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.
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.
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!”