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.”