he had said, a beautiful night. The moon was almost full
+and almost overhead, so that the streets were in most instances without
+shadow at all; for they nearly all run north and south, as does the
+river.
+
+“Yes,” said Deulin, taking Cartoner's arm, and leading him to the right
+instead of the left; for Cartoner was going towards the Cracow Faubourg,
+which was the simplest but not the shortest way to the Jasna. “Yes--let
+us go by the quiet streets, eh? We have walked the pavement of some
+queer towns in our day, you and I. The typical Englishman, so dense,
+so silent, so unobservant--who sees nothing and knows nothing and never
+laughs, but is himself the laughing-stock of all the Latin races and the
+piece de resistance of their comic papers. And I, at your service,
+the typical Frenchman; all shrugs and gesticulations and mustache--of
+politeness that is so insincere--of a heart that is so unstable. Ah!
+these national characteristics of comic journalism--how the stupid world
+trips over them on to its vulgar face!”
+
+As he spoke he was hurrying Cartoner along, ever quicker and quicker,
+with a haste that must have been unconscious, as it certainly was
+unnatural to one who found a thousand trifles to interest him in the
+streets whenever he walked there.
+
+Cartoner made no answer, and his companion expected none. They were in
+a narrow street now--between the backs of high houses--and had left the
+life and traffic of frequented thoroughfares behind them. Deulin turned
+once and looked over his shoulder. They were alone in the street. He
+released Cartoner's arm, through which he had slipped his left hand in
+an effusive French way. He was fingering his stick with his right hand
+in an odd manner, and walked with his head half turned, as if listening
+for footsteps behind him. Suddenly he swung round on his heels, facing
+the direction from which they had just come.
+
+Two men were racing up the street, making but little noise on the
+pavement.
+
+“Any coming from the other side?” asked Deulin.
+
+“No.”
+
+“In the doorway,” whispered the Frenchman. He was very quick and quite
+steady. And there is nothing more dangerous on earth than a steady
+Frenchman, who fights with his brain as well as his arm. Deulin was
+pushing his companion back with his left hand into a shallow
+doorway that had the air of being little used. The long blade of
+his sword-stick, no thicker at the hilt than the blade of a sailor's
+sheath-knife, and narrowing to nothing at the point, glittered in the
+moonlight.
+
+“Here,” he said, and thrust the empty stick into Cartoner's hand. “But
+you need not use it. There are only two. Ah! Ah!”
+
+With a sharp little cry of delight he stepped out into the moonlight,
+and so quick were his movements in the next moments that the eye could
+scarcely follow them. Those who have seen a panther in liberty know
+there is nothing so graceful, so quick, so lithe and noiseless in animal
+life. And Deulin was like a panther at that moment. He leaped across
+the pavement to give one man a stinging switch across the cheek with
+the flat of the blade, and was back on guard in front of Cartoner like
+a flash. He ran right round the two men, who stood bewildered together,
+and did not know where to look for him. Once he lifted his foot and
+planted a kick in the small of his adversary's back, sending him
+staggering against the wall. He laughed, and gave little, sharp cries
+of “Ah!” and “La!” breathlessly. He did a hundred tricks of the
+fencing-floor--performed a dozen turns and sleights of hand. It was a
+marvel of agility and quickness. He struck both men on shoulder, arm,
+hand, head, and leg; forward, back-handed, from above and below. He
+never awaited their attack--but attacked them. Was it not Napoleon who
+said that the surest way to defend is to attack?
+
+The wonder was that, wielding so keen a point, he never hurt the men.
+The sword might have been a lady's riding-whip, for its bloodlessness,
+from the stinging cuts he inflicted. But the whistle of it through the
+air was not the whistle of leather. It was the high, clear, terrifying
+note of steel.
+
+The two men, in confusion, backed across the road, and finally ran to
+the opposite pavement, where they were half hidden by a deep shadow.
+Without turning, Deulin backed towards Cartoner, who stood still in the
+doorway.
+
+“Even if they are armed,” said Deulin, “they won't fire. They don't want
+the police any more than we do. Can tell you, Cartoner, it would not
+suit my book at all to get into trouble in Warsaw now.”
+
+While he spoke he watched the shadows across the road.
+
+“Both have knives,” he said, “but they cannot get near me. Stay where
+you are.”
+
+“All right,” said Cartoner. “Haven't had a chance yet.”
+
+And he gave a low laugh, which Deulin had only heard once or twice
+before in all the years that they had known each other.
+
+“That's the best,” he said, half to himself, “of dealing with a man who
+keeps his head. Here they come, Cartoner--here they come.”
+
+And he went out to meet them.
+
+But only one came forward. They knew that unless they kept together,
+Deulin could not hold them both in check. The very fact of their
+returning to the attack--thus, with a cold-blooded courage--showed that
+they were Poles. In an instant Deulin divined their intention. He ran
+forward, his blade held out in front of him. Even at this moment he
+could not lay aside the little flourish--the quick, stiff pose--of the
+fencer.
+
+His sword made a dozen turns in the air, and the point of it came down
+lightly, like a butterfly, on the man's shoulder. He lowered it further,
+as if seeking a particular spot, and then, deliberately, he pushed it in
+as if into a cheese.
+
+“Voila, mon ami,” he said, with a sort of condescension as if he had
+made him a present. As, indeed, he had. He had given him his life.
+
+The man leaped back with a little yelp of pain, and his knife clattered
+on the stones. He stood in the moonlight, looking with horror-struck
+eyes at his own hand, of which the fingers, like tendrils, were slowly
+curling up, and he had no control over them.
+
+“And now,” said Deulin, in Polish, “for you.”
+
+He turned to the other, who had been moving surreptitiously round
+towards Cartoner, who had, indeed, come out to meet him; but the man
+turned and ran, followed closely by his companion.
+
+Deulin picked up the knife, which lay gleaming on the cobble-stones,
+and came towards Cartoner with it. Then he turned aside, and carefully
+dropped it between the bars of the street gutter, where it fell with a
+muddy splash.
+
+“He will never use that hand again,” he said. “Poor devil! I only hope
+he was well paid for it.”
+
+“Doubt it.”
+
+Deulin was feeling in the pocket of his top-coat.
+
+“Have you an old envelope?” he inquired.
+
+Cartoner handed him what he asked for. It happened to be the envelope of
+the letter he had received a few days earlier, denying him his recall.
+And Deulin carefully wiped the blade of the sword-stick with it. He tore
+it into pieces and sent it after the knife. Then he polished the bright
+steel with his pocket-handkerchief, from the evil point to the hilt,
+where the government mark and the word “Toledo” were deeply engraved.
+
+“Unless I keep it clean it sticks,” he explained. “And if you want it at
+all, you want it in a hurry--like a woman's heart, eh?”
+
+He was looking up and down the street as he spoke, and shot the blade
+back into its sheath. He turned and examined the ground to make sure
+that nothing was left there.
+
+“The light was good,” he said, appreciatively, “and the ground favorable
+for--for the autumn manoeuvres.”
+
+And he broke into a gay laugh.
+
+“Come,” he said. “Let us go back into the more frequented streets.
+This back way was not a success--only proves that it never does to turn
+tail.”
+
+“How did you know,” asked Cartoner, “that this was coming off?”
+
+“Quite simple, my friend. I was at the window when you arrived at
+the Europe. You were followed. Or, at all events, I thought you were
+followed. So I made up my mind to walk back with you and see. Veni,
+vidi, vici--you understand?”
+
+And again his clear laugh broke the silence of that back street, while
+he made a pass at an imaginary foe with his stick.
+
+“I thought we might escape by the quieter streets,” he went on. “For
+it is our business to seek peace and ensure it. But it was not to be.
+Neither could I warn you, because we have never interfered in each
+other's business, you and I. That is why we have continued, through many
+chances and changes, to be friends.”
+
+They walked on in silence for a few moments. Then Cartoner spoke, saying
+that which he was bound to say in his half-audible voice.
+
+“It was like you, to come like that and take the risk,” he said, “and
+say nothing.”
+
+But Deulin stopped him with a quick touch on his arm.
+
+“As to that,” he said, “silence, my friend. Wait. Thank me, if you will,
+five years hence--ten years hence--when the time comes. I will tell you
+then why I did it.”
+
+“There can only be one reason why you did it,” muttered the Englishman.
+
+“Can there? Ah! my good Cartoner, you are a fool--the very best sort of
+fool--and yet, in the matter of intellect, you are as superior to me as
+I am superior to you . . . in swordsmanship.”
+
+And he made another pass into thin air with his stick.
+
+“I should like to fight some one to-night,” he said. “Some one of
+the very first order. I feel in the vein. I could do great things
+to-night--and the angels in heaven are talking of me.”
+
+In his light-hearted way he bared his head and looked up to the sky.
+But there was a deeper ring in his voice. It almost seemed as if he were
+sincere.
+
+As he stood there, bareheaded, with his coat open and his shirt gleaming
+in the moonlight, a carriage rattled past, and stopped immediately
+behind them. The door was opened from within, and the only occupant,
+alighting quickly, came towards them.
+
+“There is only one man in Warsaw who would apostrophize the gods like
+that,” he said. The speaker was Prince Martin Bukaty.
+
+He recognized Cartoner at this moment.
+
+“You!” he said, and there was a sharp note in his voice. “You, Cartoner!
+What are you doing in the streets at this time of night?”
+
+“We have been dining with Mangles,” explained Deulin.
+
+“And we do not quite know what we are doing, or where we are going,”
+ added Cartoner. “But we think we are going home.”
+
+“You seem to be on the spree,” said Martin, with a laugh in his voice,
+and none in his eyes.
+
+“We are,” answered Deulin.
+
+“Come,” said Martin, turning to send away the carriage. “Come--your
+shortest way is through our place now. My father and Wanda are out at a
+ball, or something, so I am afraid you will not see them.”
+
+“Do it,” whispered Deulin's voice from behind.
+
+And Cartoner followed Martin up the narrow passage that led to the
+garden of the Bukaty Palace.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING
+
+Martin led the way without speaking. He opened the door with a key, and
+passed through first. The garden was dark; for the trees in it had grown
+to a great height, and, protected as they were from the wild winds
+that sweep across the central plain of Europe, they had not shed their
+leaves.
+
+A few lights twinkled through the branches from the direction of the
+house, and the shape of the large conservatory was dimly outlined, as
+though there were blinds within, partially covering the glass.
+
+“Yes,” said Martin, carefully closing the door behind him. “You find
+me in sole possession. My father and sister have gone to a reception--a
+semi-political affair at which they are compelled to put in an
+appearance. It only began at half-past nine. They will not be home till
+midnight. Mind those branches, Cartoner! You will come in, of course.”
+
+And he hurried on again to open the next door.
+
+“Thank you, for a few minutes,” answered Deulin, and seeing a movement
+of dissent on Cartoner's part, he laid his hand on his arm.
+
+“It is better,” he said, in an undertone. “It will put them completely
+off the scent. There are sure to be more than two in it.”
+
+So, reluctantly, Cartoner followed Martin into the Bukaty Palace for the
+first time.
+
+“Come,” said the young prince, “into the drawing-room. I see they have
+left the lights on there.”
+
+He pushed open the door of the long, bare room, and stood aside to allow
+his guests to pass.
+
+“Holloa!” he exclaimed, an instant later, following them into the room.
+
+At the far end of it, where two large folding-doors opened to the
+conservatory, half turning to see who came, stood Wanda. She had some
+flowers in her hand, which she had just taken from her dress.
+
+“Back again already?” asked Martin, in surprise.
+
+“Yes,” answered Wanda. “There were some people there he did not want to
+meet, so we came away again at once.”
+
+“But I thought they could not possibly be there.”
+
+“They got there,” answered Wanda, “by some ill chance, from Petersburg,
+just in time.”
+
+And as she spoke she shook hands with Cartoner.
+
+“It is not such an ill chance, after all,” said Deulin, “since it gives
+us the opportunity of seeing you. Where is your father?”
+
+“He is in his study.”
+
+“I rather want to see him,” said Deulin, looking at Martin.
+
+“Come along, then,” was the answer. “He will be glad to see you. It will
+cheer him up.”
+
+And Wanda and Cartoner were left alone. It had all come about quickly
+and simply--so much quicker and simpler than human plans are the plans
+of Heaven.
+
+Wanda, still standing in the doorway of the conservatory, of which the
+warm, scented air swept out past her into the great room, watched her
+brother and Deulin go and close the door behind them. She turned to
+Cartoner with a smile as if about to speak; but she saw his face, and
+she said nothing, and her own slowly grew grave.
+
+He came towards her, upright and still and thoughtful. She did not look
+at him, but past him towards the closed door. He only looked at her with
+quiet, remembering eyes. Then he went straight to the point, as was his
+habit.
+
+“I was wrong,” he said, “when I said that fate could be hampered by
+action. Nothing can hamper it. For fate has brought me here again.”
+
+He stood before her, and the attitude in some way conveyed that by the
+word “here” he only thought and meant near to her. There was a strange
+look in her eyes of suspense and fear, and something else which needs
+no telling to such as have seen it, and cannot be conveyed in words to
+those who have not.
+
+“A clear understanding,” he said abruptly, recalling her own words.
+“That is your creed.”
+
+She gave a little nod, and still looked past him towards the door
+with deep, submissive eyes. One would have thought that she had done
+something wrong which was being brought home to her. Explain the
+thought, who can!
+
+“I made another mistake,” he said. “Have been acting on it for years.
+I thought that a career was everything. I dreamed, I suppose, of an
+embassy--of a viceroyalty, perhaps--when I was quite young, and thought
+the world was easy to conquer. All that . . . vanished when I saw you.
+If it comes, well and good. I should like it. Not for my own sake.”
+
+She made a little movement, and her eyelids flickered. Ah! that clear
+understanding, which poor humanity cannot put into words!
+
+“If it doesn't come”--he paused, and snapped the finger and thumb that
+hung quiescent at his side--“well and good. I shall have lived. I shall
+have known what life is meant to be. I shall have been the happiest man
+in the world.”
+
+He spoke slowly in his gently abrupt way. Practice in a difficult
+profession had taught him to weigh every word he uttered. He had never
+been known to say more than he meant.
+
+“There never has been anybody else,” he continued. “All that side of
+life was quite blank. The world was empty until you came and filled it,
+at Lady Orlay's that afternoon. I had come half round the world--you had
+come across Europe. And fate had fixed that I should meet you there.
+At first I did not believe. I thought it was a mistake--that we should
+drift apart again. Then came my orders to leave for Warsaw. I knew then
+that you would inevitably return. Still I tried to get out of it--fought
+against it--tried to avoid you. And you knew what it all came to.”
+
+She nodded again, and still did not meet his eyes. She had not spoken to
+him since he entered the room.
+
+“There never can be anybody else,” he said. “How could there be?”
+
+And the abrupt laugh that followed the question made her catch her
+breath. She had, then, the knowledge given to so few, that so far as
+this one fellow-creature was concerned she was the whole earth--that
+he was thrusting upon her the greatest responsibility that the soul can
+carry. For to love is as difficult as it is rare, but to be worthy of
+love is infinitely harder.
+
+“I knew from the first,” he continued, “that there is no hope. Whichever
+way we turn there is no hope. I can spare you the task of telling me
+that.”
+
+She turned her eyes to his at last.
+
+“You knew?” she asked, speaking for the first time.
+
+“I know the history of Poland,” he said, quietly. “The country must
+have your father--your father needs you. I could not ask you to give up
+Poland--you know that.”
+
+They stood in silence for a few moments. They had had so little time
+together that they must needs have learned to understand each other in
+absence. The friendship that grows in absence and the love that comes to
+life between two people who are apart, are the love and friendship which
+raise men to such heights as human nature is permitted to attain.
+
+“If you asked me,” said Wanda, at length, with an illegible smile--“I
+should do it.”
+
+“And if I asked you I should not love you. If you loved me, you would
+one day cease to do so; for you would remember what I had asked you.
+There would be a sort of flaw, and you would discover it--and that would
+be the end.”
+
+“Is it so delicate as that?” she asked.
+
+“It is the frailest thing in the world--and the strongest,” he answered,
+with his thoughtful smile. “It is a very delicate sort of--thought,
+which is given to two people to take care of. And they never seem to
+succeed in keeping it even passably intact--and not one couple in a
+million carry it through life unhurt. And the injuries never come from
+the outer world, but from themselves.”
+
+“Where did you learn all that?” she asked, looking at him with her
+shrewd, smiling eyes.
+
+“You taught me.”
+
+“But you have a terribly high ideal.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Are you sure you do not expect the impossible?”
+
+“Quite.”
+
+She shook her head doubtfully.
+
+“Are you sure you will never have to compromise? All the world
+compromises.”
+
+“With its conscience,” said Cartoner. “And look at the result.”
+
+“Then you are good,” she returned, looking at him with a speculative
+gravity, “as well as concise--and rather masterful.”
+
+“It is clear,” he said, “that a man who persuades a woman to marry
+against her inclination, or her conviction, or her conscience, is
+seeking her unhappiness and his own.”
+
+“Ah!” she cried. “But you ask for a great deal.”
+
+“I ask for love.”
+
+“And,” she said, going past that question, “no obstacles.”
+
+“No obstacles that both could not conscientiously face and set aside.”
+
+“And if one such object--quite a small one--should be found?”
+
+“Then they must be content with love alone.”
+
+Wanda turned from him, and fell into thought for some moments. They
+seemed to be feeling their way forward on that difficult road where so
+many hasten and such numbers fall.
+
+“You have a way,” she said, “of putting into words--so few words--what
+others only half think, and do not half attempt to act up to. If they
+did--there would, perhaps, be no marriages.”
+
+“There would be no unhappy ones,” said Cartoner.
+
+“And it is better to be content with love alone?”
+
+“Content,” was his sole answer.
+
+Again she thought in silence for quite a long time, although their
+moments were so few. A clock on the mantel-piece struck half-past ten.
+Cartoner had bidden Joseph P. Mangles good-night only half an hour
+earlier, and his life had been in peril--he had been down to the depths
+and up to the heights since then. When the gods arrive they act quickly.
+
+“So that is your creed,” she said at length. “And there is no
+compromise?”
+
+“None,” he answered.
+
+And she smiled suddenly at the monosyllable reply. She had had to deal
+with men of no compromise more than the majority of villa-dwelling women
+have the opportunity of doing, and she knew, perhaps, that such are the
+backbone of human nature.
+
+“Ah!” she said, with a quick sigh, as she turned and looked down the
+length of the long, lamp-lit room. “You are strong--you are strong for
+two.”
+
+He shook his head in negation, for he knew that hers was that fine,
+steely strength of women which endures a strain all through a lifetime
+of which the world knows nothing. Then, acting up to her own creed of
+seeking always the clear understanding, she returned to the point they
+had left untouched.
+
+“And if two people had between them,” she suggested, wonderingly, “that
+with which you say they might be content, if they had it, and were sure
+they had it, and had with it a perfect trust in each other, but knew
+that they could never have more, could they be happy?”
+
+“They could be happier than nearly everybody else in the world,” he
+answered.
+
+“And if they had to go on all their lives--and if one lived in London
+and the other in Warsaw--Warsaw?”
+
+“They could still be happy.”
+
+“If she--alone at one end of Europe--” asked Wanda, with her
+worldly-wise searching into detail--“if she saw slowly vanishing those
+small attractions which belong to youth, for which he might care,
+perhaps?”
+
+“She could still be happy.”
+
+“And he? If he experienced a check in his career, or had some
+misfortune, and felt lonely and disappointed--and there was no one near
+to--to take care of him?”
+
+“He could still be happy--if--”
+
+“If--?”
+
+“If he knew that she loved him,” replied Cartoner, slowly.
+
+Wanda turned and looked at him with an odd little laugh, and there were
+tears in her eyes.
+
+“Oh! you may know that,” she said, suddenly descending from the
+uncertain heights of generality. “You may be quite sure of that. If that
+is what you want.”
+
+“That is what I want.”
+
+As he spoke he took her hand and slowly raised it to his lips. She
+looked at his bent head, and when her eyes rested on the gray hairs
+at his temples, they lighted suddenly with a gleam which was strangely
+protecting and dimly maternal.
+
+“I want you to go away from Warsaw,” she said. “I would rather you went
+even if you say--that you are afraid to stay.”
+
+“I cannot say that.”
+
+“Besides,” she added, with her head held high, “they would not believe
+you if you did.”
+
+“I promise you,” he answered, “not to run any risks, to take every care.
+But we must not see each other. I may have to go away without seeing
+you.”
+
+She gave a little nod of comprehension, and held her lips between her
+teeth. She was looking towards the door; for she had heard voices in
+that direction.
+
+“I should like,” she said, “to make you a promise in return. It would
+give me great satisfaction. Some day you may, perhaps, be glad to
+remember it.”
+
+The voices were approaching. It was Deulin's voice, and he seemed to be
+speaking unnecessarily loud.
+
+“I promise you,” said Wanda, with unfathomable eyes, “never to marry
+anybody else.”
+
+And the door opened, giving admittance to Deulin, who was laughing and
+talking. He came forward looking, not at Wanda and Cartoner, but at the
+clock.
+
+“To your tents, O Israel!” he said.
+
+Cartoner said good-night at once, and went to the door. For a moment
+Deulin was left alone with Wanda. He went to a side-table, where he had
+laid his sword-stick. He took it up, and slowly turned it in his hand.
+
+“Wanda,” he said, “remember me in your prayers to-night!”
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+THE WHITE FEATHER
+
+It is to be presumed that the majority of people are willing enough
+to seek the happiness of others; which desire leads the individual to
+interfere in her neighbor's affairs, while it burdens society with a
+thousand associations for the welfare of mankind or the raising of the
+masses.
+
+Looking at the question from the strictly commonsense point of view,
+it would appear to the observer that those who do the most good or the
+least harm are the uncharitable. Better than the eager, verbose man
+is he who stands on the shore cynically watching a landsman in a boat
+without proffering advice as to how the vessel should be navigated,
+who only holds out a cold and steady hand after the catastrophe has
+happened, or, if no catastrophe supervenes, is content to walk away in
+that silent wonder which the care of Providence for the improvident must
+ever evoke.
+
+Paul Deulin was considered by his friends to be a cynic; and a French
+cynic is not without cruelty. He once told Wanda that he had seen men
+and women do much worse than throw their lives away, which was probably
+the unvarnished truth. But there must have been a weak spot in his
+cynicism. There always is a weak spot in the vice of the most vicious.
+For he sat alone in his room at the Hotel de l'Europe, at Warsaw, long
+into the night, smoking cigarette after cigarette, and thinking thoughts
+which he would at any other juncture have been the first to condemn. He
+was thinking of the affairs of others, and into his thoughts there
+came, moreover, the affairs, not of individuals, but of nations. A
+fellow-countryman once gave it as his opinion that so long as the trains
+ran punctually and meals were served at regular intervals he could
+perceive no difference between one form of government and another. And
+in the majority of instances the fate of nations rarely affects the
+lives of individuals.
+
+Deulin, however, was suddenly made aware of his own ignorance of
+affairs that were progressing in his immediate vicinity, and which
+were affecting the lives of those around him. More than any other
+do Frenchmen herd together in exile, and Deulin knew all his
+fellow-countrymen and women in Warsaw, in whatsoever station of life
+they happened to move. He had a friend behind the counter of the small
+feather-cleaning shop in the Jerozolimska. This lady was a French
+Jewess, who had by some undercurrent of Judaism drifted from Paris
+to Warsaw again and found herself once more among her own people. The
+western world is ignorant of the strength of Jewry in Poland.
+
+Deulin made a transparent excuse for his visit to the cleaner's shop.
+He took with him two or three pairs of those lavender gloves which
+Englishmen have happily ceased to wear by day.
+
+“One likes,” he said to the stout Jewess, “to talk one's own tongue in a
+foreign land.”
+
+And he sat down quite affably on the hither side of the counter.
+Conversation ran smoothly enough between these two, and an hour slipped
+past before Deulin quitted the little shop. It was still early in the
+day, and he hurried to Cartoner's rooms in the Jasna. He bought a flower
+at the corner of the Jerozolimska as he went along, and placed it in
+his buttonhole. He wore his soft felt hat at a gay angle, and walked the
+pavement at a pace and with an air belonging to a younger generation.
+
+“Ah!” he cried, at the sight of Cartoner, pipe in mouth, at his
+writing-table. “Ah! if you were only idle, as I am”--he paused, with
+a sharp, little sigh--“if you only could be idle, how much happier you
+would be!”
+
+“A Frenchman,” replied Cartoner, without looking up, “thinks that noise
+means happiness.”
+
+“Then you are happy--you pretend to happiness?” inquired Deulin,
+sitting down without being invited to do so, and drawing towards him a
+cigarette-case that lay upon the table.
+
+“Yes, thank you,” replied Cartoner, lightly. He seemed, too, to be gay
+this morning.
+
+“Don't thank me--thank the gods,” replied Deulin, with a sudden gravity.
+
+“Well,” said Cartoner presently, without ceasing to write, “what do you
+want?”
+
+Deulin glanced at his friend with a gleam of suspicion.
+
+“What do I want?” he inquired, innocently.
+
+“Yes. You want something. I always know when you want something. When
+you are most idle you are most occupied.”
+
+“Ah!”
+
+Cartoner wrote on while Deulin lighted a cigarette and smoked half of it
+with a leisurely enjoyment of its bouquet.
+
+“There is a certain smell in the Rue Royale, left-hand side looking
+towards the Column--the shady side, after the street has been
+watered--that my soul desires,” said the Frenchman, at length.
+
+“When are you going?” asked Cartoner, softly.
+
+“I am not going; I wish I were. I thought I was last night. I thought
+I had done my work here, and that it would be unnecessary to wait on
+indefinitely for----”
+
+“For what?”
+
+“For the upheaval,” explained Deulin, with an airy wave of his
+cigarette.
+
+“This morning--” he began. And then he waited for Cartoner to lay aside
+his pen and lean back in his chair with the air of thoughtful attention
+which he seemed to wear towards that world in which he moved and had his
+being. Cartoner did exactly what was expected of him.
+
+“This morning I picked up a scrap of information.” He drew towards him
+a newspaper, and with a pencil made a little drawing on the margin.
+The design was made in three strokes. It was not unlike a Greek cross,
+Deulin threw the paper across the table.
+
+“You know that man?”
+
+“I do not know his name,” replied Cartoner.
+
+“No; no one knows that,” replied Deulin. “It is one of the very few
+mysteries of the nineteenth century. All the others are cleared up.”
+
+Cartoner made no answer. He sat looking at the design, thinking,
+perhaps, with wonder of the man who in this notoriety-loving age was
+still content to be known only by a mark.
+
+“Up to the present I have not attached much importance to those rumors
+which, happily, have never reached the newspaper,” said Deulin, after
+a pause. “One has supposed that, as usual, Poland is ready for an
+upheaval. But the upheaval does not come. That has been the status quo
+for many years here. Suppose--suppose, my friend, that they manufacture
+their own opportunity, or agree with some other body of malcontents as
+to the creating of an opportunity.”
+
+“Anarchy?” inquired Cartoner.
+
+“The ladies of the party call it Nihilism,” replied the Frenchman, with
+an inimitable gesture, conveying the fact that he was not the man to
+gainsay a lady.
+
+“Bukaty would not stoop to that. Remember they are a patient people.
+They waited thirty years.”
+
+“And struck too hastily, after all,” commented Deulin. “Bukaty would not
+link himself with these others, who talk so much and do so little. But
+there are others besides Bukaty, who are younger, and can afford to
+wait longer, and are therefore less patient--men of a more modern stamp,
+without his educational advantages, who are nevertheless sincere enough
+in their way. It may not be a gentlemanly way--”
+
+“The man who goes by the name of Kosmaroff is a gentleman, according to
+his lights,” interrupted Cartoner.
