Chapter 13

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.”