Chapter 19

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.”