+
+“Ah! since you say so,” returned Deulin, with a significant gesture,
+“yes.”
+
+“Bon sang,” said Cartoner, and did not trouble to complete the saying.
+“He is too much of a gentleman to herd with the extremists.”
+
+But Deulin did not seem to be listening. He was following his own train
+of thought.
+
+“So you know of Kosmaroff?” he said, studying his companion's face. “You
+know that, too. What a lot you know behind that dull physiognomy. Where
+is Kosmaroff? Perhaps you know that.”
+
+“In Warsaw,” guessed Cartoner.
+
+“Wrong. He has gone towards Berlin--towards London, by the same token.”
+
+Deulin leaned across the table and tapped the symbol that he had drawn
+on the margin of the newspaper, daintily, with his finger-nail.
+
+“That parishioner is in London, too,” he said, in his own tongue--and
+the word means more in French.
+
+Cartoner slowly tore the margin from the newspaper and reduced the
+drawing to small pieces. Then he glanced at the clock.
+
+“Trying to get me out of Warsaw,” he said. “Giving me a graceful chance
+of showing the white feather.”
+
+Deulin smiled. He had seen the glance, and he was quicker than most at
+guessing that which might be passing in another man's mind. The force
+of habit is so strong that few even think of a train without noting the
+time of day at the same moment. If Cartoner was thinking of a train
+at that instant, it could only be the train to Berlin on the heels of
+Kosmaroff, and Deulin desired to get Cartoner away from Warsaw.
+
+“The white feather,” he said, “is an emblem that neither you nor I need
+trouble our minds about. Don't get narrow-minded, Cartoner. It is a
+national fault, remember. For an Englishman, you used to be singularly
+independent of the opinion of the man in the street or the woman at the
+tea-table. Afraid! What does it matter who thinks we are afraid?”
+
+And he gave a sudden staccato laugh which had a subtle ring in it of
+envy, or of that heaviness which is of a life that is waxing old.
+
+“Look here,” he said, after a pause, and he made a little diagram on
+the table, “here is a bonfire, all dry and crackling--here, in Warsaw.
+Here--in Berlin or in London--is the man with the match that will set
+it alight. You and I have happened on a great event, and stand in the
+shadow that it casts before it, for the second--no, for the third time
+in our lives. We work together again, I suppose. We have always done so
+when it was possible. One must watch the dry wood, the other must know
+the movements of the man with the kindling. Take your choice, since
+your humor is so odd. You stay or you go--but remember that it is in the
+interests of others that you go.”
+
+“Of others?”
+
+“Yes--of the Bukatys. Your presence here is a danger to them. Now go or
+stay, as you like.”
+
+Cartoner glanced at his companion with watchful eyes. He was not
+deliberating; for he had made up his mind long ago, and was now weighing
+that decision.
+
+“I will go,” he said, at length. And Deulin leaned back in his chair
+with a half-suppressed yawn of indifference. It was, as Cartoner had
+observed, when he was most idle that this gentleman had important
+business in hand. He had a gay, light, easy touch on life, and, it is to
+be supposed, never set much store upon the gain of an object. It seemed
+that he must have played the game in earnest at one time, must have
+thrown down his stake and lost it, or won it perhaps, and then had no
+use for his gain, which is a bitterer end than loss can ever be.
+
+“I dare say you are right,” he said. “And, at all events, you will see
+the last of this sad city.”
+
+Then he changed the subject easily, and began to talk of some trivial
+matter. From one question to another he passed, with that air of
+superficiality which northern men can never hope to understand, and here
+and there he touched upon those grave events which wise men foresaw at
+this period in European history.
+
+“I smell,” he said, “something in the atmosphere. Strangers passing in
+the street look at one with a questioning air, as if there were a secret
+which one might perhaps be party to. And I, who have no secrets.”
+
+He spread out his hands, with a gay laugh.
+
+“Because,” he added, with a sudden gravity, “there is nothing in life
+worth making a secret of--except one's income. There are many reasons
+why mine remains unconfessed. But, my friend, if anything should
+happen--anything--anywhere--we keep each other advised. Is it not so?”
+
+“Usual cipher,” answered Cartoner.
+
+“My salutations to Lady Orlay,” said Deulin, with a reflective nod.
+“That woman who can keep a secret.”
+
+“I thought you had none.”
+
+“She knows the secret--of my income,” answered the Frenchman. “Tell
+her--no! Do not tell her anything. But go and see her. When will you
+leave?”
+
+“To-night.”
+
+“And until then? Come and lunch with me at the Russian Club. No! Well,
+do as you like. I will say good-bye now. Heavens! how many times have
+we met and said good-bye again in hotels and railway stations and hired
+rooms! We have no abiding city and no friends. We are sons of Ishmael,
+and have none to care when we furl our tents and steal away.”
+
+He paused, and looked round the bare room, in which there was nothing
+but the hired furniture.
+
+“The police will be in here five minutes after you are out,” he said,
+curtly. “You have no message--” He paused to pick up from the floor a
+petal of his flower that had fallen. Then he walked to the window and
+looked out. Standing there, with his back to Cartoner, he went on: “No
+message to any one in Warsaw?”
+
+“No,” answered Cartoner.
+
+“No--you wouldn't have one. You are not that sort of man. Gad! You are
+hard, Cartoner--hard as nails.”
+
+Cartoner did not answer. He was already putting together his
+possessions--already furling his solitary tent. It was only natural that
+he was loath to go; for he was turning his back on danger, and few men
+worthy of the name do that with alacrity, whatever their nationality
+may be; for gameness is not solely a British virtue, as is supposed in
+English public schools.
+
+Suddenly Deulin turned round and shook hands.
+
+“Don't know when we shall next meet. Take care of yourself. Good-bye.”
+
+And he went towards the door. But he paused on the threshold.
+
+“The matter of the 'white feather' you may leave to me. You may leave
+others to me, too, so far as that goes. The sons of Ishmael must stand
+together.”
+
+And, with an airy wave of the hand and his rather hollow laugh, he was
+gone.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+COEUR VOLANT
+
+In that great plain which is known to geographers as the Central
+European Depression the changes of the weather are very deliberate. If
+rain is coming, the cautious receive full warning of its approach. The
+clouds gather slowly, and disperse without haste when their work is
+done. For some days it had been looking like rain. The leaves on the
+trees of the Saski Gardens were hanging limp and lifeless. The whole
+world was dusty and expectant. Cartoner left Warsaw in a deluge of rain.
+It had come at last.
+
+In the afternoon Deulin went to call at the Bukaty Palace. He was
+ushered into the great drawing-room, and there left to his own devices.
+He did an unusual thing. He fell into a train of thought so absorbing
+that he did not hear the door open or the soft sound of Wanda's dress as
+she entered the room. Her gay laugh brought him down to the present with
+a sort of shock.
+
+“You were dreaming,” she said.
+
+“Heaven forbid!” he answered, fervently. “Dreams and white hairs--No, I
+was listening to the rain.”
+
+He turned and looked at her with a sudden defiance in his eyes, as if
+daring her to doubt him.
+
+“I was listening to the rain. The summer is gone, Wanda--it is gone.”
+
+He drew forward a chair for her, and glanced over his shoulder towards
+the large folding-doors, through which the conservatory was visible in
+the fading light. The rain drummed on the glass roof with a hopeless,
+slow persistency.
+
+“Can you not shut that door?” he said. “Bon Dieu! what a suicidal note
+that strikes--that hopeless rain--a northern autumn evening! There was
+a chill in the air as I drove down the Faubourg. If I were a woman I
+should have tea, or a cry. Being a man, I curse the weather and drive in
+a hired carriage to the pleasantest place in Warsaw.”
+
+Without waiting for further permission, he went and closed the large
+doors, shutting out the sound of the rain and the sight of the streaming
+glass, with sodden leaves stuck here and there upon it. Wanda watched
+him with a tolerant smile. Her daily life was lived among men; and she
+knew that it is not only women who have unaccountable humors, a sudden
+anger, or a quick and passing access of tenderness. There was a shadow
+of uneasiness in her eyes. He had come to tell her something. She knew
+that. She remembered that when this diplomatist looked most idle he was
+in reality about his business.
+
+“There,” he said, throwing himself back in an easy-chair and looking at
+her with smiling lips and eyes deeply, tragically intelligent. “That is
+more comfortable. Can you tell me nothing that will amuse me? Do you not
+see that my sins sit heavily on me this evening?”
+
+“I do not know if it will amuse you,” answered Wanda, in her energetic
+way, as if taking him at his word and seeking to rouse him, “but Mr.
+Mangles and Miss Cahere are coming to tea this evening.”
+
+Deulin made a grimace at the clock. If he had anything to say, he seemed
+to be thinking, he must say it quickly. Wanda was, perhaps, thinking the
+same.
+
+“Separately they are amusing enough,” he said, slowly, “but they do not
+mingle. I have an immense respect for Joseph P. Mangles.”
+
+“So has my father,” put in Wanda, rather significantly.
+
+“Ah! that is why you asked them. Your father knows that in a young
+country events move by jerks--that the man who is nobody to-day may be
+somebody to-morrow. The mammon of unrighteousness, Wanda.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“And you are above that sort of thing.”
+
+“I am not above anything that they deem necessary for the good of
+Poland,” she answered, gravely. “They give everything. I have not much
+to give, you see.”
+
+“I suppose you have what every woman has--to sacrifice upon some altar
+or another--your happiness!”
+
+Wanda shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. She glanced across at
+him. He knew something. But he had learned nothing from Cartoner. Of
+that, at least, she was sure.
+
+“Happiness, or a hope of happiness,” he went on, reflectively. “Perhaps
+one is as valuable as the other. Perhaps they are the same thing. If
+you gain a happiness you lose a hope, remember that. It is not always
+remembered by women, and very seldom by men.”
+
+“Is it so precious? It is common enough, at all events.”
+
+“What is common enough?” he asked, absent-mindedly.
+
+“Hope.”
+
+“Hope! connais pas!” he exclaimed, with a sudden laugh. “You must ask
+some one who knows more about it. I am a man of sorrow, Wanda; that is
+why I am so gay.”
+
+And his laugh was indeed light-hearted enough.
+
+“The rain makes one feel lonely, that is all,” he went on, as if seeking
+to explain his own humor. “Rain and cold and half a dozen drawbacks to
+existence lose their terrors if one has an in-door life to turn to and a
+fire to sit by. That is why I am here.”
+
+And he drew his chair nearer to the burning logs. Wanda now knew that he
+had something to tell her--that he had come for no other purpose. And,
+that he should be delicate and careful in his approach, told her that it
+was of Cartoner he had come to speak. While the delicacy and care showed
+her that he had guessed something, it also opened up a new side to his
+character. For the susceptibilities of men and women who have passed
+middle age are usually dull, and often quite dead, to the sensitiveness
+of younger hearts. It almost seemed that he divined that Wanda's heart
+was sensitive and sore, like an exposed nerve, though she showed the
+world a quiet face, such as the Bukatys had always shown through as long
+and grim a family history as the world has known.
+
+“Do you not feel lonely in this great room?” he asked, looking round at
+the bare walls, which still showed the dim marks left by the portraits
+that had gone to grace an imperial gallery.
+
+“No, I think not,” answered Wanda. She followed his glance round the
+room, wondering, perhaps, if the rest of her life was to be weighed
+down by the sense of loneliness which had come over her that day for the
+first time.
+
+Deulin, like the majority of Frenchmen, had certain mental gifts,
+usually considered to be the special privilege of women. He had a
+feminine way of skirting a subject--of walking round, as it were, and
+contemplating it from various side issues, as if to find out the best
+approach to it.
+
+“The worst of Warsaw,” he said, “is its dulness. The theatres are
+deplorable. You must admit that. And of society, there is, of course,
+none. I have even tried a travelling circus out by the Mokotow. One must
+amuse one's self.”
+
+He looked at her furtively, as if he were ashamed of having to amuse
+himself, and remembered too late how much the confession might mean.
+
+“It was sordid,” he continued. “One wondered how the performers could be
+content to risk their lives for the benefit of such a small and such
+an undistinguished audience. There was a trapeze troupe, however, who
+interested me. There was a girl with a stereotyped smile--like cracking
+nuts. There was a young man whose conceit took one's breath away. It was
+so hard to reconcile such preposterous vanity with the courage that he
+must have had. And there was a large, modest man who interested me. It
+was really he who did all the work. It was he who caught the others when
+they swung across the tent in mid-air. He was very steady and he was
+usually the wrong way up, hanging by his heels on a swinging trapeze. He
+had the lives of the others in his hands at every moment. But it was the
+others who received the applause--the nut-cracker girl who pirouetted,
+and the vain man who tapped his chest and smiled condescendingly. But
+the big man stood in the background, scarcely bowing at all, and quite
+forgetting to smile. One could see from the expression of his patient
+face that he knew it did not matter what he did for no one was looking
+at him--which was only the truth. Then, when the applause was over, he
+turned and walked away, heavy-shouldered and rather tired--his day's
+work done. And, I don't know why, I thought--of Cartoner.”
+
+She expected the name. Perhaps she wished for it, though she never would
+have spoken it herself. She had yet to learn to do that.
+
+“Yes,” said Deulin, after a pause, pursuing, it would appear, his own
+thoughts, “the world would get on very well without its talkers.
+No great man has ever been a great talker. Have you noticed that in
+history?”
+
+Wanda made no answer. She was still waiting for the news that he had
+to tell her. The logs on the fire fell about with a crackle, and
+Deulin rose to put them in order. While thus engaged he continued his
+monologue.
+
+“I suppose that is why I feel lonely this afternoon. In a sense, I am
+alone. Cartoner has gone, you know. He has left Warsaw.”
+
+Deulin glanced at the mirror over the mantel-piece, and if he had had
+any doubts they were now laid aside, for there was only gladness in
+Wanda's face. It was good news, then. And Deulin was clever enough to
+know the meaning of that.
+
+“Gone!” she said. “I am very glad.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Deulin, gravely, as he returned to his chair. “It is
+a good thing. I left him this morning, placidly preparing to depart at
+half an hour's warning. He was packing, with that repose of manner which
+you have perhaps noticed. Better than Vespers, better than absolution,
+is Cartoner's repose of manner--for me, bien entendu. But, then, I am
+not a devout man.”
+
+“Then you have done what I asked you to do,” said Wanda, “some time ago,
+and I am very grateful.”
+
+“Some time ago? It was only yesterday.”
+
+“Was it? It seems more than that,” said Wanda. And Deulin nodded his
+head slowly.
+
+“I was able to give him some information which made him change his plans
+quite suddenly,” he explained. “So he packed up and went. He had not
+much to pack. We travel light--he and I. We have no despatch-boxes
+or note-books or diaries. What we remember and forget we remember
+and forget in our own heads. Though I doubt whether Cartoner forgets
+anything.”
+
+“And you?” asked Wanda, turning upon him quickly.
+
+“I? Oh! I do my best,” he said, lightly. “But if you desire to forget
+anything you should begin early. It is not a habit acquired in later
+life.”
+
+He rose as he spoke and looked at the clock. He had a habit of peering
+and contracting his round brown eyes which made many people think that
+he was short-sighted.
+
+“I do not think I will wait for the Mangles,” he said. “Especially
+Julie. I do not feel in the humor for Julie. By-the-way--” He paused,
+and contemplated the fire thoughtfully. “You never talk politics,
+I know. With the Mangles you may go further, and not even talk of
+politicians. It is no affair of theirs that Cartoner may have quitted
+Warsaw--you understand?”
+
+“I should have thought Mr. Joseph Mangles the incarnation of
+discretion,” said Wanda.
+
+“Ah! You have found out Mangles, have you? I wonder if you have found
+us all out. Yes, Mangles is discreet, but Netty is not. I call her
+Netty--well, because I regard her with a secret and consuming passion.”
+
+“And have an equally secret and complete contempt for her discretion.”
+
+“Ah!” he exclaimed, and turned to look at her again. “Have I concealed
+my admiration so successfully as that? Perhaps I have overdone the
+concealment.”
+
+“Perhaps you have overdone the contempt,” suggested Wanda. “She is
+probably more discreet than you think, but I shall not put her to the
+test.”
+
+“You see,” said Deulin, in an explanatory way, “Cartoner may have had
+reasons of his own for leaving without drum or trumpet. You and I are
+the only persons in Warsaw who know of his departure, except the people
+in the passport-office--and the others, whose business it is to watch us
+all. You have a certain right to know; because in a sense you brought
+it all about, and it concerns the safety of your father and Martin. So
+I took it upon myself to tell you. I was not instructed to do so by
+Cartoner. I have no message of politeness to give to any one in Warsaw.
+Cartoner merely saw that it was his duty to go, and to go at once; so
+he went at once. And with a characteristic simplicity of purpose, he
+ignored the little social trammels which the majority of mankind know
+much better than they know their Bible, and follow much more closely. He
+was too discreet to call and say good-bye--knowing the ways of servants
+in this country. He will be much too discreet to send a conge card by
+post, knowing, as he does, the Warsaw post-office.”
+
+He took up his hat as he sat, and broke suddenly into his light and
+pleasant laugh.
+
+“You are wondering,” he said, “why I am taking this unusual course. It
+is not often, I know, that one speaks well of one's friend behind his
+back. It is six for Cartoner and half a dozen for myself. To begin with,
+Cartoner is my friend. I should not like him to be misunderstood. Also,
+I may do the same at any moment myself. We are here to-day and gone
+to-morrow. Sometimes we remember our friends and sometimes we forget
+them.”
+
+“At all events,” said Wanda, shaking hands, “you are cautious. You make
+no promises.”
+
+“And therefore we break none,” he answered, as he crossed the threshold.
+
+He had hardly gone before Netty entered the room, followed closely by
+Mr. Mangles. She was prettily dressed. She appeared to be nervous
+and rather shy. The two girls shook hands in silence. Joseph Mangles,
+standing well in the middle of the room, waited till the first greeting
+was over, and then, with that solemn air of addressing an individual as
+if he or she were an assembly, he spoke.
+
+“Princess,” he said, “my sister begs to be excused. She is unable to
+take tea this afternoon. Last night she considered herself called upon
+to make a demonstration in the cause that she has at heart. She smoked
+two cigarettes towards the emancipation of your sex, princess. Just to
+show her independence--to show, I surmise, that she didn't care a--that
+she did not care. She cares this afternoon. She had a headache.”
+
+And he bowed with a courtesy with which some old-fashioned men still
+attempt to oppose the progress of women.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+IN THE WEST INDIA DOCK ROAD
+
+It is not only in name that this great thoroughfare has the sound of the
+sea, the suggestion of a tarry atmosphere, and that mystery which hangs
+about the lives of simple sailor men. To thousands and thousands of
+foreigners the word London means the West India Dock Road, and nothing
+more. There are sailors sailing on every sea who cherish the delusion
+that they have seen life and London when they have passed the portals of
+one of the large public-houses of the West India Dock Road.
+
+There are others who are not sailors, speaking one of the half-dozen
+tongues of eastern Europe, of which the average educated Briton does not
+even know the name, whose lives are bounded on the west by Aldgate Pump,
+on the east by the Dock Gates, on the north by Houndsditch, and on the
+south by St. Katherine's Dock and Tower Hill. A man who would wish to
+knock at any door in this district, and speak to him who opened it in
+his native tongue, would have to pass five years of his life between the
+Baltic and the Black Sea, the Carpathians and the Caucasus. Galician,
+Ruthenian, Polish, Magyar would be required as a linguistic basis, while
+variations of the same added to Russian and German for those who have
+served in one army or another, would probably be useful.
+
+There are many odd trades in the West India Dock Road, and none of them,
+it would seem, so profitable as the fleecing of sailors. But by a queer
+coincidence the callings mostly savor of the same painful process. They
+run to leather for the most part, and the manufacture of those _articles
+de luxe_ which are chiefly composed of colored morocco and gum. There is
+also a trade in furs. Half-way down the West India Dock Road, where the
+shops are most sordid, and the bird-fanciers congregate, there is quite
+a large fur store, of which the window, clad in faded red, is adorned by
+a white rabbit-skin, laid flat upon a fly-blown newspaper, and a stuffed
+sea-gull with a singularly knowing squint.
+
+There was once a name above the shop, but the owner of it, for reasons
+of his own, or so soon, perhaps, as he realized that he was in a country
+where no one wants to know your name, or cares about your business,
+had carelessly painted it out with a pot of black paint and a defective
+brush, which had last been used for red.
+
+On each side of the shop-window is a door, one leading to the warehouse
+and workshop at the back. Through this door there passes quite a
+respectable commerce. The skin of the domestic cat, drawn hither on
+coster carts from the remoter suburbs, passes in to this door to emerge
+from it later in neat wooden cases addressed to enterprising merchants
+in Trondhjem, Bergen, Berlin, and other northern cities from which
+tourists are in the habit of carrying home mementoes in the shape of
+the fur and feather of the country. There is also a small importation of
+American fur to be dressed and treated and re-despatched to the Siberian
+fur dealers from whom the American globe-trotter prefers to buy. A
+number of unhealthy work-people--men, women, and ancient children--also
+use this door, entering by it in the morning, and only coming into the
+air again after dark. They have yellow faces and dusty clothes. A long
+companionship with fur has made them hirsute; for the men are unshaven,
+and the women's heads are burdened with heavy coils of black hair.
+
+The other door, which is little used, seems to be the entrance to the
+dwelling-house of the nameless foreigner. On the left-hand door-post
+is nailed a small tin tablet, whereon are inscribed in the Russian
+character three words, which, being translated, read: “The Brothers of
+Liberty.” As no one of importance in the West India Dock Road reads the
+Russian characters, there is no harm done, or else some disappointment
+would necessarily be experienced by the passer-by to think that any one
+so nearly related to liberty should choose to live in that spot. Neither
+would the Trafalgar Square agitator be pleased were he called upon to
+suppose that the siren whom he pursues with such ardor on rainy Sunday
+afternoons could ever take refuge behind the dingy Turkey-red curtain
+that hides the inner parts of the furrier's store from vulgar gaze.
+
+“That's their lingo,” said Captain Cable to himself, with considerable
+emphasis, one dull winter afternoon when, after much study of the
+numbers over the shop doors, he finally came to a stand opposite the
+furrier's shop.
+
+He stepped back into the road to look up at the house, thereby
+imperilling his life amid the traffic. A costermonger taking cabbages
+from the Borough Market to Limehouse gave the captain a little piece
+of his mind in the choicest terms then current in his daily intercourse
+with man, and received in turn winged words of such a forcible and
+original nature as to send him thoughtfully eastward behind his cart.
+
+“That's their lingo, right enough,” said the captain, examining the tin
+tablet a second time. “That's Polish, or I'm a Dutchman.”
+
+He was, as a matter of fact, wrong, for it was Russian, but this was,
+nevertheless, the house he sought. He looked at the dingy building
+critically, shrugged his shoulders, and, tilting forward his
+high-crowned hat, he scratched his head with a grimace indicative of
+disappointment. It was not to come to such a house as this that he
+had put on what he called his “suit”; a coat and trousers of solid
+pilot-cloth designed to be worn as best in all climates and at all
+times. It was not in order to impress such people as must undoubtedly
+live behind those faded red curtains that he had unpacked from the
+state-room locker his shore-going hat, high, and of fair, round shape,
+such as is only to be bought in the shadow of Limehouse steeple.
+
+The house was uninviting. It had a furtive, dishonest look about it.
+Captain Cable saw this. He was a man who studied weather and the outward
+signs of a man. He rang the bell all the louder, and stood squarely on
+the threshold until the door was opened by a dirty man in a dirty apron,
+who looked at him in lugubrious silence.
+
+“Name of Cable,” said the captain, turning to expectorate on the
+pavement, after the manner of far-sighted sailors who are about to find
+themselves on carpet. The man made a slight grimace, and craned forwards
+with an interrogative ear held ready for a repetition.
+
+“Name of Cable,” repeated the captain. “Dirty!” he added, just by way of
+inviting his hearer's attention, and adding that personal note without
+which even the shortest conversation is apt to lose interest.
+
+This direct address seemed to have the desired effect, for the man stood
+aside.
+
+“Heave ahead!” he said, pointing to an open door. For the only English
+he knew was the English they speak in the Baltic. The captain cocked his
+bright blue eye at him, his attention caught by the familiar note. And
+he stumped along the passage into the dim room at the end. It was
+a small, square room, with a window opening upon some leads, where
+discarded bottles and blackened moss surrounded the remains of a
+sparrow. The room was full of men--six or seven foreign faces were
+turned towards the new-comer. Only one, however, of these faces was
+familiar to Captain Cable. It was the face of the man known on the
+Vistula as Kosmaroff.
+
+The captain nodded to him. He had a large nodding acquaintance. It will
+be remembered that he claimed for his hands a cleanliness which their
+appearance seemed to define as purely moral. In his way he was a proud
+man, and stand-offish at that. He looked slowly round, and found no
+other face to recognize. But he looked a second time at a small, dark
+man with gentle eyes, whose individuality must have had something
+magnetic in it. Captain Cable was accustomed to judge from outward
+things. He picked out the ruling mind in that room, and looked again at
+its possessor as if measuring himself against him.
+
+“Take a chair, captain,” said Kosmaroff, who himself happened to be
+standing. He was leaning against the high, old-fashioned mantel-piece,
+which had seen better days--and company--and smoking a cigarette. He was
+clad in a cheap, ready-made suit; for his heart was in his business, and
+he scraped and saved every kopeck. But the cheap clothing could not hide
+that ease of movement which bespeaks a long descent, or conceal the slim
+strength of limb which is begotten of the fine, clean, hard bone of a
+fighting race.
+
+The captain looked round, and sought his pocket-handkerchief, with which
+to dust the proffered seat, mindful of his “suit.”
+
+“Do you speak German, captain?” inquired Kosmaroff.
+
+And Captain Cable snorted at the suggestion.
+
+“Sailed with a crew of Germans,” he answered; “I understand a bit, and I
+know a few words. I know the German for d--n your eyes, and handy words
+like that.”
+
+“Then,” said Kosmaroff, addressing the gentle-eyed man, “we had better
+continue our talk in German. Captain Cable is a man who likes plain
+dealing.”
+
+He himself spoke in the language of the Fatherland, and Captain Cable
+stiffened at the sound of it, as all good Britons should.
+
+“We have not much to say to Captain Cable,” replied the man who seemed
+to be a leader of the Brothers of Liberty. He spoke in a thin tenor
+voice, and was what the French call _chetif_ in appearance--a weak man,
+fighting against physical disabilities and an indifferent digestion.
+
+“It is essential in the first place,” he continued, “that we should
+understand each other; we the conquerors and you the conquered.”
+
+With a gesture he divided the party assembled into two groups, the
+smaller of which consisted only of Kosmaroff and another. And then he
+looked out of the window with his woman-like, reflective smile.
+
+“We the Russians, and you the Poles. I fear I have not made myself
+quite clear. I understand, however, that we are to trust the last comer
+entirely, which I do with the more confidence that I perceive that he
+understands very little of what we are saying.”
+
+Captain Cable's solid, weather-beaten face remained rigid like a
+figure-head. He looked at the speaker with an ill-concealed pity for one
+who could not express himself in plain English and be done with it.
+
+“Our circumstances are such that no correspondence is possible,”
+ continued the speaker. “Any agreement, therefore, must be verbal, and
+verbal agreements should be quite clear--the human memory is so liable
+to be affected by circumstances--and should be repeated several times in
+the hearing of several persons. I understand, therefore, that, after a
+period of nearly twenty years, Poland--is ready again.”
+
+There was a short silence in that dim and quiet room.
+
+“Yes,” said Kosmaroff, deliberately, at length.
+
+“And is only awaiting her opportunity.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+One of the Brothers of Liberty, possibly the secretary of that body,
+which owned its inability to put anything in writing, had provided a
+penny bottle of ink and a sticky-looking, red pen-holder. The speaker
+took up the pen suspiciously, and laid it down again. He rubbed
+his finger and thumb together. His suspicions had apparently been
+justifiable. It was a sticky one! Then he lapsed into thought. Perhaps
+he was thinking of the pen-holder, or perhaps of the history of the two
+nations represented in that room. He had a thoughtful face, and history
+is a fascinating study, especially for those who make it. And this quiet
+man had made a little in his day.
+
+“An opportunity is not an easy thing to define,” he said at length.
+“Any event may turn out to be one. But, so far as we can judge, Poland's
+opportunity must lie in two or three possible events at the most. One
+would be a war with England. That, I am afraid, I cannot bring about
+just yet.”
+
+He spoke quite seriously, and he had not the air of a man subject to the
+worst of blindness--the blindness of vanity.
+
+“We have all waited long enough for that. We have done our best out on
+the frontier and in the English press, but cannot bring it about. It is
+useless to wait any longer. The English are fiery enough--in print--and
+ready enough to fight--in Fleet Street. In Russia we have too little
+journalism--in England they have too much.”
+
+Captain Cable yawned at this juncture with a maritime frankness.
+
+“Another opportunity would be a social upheaval,” said the Russian,
+drumming on the table with his slim fingers. “The time has not come for
+that yet. A third alternative is a mishap to a crowned head--and that we
+can offer to you.”
+
+Kosmaroff moved impatiently.
+
+“Is that all?” he exclaimed. “I have heard that talk for the last ten
+years. Have you brought me across Europe to talk of that?”
+
+The Russian looked at him calmly, stroking his thin, black mustache, and
+waited till he had finished speaking.
+
+“Yes--that is all I have to propose to you--but this time it is more
+than talk. You may take my word for that. This time we shall all
+succeed. But, of course, we want money, as usual. Ah! what a different
+world this would be if the poor could only be rich for one hour. We want
+five thousand roubles. I understand you have control of ten times that
+amount. If Poland will advance us five thousand roubles she shall have
+her opportunity--and a good one--in a month from now.”
+
+He held up his hand to command silence, for Kosmaroff, with eyes that
+suddenly blazed in anger, had stepped forward to the table, and was
+about to interrupt. And Kosmaroff, who was not given to obedience,
+paused, he knew not why.
+
+“Think,” said the other, in his smooth, even voice--“one month from now,
+after waiting twenty years. In a month you yourself may be in a very
+different position to that you now occupy. You commit yourselves to
+nothing. You do not even give ground for the conclusion that the Polish
+party ever for a moment approved of our methods. Our methods are our own
+affair, as are the risks we are content to run. We have our reasons, and
+we seek the approval of no man.”
+
+There was a deadly coldness in the man's manner which seemed to vouch
+for the validity of those reasons which he did not submit to the
+judgment of any.
+
+“Five thousand roubles,” he concluded. “And in exchange I give you the
+date--so that Poland may be ready.”
+
+“Thank you,” said Kosmaroff, who had regained his composure as suddenly
+as he had lost it. “I decline--for myself and for the whole of Poland.
+We play a cleaner game than that.”
+
+He turned and took up his hat, and his hand shook as he did it.
+
+“If I did not know that you are a patriot according to your lights--if
+I did not know something of your story, and of those reasons that you
+do not give--I should take you by the throat and throw you out into
+the street for daring to make such a proposal to me,” he said, in a low
+voice.
+
+“To a deserter from a Cossack regiment,” suggested the other.
+
+“To me,” repeated Kosmaroff, touching himself on the breast and standing
+at his full height. No one spoke, as if the silent spell of History were
+again for a moment laid upon their tongues.
+
+“Captain Cable,” said Kosmaroff, “you and I have met before, and I
+learned enough of you then to tell you now that this is no place for
+you, and these men no company for you. I am going--will you come?”
+
+“I'm agreeable,” said Captain Cable, dusting his hat.
+
+When they were out in the street, he turned to Kosmaroff and looked up
+into his face with bright and searching eyes.
+
+“Who's that man?” he asked, as if there had been only one in the room.
+
+“I do not know his name,” replied Kosmaroff.
+
+They were standing on the doorstep. The dirty man had closed the door
+behind them, and, turning on his heel, Kosmaroff looked thoughtfully at
+the dusty woodwork of it. Half absent-mindedly he extended one finger
+and made a design on the door. It was not unlike a Greek cross.
+
+“That is who he is,” he said.
+
+Captain Cable followed the motion of his companion's finger.
+
+“I've heard of him,” he said. “And I heard his voice--sort of
+soft-spoken--on Hamburg quay one night, many years ago. That is why I
+refused the job and came out with you.”
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+THE CAPTAIN'S STORY
+
+More especially in northern countries nature lays her veto upon the
+activity of men, and winter calls a truce even to human strife. Cartoner
+awaited orders in London, for all the world was dimly aware of something
+stirring in the north, and no one knew what to expect or where to look
+for the unexpected.
+
+It was a cold winter that year, and the Baltic closed early. Captain
+Cable chartered the _Minnie_ in the coasting trade, and after Christmas
+he put her into one of the cheaper dry-docks down the river towards
+Rotherhithe. His ship was, indeed, in dry-dock when the captain opened
+with the Brothers of Liberty those negotiations which came to such a
+sudden and untoward end.
+
+Paul Deulin wrote one piteous letter to Cartoner, full of abuse of the
+cold and wet weather. “If the winter would only set in,” he said, “and
+dry things up and freeze the river, which has overflowed its banks
+almost to the St. Petersburg Station, on the Praga side, life would
+perhaps be more endurable.”
+
+Then the silence of the northern winter closed over him too, and
+Cartoner wrote in vain, hoping to receive some small details of the
+Bukatys and perhaps a mention of Wanda's name. But his letters never
+reached Warsaw, or if they travelled to the banks of the Vistula they
+were absorbed into that playful post-office where little goes in and
+less comes out.
+
+There were others besides Cartoner who were wintering in London who
+likewise laid aside their newspaper with a sigh half weariness, half
+relief, to find that their parts of the world were still quiet.
+
+“History is assuredly at a stand-still,” said an old traveller one
+evening at the club, as he paused at Cartoner's table. “The world must
+be quiet indeed with you here in London, all the winter, eating your
+head off.”
+
+“I am waiting,” replied Cartoner.
+
+“What for?”
+
+“I do not know,” he said, placidly, continuing his dinner.
+
+Later on he returned to his rooms in Pall Mall. He was a great reader,
+and was forced to follow the daily events in a dozen different countries
+in a dozen different languages. He was surrounded by newspapers, in a
+deep arm-chair by the table, when that came for which he was waiting. It
+came in the form of Captain Cable in his shore-going clothes. The little
+sailor was ushered in by the well-trained servant of this bachelor
+household without surprise or comment.
+
+Cartoner made him welcome with a cigar and an offer of refreshment,
+which was refused. Captain Cable knew that as you progress upward in the
+social scale the refusal of refreshment becomes an easier matter until
+at last you can really do as you like and not as etiquette dictates,
+while to decline the beggar's pint of beer is absolute rudeness.
+
+“We've always dealt square by each other, you and I,” said the captain,
+when he had lighted his cigar. Then he fell into a reminiscent humor,
+and presently broke into a chuckling laugh.
+
+“If it hadn't been for you, them Dons would have had me up against the
+wall and shot me, sure as fate,” he said, bringing his hand down on
+his knee with a keen sense of enjoyment. “That was ten years ago last
+November, when the _Minnie_ had been out of the builder's yard a matter
+of six months.”
+
+“Yes,” said Cartoner, putting the dates carefully together in his mind.
+It seemed that the building of the _Minnie_ was not the epoch upon which
+he reckoned his periods.
+
+“She's in Morrison's dry-dock now,” said the captain, who in a certain
+way was like a young mother. For him all the topics were but a number of
+by-ways leading ultimately to the same centre. “You should go down and
+see her, Mr. Cartoner. It's a big dock. You can walk right round her in
+the mud at the bottom of the dock and see her finely.”
+
+Cartoner said he would. They even arranged a date on which to carry
+out this plan, and included in it an inspection of the _Minnie's_ new
+boiler. Then Captain Cable remembered what he had come for, and the plan
+was never carried out after all.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “you've a reckoning against me, Mr. Cartoner. I have
+never done you a good turn that I know of, and you saved my life, I
+believe, that time--you and that Frenchman who talks so quick, Moonseer
+Deulin--that time, over yonder.”
+
+And he nodded his head towards the southwest with the accuracy of one
+who never loses his bearings. For there are some people who always know
+which is the north; and others who, if asked suddenly, do not know their
+left hand from their right; and others, again, who say--or shout--that
+all men are created equal.
+
+“I've been done, Mr. Cartoner--that is what I've come to tell you. Me
+that has always been so smart and has dealt straight by other men. Done,
+hoodwinked, tricked--same as a Sunday-school teacher. And I can do you
+a good turn by telling you about it; and I can do the other man a bad
+turn, which is what I want to do. Besides, it's dirty work. Me, that has
+always kept my hands----”
+
+He looked at his hands, and decided not to pursue the subject.
+
+“You'll say that for me, Mr. Cartoner--you that has known me ten years
+and more.”
+
+“Yes, I'll say that for you,” answered Cartoner, with a laugh.
+
+“They did me!” cried the captain, leaning forward and banging his hand
+down on the table, “with the old trick of a bill of lading lost in the
+post and a man in a gold-laced hat that came aboard one night and said
+he was a government official from the Arsenal come for his government
+stuff. And it wasn't government stuff, and he wasn't a government
+official. It was----”
+
+Captain Cable paused and looked carefully round the room. He even looked
+up to the ceiling, from a long habit of living beneath deck skylights.
+
+“Bombs!” he concluded--“bombs!”
+
+Then he went further, and qualified the bombs in terms which need not be
+set down here.
+
+“You know me and you know the _Minnie_, Mr. Cartoner!” continued the
+angry sailor. “She was specialty built with large hatches for machinery,
+and--well, guns. She was built to carry explosives, and there's not a
+man in London will insure her. Well, we got into the way of carrying war
+material. It was only natural, being built for it. But you'll bear me
+out, and there are others to bear me out, that we've only carried clean
+stuff up to now--plain, honest, fighting stuff for one side or the
+other. Always honest--revolutions and the like, and an open fight. But
+bombs----”
+
+And here again the captain made use of nautical terms which have no
+place on a polite page.
+
+“There's bombs about, and it's me that has been carrying them,” he
+concluded. “That is what I have got to tell you.”
+
+“How do you know?” asked Cartoner, in his gentle and soothing way.
+
+The captain settled himself in his chair, and crossed one leg over the
+other.
+
+“Know the Johannis Bulwark, in Hamburg?”
+
+Cartoner nodded.
+
+“Know the Seemannshaus there?”
+
+“Yes. The house that stands high up among the trees overlooking the
+docks.”
+
+“That's the place,” said Captain Cable. “Well, one night I was up there,
+on the terrace in front of the house where the sailors sit and spit all
+day waiting to be taken on. Got into Hamburg short-handed. I was picking
+up a crew. Not the right time to do it, you'll say, after dark, as times
+go and forecastle hands pan out in these days. Well, I had my reasons.
+You can pick up good men in Hamburg if you go about it the right way.
+A man comes up to me. Remembered me, he said; had sailed with me on a
+voyage when we had machinery from the Tyne that was too big for us, and
+we couldn't get the hatches on. We sailed after nightfall, I recollect,
+with hatches off, and had the seas slopping in before the morning.
+He remembered it, he said. And he asked me if it was true that I was
+goin'--well, to the port I was bound for. And I said it was God's truth.
+Then he told me a long yarn of two cases outshipped that was lying down
+at the wharf. Transshipment goods on a through bill of lading. And the
+bill of lading gone a missing in the post. A long story, all lies, as
+I ought to have known at the time. He had a man with him--forwarding
+agent, he called him. This chap couldn't speak English, but he spoke
+German, and the other man translated as we went along. I couldn't
+rightly see the other man's face. Little, dark man--with a queer, soft
+voice, like a woman wheedlin'! Too d--d innocent, and I ought to have
+known it. Don't you ever be wheedled by a woman, Mr. Cartoner. Got a
+match?”
+
+For the captain's cigar had gone out. But he felt quite at home, as he
+always did--this unvarnished gentleman from the sea--and asked for what
+he wanted.
+
+“Well, to make a long yarn short, I took the cases. Two of them, size of
+an orange-box. We were full, so I had them in the state-room alongside
+of the locker where I lie down and get a bit of sleep when I feel I want
+it. And they paid me well. It was government stuff, the soft-spoken man
+said, and the freight would come out of the taxes and never be missed.
+We went into heavy weather, and, as luck would have it, one of the cases
+broke adrift and got smashed. I mended it myself, and had to open it.
+Then I saw that it was explosives. Lie number one! It was packed in
+wadding so as to save a jar. It was too small for shells. Besides,
+no government sends loaded shells about, 'cepting in war time. At the
+moment I did not think much about it. It was heavy weather, and I had a
+new crew. There were other things to think about. And, I tell you, when
+I got to port, a chap with gold lace on him came aboard and took the
+stuff away.”
+
+Cartoner's attention was aroused now. There was something in this story,
+after all. There might be everything in it when the captain told what
+had brought these past events back to his recollection.
+
+“I'm not going to tell you the port of discharge,” said Captain Cable,
+“because in doing that I should run foul of other people who acted
+square by me, and I'll act square by them. I'll tell you one thing,
+though, I sighted the Scaw light on that voyage. You can have that bit
+of information--you, that's half a sailor. You can put that in your pipe
+and smoke it.”
+
+And he glanced at Cartoner's cigarette with the satisfaction of a
+conversationalist who has pulled off a good simile.
+
+“'Safternoon,” he continued, “I went to see some people about a little
+job for the _Minnie_. She'll be out of dock in a fortnight. You will not
+forget to come down and see her?”
+
+“I should like to see her,” said Cartoner. “Go on with your story.”
+
+“Well, this afternoon I went to see some parties that had a charter to
+offer me. Foreigners--every man Jack of them. Spoke in German, out of
+politeness to me. The Lord knows what they would have spoken if I hadn't
+been there. It was bad enough as it was. But it wasn't the lingo that
+got me; it was the voice. 'Where have I heard that voice?' thinks I.
+And then I remembered. It was at the Seemannshaus, at Hamburg, one dark
+night. 'You're a pretty government official,' I says to myself, sitting
+quiet all the time, like a cat in the engine-room. I wouldn't have taken
+the job at any rate, owing to that voice, which I have never forgotten,
+and yet never thought to hear again. But while the parley voo was still
+going on, up jumps a man--the only man I knew there--name beginning with
+a K--don't quite remember it. At any rate, up he jumps, and says that
+that room was no place for me nor yet for him. Dare say you know the
+man, if I could remember his name. Sort of thin, dark man, with a way
+of carrying his head--quarter-deck fashion--as if he was a king or a
+Hooghly pilot. Well, we gets up and walks out, proudlike, as if we had
+been insulted. But blessed if I knew what it was all about. 'Who's that
+man!' I asks when we were in the street. And the other chap turns and
+makes a mark upon the door, which he rubs out afterwards as if it was a
+hanging matter. 'That's who that is,' he says.”
+
+Cartoner turned, and with one finger made an imaginary design on the
+soft pile of the table-cloth. Captain Cable looked at it critically, and
+after a moment's reflection admitted in an absent voice that his hopes
+for eternity were exceedingly small.
+
+“You are too much for me,” he said, after a pause. “You that deal in
+politics and the like.”
+
+“And the other man's name is Kosmaroff,” said Cartoner.
+
+“That's it--a Russian,” answered Captain Cable, rising, and looking at
+the clock. His movements were energetic and very quick for his years. He
+carried with him the brisk atmosphere of the sea and the hardness of
+a life which tightens men's muscles and teaches them to observe the
+outward signs of man and nature.
+
+“It beats me,” he said. “But I've told you all I can--all, perhaps, that
+you want to hear. For it seems that you are putting two and two together
+already. I think I've done right. At any rate, I'll stand by it. It
+makes me uneasy to think of that stuff having been below the _Minnie's_
+hatches.”
+
+“It makes me uneasy, too,” said Cartoner. “Wait a minute till I put on
+another coat. I am going out. We may as well go down together.”
+
+He came back a moment later, having changed his coat. He was attaching
+the small insignia of a foreign order to the lapel.
+
+“Going to a swarree?” asked Cable, as between men of the world.
+
+“I am going to look for a man I want to see to-night, and I think I
+shall find him, as you say, at a soiree,” answered Cartoner, gravely.
+
+Out in the street he paused for a moment. A cab was already waiting,
+having dashed up from the club stand.
+
+“By-the-way,” he said, “I shall not be able to come down and see the
+_Minnie_ this time. I shall be off by the eight o'clock train to-morrow
+morning.”
+
+“Going foreign?” asked the captain.
+
+“Yes, I am going abroad again,” answered Cartoner, and there was a
+sudden ring of exultation in his voice. For this was after all, a man of
+action who had strayed into a profession of which the strength is to sit
+still.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+IN THE SPRING
+
+The Mangles passed the winter at Warsaw, and there learned the usual
+lesson of the traveller: that countries reputed hot or cold are neither
+so hot nor so cold as they are represented. The winter was a hard one,
+and Warsaw, of all European cities, was, perhaps, the last that any lady
+would select to pass the cold months in.
+
+“I have my orders,” said Mangles, rather grimly, “and I must stay here
+till I am moved on. But the orders say nothing about you or Netty. Go to
+Nice if you like.”
+
+And Julie seemed half inclined to go southward. But for one reason
+or another--reasons, it may be, put forward by Netty in private
+conversation with her aunt--the ladies lingered on.
+
+“The place is dull for you,” said Mangles, “now that Cartoner seems to
+have left us for good. His gay and sparkling conversation would enliven
+any circle.”
+
+And beneath his shaggy brows he glanced at Netty, whose smooth cheek did
+not change color, while her eyes met his with an affectionate smile.
+
+“You seemed to have plenty to say to each other coming across the
+Atlantic,” she said. “I always found you with your heads close together
+whenever I came on deck.”
+
+“Don't think we sparkled much,” said Joseph, with his under lip well
+forward.
+
+“It is very kind of Uncle Joseph,” said Netty, afterwards, to Miss
+Mangles, “to suggest that we should go south, and, of course, it would
+be lovely to feel the sunshine again, but we could not leave him, could
+we? You must not think of me, auntie; I am quite happy here, and should
+not enjoy the Riviera at all if we left uncle all alone here.”
+
+Julie had a strict sense of duty, which, perhaps, Netty was cognizant
+of; and the subject was never really brought under discussion. During a
+particularly bad spell of weather Mr. Mangles again and again suggested
+that he should be left at Warsaw, but on each occasion Netty came
+forward with that complete unselfishness and sweet forethought for
+others which all who knew her learned to look for in her every action.
+
+Warsaw, she admitted, was dull, and the surrounding country simply
+impossible. But the winter could not last forever, she urged, with a
+little shiver. And it really was quite easy to keep warm if one went for
+a brisk walk in the morning. To prove this she put on the new furs which
+Joseph had bought her, and which were very becoming to her delicate
+coloring, and set out full of energy. She usually went to the Saski
+Gardens, the avenues of which were daily swept and kept clear of snow;
+and as often as not, she accidentally met Prince Martin Bukaty there.
+Sometimes she crossed the bridge to Praga, and occasionally turned her
+steps down the Bednarska to the side of the river which was blocked
+by ice now, wintry and desolate. The sand-workers were still laboring,
+though navigation was, of course, at a stand-still.
+
+Netty never saw Kosmaroff, however, who had gone as suddenly as he
+came--had gone out of her life as abruptly as he burst into it, leaving
+only the memory of that high-water mark of emotion to which he had
+raised her. Leaving also that blankest of all blanks in the feminine
+heart, an unsatisfied curiosity. She could not understand Kosmaroff,
+any more than she could understand Cartoner. And it was natural that she
+should, in consequence, give much thought to them both. There was,
+she felt, something in both alike which she had not got at, and she
+naturally wanted to get at it. It might be a sorrow, and her kind heart
+drew her attention to any hidden thought that might be a sorrow. She
+might be able to alleviate it. At any rate, being a woman, she, no
+doubt, wanted to stir it up, as it were, and see what the result would
+be.
+
+Prince Martin was quite different. He was comparatively easy to
+understand. She knew the symptoms well. She was so unfortunate. So many
+people had fallen in love with her, through no fault of her own. Indeed,
+no one could regret it more than she did. She did not, of course, say
+these things to her aunt, Julie, or to that dear old blind stupid, her
+uncle, who never saw or understood anything, and was entirely absorbed
+in his cigars and his newspapers. She said them to herself--and, no
+doubt, found herself quite easy to convince--as other people do.
+
+Prince Martin was very gay and light-hearted, too. If he was in love, he
+was gayly, frankly, openly in love, and she hoped that it would be all
+right--whatever that might mean. In the mean time, of course, she could
+not help it if she was always meeting him when she went for her walk
+in the Saski Gardens. There was nowhere else to walk, and it was to be
+supposed that he was passing that way by accident. Or if he had found
+out her hours and came there on purpose she really could not help it.
+
+Deulin came and went during the winter. He seemed to have business now
+at Cracow, now at St. Petersburg. He was a bad correspondent, and talked
+much about himself, without ever saying much; which is quite a
+different thing. He had the happy gift of imparting a wealth of useless
+information. When in Warsaw he busied himself on behalf of the ladies,
+and went so far as to take Miss Mangles for a drive in his sleigh. To
+Netty he showed a hundred attentions.
+
+“I cannot understand,” she said, “why everybody is so kind to me.”
+
+“It is because you are so kind to everybody,” he answered, with that air
+of appearing to mean more than he said, which he seemed to reserve for
+Netty.
+
+“I do not understand Mr. Deulin,” said Netty to her uncle one day. “Why
+does he stay here? What is he doing here?”
+
+And Joseph P. Mangles merely stuck his chin forward, and said in his
+deepest tones:
+
+“You had better ask him!”
+
+“But he would not tell me.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“And Mr. Cartoner,” continued Netty, “I understood he was coming back,
+but he does not seem to come. No one seems to know. It is so difficult
+to get information about the merest trifles. Not that I care, of course,
+who comes and who goes.”
+
+“Course not,” said Mangles.
+
+After a pause, Netty looked up again from her work.
+
+“Uncle,” she said, “I was wondering if there was anything wrong in
+Warsaw.”
+
+“What made you wonder that?”
+
+“I do not know. It feels, sometimes, as if there were something wrong.
+Mr. Cartoner went away so suddenly. The people in the streets are so
+odd and quiet. And down stairs in the restaurant, at dinner, I see
+them exchange glances when the Russian officers come into the room. I
+distrust the quietness of the people, and--uncle--Mr. Deulin's gayety--I
+distrust that, too. And then, you; you so often ask us to go away and
+leave you here alone.”
+
+Mangles laughed, curtly, and folded his newspaper.
+
+“Because it is a dull hole,” he said, “that is why I want you to go
+away. It has got on your nerves. It is because you have not lived in a
+conquered country before. All conquered countries are like that.”
+
+Which was a very long explanation for Joseph Mangles to make. And he
+never again proposed that Netty and her aunt should go to Nice. But
+Netty's curiosity was not satisfied, and she knew that Deulin would
+answer no question seriously. Why did not Kosmaroff come back? Why did
+Cartoner stay away? As soon as etiquette allowed, she called at the
+Bukaty Palace. She made an excuse in some illustrated English and
+American magazines which might interest the Princess Wanda. But there
+was no one at home. She understood from the servant, who spoke a little
+German, that they had gone to their country house, a few miles from
+Warsaw.
+
+The next morning Netty went for a walk in the Saski Gardens. The weather
+had changed suddenly. It was quite mild and springlike. At last the grip
+of winter seemed to be slackening. There were others in the gardens who
+held their faces up to the sky, and breathed in the softer air with
+a sort of expectancy; who seemed to wonder if the winter had really
+broken, or if this should only be a false hope. It was one of the first
+days in March--a month wherein all nature slowly stirs after her long
+sleep, and men pull themselves together to new endeavor. The majority
+of great events in the world's history have taken place in the spring
+months. Is not the Ides of March written large in the story of this
+planet?
+
+Netty had not been many minutes in the gardens when Prince Martin came
+to her. He had laid aside his fur coat for a lighter cloak of English
+make, which made him look thinner. His face, too, was thin and spare,
+like the face of a man who is working hard at work or sport. But he was
+gay and light-hearted as ever. Neither did he make any disguise of his
+admiration for Netty.
+
+“It is three days,” he said, “since I have seen you. And it seems like
+three years.”
+
+Which is the sort of remark that can only be ignored by the discreet.
+Besides, Prince Martin did not go so far as to state why the three days
+had been so tedious. It might be for some other reason altogether.
+
+“My uncle has been pressing us to go away,” said Netty, “to the south of
+France, to Nice, but----”
+
+“But what?”
+
+“Well,” answered Netty, after a pause, “you see for yourself--we have
+not gone.”
+
+“It is a very selfish hope--but I hope you will stay,” said Prince
+Martin. He looked down at her, and the thought of her possible departure
+caught him like a vise. He was a person of impulse, and (which is
+not usual) his impulse was as often towards good as towards evil. She
+looked, besides looking pretty, rather small and frail, and dependent at
+that moment, and all the chivalry of his nature was aroused. It was
+only natural that he should think that she had all the qualities he knew
+Wanda to possess, and, of course, in an infinitely higher degree. Which
+is the difference between one's own sister and another person's. She was
+good, and frank, and open. The idea of concealment between himself and
+her was to be treated with scorn.
+
+“I will tell you,” he said, “if at any time there is any reason why you
+cannot stay.”
+
+“But why should there be any reason--” she began, and a quick movement
+that he made to look round and see who was in sight, who might be within
+hearing, made her stop.
+
+“Oh! I do not want you to tell me anything. I do not want to know,” she
+said hurriedly. Which was the absolute truth; for politics bored her
+horribly.
+
+He looked at her with a laugh, and only loved her all the more, for
+persisting in her ignorance of those matters which are always better
+left to men.
+
+“I almost missed,” he said gayly, “an excellent opportunity of holding
+my tongue.”
+
+“Only----” began Netty, as if in continuation of her protest against
+being told anything.
+
+“Only what?”
+
+“Only--be careful,” she said, with downcast eyes. And, of course, that
+brought him, figuratively, to her feet. He vowed he would be careful, if
+it was for her sake. If she would only say that it was for her sake. And
+at the moment he really meant it. He was as honest as the day. But
+he did not know, perhaps, that the best sort of men are those who
+persistently and repeatedly break their word in one respect. For they
+will vow to a woman never to run into danger, to be careful, to be
+cowards. And when the danger is there, and the woman is not--their vow
+is writ in water.
+
+Netty tried to stop him. She was very much distressed. She almost had
+tears in her eyes, but not quite. She put her gloved hands over her ears
+to stop them, but did not quite succeed in shutting out his voice. The
+gloves were backed with a dark, fine fur, which made her cheeks look
+delicate and soft as a peach.
+
+“I will not hear you,” she said. “I will not. I will not.”
+
+Then he seemed to recollect something, and he stopped short.
+
+“No,” he said; “you are quite right. I have no business to ask you to
+hear me. I have nothing to offer you. I am poor. At any moment I may be
+an outlaw. But at any moment I may have more to offer you. Things may go
+well, and then I should be in a very different position.”
+
+Netty looked away from him, and seemed to be trying to think. Or,
+perhaps, she was only putting together recollections which had all been
+thought out before. She could be a princess. She remembered that. She
+had only been in Europe six months, and here was a prince at her feet.
+But there were terrible drawbacks. Warsaw was one of them, and poverty,
+that greatest of all drawbacks, was the other.
+
+“I can tell you nothing now,” he said. “But soon, before the summer,
+there may be great changes in Poland.”
+
+Then his own natural instinct told him that position, or poverty, wealth
+or success, had nothing to do with the cause he was pleading. He did not
+even know whether Netty was rich or poor, and he certainly did not care.
+
+“What did you mean,” he asked, “when you said 'Be careful'? What did you
+mean--tell me?”
+
+His gay, blue eyes were serious enough now. They were alight with an
+honest and good love. Never of a cold and calculating habit, he was
+reckless of observation. He did not care who saw. He would have taken
+her hands and forced her to face him had she not held them behind her
+back. She was singularly calm and self-possessed. People who appear
+nervous often rise to the occasion.
+
+“I do not know what I meant,” she said; “I do not know. You must not ask
+me. It slipped out when I was not thinking. Oh! please be generous, and
+do not ask me.”
+
+By some instinct she had leaped to the right mark. She had asked a
+Bukaty to be generous.
+
+“Some day,” he said, “I will ask you.”
+
+And he walked with her to the gate of the gardens in silence.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+A SACRIFICE
+
+Though the fine weather did not last, it was a promise of better things,
+like the letter that precedes a welcome friend. After it the air seemed
+warmer, though snow fell again, and the thermometer went below zero.
+
+Wanda and her father did not return to Warsaw as they had intended.
+
+So long as the frost holds, the country is endurable; nay, it is better
+than the towns on those great plains of eastern Europe; but when the
+thaw comes, and each small depression is a puddle, every low-lying field
+a pond, and whole plains become lakes, few remain in the villages who
+can set their feet upon the pavement. The early spring, so closely
+associated in most minds with the song of birds and the budding of green
+things, is in Poland and Russia a period of waiting for the water to
+drain off the flat land; a time to look to one's thickest top-boots in
+these countries, where men and women are booted to the knee, and every
+third house displays the shoemaker's sign upon its door-post.
+
+The Bukatys' country-house, like all else that the past had left
+them, was insignificant. In olden days it had been a farm, one of the
+smallest, used once or twice during the winter as a shooting-lodge; for
+it stood in the midst of vast forests. It was not really ancient, for
+it had been built in the days of Sobieski, when that rough warrior and
+parvenu king built himself the house in the valley of the Vistula,
+where he saw all his greatness vanish, and ended his days in that grim
+solitude which is the inheritance of master-minds. The hand of the
+French architect is to be detected even in this farm; for Poland,
+more frankly and consciously than the rest of the world, drew all her
+inspiration and her art from France. Did not France once send her a
+king? Was not Sobieski's wife a Frenchwoman, who, moreover, ruled that
+great fighter with her little finger, stronger than any rod of iron? If
+ever a Frenchman was artificially made from other racial materials, he
+was the last king of Poland, Stanislas Augustus Poniatowski.
+
+Built on raised ground, the farm-house was of stone. It had been a
+plain, square building; but in the days of Poniatowski some attempt
+had been made at ornamentation in the French style. A pavilion had been
+built in the garden amid the pine-trees. A sun-dial had been placed on
+the lawn, which was now no longer a lawn, but had lapsed again into a
+meadow. The cows had polished the sun-dial with their rough sides,
+while the passage of cold winters and wet springs had left the plaster
+ornamentation mossy and broken.
+
+Here, amid a simple people, the Bukatys spent a portion of the year.
+They usually came in the winter, because it was in the winter they were
+needed. The feudal spirit, which was strong in the old prince and
+weaker in his children, has two sides to it; but its enemies have only
+remembered one. The prince took it as a matter of course that it was his
+duty to care for his peasants, and relieve as far as lay in his power
+the distress which came upon them annually with the regularity of the
+recurring seasons. With a long winter and a wet spring, with a heavy
+taxation, and a standing bill at the village shop kept by a Jew, and the
+village inn kept by another, these peasants never had any money. And
+so far as human foresight can perceive, there seems to be no reason why
+they ever should.
+
+By some chain of reasoning, which assuredly had a flaw in it, the prince
+seemed to have arrived at the conclusion that he was put into the world
+to help his peasants, and those who were now no longer his serfs. And,
+though he spoke to them as if they were of a different creation and
+not his equals--as the French Revolution set about to prove, but only
+succeeded in proving the contrary--he cared for their bodies as he would
+have cared for a troop of sheep. He only saw that they were hungry, and
+he fed them. Wanda only saw that there were among them sick who could
+not pay for a doctor, and could not have gone to the expense of obeying
+his orders had they called one in. She only saw that there were mothers
+who had to work in the fields, while their children died of infantine
+and comparatively simple complaints at home, because their rightful
+nurse could not spare the time to nurse them. It was no wonder that the
+roof of the farm-house leaked, and that the cows were invited to feed
+upon the front lawn.
+
+Clad in a sheepskin coat, with great jack-boots flapping above his
+knees, the prince spent all his days on horseback, riding from house
+to house, giving a little money and a good deal of sound and practical
+advice, listening to the old, old stories of undrained land and poor
+crops, of bad seed and broken tools; and cheering the tellers with his
+great laugh and some small witticism. For they are a gay people, these
+Poles, through it all. “Ils sont legers, actifs, insouciants,” said
+Napoleon, that keenest searcher of the human heart, who knew them a
+hundred years ago when their troubles were comparatively fresh. And it
+is an odd thing that adversity rarely breaks a man's spirit, but often
+strengthens it.
+
+Wanda sometimes rode, but usually went on foot, and had more than enough
+work to fill the days now growing longer and lighter. She, like her
+father, was brisk and cheerful in her well-being--like him, she was
+intolerant of anything that savored of laziness or lack of spirit. They
+liked the simple life and the freedom from the restraint that hung round
+their daily existence in Warsaw. But the old man watched the weather,
+and longed to be about larger business, which alone could satisfy the
+restless spirit of activity handed down to him by the forefathers who
+had stirred all Europe, and spoken fearlessly to kings.
+
+Wanda was not sorry when the thaw gave way to renewed frost. The snow
+lay thickly on the ground, and weighed down the branches of the pines.
+In the stillness which brooded over the land during day and night alike
+the only sound they ever heard was the sharp crack of a branch breaking
+beneath its burden. They had lived in this still world of snow and
+forest for some weeks, and had seen and heard nothing of men.
+
+“This frost cannot last,” said the prince. “The spring must come soon,
+and then we shall have to go back to the world and its business.”
+
+But the world and its business thereof did not wait until the brief
+frost was over. It came to them that same night. For Kosmaroff was
+essentially of the active world, and carried with him wherever he went
+the spirit of unrest.
+
+He arrived on foot soon after nine o'clock. He was going on to Warsaw on
+foot the same night, he announced, before the greetings were over.
+
+“And you have had nothing to eat,” said Wanda, glancing at his spare,
+weather-beaten face. He was the impersonation of hardness and activity;
+a man in excellent physical training, inured to cold and every hardship.
+He had simply opened the front door and walked in, throwing his rough
+sheepskin coat aside in the outer hall. The snow was on his boots
+nearly to the knee. The ice hung from his mustache and glistened on his
+eyebrows. He held his coarse blue handkerchief in his hand, and wiped
+his face from time to time as the ice melted.
+
+“No,” he answered, “I have had nothing to eat. But the servants do not
+know I am here. I saw the lights in their windows at the other end of
+the house. I would rather go hungry than let them know that I am here.”
+
+“You will not go hungry from this house,” said the prince, with his
+rather fierce laugh.
+
+“I will get you what you want,” said Wanda, lighting a candle. “There
+are no servants, however, so you need not think of that. There are only
+the farmer and his wife--and my maid, who is English, and silent.”
+
+So, before telling his news, Kosmaroff sat down and ate, while Wanda
+waited on him, and Prince Bukaty poured out wine for this rough man in
+the homespun clothing and heavy boots of the Vistula raftsman, who yet
+had the manner of a gentleman and that quiet air of self-possession in
+all societies which is not to be learned in schools nor yet acquired at
+any academy.
+
+“When you have finished,” said Wanda, “you can talk of your affairs. I
+shall leave you to yourselves.”
+
+“Oh, there is not much to say,” answered Kosmaroff. “I have done no good
+on my journey. Things make no progress.”
+
+“You expect too much,” said the prince. He had helped himself to a glass
+of wine, and fingered the glass reflectively as he spoke. “You expect
+the world to move more quickly than it can. It is old and heavy,
+remember that. I have a fellow-feeling for it, with my two sticks.
+You would never make a diplomatist. I have heard of negotiations going
+forward for five years, and then falling through, after all.”
+
+Kosmaroff smiled, his odd, one-sided smile, and cut himself a piece of
+bread. There was a faint suggestion of the river-side in his manner at
+table. This was a man into whose life the ceremony of sit-down meals had
+never entered largely. He ate because he was hungry--not, as many do, to
+pass the time.
+
+“One thing I came to tell you I can tell you now,” he said. “In fact, it
+is better that the princess should hear it; for in a way it concerns her
+also. But, please, do not stand,” he added, turning to her. “I have
+all I want. It is kind of you to wait on me as if I were a king--or a
+beggar.”
+
+His laugh had rather a cruel ring in it as he continued his meal.
+
+“It is,” he said, after a pause, “about that Englishman, Cartoner.”
+
+Wanda turned slowly, and resumed the chair she had quitted on
+Kosmaroff's sudden appearance at the door.
+
+“Yes,” she said, in a steady voice.
+
+“He knows more than it is safe to know--safe for us--or for himself. One
+evening I could have put him out of the way, and it is a pity, perhaps,
+that it was not done. In a cause like ours, which affects the lives and
+happiness of millions, we should not pause to think of the life of one.
+This does not come into my sphere, and I have no immediate concern in
+it----” He stopped, and looked at the prince.
+
+“But I have also no power,” he added, “over those whose affair it
+is--you understand that. This comes under the hand of those who study
+the attitude of the European powers, our--well, I suppose I may say--our
+foreign office. It is their affair to know what powers are friendly to
+us--they were all friendly to us thirty years ago, in words--and who are
+our enemies. It is also their affair to find out how much the
+foreign powers know. It seems they must know something. It seems that
+Cartoner--knows everything. So it is reported in Cracow.”
+
+The prince shrugged his shoulders, and gave a short laugh.
+
+“In Cracow,” he said, “they are all words.”
+
+“There are certain men, it appears,” continued Kosmaroff, “in the
+service of the governments--in one service it is called 'foreign
+affairs,' in another the 'secret service'--whose mission it is to find
+themselves where things are stirring, to be at the seat of war. They
+are, in jest, called the Vultures. It is a French jest, as you would
+conclude. And the Vultures have been congregating at Warsaw. Therefore,
+the powers know something. At Cracow, it is said--I ask your pardon
+for repeating it--that they know, and that Cartoner knows what he
+knows--through the Bukatys.”
+
+The prince's lips moved beneath his mustache, but he did not speak.
+Wanda, who was seated near the fire, had turned in her chair, and was
+looking at Kosmaroff over her shoulder with steady eyes. She was not
+taken by surprise. It was Cartoner himself who had foreseen this, and
+had warned her. There was deep down in her heart, even at this moment,
+a thrill of pride in the thought that her lover was a cleverer man than
+any she had had to do with. And, oddly enough, the next words Kosmaroff
+spoke made her his friend for the rest of her life.
+
+“I have nothing against him. I know nothing of him, except that he is a
+brave man. It happens that I know that,” he said. “He knows as well as
+I do that his life is unsafe in this country, and yet, before I left
+London I heard--for we have friends everywhere--that he had got his
+passport for Russia again. It is to be presumed that he is coming back,
+so you must be prepared. In case anything should happen to confirm these
+suspicions that come to us from Cracow, you know that I have no control
+over certain members of the party. If it was thought that you or Martin
+had betrayed anything--”
+
+“I or Martin would be assassinated,” said the prince with his loud
+laugh. “I know that. I have long known that we are going back to the
+methods of the sixties--suspicion and assassination. It has always been
+the ruin of Poland--that method.”
+
+“But you have no feelings with regard to this man?” asked Kosmaroff,
+sharply, looking from father to daughter, with a keen sidelong
+glance, as if the suspicion that had come from Cracow had not left him
+untouched.
+
+“None whatever,” answered the prince. “He is a mere passing
+acquaintance. He must be allowed to pass. We will drop him--you can tell
+your friends--it will not be much of a sacrifice compared to some that
+have been made for Poland.”
+
+Wanda glanced at her father. Did he mean anything?
+
+“You know what they are,” broke in Kosmaroff's eager voice. “They see
+a mountain in every molehill. Martin was seen at Alexandrowo with
+Cartoner. Wanda was seen speaking to him at the Mokotow. He is known to
+have called on you at your hotel in London.”
+
+“It is a question of dropping his acquaintance, my friend,” said the
+prince, “and I tell you, he shall be dropped.”
+
+“It is more than that,” answered Kosmaroff, half sullenly.
+
+“You mean,” said the prince, suddenly roused to anger, “that Martin and
+I are put upon our good behavior--that our lives are safe only so long
+as we are not seen speaking to Cartoner, or are not suspected of having
+any communication with him.”
+
+And Kosmaroff was silent.
+
+He had ceased eating, and had laid aside his knife and fork. It was
+clear that his whole mind and body were given to one thought and one
+hope. He looked indifferently at the simple dishes set before him, and
+had satisfied his hunger on that nearest to him, because it came first.
+
+“I tell you this,” he said, after a silence, “because no one else dared
+to tell you. Because I know, perhaps better than any other, all that you
+have done--all that you are ready to do.”
+
+“Yes--yes. Everything must be done for Poland,” said the prince,
+suddenly pacified by the recollection, perhaps, of what the speaker's
+life had been. Wanda had risen as if to go. The clock had just struck
+ten.
+
+“And the princess says the same?” said Kosmaroff, rising also, and
+raising her hand to his lips to bid her good-night, after the Polish
+fashion.
+
+“Yes,” she answered, “I say the same.”
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+IN THE PINE-WOODS
+
+The prince was early astir the next morning. He was a hardy old man,
+and covered great distances on his powerful horse. Neither cold nor rain
+prevented him from undertaking journeys to some distant village which
+had once owned his ancestor as lord and master--in those days when a
+noble had to pay no more for killing a peasant than a farmer may claim
+for an injured sheep to-day.
+
+The prince never discussed with Wanda those affairs in which, as a
+noble, he felt compelled to take an active interest. He had seen,
+perhaps, enough in the great revolution of his younger days to teach him
+that women--and even Polish women--should take no part in politics. He
+believed in a wise and studied ignorance of those things which it is
+better not to know. He made no reference to Kosmaroff at breakfast the
+next morning, and Wanda asked no questions. She had not slept until
+nearly morning, and had heard her father bolt the doors after the
+departure of the ex-Cossack. She had heard Kosmaroff's light and quick
+step on the frozen snow as he started on his seven-mile walk to Warsaw.
+
+Cartoner's name, then, was not mentioned during the morning meal, which
+the prince ate with the deliberation of his years. The morning was
+bright and sunny, with a crisp air and sufficient frost to keep the snow
+from melting. The prince had recovered from his anger of the previous
+evening, and was gay. Wanda, too, seemed light-hearted enough. She was
+young and strong. In her veins there flowed the blood of a race that
+had always been “game,” that had always faced the world with unflinching
+eyes, and had never craved its pity. Her father had lost everything, had
+lived a life of hardship, almost to privation for one of his rank; and
+witnessed the ruin or the downfall of all his friends; and yet he could
+laugh with the merry, while with the mourner it was his habit to purse
+up his lips beneath the grizzled mustache and mutter a few curt words,
+not of condolence, but of stimulation to endure.
+
+He liked to see cheerful faces around him. They helped him, no doubt,
+to carry on to the end of his days that high-handed and dignified fight
+against ill-fortune which he had always waged.
+
+“If you have a grievance,” he always said to those who brought their
+tales of woe to his ears, “air it as much as you like, but speak up, and
+do not whine.”
+
+He had to listen to a great number of such tales, and to the majority
+of grievances could suggest no cure; for they were the grievances of
+Poland, and in these later times of Finland also, to which it appears
+there is no cure.
+
+“I shall make a long round to-day,” he said to Wanda, when he was in the
+saddle, with his short, old-fashioned stirrup, his great boots covering
+his knee and thigh from the wind, and his weather-beaten old face
+looking out from the fur collar of his riding-coat. “It may be the last
+time this winter. The spring must come soon.”
+
+And he went away at an easy canter.
+
+Wanda, left alone for the whole day in the stillness of this forest
+farm, had her round to do also. She set out on foot soon after her
+father's departure, bound to a distant cottage in the depths of the
+pine-woods. The trees were quiet this morning; for it is only at the
+time of thaw, when the snow, gathering moisture from the atmosphere,
+gains in weight and breaks down the branches, that the woods crack as
+beneath the tread of some stealthy giant. But a frost seems to brace the
+trees which in the colder weather stand grim and silent, bearing their
+burden without complaint.
+
+The sky was cloudless and the air quite still. There is no silence like
+that of a northern pine-wood in winter; for the creatures living in
+the twilight there have been given by God silent feet and a stealthy
+habit--the smaller ones going in fear of the larger, and the beasts of
+prey ever alert for their natural enemy--man. The birds kept for the
+most part to the outer fringes of the forest, nearer to the crops and
+the few, far cottages.
+
+Wanda had grown from childhood amid the pines, and the gloomy
+forest-paths were so familiar as to have lost all power to impress her.
+In the nursery she had heard tales of wolves and bears, but had never
+seen them. They might be near or far; they might be watching through the
+avenues of straight and motionless stems. In their childhood it had been
+the delight of Martin and herself to trace in the snow the footprints
+of the wolves--near the house, in the garden, right up to the nursery
+window. They had gradually acquired the indifference of the peasants who
+work in the fields, or the woodmen at their labors amid the trees, who
+are aware that the silent, stealthy eyes are watching them, and work
+on without fear. The prince had taught the children fearlessness, or,
+perhaps, it was in their blood, and needed no education. He had taught
+them to look upon the beasts of the forests not as enemies, but as
+quiet, watching friends.
+
+Wanda went alone whithersoever she listed, without so much as turning
+her head to look over her shoulder. The pine-woods were hers; the
+peasants were her serfs in spirit, if not in deed. Here, at all events,
+the Bukatys were free to come and go. In cities they were watched, their
+footsteps dogged by human wolves.
+
+There are few paths through the great forests of Poland, of Posen, and
+of Silesia, and what there are, are usually cut straight and at right
+angles to each other. There was a path just wide enough to give passage
+to the narrow timber carts from the farm direct to the woodman's
+cottage, and so flat is the face of the earth that the distant trees are
+like the masts of ships half-hidden by the curve of the world. It seems
+as if one could walk on and on forever, or drop from hunger and fatigue
+and lie unheeded for years in some forgotten corner. In the better-kept
+forests the paths are staked and numbered, or else it would be
+impossible to know the way amid such millions of trees--all alike, all
+of the same height. But the prince was too poor to vie with the wealthy
+land-owners of Silesia, and his forests were ill-kept.
+
+In places the trees had fallen across the original path, and the few
+passers-by had made a new path to one side or the other. Sometimes a
+tree had grown outward towards the light and air, almost bridging the
+open space.
+
+Wanda could not, therefore, see very far in front or behind, and was
+taken by surprise by the thud of a horse's feet on the beaten snow
+behind her. She turned, thinking it was her father, who for some reason
+had returned home, and, learning whither she had gone, had followed
+her. But it was not the prince. It was Cartoner. Before she had quite
+realized that it was he, he was on his feet leading his horse towards
+her.
+
+She paused and looked at him, half startled; then, with a curt,
+inarticulate cry of joy she hurried towards him. Thus were given to them
+a few of those brief moments of complete happiness which are sometimes
+vouchsafed to human beings. Which must assuredly be moments stolen from
+heaven; for angels are so chary with them, giving them to a few favored
+ones only once or twice in a whole lifetime, and, to the large majority
+of mankind, never at all.
+
+“Why have you come?” asked Wanda.
+
+“To see you,” replied this man of few words.
+
+And the sound of his voice, the sight of his strong face, swept away all
+her troubles and anxieties; as if, with his greater physical strength,
+he had taken a burden which she could hardly lift, and carried it
+easily. For he always seemed to know how to meet every emergency and
+face every trouble. A minute ago she had been reflecting with relief
+that he was not in Poland, and now it seemed as if her heart must break
+had he been anywhere else. She forgot for the moment all the dangers
+that surrounded them; the hopelessness of their love, the thousand
+reasons why they should not meet. She forgot that a whole nation stood
+between them. But it was only for a moment--a moment borrowed from
+eternity.
+
+“Is that the only reason?” she asked, remembering with a sort of shock
+that this world of glittering snow and still pine-trees was not their
+real world at all.
+
+“Yes,” he answered.
+
+“But you cannot stay in Poland! You must go away again at once! You do
+not know--” And she stopped short, for their respective positions were
+such that they always arrived at a point where only silence was left to
+them.
+
+“Oh, yes,” he answered with a short laugh. “I know. I am going away
+to-night--to St. Petersburg.”
+
+He did not explain that his immediate departure was not due to the fears
+that she had half expressed.
+
+“I am so glad.” She broke off, and looked at him with a little smile. “I
+am so glad you are going away.”
+
+She turned away from him with a sharp sigh. For she had now a new
+anxiety, which, however, like Aaron's rod, had swallowed all the rest.
+
+“I would rather know that you were safe in England,” she said, “even
+if I were never to see you again. But,” and she looked up at him with a
+sort of pride in her eyes--that long-drawn pride of race which is strong
+to endure--“but you must never be hampered by a thought of me. I want
+you to be what you have always been. Ah! you need not shake your head.
+All men say the same of you--they are afraid of you.”
+
+She looked at him slowly, up and down.
+
+“And I am not,” she added, with a sudden laugh. For her happiness
+was real enough. The best sort of happiness is rarely visible to the
+multitude. It lies hidden in odd corners and quiet places; and the
+eager world which, presumably, is seeking it, hurries past and never
+recognizes it, but continues to mistake for it prosperity and riches,
+noise and laughter, even fame and mere cheap notoriety.
+
+They walked slowly back towards the farm, and again the gods were kind
+to them; for they forgot how short their time was, how quickly such
+moments fly. Much that they had to say to each other may not be
+expressed on paper, neither can any compositor set it up in type.
+
+They were practical enough, however, and as they walked beneath the
+snow-clad pines they drew up a scheme of life which was astonishingly
+unlike the dreams and aspirations of most lovers. For it was devoid
+of selfishness, and they looked for happiness--not in an immediate
+gratification of all their desires and an instant fulfilment of their
+hopes, but in a mutual faith that should survive all separation and
+bridge the longest span of years. Loyalty was to be their watchword.
+Loyalty to self, to duty, and to each other.
+
+Wanda did not, like the heroine of a novel, look for a passion that
+should stride over every obstacle to its object, that should ignore
+duty, which is only another word for honor, and throw down the spectres,
+Foresight, Common-sense, Respect, which must arise in the pathway of
+that madness, a brief passion. She was content, it seemed, that her
+lover should be wise, should be careful for the future, should take her
+life into his hands with a sort of quiet mastery as if he had a right
+to do so--a right, not to ruin and debase, such as is usually considered
+the privilege of that which is called a great passion and admired as
+such--but a right to shape, guard, and keep.
+
+Cartoner had not much to say about his own feelings, which, perhaps,
+made him rather different from most lovers. He went so far as to
+consider the feelings of others and to place them before his own, which,
+of course, is quite unusual. And yet the scheme of life which was his
+reading of Love, and which Wanda extracted from him that sunny March
+morning and pieced together bit by bit in her own decided and conclusive
+way, seemed to content her. She seemed to gather from it that he loved
+her precisely as she wished to be loved, and that, come what might,
+she had already enough to make her life happier than the lives of most
+women.
+
+And, of course, they hoped. For they were young, and human, and the
+spring was in the air. But their hope was one of those things of which
+they could not speak; for it involved knowledge of which Wanda had
+become possessed at the hand of the prince and Martin and Kosmaroff. It
+touched those things which Cartoner had come to Poland to learn, but not
+from Wanda.
+
+The smell of the wood-smoke from the chimneys of the farm told them that
+they were nearing the edge of the forest, and Wanda stopped short.
+
+“You must not go any nearer,” she said. “You are sure no one saw you
+when you came?”
+
+“No one,” answered Cartoner, whom fortune had favored as he came. For
+he had approached the farm through the wood, and he had seen Wanda's
+footsteps in the snow. He had often ridden over the same ground on the
+very horse which he was now riding, and knew every inch of the way to
+Warsaw. He could get there without being seen, might even quit the city
+again unobserved.
+
+For he knew--indeed, Wanda had told him--the dangers that surrounded
+him. He knew also that these dangers were infinitely greater for Martin
+and the prince.
+
+“It is only what you foresaw,” she said, “when--when we first
+understood.”
+
+“No, it is worse than I foresaw,” he answered.
+
+So they parted, with the knowledge that they must not meet again in
+Poland when their meeting must mean such imminent risk to others. They
+could not even write to each other while Wanda should be within the
+circle of the Russian postal service. There was but the one link between
+them--Paul Deulin; and to him neither would impart a confidence. Deulin
+had brought about this meeting to-day. Warned by telegram, he had met
+Cartoner at Warsaw Station, and had counselled him not to go out into
+the streets. Since he was only waiting a few hours in Warsaw for the St.
+Petersburg train, he must either sit in the station or take a horse and
+go for a ride into the country. The Bukatys, by-the-way, were not in
+town, but at their country house.
+
+“Go and see them,” he added. “A man living on a volcano may surely play
+with firearms if he wants to. And you are all on the volcano together.
+Pah! I know the smell of it. The very streets, my friend, reek of
+catastrophe.”
+
+Wanda was gay and light-hearted to the end. There was French blood in
+her veins--that gay, good blood which stained the streets of Paris a
+hundred years ago, and raised a standard of courage against adversity
+for all the world to imitate so long as history shall exist.
+
+Cartoner turned once in his saddle and saw her standing in the sunlight
+waving him a farewell, with her eyes smiling and her lips hard pressed.
+Then he rode on, with that small, small hope to help him through his
+solitary wanderings which he knew to be identical with the hope of
+Poland, for which the time was not yet ripe. He was the watcher who sees
+most of the game, and knew that the time might never ripen till years
+after Wanda and he had gone hence and were no more seen.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+IN A BY-WAY
+
+There are few roads in Poland. Sooner or later, Cartoner must needs join
+the great highway that enters Warsaw from the west, passing by the gates
+of the cemetery.
+
+Deulin, no doubt, knew this, for Cartoner found him, riding leisurely
+away from the city, just beyond the cemetery. The Frenchman sat his
+horse with a straight leg and arm which made Cartoner think of those
+days ten years earlier, to which Deulin seldom referred, when this
+white-haired dandy was a cavalry soldier, engaged in the painful
+business of killing Germans.
+
+Deulin did not think it necessary to refer to the object of Cartoner's
+ride. Neither did he mention the fact that he knew that this was not the
+direct way to St. Petersburg.
+
+“I hired a horse and rode out to meet you,” he said, gayly--he was
+singularly gay this morning, and there was a light in his eye--“to
+intercept you. Kosmaroff is back in Warsaw. I saw him in the
+streets--and he saw me. I think that man is the god in the machine.
+He is not a nonentity. I wonder who he is. There is blood there, my
+friend.”
+
+He turned his horse as he spoke, and rode back towards the city with
+Cartoner.
+
+“In the mean time,” he said, “I have the hunger of a beggar's dog. What
+are we to do? It is one o'clock--and I have the inside of a Frenchman.
+We are a great people. We tear down monarchies, and build up a new
+republic which is to last forever, and doesn't. We make history so
+quickly that the world stands breathless--but we always breakfast before
+mid-day.”
+
+He took out his watch, and showed its face to Cartoner, with a gesture
+which could not have been more tragic had it marked the hour of the last
+trump.
+
+“And we dare not show our faces in the streets. At least, I dare not
+show mine in the neighborhood of yours in Warsaw. For they have got
+accustomed to me there. They think I am a harmless old man--a dentist,
+perhaps.”
+
+“My train goes from the St. Petersburg Station at three,” said Cartoner.
+“I will have some lunch at the other station, and drive across in a
+close cab with the blinds down.”
+
+And he gave his low, gentle laugh. Deulin glanced at him as if there
+were matter for surprise in the sound of it.
+
+“Like a monstrosity going to a fair,” he said. “And I shall go with you.
+I will even lunch with you at the station--a station steak and a beery
+table. There is only one room at the station for those who eat and
+those who await their trains. So that the eaters eat before a famished
+audience like Louis XVI., and the travellers sit among the crumbs. I am
+with you. But let us be quick--and get it over. Did you see Bukaty?” he
+asked, finally, and, leaning forward, he sought an imaginary fly on the
+lower parts of his horse; for, after all, he was only a man, and lacked
+the higher skill or the thicker skin of the gentler sex in dealing with
+certain delicate matters.
+
+“No, I only saw the princess,” replied Cartoner. And they rode on in
+silence.
+
+“You know,” said Deulin, at length, gravely, “if that happens which you
+expect and I expect, and everybody here is hoping for--I shall seek out
+Wanda at once, and look after her. I do not know whether it is my duty
+or not. But it is my inclination; and I am much too old to put my duty
+before my inclination. So, if anything happens, and there follows that
+confusion which you and I have seen once or twice before, where things
+are stirring and dynasties are crumbling in the streets--when friends
+and foes are seeking each other in vain--you need not seek me or think
+about our friends in Warsaw. You need only think of yourself, remember
+that. I shall have eloped--with Wanda.”
+
+And he finished with an odd laugh, that had a tender ring in it.
+
+“Bukaty and I,” he went on, after a pause, “do not talk of these things
+together. But we have come to an understanding on that point. And when
+the first flurry is over and we come to the top for a breath of air, you
+have only to wire to my address in Paris to tell me where you are--and
+I will tell you where--we are. We are old birds at this sport--you and
+I--and we know how to take care of ourselves.”
+
+They were now in the outskirts of the town, among the wide and ill-paved
+streets where tall houses are springing up on the site of the huts once
+occupied by the Jews who are now quartered in the neighborhood of the
+Nowiniarska market-place. For the chosen people must needs live near
+a market-place, and within hearing of the chink of small coin. In the
+cities of eastern Europe that have a Jews' quarter there is a barrier
+erected between the daily lives of the two races, though no more than a
+narrow street may in reality divide them. Different interests, different
+hopes, aspirations, and desires are to be found within a few yards, and
+neighbors are as far apart as if a frontier line or the curse of Babel
+stood between them.
+
+Cartoner and Deulin, riding through the Jewish quarter, were as safe
+from recognition as if they were in a country lane at Wilanow; for
+the men hurrying along the pavements were wrapped each in his own keen
+thought of gain, and if they glanced up at the horsemen at all, merely
+looked in order to appraise the value of their clothes and saddles--as
+if there were nothing beyond. For them, it would seem there is no
+beyond; nothing but the dumb waiting for the removal of that curse which
+has lasted nineteen hundred years, and instead of wearing itself out,
+seems to gain in strength as the world grows older.
+
+“We will go by the back ways,” said Cartoner, “and need never see any of
+our world in Warsaw at all.”
+
+The streets were crowded by men, for the women live an in-door life in
+an atmosphere that seems to bleach and fatten. The roads were little
+used for wheel traffic; for the commerce by which these people live
+is of so retail a nature that it seems to pass from hand to hand in
+mysterious cloth bundles and black stuff bags. The two horsemen were
+obliged to go slowly through the groups, who never raised their heads,
+or seemed to speak above a whisper.
+
+“What do they talk of--what do they think--all day?” said Cartoner. And,
+indeed, the quiet of the streets had a suggestion of surreptitiousness.
+Even the children are sad, and stand about in melancholy solitude.
+
+“I would sooner be a dog,” answered Deulin, with a shake of the
+shoulders, as if Care had climbed into the saddle behind him. “Sooner a
+dog.”
+
+By these ways they reached the station, and there found a messenger to
+take the horses to their stable. All through the streets they had passed
+men in one uniform or another, who looked stout and well-fed, who strode
+in the middle of the pavement, while the Poles, whose clothes were poor
+and threadbare, shuffled aside in their patched and shambling boots to
+make way for the conqueror. Sometimes they would turn and look back at
+some sword-bearer who was more offensive than usual, with reflective
+eyes as if marking him in order to know him at a future time. As
+is always the case, it was the smaller officials who were the most
+offensive--the little Jacks-in-office from the postal administration,
+the common officers, the hundred obscure civil servants who wear a sword
+and uniform unworthily in any one of the three European empires. On the
+other hand, the men in real authority, and notably the officers of
+the better regiments, sought to conciliate by politeness and a careful
+retention of themselves in the background. But these well-intentioned
+efforts were of small avail; for racial things are stronger than human
+endeavor or the careful foresight of statesmen. Here in Warsaw the
+Muscovite, the Pole, the Jew--herding together in the same streets,
+under the same roof, obedient to one law, acknowledging one
+sovereign--were watching each other, hating each other.
+
+At the street corners the smart, quiet police took note of each
+foot-passenger, every carriage, every stranger passing in a hired
+droschki. Cartoner and Deulin could see from the passing glance beneath
+the flat, green cap that they were seen and recognized at every turn.
+On the steps of the station they were watched with a polite pretense
+of looking the other way by two of the higher officials of the
+Russian-speaking police.
+
+“I do not mind them,” said Deulin, passing through the doorway to the
+booking-office. “It is not of them that we need be afraid. We are doing
+no harm, and they cannot send us out of the country while our passports
+hold out. They have satisfied themselves as to that. For they have been
+through my belongings twice, in my rooms at the Europe--I know when my
+things have been touched--they or some one else. Perhaps Kosmaroff; who
+knows?”
+
+Thus he talked on in characteristic fashion, saying a hundred nothings
+as only Frenchmen and women can, touching life lightly like a skilled
+musician, running nimble fingers over the keys, and striking a chord
+half by accident here and there which was sonorous and had a deeper
+meaning. He ordered the luncheon, argued with the waiter, and rallied
+him on the criminal paucity of his menu.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “let it be beef. I know your mutton. It tastes like the
+smell of goat. So give us beef--your railway beef, which has travelled
+so far, but not by train. It has come on foot, to be killed and cut up
+by a locomotive, to be served by a waiter who has assuredly failed as a
+stoker.”
+
+He sat down as he spoke, and rearranged the small table, covered by
+a doubtful cloth, through which could be felt the chill of the marble
+underneath. Deulin always took the lead in these small matters, and
+Cartoner accepted his decision without comment. The Frenchman knew
+him so well, it seemed, that he knew his tastes, or suspected his
+indifference. While he thus rattled on he glanced sharply from time to
+time at his companion, and when the waiter was finally sent away with a
+hundred minute instructions, he turned suddenly to Cartoner.
+
+“You are absorbed. What are you thinking about?” he said.
+
+“I was thinking how well you speak Polish. And yet you have only been
+here once before,” answered the Englishman, bluntly.
+
+“When I was a young man there were opportunities of learning Polish in
+Paris,” said Deulin. “Yes--I learned Polish when I was young----”
+
+He had arranged the table to his satisfaction, had picked up several
+objects to examine them and replace them with care on the exact spot
+from whence he had taken them, and was now looking round the room with
+large, deep-lined eyes which were always tired and never at rest.
+
+“When one is young, one learns so much in a short time, especially if
+that time is ill-spent,” he said, airily. “That is why the virtuous
+are such poor company; they have no backbone to their past. With the
+others--'nous autres'--it is the evil deeds that form a sort of spinal
+column to our lives, rigid and strong, upon which to lean in old age
+when virtue is almost a necessity.”
+
+Finally he came round in his tour of inspection to the face opposite to
+him.
+
+“Do you know,” he said, sharply, “you are devilish absent-minded. It is
+a bad habit. It makes the world think that you have something on your
+mind. And having nothing on its own mind--or no mind to have anything
+on--it hates you for your airs of superiority.”
+
+He took up the bottle of wine which the waiter had set upon the table in
+front of him, inspected the label, and filled two glasses. He tasted the
+vintage, and made a wry face. Then he raised his shoulders with an air
+or reconciliation to the inevitable.
+
+“When I was a young--a very young diplomatist--an old scoundrel in gold
+spectacles told me that one of the first rules of the game was to appear
+content with that which you cannot alter. We must apply that rule to
+this wine. It is our old friend, Chateau la Pompe. It will not hurt you.
+It will not loosen your tongue, my friend, you need not fear that.”
+
+He spoke so significantly that Cartoner looked across the table at him.
+
+“What do you mean?”
+
+Deulin laughed and made no answer.
+
+“Do you think that my tongue requires loosening?”
+
+And the Frenchman stroked his mustache as he looked thoughtfully into
+the steady, meditating eyes.
+
+“It is not,” he said, “that you assume a reserve which one might think
+unfair. It is merely that there are so many things which you do not
+think worth saying, or wise to speak of, or necessary to communicate,
+that--well--there is nothing left but silence. And silence is sometimes
+dangerous. Not as dangerous as speech, I allow--but dangerous,
+nevertheless.”
+
+Cartoner looked at him and waited. Across the little table the two
+schools went out to meet each other--the old school of diplomacy, all
+words; the new, all silence.
+
+“Listen,” said the Frenchman. “I once knew a man into whose care
+was given the happiness of a fellow-being. There is a greater
+responsibility, by-the-way, than the well-being of a whole nation, even
+of one of the two greatest nations in the world. And that is a care
+which you and I have had upon our shoulders for a brief hour here and
+there. It was the old story; for it was the happiness of a woman. God
+knows the man meant well! But he bungled it. Bon Dieu--how he bungled
+it! He said too little. Ever since he has talked too much. She was a
+Polish woman, by-the-way, and that has left a tenderness, nay, a raw
+place, in my heart, which smarts at the sound of a Polish word. For I
+was the man.”
+
+“Well,” asked Cartoner, “what do you want to know?”
+
+“Nothing,” answered the other, quick as thought. “I only tell you the
+story as a warning. To you especially, who take so much for said
+that has not been said. You are strong, and a man. Remember that a
+woman--even the strongest--may not be able to bear such a strain as you
+can bear.”
+
+Cartoner was listening attentively enough. He always listened with
+attention to his friend on such rare occasions as he chose to be
+serious.
+
+“You know,” went on Deulin, after a pause, during which the waiter had
+set before him a battered silver dish from which he removed the cover
+with a flourish full of promise--“you know that I would give into
+your care unreservedly anything that I possessed, such as a fortune,
+or--well--a daughter. I would trust you entirely. But any man may make
+a mistake. And if you make a mistake now, I shall never forgive
+you--never.”
+
+And his eyes flashed with a sudden fierceness as he looked at his
+companion.
+
+“Is there anything I can do for you, my friend?” he asked, curtly.
+
+“You have already promised to do the only thing I would ask you to do in
+Warsaw,” replied Cartoner.
+
+Deulin held up one hand in a gesture commanding silence.
+
+“Not another word--they cost you so much, a few words--I understand
+perfectly.”
+
+Then with a rapid relapse into his gayer mood he turned to the dish
+before him.
+
+“And now let us consider the railway beef. It promises little. But it
+cannot be so tough and indigestible as the memory of a mistake--I tell
+you that.”
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+THE QUIET CITY
+
+The most liberal-minded man in Russia at this time was the Czar. He had
+chosen his ministers from among the nobles who were at least tolerant of
+advance, if they did not actually advocate it. Much as he hated to make
+a change, he had in one or two instances parted with old and trusted
+servants--friends of his boyhood--rather than forgo one item of his
+policy. In other cases he had appealed to the memory of their long
+friendship in order to bring his nobles not to his own way of thinking,
+for he could not do that, but to his own plan of action.
+
+“I do not agree with you, but I will serve you,” had answered one of
+these, and the Czar, who did not know where to turn to find the man he
+needed, accepted such service.
+
+For a throne stands in isolation, and no man may judge another by
+looking down upon him, but must needs descend into the crowd, and,
+mingling there on a lower level, pick out for himself the honest man or
+the clever man--or that rare being, the man who is both.
+
+Kings and emperors may not do this, however. Despots dare not. Alexander
+II. acted as any ordinary man acts when he finds himself in a position
+to confer favors, to make appointments, to get together, as it were, a
+ministry, even if this takes no more dignified a form than a board of
+directors. He suspected that the world contained precisely the men he
+wanted, if he could only let down a net into it and draw them up. How,
+otherwise, could he select them? So he did the usual thing. He looked
+round among his relations, and, failing them, the friends of his youth.
+For an emperor, popularly supposed to have the whole world to choose
+from, has no larger a choice than any bourgeois looking round his own
+small world for a satisfactory executor.
+
+Coming to the throne, as he did, in the midst of a losing fight, his
+first task was to conclude a humiliating peace. He must needs bow down
+to the upstart adventurer of France, who had tricked England into a
+useless war in order to steady his own tottering throne.
+
+Alexander II., moreover, came to power with the avowed intention of
+liberating the serfs, which intention he carried out, and paid for with
+his own life in due time. Russia had been the only country to stand
+aloof on the slave question, thus branding herself in two worlds
+as still uncivilized. The young Czar knew that such a position was
+untenable. “Without the serf the Russian Empire must crumble away,” his
+advisers told him. “With the serf she cannot endure,” he answered And
+twenty-two millions of men were set free. In this act he stood almost
+alone; for hardly a single minister was with him heart and soul, though
+many obeyed him loyally enough against their own convictions. Many
+honestly thought that this must be the end of the Russian Empire.
+
+It is hard to go against the advice of those near at hand; for their
+point of view must always appear to be the same as one's own, while
+counsel from afar comes as the word of one who is looking at things from
+another stand-point, and may thus be more easily mistaken.
+
+Alexander II., called suddenly to reign over one-tenth part of the human
+race, men of different breed and color, of the three great contending
+religions and a hundred minor churches, was himself a nervous,
+impressionable man, suffering from ill-health, bowed down with the
+weight of his great responsibility. His father died in his arms,
+broken-hearted, bequeathing him an empire invaded by the armies of five
+European nations, hated of all the world, despised of all mankind. Even
+to-day there is a sinister sound in the very name of Russian. Men turn
+to look twice at one who comes from that stupendous empire. It is said
+that an hereditary melancholy broods beneath the weightiest earthly
+crown. History tells that none wearing it has ever reached a hale old
+age. Soldiers still hearty, still wearing the sword they have carried
+through half a dozen campaigns, bow to-day in the Winter Palace before
+their sovereign, having taken the oath of allegiance to four successive
+Czars.
+
+Half in, half out of Europe, Alexander II. awoke with his own hand the
+great nation still wrapped in the sleep of the Middle Ages, only to
+find that he had stirred a slumbering power whose movements were soon
+to prove beyond control. He poured out education like water upon the
+surface of a vast field full of hidden seed, which must inevitably
+spring up wheat or tares--a bountiful harvest of good or a terrific
+growth of evil. He made reading and writing compulsory to the whole of
+his people. With a stroke of the pen he threw aside the last prop to
+despotic rule. Yet he hoped to continue Czar of All the Russias. This
+tall, pale, gentle, determined man was a man of courage. When the time
+came he faced the consequence of his own temerity with an unflinching
+eye.
+
+“What do you want of me?” he asked, the very moment after he had been
+saved almost by a miracle from assassination. For he knew that he was
+giving more than was wise. It is said that he was puzzled and thoughtful
+after each attempt upon his life.
+
+The war with Turkey was the first sign that Russia was awakening--that
+the soldiers knew how to read and write. It was the first time in
+history that the nation forced a Czar to declare war, and Servia was
+full of Russian volunteers fighting for Christian Slavs before the
+Emperor realized that he must fight--and fight alone, for no nation in
+Europe would help him. He had taught Russia to read; had raised the veil
+of ignorance that hung between his people and the rest of civilization.
+They had read of the Bulgarian atrocities, and there was no holding
+them.
+
+To rule autocratically what was then the vastest empire in the world was
+in itself more than one brain could compass. But in addition to his
+own internal troubles, Alexander II. was surrounded by European
+difficulties. England, his steady, deadly enemy, despite a declaration
+of neutrality, was secretly helping Turkey. Austria, as usual, the
+dog waiting on the threshold, was ready to side with the winner--for a
+consideration. No wonder this man was always weary. It is said that all
+through his reign he received and despatched telegrams at any hour of
+the night.
+
+No wonder that his heart was hardened towards Poland. The most
+liberal-minded Czar had his mean point, as every man must have. There
+are many great and good men who will write a check readily enough and
+look twice at a penny. There are many who will give generously with one
+hand while grasping with the other that which is really the property of
+their neighbor. Alexander's mean point was Poland.
+
+On the occasion of his first imperial visit to Warsaw he said, in the
+cold, calm voice which was so hated and feared: “Gentlemen, let us
+have no more dreams.” Eleven years later he reminded an influential
+deputation of Polish nobles of the unforgiven and unforgotten words,
+commending the caution to their attention again. He paid frequent visits
+to Warsaw on one excuse or another. This dreamer would have no dreaming
+in his dominion. This mean man must ever be looking at his hoard.
+The chief interest in the study of a human life lies around the
+inexplicable. If we were quite consistent we should be entirely dull. No
+one knows why this liberal autocrat was mean to Poland.
+
+From Warsaw, the city which has been commanded to stand still, Cartoner
+travelled across the plains of endless snow towards the north. He found
+as he progressed a hundred signs of the awakening. The very faces of
+the people had changed since he last looked upon them only a few
+years earlier. These people were now a nation, conscious of their own
+strength. They had fought in a great and victorious war, not because
+they had been commanded to fight, but because they wanted to. They had
+followed with understanding the diplomatic warfare that succeeded the
+signing of the treaty of San Stefano. They had won and lost. They were
+men, and no longer driven beasts.
+
+It was evening when Cartoner arrived at St. Petersburg. The long
+northern twilight had begun, and the last glow of the western sky was
+reflected on the golden dome of St. Isaac's, while the arrowy spire of
+the Admiralty shot up into a cloudless sky.
+
+The Warsaw Railway Station is in a quiet part of the town, and the
+streets through which Cartoner drove in his hired sleigh were almost
+deserted. It was the hour of the promenade in the Summer Garden, or the
+drive in the Newski Prospect, so that all the leisured class were in
+another quarter of the town. St. Petersburg is, moreover, the most
+spacious capital in the world, where there is more room than the
+inhabitants can occupy, where the houses are too large and the streets
+too wide. The Catherine Canal was, of course, frozen, and its broken
+surface had a dirty, ill-kept air, while the snow was spotted with
+rubbish and refuse, and trodden down into numberless paths and
+crossings. Cartoner looked at it indifferently. It had no history yet.
+The streets were silent beneath their cloak of snow. All St. Petersburg
+is silent for nearly half the year, and is the quietest city in the
+world, excepting Venice.
+
+The sleigh sped across the Nicholas Bridge to the Vasili Island. The
+river showed no signs of spring yet. The usual pathways across it were
+still in use. The Vasili Ostrov is less busy than that greater part of
+the city which lies across the river. Behind the academy of Arts, and
+leading out of the Bolshoi Prospect, are a number of parallel streets
+where quiet people live--lawyers and merchants, professors at the
+university or at one or other of the numerous schools and colleges
+facing the river and looking across it towards the English Quay.
+
+It was to one of these streets that Cartoner had told his driver to
+proceed, and the man had some difficulty in finding the number. It was a
+house like any other in the street--like any other in any other street.
+For St. Petersburg is a monstrous town, showing a flat face to the
+world, exhibiting to the sky a flat expanse of roof broken here and
+there by some startling inequality, the dagger-like spire of St. Peter
+and St. Paul, the great roof of the Kasan Cathedral, the dome of St.
+Isaac's--the largest cathedral in the world.
+
+When the sleigh at length drew up with a shrill clang of bells the
+door-keeper came from beneath the great porch without enthusiasm. His
+was a quiet house, and he did not care for strangers, especially at this
+time, when every man looked askance at a new-comer and the police gave
+the dvorniks no peace. He seemed to recognize Cartoner, however, for he
+raised his hand to his peaked cap when he answered that the gentleman
+asked for was within.
+
+“On the second floor. You will remember the door,” he said, over his
+shoulder, as Cartoner, having paid the driver, hurried towards the
+house, leaving the dvornik to bring the luggage.
+
+Cartoner's summons at the door on the second floor was answered by
+a clumsy Russian maid-servant, who smiled a broad, good-natured
+recognition when she saw him, and, turning without a word, led the
+way along a narrow passage. The smell of tobacco smoke and a certain
+bareness of wall and floor suggested a bachelor's home. The maid opened
+the door of a room and stood aside for Cartoner to pass in.
+
+Seated near an open wood-fire was a man with grizzled hair and a short,
+brown beard, which had the look of concealing a determined chin. He
+was in the act of filling a wooden pipe from a jar on the table, and he
+stood up, pipe in hand, to greet the new-comer.
+
+“Ah!” he said. “I was wondering if you would come, or if you had got
+other work to do.”
+
+“No, I am at the same work. And you?”
+
+“As you see,” replied the bearded man, dragging forward a chair with his
+foot and seating himself again before the fire. “I am here still, where
+you left me”--he paused to make a brief calculation--“five years ago. I
+stayed here all through the war--all through the Berlin Congress, when
+it was not good to be an Englishman in Petersburg. But I stayed. Tallow!
+It does not sound heroic, but the world must have its tallow. And there
+is a simplicity about commerce, you know.”
+
+He gave a short laugh--the laugh of a man who had tried something and
+failed. Something that was not commerce, for his voice and speech had a
+ring of other things.
+
+“Can you put me up?” asked Cartoner. “Only for a few days, perhaps.”
+
+“As long as you stay in Petersburg you stay in these rooms,” replied the
+other, gravely.
+
+Cartoner nodded his thanks and sat down. Their attitude towards each
+other had the repose which is only existent in a friendship that has
+lasted since childhood.
+
+“Well?” he inquired.
+
+“Gad!” exclaimed the other, “we are in a queer way. I went to the opera
+the other evening. He showed his face in the imperial box and the house
+was empty in half an hour. He always drives alone in his sleigh now, so
+that only one royal life may go at a time. They'll get him--they'll get
+him! And he knows it.”
+
+“Fools!” said Cartoner.
+
+“They are worse than fools,” answered the other. “The man is down, and
+they strike him. His asthma is worse. He has half a dozen complaints.
+His policy has failed. It was the finest policy ever tried in Russia.
+He is the finest Czar they have ever had. He gave them trial by jury; he
+abolished corporal punishment. Fools! they are the scum of this earth,
+Cartoner!”
+
+“I know,” replied Cartoner, in his gentle way, “students who cannot
+learn--workmen who will not work--women whom no one will marry.”
+
+“Yes, the sons and daughters of the serfs that he emancipated. It makes
+one sick to talk of them. Let me hear about yourself.”
+
+“Well,” answered Cartoner, “I have had nothing to eat since breakfast.”
+
+“That is all you have to tell me about yourself?”
+
+“That is all.”
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+THE PAYMENT
+
+It was on every gossip's tongue in St. Petersburg that Jeliaboff had
+been arrested.
+
+“It is the beginning of the end,” men said. “They will now catch the
+others. The new reign of terror is over.”
+
+But Jeliaboff himself--a dangerous man (one of the Terrorists), the
+chief of the plot to blow up the imperial train at the Alexandroff
+Station--said that it was not so. This also, the mere bravado of an
+arrested criminal, was bandied from mouth to mouth.
+
+For two years the most extraordinary agitation of modern days had held
+Russian society within its grip. All the world seemed to whisper. Men
+walking in the streets turned to glance over their shoulders at the
+approach of a step, at the sound of a sleigh-bell. The women were in
+the secret, too; and when the women touch politics they are politics
+no longer. For there should be no real emotion in politics; only the
+stimulated emotion of the platform.
+
+For two years the Czar had been slowly and surely ostracized by a
+persecution which was as cruel as it was unreasoning.
+
+In former days the curious, and the many who loved to look on royalty,
+had studied his habits and hours to the end that they might gain a
+glimpse of him or perhaps a bow from the courteous Emperor. Now his
+habits and his daily life were watched for quite another purpose. If
+it was known that he would pass through a certain street, he was now
+allowed a monopoly of that thoroughfare. None passed nearer to the
+Winter Palace than he could help. If the Czar was seen to approach, men
+hurried in the opposite direction; women called their children to them.
+He was a leper among his own people.
+
+“Do not go to the opera to-morrow,” one lady would say to another. “I
+have heard that the Czar is to be there.”
+
+“Do not pass through the Little Sadovaia,” men said to one another; “the
+street is mined. Do not let your wife linger in the Newski Prospect; it
+is honeycombed by mines.”
+
+The Czar withdrew himself, as a man must who perceives that others
+shrink from him; as the leper who sees even the pitiful draw aside his
+cloak. But some ceremonies he would not relinquish; and to some duties
+he remained faithful, calmly facing the risk, which he fully recognized.
+
+He went to the usual Sunday review on the 12th of March, as all the
+world knows. It was a brilliant, winter morning. The sun shone from a
+cloudless sky upon streets and houses buried still beneath their winter
+covering of snow. The houses always look too large for their inmates,
+the streets too wide for those that walk them. St. Petersburg was
+planned on too large a scale by the man who did everything largely,
+and made his window looking out upon Europe a bigger window than the
+coldness of his home would allow.
+
+The review passed off successfully. The Czar, men said, was in good
+spirits. He had that morning signed a decree which was now in the hands
+of Loris Melikoff, and would to-morrow be given to the world, proving
+even to the most sceptical for the hundredth time that he had at heart
+the advance of Russia--the greater liberty of his people.
+
+Instead of returning direct to the Winter Palace, the Czar paid his
+usual visit to his cousin, the Grand Duchess Catherine. He quitted her
+palace at two o'clock in his own carriage, accompanied by half a dozen
+Cossacks. His officers followed in two sleighs. It was never known which
+way he would take. He himself gave the order to the coachman. He knew
+the streets as thoroughly as the driver himself; for he had always
+walked in them unattended, unheeded, and unknown--had always mixed with
+his subjects. This was no French monarch living in an earthly heaven
+above his people. He knew--always had known--what men said to each other
+in the streets.
+
+He gave the order to go to the Winter Palace by way of the Catherine
+Canal, which was not the direct way. Had he passed down the Newski
+Prospect half of that great street would have been blown to the skies.
+The road running by the side of the Catherine Canal was in 1881 a quiet
+enough thoroughfare, with large houses staring blankly across the frozen
+canal. The canal itself was none too clean a sight, for the snow was old
+and soiled and strewed with refuse. In some places there were gardens
+between the road and the waterways, but most of its length was bounded
+by a low wall and a railing.
+
+The road itself was almost deserted. The side streets of St. Petersburg
+are quieter than the smaller thoroughfares of any other city in the
+world. A confectioner's boy was alone on the pavement, hurrying along
+and whistling as he went on his Sunday errand of delivery. He hardly
+glanced at the carriage that sped past him. Perhaps he saw a man looking
+over the low wall at the approach of the cavalcade. Perhaps he saw the
+bomb thrown and heard the deafening report. Though none can say what he
+heard or saw at that minute, for he was dead the next.
+
+The bomb had fallen under the carriage at the back. A Cossack and his
+horse, following the imperial conveyance, were instantly killed. The
+Czar stepped out from amid the debris on to the torn and riven snow.
+He stumbled, and took a proffered arm. They found blood on the cushions
+afterwards. At that moment the only thought in his mind seemed to be
+anger, and he glanced at the dying Cossack--at the dead baker-boy. The
+pavement and the road were strewn with wounded--some lying quite still,
+others attempting to lift themselves with numbed and charred limbs. It
+was very cold.
+
+Ryssakoff, who had thrown the bomb, was already in the hands of his
+captors. Had the crowd been larger, had the official element been
+weaker, he would have been torn to pieces then and there. The Czar went
+towards him. Some say that he spoke to him. But no clear account of
+those few moments was ever obtained. The noise, the confusion, the
+terror of it seemed to have deadened the faculties of all who took part
+in this tragedy, and they could only act mechanically, as men who were
+walking in their sleep.
+
+Already a crowd had collected. Every moment added to its numbers.
+
+“Stand back! Stand back! A second bomb is coming!” cried more than one
+voice. There are a hundred witnesses ready to testify that they heard
+this strange warning. But no man seemed to heed it. There are moments in
+the lives of men when their contempt for death raises them at one bound
+to the heights of immortality.
+
+Those around the Czar urged him to quit the spot at once. In such a
+crowd of people there must be some enemies. At last he turned and went
+towards the sleigh which had been brought forward to take the place of
+the shattered carriage. He was pale now, and walked with an effort.
+
+The onlookers stood aside to make a passage for him. Many raised their
+hats, and made silent manifestations of their respect and pity.
+
+One man, alone, stood with folded arms, hat on head, and watched the
+Czar. He was on the pavement, with his back to the iron gate leading to
+the canal. The pavement was not six feet wide, and the Czar came along
+it towards him. For a moment they faced each other. Then the freed
+son of the serf raised both hands and threw his missile on the stones
+between them--at the feet of the man who had cut the chain of his
+slavery.
+
+It was the serf who shrieked. The Emperor uttered no plaint. A puff of
+white-gray smoke rose to heaven. And those who watched there no doubt
+took note of it.
+
+A shower of snow and human debris was thrown into the air. The very
+stones of the pavement were displaced.
+
+The Emperor was on the ground against the railings. He was blind. One
+leg was gone, the other torn and mutilated to the hip. It was pitiful.
+He uttered no sound, but sought to move his bare limbs on the snow.
+
+This was the end--the payment. He discharged his debt without a murmur.
+He had done the right--against the counsel of the wise, against
+his crown and his own greatness, against his purse and his father's
+teaching. He had followed the dictates of his own conscience. He had
+done more than any other Czar, before or since, for the good of Russia.
+And this was the payment!
+
+The other--the man who had thrown the bomb--was already dead. The
+terrific explosion had sent his soul hard after the puff of white smoke,
+and in the twinkling of an eye he stood at the bar of the Great Assize.
+It is to be hoped that he made a good defence there, and did not stammer
+in the presence of his Judge.
+
+The Czar's gentlemen in attendance were all killed or wounded. He was
+left to the care of his Cossack escort, who were doing what they could
+to succor him--though, being soldiers, they knew that he had passed
+beyond all human aid. The crowd parted to make way for a tall man who
+literally threw aside all who stood in his path. It was the Emperor's
+brother, the Grand Duke Michael, brought hither by the sound of the
+first explosion. He knelt on the blood-stained snow and spoke to the
+dying man.
+
+The sleigh towards which he had been walking was now brought forward
+again, and the Czar was lifted from the snow. There was no doctor near.
+The mob drew back in dumb horror. In the crowd stood Cartoner, brought
+hither by that instinct which had made him first among the Vultures--the
+instinct that took him to the battle-field, where he was called upon to
+share the horror and reap none of the glory.
+
+His quiet eyes were ablaze for once with a sudden, helpless anger. He
+could not even give way to the first and universal impulse to kill the
+killer.
+
+He stood motionless through the brief silence that succeeded to the
+second explosion. There is a silence that follows those great events
+brought about by a man which seems to call aloud for a word from God.
+
+Then, because it was his duty to draw his buzzing thoughts together, to
+be watchful and quick, to think and act while others stood aghast, he
+took one last look at the dying Emperor, and turned to make his way
+from the crowd while yet he could. He had pieced together, with the
+slow accuracy that Deulin envied him, the small scraps of information
+obtained from one source or another in Warsaw, in London from Captain
+Cable, in St. Petersburg from half a dozen friends. This was Poland's
+opportunity. A sudden inspiration had led him to look for the centre of
+the evil, not in Warsaw, but in St. Petersburg. And that which other men
+called his luck had brought him within sound of the first explosion by
+the side of the Catherine Canal.
+
+He passed through a back street and out into wider thoroughfares. He
+hurried as much as was prudent, and in a few moments was beyond the
+zone, as it were, of alarm and confusion. A sleigh came towards him. The
+driver was half asleep, and looked about him with a placid, stupid face.
+Here was a man who had heard nothing.
+
+Cartoner called him, and did not wait for him to descend to unhook the
+heavy leather apron.
+
+“The telegraph office,” he said.
+
+And when the driver had settled down to his usual breakneck speed, he
+urged him to go faster. The passers on the pavement were going about
+their ordinary business now, bent on paying Sunday calls or taking
+Sunday exercise. None knew yet what had taken place a few hundred yards
+away.
+
+Cartoner sat with clenched teeth and thought. He had a strong grasp over
+his own emotions, but his limbs were shaking inside his thick furs. He
+made a supreme effort of memory. It was a moment in a lifetime, and he
+knew it. Which is not always the case, for great moments often appear
+great only when we look back at them.
+
+He had not his code-books with him. He dared not carry them in the
+streets of St. Petersburg, where arrest might meet him at any corner by
+mistake or on erroneous suspicion. His head was stored with a thousand
+things to be remembered. Could he trust his memory to find the right
+word, or the word that came nearest to the emergency of this moment?
+Could he telegraph that the Emperor was dead when he had last seen him
+living, but assuredly feeling his way across the last frontier? The
+Czar must assuredly be dead before a telegram despatched now could reach
+England. It was a risk. But Cartoner was of a race of men who seem to
+combine with an infinite patience the readiness to take a heavy risk at
+a given moment.
+
+The telegraph office was quiet. The clerks were dignified and sedate
+behind their caging--stiff and formal within their semi-military
+uniform. They knew nothing. As soon as the news reached them the
+inexorable wire windows would be shut down, and no unofficial telegrams
+could be despatched from Russia.
+
+Cartoner had five minutes' start, perhaps, in front of the whole world.
+Five minutes might suffice to flash his news beyond the reach of recall.
+
+The sense of discipline was strong in him. His first message was to
+London--a single word from the storehouse of his infallible memory.
+
+He sent a second telegram to Deulin, in Warsaw, which was no longer.
+The first message might reach its destination. The chances of the second
+were not so good, and the second might mean life or death to Wanda. He
+walked slowly back towards the double doors. He might even gain a minute
+there, he thought, by simulating clumsiness with the handle should any
+one wish to enter in haste. He was at the outer door when a man hurried
+up the steps. This was a small man, with a pale and gentle face, and
+eyes in which a dull light seemed to smoulder.
+
+Cartoner detained him on the step for quite half a minute by
+persistently turning the handle the wrong way. When at length he was
+allowed to enter, he swore at the Englishman in a low voice as he
+passed, which Captain Cable would have recognized had he heard it. The
+two men looked at each other in the twilight between the doors. Each
+knew that the other knew. Then the little man passed in. The front of
+his black coat had a white stain upon it, as if he had been holding
+a loaf of bread under his arm. Cartoner noticed it, and remembered it
+afterwards, when he learned that the bombs which seem to have been sown
+broadcast in the streets of St. Petersburg that day were painted white.
+
+He crossed the square to the Winter Palace, and stood with the silent
+crowd there until the bells told all Petersburg the news that the
+mightiest monarch had been called to stand before a greater than any
+earthly throne.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+A LOVE-LETTER
+
+The next morning Miss Netty Cahere took her usual walk in the Saski
+Gardens. It was much warmer at Warsaw than at St. Petersburg, and the
+snow had melted, except where it lay in gray heaps on either side of the
+garden walks. The trees were not budding yet, but the younger bark of
+the small branches was changing color. The first hidden movements of
+spring were assuredly astir, and Netty felt kindly towards all mankind.
+
+She wished at times that there were more people in Warsaw to be kind to.
+It is dull work being persistently amiable to one's elderly relatives.
+Netty sometimes longed for a little more excitement, especially,
+perhaps, for the particular form of excitement which leads one-half of
+the world to deck itself in bright colors in the spring for the greater
+pleasure of the other half.
+
+She wished that Cartoner would come back; for he was an unsolved problem
+to her, and there had been very few unsolved male problems in her brief
+experience. She had usually found men very easy to understand, and the
+failure to achieve her simple purpose in this instance aroused, perhaps,
+an additional attention. She thought it was that, but she was not quite
+sure. She had not arrived at a clear definition in her own mind as to
+what she thought of Cartoner. She was quite sure, however, that he was
+different from other men.
+
+She had not seen Kosmaroff again, and the memory of her strange
+interview with him had lost sharpness. But she was conscious of a
+conviction that he had merely to come again, and he would regain at once
+the place he had so suddenly and violently taken in her thoughts. She
+knew that he was in the background of her mind, as it were, and might
+come forward at any moment. She often walked down the Bednarska to the
+river, and displayed much interest in the breaking up of the ice.
+
+As to Prince Martin Bukaty, she had definitely settled that he was nice.
+It is a pity that the word nice as applied to the character of a young
+man dimly suggests a want of interest. He was so open and frank that
+there was really no mystery whatever about him. And Netty rather liked
+a mystery. Of course it was most interesting that he should be a prince.
+Even Aunt Julie, that great teacher of equality, closed her lips after
+speaking of the Bukatys, with an air of tasting something pleasant. It
+was a great pity that the Bukatys were so poor. Netty gave a little sigh
+when she thought of their poverty.
+
+In the mean time, Martin was the only person at hand. She did not count
+Paul Deulin, who was quite old, of course, though interesting enough
+when he chose to be. Netty walked backward and forward down the broad
+walk in the middle of those gardens, which the government have so
+frequently had to close against public manifestations, and wondered
+why Martin was so long in coming. For the chance meetings had gradually
+resolved themselves into something very much like an understanding,
+if not a distinct appointment. All people engaging in the game of love
+should be warned that it is a game which never stands still, but must
+move onward or backward. You may play it one day in jest, and find that
+it must be played in earnest next time. You may never take it up just
+where you left it, for the stake must always be either increasing or
+diminishing. And this is what makes it rather an interesting game. For
+you may never tell what it may grow to, and while it is in progress,
+none ever believe that it will have an end.
+
+Netty liked Martin very much. Had he been a rich prince instead of a
+poor one, she would, no doubt, have liked him very much better. And it
+is a thousand pities that more young persons have not their affections
+in such practical and estimable control. Though, to be strictly just, it
+is young men who are guilty in this respect, much more than the maidens
+with whom they fall in love. It is rare, in fact, that a young girl is
+oblivious to the practical side of that which many mothers teach them to
+be the business of their lives. But then it is very rare that a girl is
+in love with the man she marries. Sometimes she thinks she is. Sometimes
+she does not even go so far as that.
+
+Netty was, no doubt, engaged in these and other golden dreams of
+maidenhood as she walked in the Saski Gardens this March morning.
+The faces of those who passed her were tranquil enough. The news of
+yesterday's doings in St. Petersburg had not reached Warsaw, or, at
+all events, had not been given to the public yet. Even rumor is
+leaden-footed in this backward country.
+
+Presently Netty sat down. Martin had never kept her waiting, and she
+felt angry and rather more anxious to see him, perhaps, than she had
+ever been before. The seats were, of course, deserted, for the air was
+cold. Down the whole length of the gardens there was only one other
+occupant of the polished stone benches--an old man, sitting huddled up
+in his shabby sheepskin coat. He seemed to be absorbed in thought, or in
+the dull realization of his own misery, and took no note of the passers.
+
+Netty hardly glanced at him. She was looking impatiently towards the
+Kotzebue gate, which was the nearest to the Bukaty Palace of all the
+entrances to the Saski Gardens. At length she saw Martin, not in the
+gardens, but in the Kotzebue Street itself. She recognized his hat and
+fair hair through the railings. He was walking with some one who might
+almost have been Kosmaroff, better dressed than usual. But they parted
+hurriedly before she could make sure, and Martin came towards the gate
+of the gardens. He had evidently seen her and recognized her, but he did
+not come to her with his usual joyous hurry. He paused, and looked all
+ways before quitting the narrower path and coming out into the open.
+
+Netty was at the lower end of the central avenue, close to the old
+palace of the king of Saxony, where there is but little traffic; for the
+two principal thoroughfares are at the farther corner of the gardens,
+near to the two market-places and the Jewish quarter.
+
+It thus happened that there was no one in Netty's immediate vicinity
+except the old man, huddled up in his ragged coat. Martin paused to
+satisfy himself that he was not followed, and then came towards her,
+but Netty could see that he did not intend to stop and speak. He did not
+even bow as he approached, but passing close by her he dropped a folded
+note at her feet, and walked on without looking round.
+
+There were others passing now in either direction, but Netty seemed to
+know exactly how to act. She sat with her foot on the note until they
+had gone. Then she stooped and picked up the paper. The precautions were
+unnecessary, it seemed, for no one was even looking in her direction.
+
+
+“I must not speak to you,” Martin wrote, “for there is danger in it--not
+to me, but to yourself. That of which you will not let me tell you is
+for to-night. Whatever you hear or see, do not leave your rooms at the
+Europe. I have already provided for your safety. There is great news,
+but no one knows it yet. Whatever happens, I shall always be thinking
+of you, and--no! I must not say that. But to-morrow I may be able to say
+it--who knows! I shall walk to the end of the garden and back again; but
+I must not even bow to you. If you go away before I pass again, leave
+something on the seat that I may keep until I see you again--your glove
+or a flower, to be my talisman.”
+
+
+Netty smiled as she read the letter, and glanced at Martin down the
+length of the broad walk, with the tolerant softness still in her eyes.
+She rather liked his old-fashioned chivalry, which is certainly no
+longer current to-day, and would, perhaps, be out of place between
+two young persons united fondly by a common sport or a common taste in
+covert-coating.
+
+Martin was at the far end of the gardens now, and in a minute would turn
+and come towards her again. She had not long in which to think and to
+make up her mind. She had, as Martin wrote, prevented him from telling
+her of those political matters in which he was engaged. But she knew
+that events were about to take place which might restore the fortunes of
+the Bukatys. Should these fortunes be restored she knew that the prince
+would be the first man in Poland. He might even be a king. For the crown
+had gone by ballot in the days when Poland was a monarchy.
+
+Netty had some violets pinned in the front of her jacket. She
+thoughtfully removed them, and sat looking straight in front of
+her--absorbed in maiden calculations. If Prince Bukaty should be first
+in Poland, Prince Martin must assuredly be second. She laid the violets
+on the stone seat. Martin had turned now though he was still far away.
+She looked towards him, still thinking rapidly. He was a man of honor.
+She knew that. She had fully gauged the honor of more than one man;
+had found it astonishingly reliable. The honor of women was quite
+a different question. That which Prince Martin said in the day
+of adversity he would assuredly adhere to in other circumstances.
+“Besides--” And she smiled a thoughtful smile of conscious power as she
+bent her head to rebutton her jacket and arrange her furs.
+
+She tore the letter into small pieces and threw it behind the heap of
+snow at the back of the seat upon which she sat. Then she rose, looked
+at the bunch of violets still lying where she had laid them, and walked
+slowly away. She glanced over her shoulder at the old man sitting
+beneath the leafless trees at the other side of the broad avenue. He sat
+huddled within the high collar of his coat and heeded nothing. There was
+no one near to the seat that she had just vacated, and Martin was now
+going towards it. She hurried to the Saxon Palace, and as she passed
+beneath its arches turned just in time to see Martin bend over the stone
+seat and take up his talisman. He did it without disguise or haste.
+Any one may pick up a flower, especially one that has been dropped by a
+pretty girl.
+
+Martin walked on, and turned to the left down the path that leads to the
+Kotzebue gate.
+
+Then the old man on the seat nearly opposite to that upon which Netty
+had been sitting seemed to arouse himself from the lethargy of misery.
+He turned his head within his high collar, and watched Martin until
+he was out of sight. Netty had disappeared almost at once beneath the
+arches of the covered passages of the palace.
+
+After a pause the old man rose, and crossing the pathway, sat down
+on the seat vacated by Netty. He waited there a few minutes until the
+passers-by had their backs turned towards him, and there was no one near
+enough to notice his movements. Then he stepped, nimbly enough, across
+the bank of gray snow, and collected the pieces of the letter which
+Netty had thrown there. He brought them back to the stone seat and
+spread them out there, like parts of a puzzle. He was, it seemed, an
+expert at such things; for in a moment he had them in order, and had
+pieced together the upper half of the paper. Moreover, he must have been
+a linguist; the note was written in English, and this Warsaw waif of the
+public gardens seemed to read it without difficulty.
+
+“That of which you will not let me tell you is for to-night,” he
+read, and instantly felt for his watch within the folds of his ancient
+clothing. It was not yet mid-day. But the man seemed suddenly in a
+flurry, as if there were more to be done before nightfall than he could
+possibly compass.
+
+He collected the papers and placed them carefully inside a shabby purse.
+Then he rose and departed in the direction of the governor-general's
+palace. He must have been pressed for time, for he quite forgot to walk
+with the deliberation that would have beseemed his apparent years.
+
+Netty walked round the outside of the gardens, and ultimately turned
+into the Senatorska, the street recommended to her by her uncle as being
+composed of the best shops in the town. Oddly enough, she met Joseph
+Mangles there--not loitering near the windows, but hurrying along.
+
+“Ah!” he said, “thought I might meet you here.”
+
+He was, it appeared, as simple as other old gentlemen, and leaped to the
+conclusion that if Netty was out-of-doors she must necessarily be in the
+Senatorska. He suited his pace to hers. His head was thrust forward, and
+he appeared to have something to think about, for he offered no remark
+for some minutes.
+
+“The mail is in,” he then observed, in his usual lugubrious tone, as if
+the post had brought him his death-warrant.
+
+“Ah!” answered Netty, glancing up at him. She was sure that something
+had happened. “Have you had important news?”
+
+“Had nothing by the mail,” he answered, looking straight in front of
+him. And Netty asked no more questions.
+
+“Your aunt Jooly,” he said, after a pause, “has had an interesting mail.
+She has been offered the presidency--”
+
+“Of the United States?” asked Netty, with a little laugh, seeing that
+Joseph paused.
+
+“Not yet,” he answered, with deep gravity. “Of the Massachusetts Women
+Bachelors' Federation.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“She'll accept,” opined Joseph P. Mangles, lugubriously.
+
+“Is it a great honor?”
+
+“There are different sorts of greatness,” Joseph replied.
+
+“What is the Massachusetts Women Bachelors' Federation?”
+
+Joseph Mangles did not reply immediately. He stepped out into the road
+to allow a lady to pass. He was an American gentleman of the old school,
+and still offered to the stronger sex that which they intend to take for
+themselves in the future.
+
+“Think it is like the blue-ribbon army,” he said, when he returned to
+Netty's side. “The sight of the ribbon induces the curious to offer
+the abstainer drink. The Massachusetts Bachelor Women advertise their
+membership of the Federation, just to see if there is any man around who
+will induce 'em to resign.”
+
+“Is Aunt Julie pleased?” asked Netty.
+
+“Almighty,” was the brief reply. “And she will accept it. She will
+marry the paid secretary. They have a paid secretary. President usually
+marries him. He is not a bachelor-woman. They're mostly worms--the men
+that help women to make fools of themselves.”
+
+This was very strong language for Uncle Joseph, who usually seemed
+to have a latent admiration for his gifted sister's greatness. Netty
+suspected that he was angry, or put out by something else, and made the
+Massachusetts Women Bachelors bear the brunt of his displeasure.
+
+“She is a masterful woman is Aunt Jooly,” he said; “she'll give him his
+choice between dismissal and--and earthly paradise.”
+
+Netty laughed soothingly, and glanced up at him again. He was walking
+along with huge, lanky strides, much more hurriedly than he was aware
+of. His head was thrust forward, and his chin went first as if to push a
+way through a crowded world.
+
+And it was borne in upon Netty that Uncle Joseph had received some
+order; that he was pluming his ragged old wings for flight.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+THIN ICE
+
+It was not yet mid-day when Paul Deulin called at the Bukaty Palace.
+
+“Is the prince in?” he asked. “Is he busy?” he added, when the servant
+had stood back with a gesture inviting him to enter. But the man only
+shrugged his shoulders with a smile. The prince, it appeared, was never
+busy. Deulin found him, in fact, in an arm-chair in his study, reading a
+German newspaper.
+
+The prince looked at him over the folded sheet. They had known each
+other since boyhood, and could read perhaps more in each other's
+wrinkled and drawn faces than the eyes of a younger generation were able
+to perceive. The prince pointed to the vacant arm-chair at the other
+side of the fireplace. Deulin took the chair with that leisureliness of
+movement and demeanor of which Lady Orlay, and Cartoner, and others
+who were intimate with him, knew the inner meaning. His eyes were oddly
+bright.
+
+They waited until the servant had closed the door behind him, and even
+then they did not speak at once, but sat looking at each other in the
+glow of the wood-fire. Then Deulin shrugged his shoulders, and made,
+with both hands outspread, a gesture indicative of infinite pity.
+
+“Do you know?” said the prince, grimly.
+
+“I knew at eight o'clock this morning. Cartoner advised me of it by a
+cipher telegram.”
+
+“Cartoner?” said the prince, interrogatively.
+
+“Cartoner is in Petersburg. He went there presumably to attend
+this--pleasing denouement.”
+
+The prince gave a short laugh.
+
+“How well,” he said, folding his newspaper, and laying it aside
+reflectively--“how well that man knows his business. But why did he
+telegraph to you?”
+
+“We sometimes do each other a good turn,” explained Deulin, rather
+curtly. “It must have happened yesterday afternoon. One can only hope
+that--it was soon over.”
+
+The prince laughed, and looked across at the Frenchman with a glitter
+beneath his shaggy brows.
+
+“My friend,” he said, “you must not ask me to get up any sentiment on
+this occasion. Do not let us attempt to be anything but what God made
+us--plain men, with a few friends, whom one would regret; and a number
+of enemies, of whose death one naturally learns with equanimity. The man
+was a thief. He was a great man and in a great position, which only made
+him the greater thief.”
+
+The prince moved his crippled legs with an effort and contemplated the
+fire.
+
+“He is dead,” he went on, after a pause, “and there is an end to it. I
+do not pray that he may go to eternal punishment. I only want him to be
+dead; and he is dead. Voila! It is a matter of rejoicing.”
+
+“You are a ruffian; I always said you were a ruffian,” said Deulin,
+gravely.
+
+“I am a man, my friend, who has an object in life. An object, moreover,
+which cannot take into consideration a human life here or there, a human
+happiness more or less. You see, I do not even ask you to agree with me
+or to approve of me.”
+
+“My friend, in the course of a long life I have learned only one
+effective lesson--to judge no man,” put in Deulin.
+
+“Remember,” continued the prince, “I deplore the method. I understand it
+was a bomb. I take no part in such proceedings. They are bad policy.
+You will see--we shall both see, if we live long enough--that this is a
+mistake. It will alienate all sympathies from the party. They have not
+even dared to approach me with any suggestion of co-operation. They have
+approached others of the Polish party and have been sent about their
+business. But--well, one would be a fool not to take advantage of every
+mishap to one's enemy.”
+
+Deulin help up one hand in a gesture imploring silence.
+
+“Thin ice!” he said, warningly.
+
+“Bah!” laughed the other. “You and your thin ice! I am no diplomatist--a
+man who is afraid to look over a wall.”
+
+“No. Only a man who prefers to find out what is on the other side by
+less obvious means,” corrected the Frenchman. “One must not be seen
+looking over one's neighbor's wall--that is the first commandment of
+diplomacy.”
+
+“Then why are you here?” asked the prince, abruptly, with his rough
+laugh.
+
+And Paul Deulin suddenly lost his temper. He sat bolt upright in his
+chair, and banged his two hands down on the arms of it so that the dust
+flew out. He glared across at the prince with a fierceness in his eyes
+that had not glittered there for twenty years.
+
+“You think I came here to pry into your affairs--to turn our friendship
+into a means for my own aggrandizement? You think that I report to my
+government that which you and I may say to each other, or leave unsaid,
+before your study fire? Was it not I who cried 'Thin ice'?”
+
+“Yes--yes,” answered the prince, shortly. And the two old friends glared
+at each other gleams of the fires that had burned fiercely enough in
+other days. “Yes--yes! but why are you here this morning?”
+
+“Why am I here this morning? I will tell you. I ask you no questions,
+I want to know nothing of your schemes and plans. You can run your neck
+into a noose if you like. You have been doing it all your life. And--who
+knows?--you may win at last. As for Martin, you have brought him up
+in the same school. And, bon Dieu! I suppose you are Bukatys, and you
+cannot help it. It is your affair, after all. But you shall not push
+Wanda into a Russian prison! You shall not get her to Siberia, if I can
+help it!”
+
+“Wanda!” said the prince, in some surprise--“Wanda!”
+
+“Yes. You forget--you Bukatys always have forgotten--the women. Warsaw
+is no place for Wanda to-day. And to-day's work--to-night's work--is no
+work for Wanda!”
+
+“To-night's work! What do you mean?”
+
+The prince sat forward and looked hard at his friend.
+
+“Oh, you need not be alarmed. I know nothing,” was the answer. “But I am
+not a complete fool. I put two and two together at random. I only guess,
+as you know. I have guessed all my life. And as often as not I have
+guessed right, as you know. Ah! you think I am interfering in that which
+is not my business, and I do not care a snap of the finger what you
+think!”
+
+And he illustrated this indifference with a gesture of his finger and
+thumb.
+
+The prince laughed suddenly and boisterously.
+
+“If I did not know that you had broken your heart--more than once--long
+ago,” he began. But Deulin interrupted him.
+
+“Only once,” he put in, with a short, hard laugh.
+
+“Well, only once, then. I should say that you had fallen in love with
+Wanda.”
+
+“Ah!” said Deulin, lightly, “that is an old affair. That happened when
+she used to ride upon my shoulder. And one keeps a tenderness for one's
+old loves, you know.”
+
+“Well, and what do you propose to do? I tell you honestly I have had no
+time to think of my own affairs. I have had no courage to think of them,
+perhaps. I have been at work all night. Yes, yes! I know! Thin ice! You
+ought to know it when you see it. You have been on it all your life, and
+through it--”
+
+“Only once,” repeated Deulin. “I propose what any other young lover
+would propose to do--to run away with her from Warsaw.”
+
+“When?”
+
+Deulin looked at his watch.
+
+“In half an hour. Think of the risks, Bukaty--a young girl.”
+
+And he saw a sudden fierceness in the old man's eyes. The point was
+gained.
+
+“I could take her to Cracow this evening. Your sister there will take
+her in.”
+
+“Yes, yes! But will Wanda go?”
+
+“If you tell her to go she will. I think that is the only power on earth
+that can make her do it.”
+
+The prince smiled.
+
+“You seem to know her failings. You are no lover, my friend.”
+
+“That is a question in which we are both beyond our depth. You will do
+this thing for me. I come back in half an hour.”
+
+“What about the passport, and the difficulties of getting away from
+Warsaw to-day?” asked the prince. “What we know others must know now.”
+
+“Leave those matters to me. You can safely do so. Please do not move. I
+will find my way to the door, thank you.”
+
+“If you see Wanda as you go,” called out the prince, as Deulin closed
+the door behind him, “send her to me.”
+
+Deulin did see Wanda. He had always intended to do so. He went to the
+drawing-room and there found her, busy over some household books. He
+held out beneath her eyes the telegram he had received that morning.
+
+“A telegram,” she said, looking at it. “But I cannot make out its
+meaning. I never saw or heard of that word before.”
+
+“Nevertheless the news it contains will stir the blood of men till the
+end of time,” answered Deulin, lightly. “It is from a reliable source.
+Cartoner sent it. Upon that news your father is basing that which he
+wishes to say to you in his study now.”
+
+“Ah!” said Wanda, with a ring of anxiety in her voice.
+
+“It is nothing!” put in Deulin, quickly, at the sight of her face.
+“Nothing that need disturb your thoughts or mine. It is only a question
+of empires and kingdoms.”
+
+With his light laugh, he turned away from her, and was gone before she
+could ask him a question.
+
+In half an hour he returned. He had a cab waiting at the door, and the
+passport difficulty had been overcome, he said.
+
+“The man in the street,” he added, turning to the prince, sitting beside
+Wanda, who stood before the study fire in her furs, ready to go--“the
+man in the street and the innumerable persons who carry swords in this
+city know nothing.”
+
+“They will know at the frontier,” answered the prince, “and it is there
+that you will have difficulties.”
+
+“Then it is there that we shall overcome them,” he replied, gayly. “It
+is there also, I hope, that we shall dine. For I have had no lunch. No
+matter; I lunched yesterday. I shall eat things in the train, and Wanda
+will hate me. I always hate other people's crumbs, while for my own I
+have a certain tenderness. Yes. Now let us say good-bye and be gone.”
+
+For Paul Deulin's gayety always rose to the emergency of the moment.
+He came of a stock that had made jests on the guillotine steps. He was
+suddenly pressed for time, and had scarcely a moment in which to bid
+his old friend good-bye, and no leisure to make those farewell speeches
+which are nearly always better left unsaid.
+
+“I must ask you,” he said to Wanda, when they were in the cab, “to drive
+round by the Europe, and keep you waiting a few moments while I run
+up-stairs and put together my belongings. I shall give up my room. I may
+not come back. One never knows.”
+
+And he looked curiously out of the cab window into the street that had
+run with blood twice within his own recollection. He peered into the
+faces of the passers-by as into the faces of men who were to-day, and
+to-morrow would be as the seed of grass.
+
+In the Cracow Faubourg all seemed to be as usual. Some were going about
+their business without haste or enthusiasm, as the conquered races
+always seem to do, while others appeared to have no business at all
+beyond a passing interest in the shop-windows and a leisurely sense of
+enjoyment in the sunshine. The quieter thoroughfares were quieter than
+usual, Deulin thought. But he made no comment, and Wanda seemed to be
+fully occupied with her own thoughts. The long expected, when it comes
+at last, is really more surprising than the unexpected itself.
+
+It was the luncheon hour at the Hotel de l'Europe, but the entrance
+hall was less encumbered with hats and fur coats than was usual between
+twelve and two. The man in the street might, as he had said, know
+nothing; but others, and notably the better-born, knew now that the Czar
+was dead.
+
+As Deulin was preparing to open the carriage door, Wanda spoke for the
+first time.
+
+“What will you do about the Mangles?” she asked. “We cannot let them
+remain here unwarned.”
+
+Deulin reflected for a moment.
+
+“I had forgotten them,” he answered. “In times of stress one finds out
+one's friends, because the others are forgotten. I will say a word to
+Mangles, if you like.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Wanda, sitting back in the cab so that on one should see
+her--“yes, do that.”
+
+“Odd people women are,” said Deulin to himself, as he hurried up-stairs.
+He must really have been in readiness to depart, for he came down again
+almost at once, followed by a green-aproned porter carrying his luggage.
+
+“I looked into Mangles's salon,” he said to Wanda, when he was seated
+beside her again. “He remains here alone. The ladies have already gone.
+They must have taken the mid-day train to Germany. He is no fool--that
+Mangles. But this morning he is dumb. He would say nothing.”
+
+At the station and at the frontier there were, as the prince had
+predicted, difficulties, and Deulin overcame them with the odd mixture
+of good-humor and high-handedness which formed his method of ruling men.
+He seemed to be in good spirits, and always confident.
+
+“They know,” he said, when Wanda and he were safely seated in the
+Austrian railway carriage. “They all know. Look at their stupid,
+perturbed faces. We have slipped across the frontier before they have
+decided whether they are standing on their heads or their heels. Ah!
+what a thing it is to have a smile to show the world!”
+
+“Or a grin,” he added, after a long pause, “that passes for one.”
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+FOR ANOTHER TIME
+
+The thaw came that afternoon. Shortly before sunset the rain set in;
+the persistent, splashing, cold rain that drives northward from the
+Carpathians. In a few hours the roads would be impassable. The dawn
+would see the rise of the Vistula; and there are few sights in nature
+more alarming than the steady rise of a huge river.
+
+There is to this day no paved road across the plain that lies to the
+south of Warsaw. From the capital to the village of Wilanow there
+are three roads which are sandy in dry weather, and wet in spring and
+autumn. During the rains the whole tracks, and not only the ruts, are
+under water. They are only passable and worthy of the name of road in
+winter, when the sleighs have pressed down a hard and polished track.
+
+Along the middle road--which is the worst and the least frequented--a
+number of carts made their way soon after eight o'clock at night. The
+road is not only unmade, but is neglected and allowed to fall into such
+deep ruts and puddles as to make it almost impassable. It is bordered on
+either side by trees and a deep ditch. In the late summer it is used for
+the transit of the hay which is grown on the low-lying land. In winter
+it is the shortest road to Wilanow. In spring and autumn it is not used
+at all.
+
+It was raining hard now, and the wind hummed drearily through the
+pollarded trees. Each of the four carts was dragged by three horses,
+harnessed abreast in the Russian fashion. They were the ordinary
+hay-carts of the country, to be encountered at any time on the more
+frequented road nearer to the hills, carrying produce to the city. The
+carts were going towards the city now, but they were empty.
+
+Fifty yards in front of the caravan a man splashed along through the
+standing water, his head bent to the rain. It was Kosmaroff. He was in
+his working clothes, and the rain had glued his garments to his spare
+limbs. He walked with long strides, heedless of where he set his feet.
+He had reached that stage of wetness where whole water could scarcely
+have made him wetter. Or else he had such business in hand that mere
+outward things were of no account. Every now and then he turned his
+head, half impatiently, to make sure that the carts were following him.
+The wheels made no sound on the wet sand, but the heavy wood-work of the
+carts groaned and creaked as they rolled clumsily in the deep ruts.
+
+At the cross-ways, where the shorter runs at right angles into
+the larger Wilanow road, Kosmaroff found a man waiting for him, on
+horseback, under the shadow of the trees, which are larger here. The
+horseman was riding slowly towards him from the town, and led a spare
+horse. He was in a rough peasant's overcoat of a dirty white cloth,
+drawn in at the waist, and split from heel to band, for use in the
+saddle. They wear such coats still in Poland and Galicia.
+
+Kosmaroff gave a little cough. There is nothing so unmistakable as a
+man's trick of coughing. The horseman pulled up at once.
+
+“You are punctual,” he said. “I was nearly asleep in the saddle.”
+
+And the voice was that of Prince Martin Bukaty. He had another coat
+such as he was wearing thrown across the saddle in front of him, and he
+leaned forward to hand it down to Kosmaroff.
+
+“You are not cold?” he asked.
+
+“No; I feel as if I should never be cold again.”
+
+“That is good. Put on your coat quickly. You must not catch a chill. You
+must take care of yourself.”
+
+“So must you,” answered Kosmaroff, with a little laugh.
+
+Though one was dark and the other fair, there was a subtle resemblance
+between these two men which lay, perhaps, more in gesture and limb than
+in face. There also existed between them a certain sympathy which
+the French call _camaraderie_, which was not the outcome of a long
+friendship. Far back in the days of Poland's greatness they must have
+had a common ancestor. In the age of chivalry some dark, spare knight,
+with royal blood in his veins, had perhaps fallen in love with one of
+the fair Bukatys, whose women had always been beautiful, and their men
+always reckless.
+
+Kosmaroff climbed into the saddle, and they stood side by side, waiting
+for the carts to come up. Martin's horse began to whinny at the sound
+of approaching hoofs, when its rider leaned forward in the saddle and
+struck it fiercely on the side of its great Roman nose, which sounded
+hollow, like a drum.
+
+“I suppose you had little sleep last night,” said Kosmaroff when Martin
+yawned, with his face turned up to the sky.
+
+“I had none.”
+
+“Nor I,” said Kosmaroff. “We may get some--to-morrow.”
+
+The carts now came up. Each team had two drivers, one walking on either
+side.
+
+“You know what to do,” said Martin to these in turn. “Come to the
+iron-foundry, where you will find us waiting for you. When you are laden
+you are to go straight back as quickly as you can by this same road to
+the military earthworks, where you will find our friends drawn up in
+line. You are to turn to the left, down the road running towards the
+river on this side of the fortifications, and pass slowly down the line,
+dropping your load as directed by those who will meet you there. If you
+are stopped on the road by the police or a patrol, who insist on asking
+what you have in your carts, you must be civil to them, and show them;
+and while they are looking into your carts you must kill them quietly
+with the knife.”
+
+The drivers seemed to have heard these instructions before, for they
+merely nodded, and made no comment. One of them gave a low laugh, and
+that was all. He appeared to be an old man with a white beard, and
+had perhaps waited a long time for this moment. There was a wealth of
+promise in his curt hilarity.
+
+Then Martin and Kosmaroff turned and rode on towards Warsaw at a trot.
+Before long they wheeled to the right, quitting the highway and taking
+to the quieter Czerniakowska, that wide and deserted road which runs
+by the river-side, skirting the high land now converted into a public
+pleasure-ground, under the name of the Lazienki Park.
+
+In the daytime the Czerniakowska is only used by the sand-carts and the
+workmen going to and from the manufactories. To-night, in the pouring
+rain, no one passed that way.
+
+Before the iron-foundry is reached the road narrows somewhat, and is
+bounded on either side by a high stone wall. On the left are the
+lower lands of the Lazienki Park; the yards and storehouses of the
+iron-foundry are on the right.
+
+At the point where the road narrows Kosmaroff suddenly reined in his
+horse, and leaning forward, peered into the darkness. There are no lamps
+at the farther end of the Czerniakowska.
+
+“What is it?” asked Martin.
+
+“I thought I saw a glint under the wall,” answered Kosmaroff.
+“There--there it is again. Steel. There is some one there. It is the
+gleam of those distant lights on a bayonet.”
+
+“Then let us go forward,” said Martin, “and see who it is.”
+
+And he urged his horse, which seemed tired, and carried its head low
+beneath the rain. They had not gone ten paces when a rough voice called
+out:
+
+“Who goes there?”
+
+“Who goes there?” echoed Martin. “But this is a high-road.” And he moved
+nearer to the wall. The man stepped from the shadow, and his bayonet
+gleamed again.
+
+“No matter,” he said; “you cannot pass this way.”
+
+“But, my friend--” began Martin, with a protesting laugh. But he never
+finished the sentence, for Kosmaroff had slipped out of the saddle on
+the far side, and interrupted him by pushing the bridle into his hand.
+Then the ex-Cossack ran round at the back of the horses.
+
+The soldier gave a sharp exclamation of surprise, and the next moment
+his rifle rattled down against the wall. Both men were on the ground now
+in the water and the mud. There came to Martin's ears the sound of hard
+breathing, and some muttered words of anger; then a sharp cough, which
+was not Kosmaroff's cough.
+
+After an instant of dead silence, Kosmaroff rose to his feet.
+
+“First blood,” he said, breathlessly. He went to his horse and wiped his
+hands upon its mane.
+
+“Bah!” he exclaimed, “how he smelled of bad cigarettes!”
+
+Martin was leaning in the saddle, looking down at the dark form in the
+mud.
+
+“Oh, he is dead enough,” said Kosmaroff. “I broke his neck. Did you not
+hear it go?”
+
+“Yes--I heard it. But what was he doing here?”
+
+“That is yet to be found out,” was the reply, in a sharp, strained
+voice. “This is Cartoner's work.”
+
+“I doubt it,” whispered Martin. And yet in his heart he could scarcely
+doubt it at that moment. Nothing was further from his recollection than
+the note he had given to Netty in the Saski Gardens ten hours ago.
+
+“What does it mean?” he asked, with a sudden despair in his voice. He
+had always been lucky and successful.
+
+“It means,” answered the man who had never been either, “that the
+place is surrounded, of course. They have got the arms, and we have
+failed--this time. Take the horses back towards the barracks--and wait
+for me where the water is across the road. I will go forward on foot and
+make sure. If I do not return in twenty minutes it will mean that they
+have taken me.”
+
+As he spoke he took off his white overcoat, which was all gray and
+bespattered with mud, and threw it across the saddle. His working
+clothes were sombre and dirty. He was almost invisible in the darkness.
+
+“Wait a moment,” he said. “I will get over the wall here. Bring your
+horse against the wall.”
+
+Martin did so, avoiding the body of the sentry, which lay stretched
+across the foot-path. The wall was eighteen feet high.
+
+“Stand in your stirrups,” said Kosmaroff, “and hold one arm up rigid
+against the wall.”
+
+He was already standing on the broad back of the charger, steadying
+himself by a firm grip of Martin's collar. He climbed higher, standing
+on Martin's shoulders, and steadying himself against the wall.
+
+“Are you ready? I am going to spring.”
+
+He placed the middle of his foot in Martin's up-stretched palm, gave a
+light spring and a scramble, and reached the summit of the wall. Martin
+could perceive him for a moment against the sky.
+
+“All right,” he whispered, and disappeared.
+
+Martin had not returned many yards along the road they had come when
+he heard pattering steps in the mud behind him. It was Kosmaroff,
+breathless.
+
+“Quick!” he whispered. “Quick!”
+
+And he scrambled into the saddle while the horse was still moving.
+He was, it must be remembered, a trained soldier. He led the way at a
+gallop, stooping in the saddle to secure the swinging stirrups. Martin
+had to use his spurs to bring his horse alongside. Shoulder to shoulder
+they splashed on in the darkness.
+
+“I went right in,” gasped Kosmaroff. “The arms are gone. The place is
+full of men. There is a sotnia drawn up in the yard itself. It is an
+ambuscade. We have failed--failed--this time!”
+
+“We must stop the carts, and then ride on and disperse the men,” said
+Martin. “We may do it. We may succeed. It is a good night for such
+work.”
+
+Kosmaroff gave a short, despairing laugh.
+
+“Ah!” he said. “You are full of hope--you.”
+
+“Yes--I am full of hope--still,” answered Martin. He had more to lose
+than his companion. But he had also less to gain.
+
+They rode hard until they met the carts, and turned them back. So far as
+these were concerned, there was little danger in going away empty from
+the city.
+
+Then the two horsemen rode on in silence. They were far out in the
+marsh-lands before Kosmaroff spoke.
+
+“I am sure,” he then said, “that I was seen as I climbed back over the
+wall. I heard a stir among the rifles. But they could not recognize
+me. It is just possible that I may not be suspected. For you it is
+different. If they knew where the arms were stored, they must also know
+who procured them. You will never be able to show yourself in Warsaw
+again.”
+
+“I may be able to make myself more dangerous elsewhere,” said Martin,
+with a laugh.
+
+“I do not know,” went on Kosmaroff, “if they will have arrested your
+father and sister; but I am quite sure that they will be in the palace
+now awaiting your return there. We must get away to-night.”
+
+“Oh,” answered Martin gayly, “it does not matter much about that. What I
+am thinking of are these four thousand men waiting out here in the rain.
+How are we to get them to their homes in Warsaw?”
+
+And Kosmaroff had no answer to this question.
+
+Beneath the trees on the low, wet land inside the fortifications they
+found their men drawn up in a double line. There were evidences of
+military organization and training in their bearing and formation. If
+the arms had been forthcoming, these would have been dangerous soldiers;
+for they were desperate men, and had each in his heart a grievance to
+be wiped out. They were only the nucleus of a great rising, organized
+carefully and systematically--the brand to be thrown amid the straw.
+They were to surprise and hold the two strongholds in Warsaw, while
+the whole country was set in a blaze, while the foreign powers and
+the parties to the treaty which Russia had systematically broken were
+appealed to and urged to assist. It was a wild scheme, but not half so
+wild as many that have succeeded.
+
+The four thousand heroically waiting the word that was to send them on
+their forlorn hope heard the news in silence, and all silently moved
+away.
+
+“It is for another time--it is for another time!” said Kosmaroff and
+Martin repeatedly and confidently, as the men moved past them in the
+darkness.
+
+In Warsaw there was a queer silence, and every door was shut. The
+streets had been quite deserted, and they were now full of soldiers,
+who, at a given word, had moved out from the barracks to line the
+streets.
+
+At midnight they were still at their posts, when the first stragglers
+came in from the south, silent, mud-bespattered, bedraggled men, who
+shuffled along in their dripping clothes in the middle of the street
+in groups of two and three. They hung their heads and crept to their
+houses. And the conquerors watched them without sympathy, without anger.
+
+It was a miserable fiasco.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+ACROSS THE FRONTIER
+
+Those who listened at their open windows that night for the sound of
+firing heard it not. They heard, perhaps, the tread of slipshod feet
+hurrying homeward. They could scarcely fail to hear the Vistula grinding
+and grumbling in its new-found strength. For the ice was moving and
+the water rising. The long sleep of winter was over, and down the great
+length of the river that touches three empires men must needs be on the
+alert night and day.
+
+Between the piers of the bridge the ice had become blocked, and the
+large, flat floes sweeping down on the current were pushing, hustling,
+and climbing on each other with grunts and squeaks as if they had been
+endowed with some low form of animal life. The rain did not cease at
+midnight, but the clouds lifted a little, and the night was less dark.
+The moon above the clouds was almost full.
+
+“There is only one chance of escape,” Kosmaroff had said--“the river.
+Meet me on the steps at the bottom of the Bednarska at half-past twelve.
+I will get a boat. Have you money?”
+
+“I have a few roubles--I never had many,” answered Martin.
+
+“Get more if you can--get some food if you can--a bottle of vodka may
+make the difference between life and death. Keep your coat.”
+
+And they parted hurriedly on the hill where the road rises towards the
+Mokotow. Kosmaroff turned to the right and went to the river, where he
+earned his daily bread, where his friends eked out their toilsome lives.
+Martin joined the silent, detached groups hurrying towards the city.
+He passed down the whole length of the Marszalkowska with the others
+slouching along the middle of the street beneath the gaze of the
+soldiers, brushing past the horses of the Cossacks stationed at the
+street corners. And he was allowed to pass, unrecognized.
+
+A group of officers stood in the wide road opposite to the railway
+station, muffled in their large cloaks. They were talking together in a
+low voice. One of them gave a laugh as Martin passed. He recognized the
+voice as that of a friend--a young Cossack officer who had lunched with
+him two days earlier.
+
+Soon after midnight he made his way down the steep Bednarska. He had
+found out that the Bukaty Palace was surrounded; had seen the light
+filtering through the dripping panes of the conservatory. His father was
+probably sitting in the great drawing-room alone, before the wood-fire,
+meditating over the failure which he must have realized by now from a
+note hurriedly sent by one of the few servants whom they could trust.
+Martin knew that Wanda had gone. He also knew the address that would
+find her. This was one of the hundred details to which the prince
+himself had attended. He had been a skilled organizer in the days
+when he had poured arms and ammunition into Poland across the Austrian
+frontier, and his hand had not lost its cunning. All Poland was seamed
+by channels through which information could be poured at any moment day
+or night, just as water is distributed over the land of an irrigated
+farm.
+
+Martin had procured money. He carried some large round loaves of gray
+bread under his arm. The neck of a bottle protruded from the pocket of
+his coat. Among the lower streets near the river these burdens were more
+likely to allay than to arouse suspicion.
+
+Between the Bednarska and the bridge which towers above the low-roofed
+houses fifty yards farther down the river are the landing-stages for the
+steamers that ply in summer. There is a public bath, and at one end of
+this floating erection a landing-stage for smaller boats, where as often
+as not Kosmaroff found work. It was to this landing-stage that Martin
+directed his steps. In summer there were usually workers and watchers
+here night and day; for the traffic of a great river never ceases, and
+those whose daily bread is wrested from wind, water, and tide must get
+their sleep when they can.
+
+To-night there were a few men standing at the foot of the street where
+the steps are--river-workers who had property afloat and imprisoned by
+the ice, dwellers, perhaps, in those cheap houses beneath the bridge
+which are now gradually falling under the builder's hammer, who took a
+sleepless interest in the prospects of a flood.
+
+Martin went out onto the landing-stage, and looked about him as if he
+also had a stake in this, one of nature's great lotteries. There he had
+a fit of coughing, such as any man might have on such a night, and
+at the most deadly time of the year. He waited ten minutes, perhaps,
+coughing at intervals, and at length Kosmaroff came to him, not from the
+land, but across the moving floes from the direction of the bridge.
+
+“The water is running freely,” he said, “through the middle arch. I have
+a boat out there on the ice. Come!”
+
+And he took the bread from Martin's arms, and led the way on to the
+river that he knew so well in all its varying moods. The boat was lying
+on the ice a few yards above the massive pier of the bridge, almost at
+the edge of the water, which could be heard gurgling and lapping as it
+flowed towards the sea with its burden of snow and ice. It was so dark
+that Martin, stumbling over the chaos of ice, fell against the boat
+before he saw it. It was one of the rough punts of a primeval simplicity
+of build used by the sand-workers of the Vistula.
+
+Kosmaroff gave his orders shortly and sharply. He was at home on the
+unstable surface, which was half water, half ice. He was commander now,
+and spoke without haste or hesitation.
+
+“Help me,” he said, “to carry her to the edge, but do not stand upright.
+We can easily get away unseen, and you may be sure that no one will
+come out on the ice to look for us. We must be twenty miles away before
+dawn.”
+
+The boat was a heavy one, and they stumbled and fell several times;
+for there was no foothold, and both were lightly made men. At last they
+reached the running water and cautiously launched into it.
+
+“We must lie down in the bottom of the boat,” said Kosmaroff, “and take
+our chances of being crushed until we are past the citadel.”
+
+As he spoke they shot under the bridge. Above them, to the left, towered
+the terrace of the castle, and the square face of that great building
+which has seen so many vicissitudes. Every window was alight. For
+the castle is used as a barracks now, and the soldiers, having been
+partially withdrawn from the streets, were going to bed. Soon these
+lights were left behind, and the outline of the citadel, half buried in
+trees, could be dimly seen. Then suddenly they left the city behind, and
+were borne on the breast of the river into the outer darkness beyond.
+
+Kosmaroff sat up.
+
+“Give me a piece of bread,” he said. “I am famished.”
+
+But he received no answer. Prince Martin was asleep.
+
+The sky was beginning to clear. The storm was over, but the flood had
+yet to come. The rain must have fallen in the Carpathians, and the
+Vistula came from those mountains. In twenty-four hours there would be
+not only ice to fear, but uprooted trees and sawn timber from the mills;
+here and there a mill-wheel torn from its bearings, now and then a dead
+horse; a door, perhaps, of a cottage, or part of a roof; a few boats; a
+hundred trophies of the triumph of nature over man, borne to the distant
+sea on muddy waters.
+
+Kosmaroff found the bread and tore a piece off. Then he made himself
+as comfortable as he could in the stern of the boat, using one oar as a
+rudder. But he could not see much. He could only keep the boat heading
+down stream and avoid the larger floes. Then--wet, tired out, conscious
+of failure, sick at heart--he fell asleep, too, in the hands of God.
+
+When he awoke he found Martin crouching beside him, wide awake. The
+prince had taken the oar and was steering. The clouds had all cleared
+away, and a full moon was high above them. The dawn was in the sky above
+the level land. They were passing through a plain now, broken here
+and there by pollarded trees, great spaces of marsh-land, with big,
+low-roofed farms standing back on the slightly rising ground. It was
+almost morning.
+
+Kosmaroff sat up, and immediately began to shiver. Martin was shivering
+too, and handed him the vodka-bottle with a laugh. His spirits were
+proof even against failure and a hopeless dawn and bitter cold.
+
+“Where are we?” he asked.
+
+Kosmaroff stood up and looked round. They were travelling at a great
+pace in the company of countless ice-floes, some white with snow, others
+gray and muddy.
+
+“I know where we are,” he answered, after a pause. “We have passed
+Wyszogrod. We are nearing Plock. We have come a great distance. I wish
+my teeth wouldn't chatter.”
+
+“I have secured mine with a piece of bread,” mumbled Martin.
+
+Kosmaroff was looking uneasily at the sky.
+
+“We cannot travel during the day,” he said, after a long examination of
+the little clouds hanging like lines across the eastern sky. “We shall
+not be able to cross the frontier at Thorn with this full moon, and I
+am afraid we are going to have fine weather. We shall soon come to some
+large islands on this side of Plock. I know a farmer there. We must
+wait with him until we have promise of a suitable night to pass through
+Thorn.”
+
+Before daylight they reached the islands. There was no pack now; the
+ice was afloat and moving onward. All Kosmaroff's skill, all the little
+strength of both was required to work the boat through the floes towards
+the land. The farmer took them in willingly enough, and boasted that
+they could not have found a safer hiding-place in all Poland, which,
+indeed, seemed true enough. For none but expert and reckless boatmen
+would attempt to cross the river now.
+
+Nevertheless, Kosmaroff made the passage to the mainland before mid-day,
+and set off on foot to Plock. He was going to communicate with the
+prince at Warsaw, and ask him to provide money or means of escape to
+await them at Dantzic. In two days a reply came, telling them that their
+escape was being arranged, but they must await further instructions
+before quitting their hiding-place. After the lapse of four days these
+further orders came by the same sure channel, which was independent of
+the Russian post-offices.
+
+The fugitives were to proceed cautiously to Dantzic, to pass through
+that town at night to the anchorage below Neufahrwasser. Here they would
+find Captain Cable, in the _Minnie_, anchored in the stream ready for
+sea. The instructions were necessarily short. There were no explanations
+whatever. There was no news.
+
+At Plock, Kosmaroff could learn nothing, for nothing was known there.
+The story of the great plot had been hushed up by the authorities. There
+are persons living in Warsaw who do not know of it to this day. There
+are others who know of it and deny that it ever existed. The arms are in
+use in Central Asia at the present time, though their pattern is
+already considered antiquated. Any one who may choose to walk along
+the Czerniakowska will find to-day on the left-hand side of it a large
+building, once an iron-foundry, now deserted and falling into disrepair.
+If it be evening-time, he will, as likely as not, meet the patrol from
+the neighboring hussar barracks, which nightly guards this road and the
+river-side.
+
+After receiving their final instructions, Kosmaroff and Martin had to
+wait two days until the weather changed--until the moon, now well on the
+wane, did not rise before midnight.
+
+At last they set out, in full daylight, on a high river still encumbered
+by ice. It was much warmer during the day now; but the evenings were
+cold, and a thick mist usually arose from the marsh-lands. This soon
+enveloped them, and they swept on unseen. None could have followed them
+into the mist, for none had Kosmaroff's knowledge of the river.
+
+The frontier-line is some miles above the ancient city of Thorn. It is
+strictly guarded by day and night. The patrol-boats are afloat at every
+hour. Kosmaroff had arranged to arrive at this spot early in the night,
+before the mists had been dispelled by the coming of the moon.
+
+Even he could only guess at their position. Once they dared to approach
+the shore in order to discover some landmark. But they navigated chiefly
+by sound. The whistle of a distant train, the sound of church clocks,
+the street cries of a town--these were Kosmaroff's degrees of latitude.
+
+“We are getting near,” he said, in little more than a whisper. “What is
+the time?”
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock. If they got past the frontier they would
+sweep through Thorn before mid-night. The river narrows here, and goes
+at a great pace. It is still of a vast width--one of the largest rivers
+in Europe.
+
+The mist was very thick here.
+
+“Listen!” whispered Kosmaroff, suddenly. And they heard the low, regular
+thud of oars. It was the patrol-boat.
+
+Almost immediately a voice, startlingly near, called upon them to halt.
+They crouched low in the boat. In a mist it is very difficult to locate
+sound. They looked round in all directions. The voice seemed to have
+come from above. It was raised again, and seemed to be behind them this
+time.
+
+“Stop, or we fire!” it said, in Russian. Then followed a sharp whistle,
+which was answered by two or three others. There were at least three
+boats close at hand, seeking to locate each other before they fired.
+
+Immediately afterwards the firing began, and was taken up by the more
+distant boats. A bullet splashed in the water close behind Kosmaroff's
+oar, with a sharp spit like that of an angry cat. Martin gave a
+suppressed laugh. Kosmaroff only smiled.
+
+Then two bullets struck the boat simultaneously, one on the stern-post,
+fired from behind, the other full on the side amidships, where Martin
+lay concealed.
+
+Neither of the two men moved or made a sound. Kosmaroff leaned forward
+and peered into the fog. The patrol-boats were behind now, and the
+officers were calling to each other.
+
+“What was it--a boat or a floating tree?” they heard them ask each
+other.
+
+Kosmaroff was staring ahead, but he saw Martin make a quick movement in
+the bottom of the boat.
+
+“What is it?” he whispered.
+
+“A bullet,” answered Martin. “It came through the side of the boat, low
+down. It struck me in the back--the spine. I cannot move my legs. But I
+have stopped the water from coming in. I have my finger in the hole
+the bullet made below the water-line. I can hold on till we have passed
+through Thorn.”
+
+He spoke in his natural voice, quite cheerfully. They were not out of
+danger yet. Kosmaroff could not quit the steering-oar. He glanced at
+Martin, and then looked ahead again uneasily.
+
+Martin was the first to speak. He raised himself on his elbow, and
+with a jerk of the wrist threw something towards Kosmaroff. It was an
+envelope, closed and doubled over.
+
+“Put that in your pocket,” he said. And Kosmaroff obeyed.
+
+“You know Miss Cahere, who was at the Europe?” asked Martin, suddenly,
+after a pause.
+
+Kosmaroff smiled the queer smile that twisted his face all to one side.
+
+“Yes, I know her.”
+
+“Give her that, or get it to her,” said Martin.
+
+“But--”
+
+“Yes,” said Martin, answering the unasked question, “I am badly hit,
+unless you can do something for me after we are past Thorn.”
+
+And his voice was still cheerful.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+CAPTAIN CABLE SOILS HIS HANDS
+
+Cartoner was preparing to leave St. Petersburg when he received a letter
+from Deulin. The Frenchman wrote from Cracow, and mentioned in a rather
+rambling letter that Wanda was staying with a relative in that ancient
+city. He also thought it probable that she would make a stay in England
+pending the settlement of certain family affairs.
+
+“I suppose,” wrote Deulin, “that you will soon be on your way home.
+I think it likely we shall both be sent to Madrid before long. At all
+events, I hope we may meet somewhere. If you are passing through Dantzic
+on your homeward journey, you will find your old friend Cable there.”
+
+This last sentence was partly disfigured by a peculiar-shaped blot.
+The writer had evidently dropped his pen, all laden with ink, upon the
+letter as he wrote it. And Cartoner knew that this was the kernel, as it
+were, of this chatty epistle. He was bidden to make it convenient to go
+to Dantzic and to see Captain Cable there.
+
+He arrived in Dantzic early in the morning, and did not go to a hotel.
+He left his luggage at the station and walked down to the Lange Brucke,
+where the river steamers start for Neufahrwasser.
+
+The boats ran every hour, and Cartoner had not long to wait. He was not
+pressed for time, however, on his homeward journey, as he was more or
+less his own master while travelling, and could break his journey at
+Dantzic quite as easily as at Berlin.
+
+Neufahrwasser is slowly absorbing the commerce of Dantzic, and none but
+small vessels go up the river to the city now. Captain Cable was deeply
+versed in those by-paths of maritime knowledge which enable small
+vessels to hold their own in these days of monopoly.
+
+Cartoner knew that he would find the _Minnie_ not in dock, but in one
+of the river anchorages, which are not only cheaper, but are more
+convenient for a vessel wanting to go to sea at short notice. And
+Captain Cable had a habit of going to sea at short notice.
+
+Cartoner was not far wrong. For his own steamer passed the _Minnie_ just
+above Neufahrwasser, where the river is broad and many vessels lie
+in mid-stream. The _Minnie_ was deeply laden and lay anchored bow and
+stern, with the rapid tide rustling round her chains. She was ready for
+sea. Cartoner could see that. But she flew no bluepeter nor heralded her
+departure, as some captains, and especially foreigners, love to do. It
+adds to their sense of importance, and this was a modern quality little
+cultivated by Captain Cable. Neither was his steam aggressively in
+evidence. The _Minnie_ did not catch the eye of the river-side idler,
+but conveyed the impression that she was a small, insignificant craft
+minding her own business, and would be much obliged if you would mind
+yours.
+
+Cartoner had to walk back by the river-side and then take a boat from
+the steps opposite to the anchorage. He bade the boatman wait while he
+clambered on board. Captain Cable had been informed of the approach of
+a shore boat, and was standing squarely on his own iron main-deck when
+Cartoner put his leg across the rail.
+
+“Come below,” he said, without enthusiasm. “It wasn't you that I was
+expecting. I tell you that.”
+
+Cartoner followed the captain into the little, low cabin, which smelled
+of petroleum, as usual. The _Minnie_ was a hospitable ship, according
+to her facilities, and her skipper began by polishing a tumbler with a
+corner of the table-cloth. Then he indicated the vacant swing-back bench
+at the far side of the table, and sat down opposite to Cartoner himself.
+
+“Was up the Baltic,” he explained. “Pit props. Got a full cargo on
+board. Got an offer such as a poor sailorman couldn't afford to let slip
+to come to Dantzic and wait here till two gents came aboard. That's all
+I'm going to tell you.”
+
+“That's all I want to know,” answered Cartoner.
+
+“But, dammy, it's not all I want to know!” shouted Cable, suddenly, with
+a bang of his little, thick fist on the table. “I've been thinking since
+I lay here--been sleeping badly, and took the anchor watch meself--what
+I want to know is whether I'm to be treated gentlemanly!”
+
+“In what way?” inquired Cartoner, gently. And the sound of his voice
+seemed to pacify the captain.
+
+“Of course,” he admitted, “I'm not a gentleman, I know that; but in
+seafaring things I'll be treated as such. Truth is, I'm afraid it's
+something to do with this news from St. Petersburg. And I don't take any
+bombmen on board my ship, and that's flat.”
+
+“I think I can assure you on that point,” said Cartoner. “Nobody who had
+to do with the assassination of the Czar is likely to be in Dantzic. But
+I do not know whom you are to take on board here.”
+
+“May be as you can guess,” suggested the captain.
+
+“Yes, I think I can guess,” admitted Cartoner, with his slow smile.
+
+“But you won't tell me?”
+
+“No. When do you expect them?”
+
+“I'll answer that and ask you another,” said Captain Cable, getting
+a yellow decanter from a locker beneath the table. “That's
+port--ship-chandler's port. I won't say it's got a bokay, mind.”
+
+For Captain Cable's hospitality was not showy or self-sufficient.
+
+“I'll answer that and ask you another. I expected them last night.
+They'll likely come down with the tide, soon after midnight to-night.
+And now I'll ask you, what brought you aboard this ship, here in Dantzic
+River, Mr. Cartoner?”
+
+“A letter from a Frenchman you know as well as I do--Paul Deulin. Like
+to read it?”
+
+And Cartoner laid the letter before Captain Cable, who smiled
+contemptuously. He knew what was expected of a gentleman better than
+even to glance at it as it lay before him in its envelope.
+
+“No, I wouldn't,” he answered. He scratched his head reflectively,
+and looked beneath his bushy brows at Cartoner as if he expected the
+ship-chandler's port to have an immediate effect of some sort.
+
+“Got your luggage in the boat alongside?” he asked, at length.
+
+“No. It's at the station.”
+
+“Then let me send a hand ashore for it. Got three Germans furard. You'll
+come aboard and see this thing through, I hope.”
+
+“Thank you,” answered Cartoner. He handed Captain Cable the ticket for
+his luggage.
+
+“Mate's receipt?” inquired the captain.
+
+And Cartoner nodded. The captain pushed the decanter towards his guest
+as he rose to go and give the necessary orders.
+
+“No stint of the wine,” he said, and went out on deck.
+
+When he came back he laid the whole question aside, and devoted himself
+to the entertainment of his guest. They both slept in the afternoon. For
+the captain had been up all night, and fully expected to see no bed the
+following night.
+
+“If they come down with the tide we'll go to sea on the same ebb,” he
+said, as he lay down on his state-room locker and composed himself to
+sleep.
+
+He sent the hands below at ten o'clock, saying he would keep the anchor
+watch himself. He wanted no forecastle gossip, he said to Cartoner, and
+did not trouble to explain that he had kept the watch three nights in
+succession on that account. Cartoner and he walked the deck side by
+side, treading softly for the sake of the sleepers under deck. For the
+same reason, perhaps, they were silent.
+
+Once only Captain Cable spoke in little more than a whisper.
+
+“Hope he is pleased with himself,” he said, as he stood at the stern
+rail, looking up river, as it happened, towards Cracow. “For it is
+his doing, you and me waiting his orders here this cold night. They're
+tricky--the French. He's a tricky man.”
+
+“Yes,” admitted Cartoner, who knew that the captain spoke of Deulin, “he
+is a tricky man.”
+
+After this they walked backward and forward for an hour without
+speaking. Then Captain Cable suddenly raised his hand and pointed into
+the night.
+
+“There's a boat yonder,” he said, “coming down quiet, under the lee of
+the land.”
+
+They stood listening, and presently heard the sound of oars used with
+great caution. A boat was crossing the river now and coming towards
+them. Captain Cable went forward and took a coil of rope. He clambered
+laboriously to the rail and stood there, watching the shadowy shape of
+the boat, which was now within hail. It was swinging round on the tide
+with perfect calculation and a most excellent skill.
+
+“Stand by,” said Captain Cable, gruffly, and the coils of his rope
+uncurled against the sky, to fall in a straight line across the boat.
+
+Cartoner could see a man catch the rope neatly and make it fast with two
+turns. In a moment the boat came softly nestling against the steamer as
+a kitten may nestle against its mother.
+
+The man, who seemed to be the sole occupant, stood up, resting his hand
+on the rail of the _Minnie_. His head came up over the rail, and he
+peered into Cartoner's face.
+
+“You!” he exclaimed.
+
+“Yes,” answered Cartoner, watching his hands, for there was a sort of
+exultation in Kosmaroff's voice, as if fate had offered him a chance
+which he never expected.
+
+Cable came aft and stood beside Cartoner.
+
+“I want to go to sea this tide,” he said. “Where is the other man?”
+
+“The other man is Prince Martin Bukaty,” was the answer. “Help me to
+lift him on board.”
+
+“Why can't he come on board himself?”
+
+“Because he is dead,” answered Kosmaroff, with a break in his voice. And
+he lurched forward against the rail. Cartoner caught him by one arm and
+held him up.
+
+“I am so weak!” he murmured, “so weak! I am famished!”
+
+Cartoner lifted him bodily over the rail, and Cable received him, half
+fainting, in his arms. The next moment Cartoner was kneeling in the boat
+that rode alongside. He slowly raised Martin, and with an effort held
+him towards the captain, who was sitting astride on the rail. Thus they
+got him on board and carried him to the cabin. They passed through it to
+that which was grandly called the captain's state-room. They laid him on
+the locker which served for a bed, while Kosmaroff, supporting himself
+against the bulkhead, watched them in silence.
+
+The captain glanced at Martin, and then, catching sight of Kosmaroff's
+face, he hurried to the cabin, to return in a minute with the inevitable
+decanter, yellow with age and rust.
+
+“Here,” he said, “drink that. Eat a bit o' biscuit. You're done.”
+
+Kosmaroff did as he was told. His eyes had the unmistakable glitter of
+starvation and exhaustion. They were fixed on Cartoner's face, with a
+hundred unasked questions in them.
+
+“How did it happen?” asked Cartoner, at length.
+
+“They fired on us crossing the frontier, and hit him. Pity it was not
+me. He is a much greater loss than I should have been. That was the
+night before last. He died before the morning.”
+
+“Tut! tut!” muttered Captain Cable, with an unwritable expression of
+pity. “There was the makings of a man in him,” he said--“the makings of
+a man!”
+
+And what Captain Cable held worthy of the name of man is not so common
+as to be lost to the world with indifference. He stood reflecting for a
+moment while Kosmaroff ate the ship's biscuit offered to him in the lid
+of a box, and Cartoner stared thoughtfully at the flickering lamp.
+
+“I'll take him out to sea and bury him there,” said Cable, at length,
+“if so be as that's agreeable to you. There's many a good man buried at
+sea, and when my time comes I'll ask for no better berth.”
+
+“That is the only thing to be done,” said Cartoner.
+
+Kosmaroff glanced towards the bed.
+
+“Yes,” he said, “that will do. He will lay quiet enough there.”
+
+And all three, perhaps, thought of all that they were to bury beneath
+the sea with this last of the Bukatys.
+
+Captain Cable was the first to move. He turned and glanced at the clock.
+
+“I'll turn the hands out,” he said, “and we'll get to sea on the ebb.
+But I'll have to send ashore for a pilot.”
+
+“No,” answered Kosmaroff, rising and finishing his wine, “you need not
+do that. I can take you out to sea.”
+
+The captain nodded curtly and went on deck, leaving Kosmaroff and
+Cartoner alone in the cabin in the silent presence of the man who had
+been the friend of both.
+
+“Will you answer me a question?” asked Kosmaroff, suddenly.
+
+“If I can,” was the reply, economical of words.
+
+“Where were you on the 13th of March?”
+
+Cartoner reflected for a moment, and then replied:
+
+“In St. Petersburg.”
+
+“Then I do not understand you,” said Kosmaroff. “I don't understand how
+we failed. For you know we have failed, I suppose?”
+
+“I know nothing,” answered Cartoner. “But I conclude you have failed,
+since you are here--and he is there.”
+
+And he pointed towards Martin.
+
+“Thanks to you.”
+
+“No, I had nothing to do with it,” said Cartoner.
+
+“You cannot expect me to believe that.”
+
+“I do not care,” replied the English diplomat, gently, “whether you
+believe it or not.”
+
+Kosmaroff moved towards the door. He carefully avoided passing near
+Cartoner, as if too close a proximity might make him forget himself.
+
+“I will tell you one thing,” he said, in a hard, low voice. “It will not
+do for you to show your face in Poland. Don't ever forget that I will
+take any chance I get to kill you! There is not room for you and me in
+Poland!”
+
+“If I am sent there I shall go,” replied Cartoner. And there crept to
+one side of Kosmaroff's face that slow smile which seemed to give him
+pain.
+
+“I believe you will.”
+
+Then he went to the door. For Captain Cable could be heard on deck
+giving his orders, and already the winches were at work. But the Pole
+paused on the threshold and looked back. Then he came into the cabin
+again with his hand in the pocket of his threadbare workman's jacket.
+
+“Look here,” he said, bringing out a folded envelope and laying it
+on the cabin-table between them. “A dead man's wish. Get that to Miss
+Cahere. There is no message.”
+
+Cartoner took up the envelope and put it in his pocket.
+
+“I shall not see her, but I will see that she gets it,” he said.
+
+The dawn was in the sky before the _Minnie_ swept out past the pier-head
+light of Neufahrwasser. It was almost daylight when she slowed down in
+the bay to drop her pilot. Kosmaroff's boat was towing astern, jumping
+and straining in the wash of the screw. They hauled it up under the
+quarter, and in the dim light of coming day Cable and Cartoner drew near
+to the Pole, who had just quitted the wheel.
+
+The three men stood together for a moment in silence. There was much to
+be said. There was a multitude of questions to be asked and answered.
+But none of the three had the intention of doing either one or the
+other.
+
+“If you want a passage home,” said Cable, gruffly, “cut your boat
+adrift. You're welcome.”
+
+“Thank you,” was the answer. “I am going back to Poland to try again.”
+
+He turned to Cartoner, and peered in the half-light into the face of
+the only man he had had dealings with who had not been afraid of him.
+“Perhaps we shall meet again soon,” he said, “in Poland.”
+
+“Not yet,” replied Cartoner. “I am under orders for Madrid.”
+
+Kosmaroff stood by the rail for a moment, looking down into his boat.
+Then he turned suddenly to Cartoner, and made him a short, formal bow.
+
+“Good-bye,” he said.
+
+Cartoner nodded, and said nothing.
+
+Kosmaroff then turned towards Cable, who was standing with his hands
+thrust into his jacket-pockets, looking ahead towards the open sea.
+
+“Captain,” he said, and held out his hand so that Cable could not help
+seeing it. The captain hesitated, and at length withdrew his hand from
+the shelter of his pocket.
+
+“Good-bye, mister,” he said.
+
+Then Kosmaroff climbed down into his boat. They cut the rope adrift, and
+he sat down to the oars.
+
+There was a lurid streak of dawn low down in the sky, and Kosmaroff
+headed his boat towards it across the chill, green waters. Above the
+promise of a stormy day towered a great bank of torn clouds hanging over
+Poland.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
+
+Paul Deulin happened to be in Lady Orlay's drawing-room, nearly a month
+later, when Miss Cahere's name was announced. He made a grimace and
+stood his ground.
+
+Lady Orlay, it may be remembered, was one of those who attempt to
+keep their acquaintances in the right place--that is to say, in the
+background of her life. With this object in view, she had an “at home”
+ day, hoping that her acquaintances would come to see her then and not
+stay too long. To-day was not that day.
+
+“I know I ought not to have come this afternoon,” explained Netty, with
+a rather shy haste, as she shook hands. “But I could not wait until next
+Tuesday, because we sail that day.”
+
+“Then you are going home again?”
+
+Netty turned to greet Deulin, and changed color very prettily.
+
+“Yes,” she said, looking from one to the other with the soft blush still
+in her cheeks--“yes, and I am engaged to be married.”
+
+“Ah!” said Deulin. And his voice meant a great deal, while his eyes said
+nothing.
+
+“Do we know the--gentleman?” asked Lady Orlay kindly. She was noting,
+with her quick and clever eyes, that Netty seemed happy and was
+exquisitely dressed. She was quite ready to be really interested in this
+idyl.
+
+“I do not know,” answered Netty. “He is not unknown in London. His name
+is Burris.”
+
+“Oh!” said Lady Orlay, “the comp--” Then she remembered that to call
+a fellow-creature a company promoter is practically a libel. “The
+millionaire?” she concluded, rather lamely.
+
+“I believe he is very rich,” admitted Netty, “though, of course--”
+
+“No, of course not,” Lady Orlay hastened to say. “I congratulate you,
+and wish you every happiness.”
+
+She turned rather abruptly towards Deulin, as if to give the next word
+to him. He took it promptly.
+
+“And I,” he said, with his old-world bow and deprecatory outspreading of
+the hands--“I wish you all the happiness--that money can buy.”
+
+Then he walked towards the fireplace, and stood there with his shoulder
+turned towards them while the two ladies discussed that which was to be
+Netty's future life. Her husband would be old enough to be her father,
+but he was a millionaire twice over--in London and New York. He had,
+moreover, a house in each of those great cities, of which details
+appeared from time to time in the illustrated monthly magazines.
+
+“So I shall hope to be in London every year,” said Netty, “and to see
+all the friends who have been so kind to us--you and Lord Orlay and Mr.
+Deulin.”
+
+“And Reginald Cartoner,” suggested Deulin, turning to look over his
+shoulder for the change which he knew would come into Netty's eyes. And
+it came.
+
+“Yes,” she said. She looked as if she would like to ask a question, but
+did not give way to the temptation. She did not know that Cartoner
+was in the house at that moment, and Wanda, too. She did not know that
+Deulin had brought Wanda to London to stay at Lady Orlay's until Martin
+effected his escape and joined his sister in England. She only knew what
+the world now knew--that Price Martin Bukaty had died and been buried at
+sea. It was very sad, she had said, he was so nice.
+
+Deulin did not join in the conversation again. He seemed to be
+interested in the fire, and Lady Orlay glanced at him once or twice,
+seeking to recall him to a sense of his social obligations. He had taken
+an envelope from his pocket, and, having torn it in two, had thrown it
+on the fire, where it was smouldering now on the coals. It was a soiled
+and worn envelope, as if it had passed through vicissitudes; there
+seemed to be something inside it which burned and gave forth an aromatic
+odor.
+
+He was still watching the fire when Netty rose and took her leave. When
+the door closed again Lady Orlay went towards the fire.
+
+“What is that in which you are so deeply interested that you quite
+forgot to be polite?” she said to Deulin. “Is it a letter?”
+
+“It is a love-token,” answered the Frenchman.
+
+“For Netty Cahere?”
+
+“No. For the woman that some poor fool supposed her to be.”
+
+Lady Orlay touched the envelope with the toe of a slipper which was
+still neat and small, so that it fell into the glowing centre of the
+fire and was there consumed.
+
+“Perhaps you have assumed a great responsibility,” she said.
+
+“I have, and I shall carry it lightly to heaven if I get there.”
+
+“It has a smell of violets,” said Lady Orlay, looking down into the
+fire.
+
+“They are violets--from Warsaw,” admitted Deulin. “Wanda is in?” he
+asked, gravely.
+
+“Yes; they are in the study. I will send for her.”
+
+“I have received a letter from her father,” said Deulin, with his hand
+on the bell.
+
+Wanda came into the room a few minutes later. She was, of course, in
+mourning for Martin now, as well as for Poland. But she still carried
+her head high and faced the world with unshrinking eyes. Cartoner
+followed her into the room, his thoughtful glance reading Deulin's face.
+
+“You have news?”
+
+“I have heard from your father at last.”
+
+The Frenchman took the letter from his pocket, and his manner of
+unfolding it must have conveyed the intimation that he was not going to
+give it to Wanda, but intended to read it aloud, for Lady Orlay walked
+to the other end of the long room, out of hearing. Cartoner was about to
+follow her, when Wanda turned and glanced at him, and he stayed.
+
+“The letter begins,” said Deulin, unconsciously falling into a
+professional preliminary--
+
+“'I have received Cartoner's letter supplementing the account given by
+the man who was with Martin at the last. I remember Captain Cable quite
+well. When we met him at the Signal House, at Northfleet, I little
+thought that he would be called upon to render the last earthly service
+to my son. So it was he who read the last words. And Martin was buried
+in the Baltic. You, my old friend, know all that I have given to Poland.
+The last gift has been the hardest to part with. Some day I hope
+to write to Cartoner, but not now. He is not a man to attach much
+importance to words. He is, I think, a man to understand silence. At
+present I cannot write, as I am virtually a prisoner in my own house.
+From a high quarter I have received a gracious intimation that my
+affairs are under the special attention of a beneficent monarch, and
+that I am so far to be mercifully forgiven that a sentence of perpetual
+confinement within the barriers of Warsaw will be deemed sufficient
+punishment for--not having been found out. But my worst enemies are
+my own party. Nothing can now convince them that Martin and I did not
+betray the plot. Moreover, Cartoner's name is freely coupled with ours.
+So they believe. So it will go down to history, and nothing that we
+can say will make any difference. That I find myself in company with
+Cartoner in this error only strengthens the feeling of friendship, of
+which I was conscious when we first met. Beg him, for his own sake,
+never to cross this frontier again. Ask him, for mine, to avoid making
+any sign of friendship towards me or mine.'”
+
+
+As fate ruled it, the letter required turning at this point, and Deulin,
+for the first time in his life, perhaps, made a mistake at a crucial
+moment. He allowed his voice to break on the next word, and had to pause
+for an instant before he could proceed.
+
+“Then follow,” he said, rather uneasily, “certain passages to myself
+which I need not read. Further on he proceeds: 'I am in good health.
+Better, indeed, than when I last saw you. I am, in fact, a very tough
+old man, and may live to give much trouble yet.'”
+
+Deulin broke off, and laughed heartily at this conceit. But he laughed
+alone.
+
+“So, you see, he seems very cheerful,” he said, as if it was the letter
+that had laughed. He folded the paper and replaced it in his pocket. “He
+seems to be getting on very well without you, you perceive,” he added,
+smiling at Wanda. But he lacked conviction. There was in his voice and
+manner a dim suggestion of the losing game, consciously played.
+
+“May I read the letter for myself?” asked Wanda, holding out her slim,
+steady hand.
+
+After a moment's hesitation, Deulin took the folded paper from his
+pocket and handed it to her. Lady Orlay had returned to the group
+standing near the fire. He turned and met her eyes, making an
+imperceptible movement of his eyebrows, as of one who had made an
+attempt and failed. They waited in silence while Wanda read the letter,
+and at length she handed it back to him.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “I read it differently. It is not only the world which
+appears differently to two different people, even a letter may have two
+meanings to two readers. You shed a sort of gayety upon that----”
+
+She indicated the letter which he still held in his hand, and Deulin
+deprecated the suggestion by a shrug of the shoulders.
+
+“--which is not really there. To me it is the letter of a broken-hearted
+man,” she added slowly. There was an odd pause, during which Wanda
+seemed to reflect. She was at the parting of the ways. Even Deulin had
+nothing to say. He could not point out the path. Perhaps Cartoner had
+already done so by his own life, without any words at all.
+
+“I shall go to Warsaw to-night,” she said at last to Lady Orlay, “if
+you will not think me wanting in manners. Believe me, I do not lack
+gratitude. But--you understand?”
+
+“Yes, dear, I understand,” replied the woman who had known happiness.
+And she closed her lips quickly, as if she feared that they might
+falter.
+
+“It is so clearly my duty, and duty is best, is it not?” said Wanda. As
+she spoke she turned to Cartoner. The question was asked of none other.
+It was unto his judgment that she gave her case; to his wisdom she
+submitted the verdict of her life. She wished him to give it before
+these people. As if she took a subtle pride in showing them that he was
+what she knew him to be. She was sure of her lover; which is, perhaps,
+happiness enough for this world.
+
+“Duty is best, is it not?” she repeated.
+
+“It is the only thing,” he answered.
+
+Deulin was the first to speak. He had strong views upon last words and
+partings. The mere thought of such things made him suddenly energetic
+and active. He turned to Wanda with his watch in his hand.
+
+“Your mind is made up?” he asked. “You go to-night?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Then I must go at once to see to your passport and make arrangements
+for the journey. I take you as far as Alexandrowo. I cannot take you
+across the frontier, you understand?”
+
+He turned to Cartoner.
+
+“And you? When do you go to Spain?”
+
+“To-night,” was the answer.
+
+“Then good-bye.” The Frenchman held out his hand, and in a moment was
+at the door. Lady Orlay followed him out of the room and closed the door
+behind her. She followed him down-stairs. In the hall they stood and
+looked at each other in silence. There were tears in the woman's eyes.
+But Deulin's smile was sadder.
+
+“And this is the end,” he said--“the end!”
+
+“No,” said Lady Orlay; “it is not. It cannot be. I have never known
+a great happiness yet that was not built upon the wreckage of other
+happinesses. That is why happy people are never gay. It is not the end,
+Paul. Heaven is kind.”
+
+“Sometimes,” answered Deulin, grudgingly. On the door-step he paused,
+and, facing her suddenly, he made a gesture indicating himself,
+commanding her attention to his long life and story. “Sometimes,
+milady.”
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Vultures, by Henry Seton Merriman
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