in that great plain which is known to geographers as the central european depression the changes of the weather are very deliberate. if rain is coming, the cautious receive full warning of its approach. the clouds gather slowly, and disperse without haste when their work is done. for some days it had been looking like rain. the leaves on the trees of the saski gardens were hanging limp and lifeless. the whole world was dusty and expectant. cartoner left warsaw in a deluge of rain. it had come at last.
in the afternoon deulin went to call at the bukaty palace. he was ushered into the great drawing-room, and there left to his own devices. he did an unusual thing. he fell into a train of thought so absorbing that he did not hear the door open or the soft sound of wanda's dress as she entered the room. her gay laugh brought him down to the present with a sort of shock.
“you were dreaming,” she said.
“heaven forbid!” he answered, fervently. “dreams and white hairs—no, i was listening to the rain.”
he turned and looked at her with a sudden defiance in his eyes, as if daring her to doubt him.
“i was listening to the rain. the summer is gone, wanda—it is gone.”
he drew forward a chair for her, and glanced over his shoulder towards the large folding-doors, through which the conservatory was visible in the fading light. the rain drummed on the glass roof with a hopeless, slow persistency.
“can you not shut that door?” he said. “bon dieu! what a suicidal note that strikes—that hopeless rain—a northern autumn evening! there was a chill in the air as i drove down the faubourg. if i were a woman i should have tea, or a cry. being a man, i curse the weather and drive in a hired carriage to the pleasantest place in warsaw.”
without waiting for further permission, he went and closed the large doors, shutting out the sound of the rain and the sight of the streaming glass, with sodden leaves stuck here and there upon it. wanda watched him with a tolerant smile. her daily life was lived among men; and she knew that it is not only women who have unaccountable humors, a sudden anger, or a quick and passing access of tenderness. there was a shadow of uneasiness in her eyes. he had come to tell her something. she knew that. she remembered that when this diplomatist looked most idle he was in reality about his business.
“there,” he said, throwing himself back in an easy-chair and looking at her with smiling lips and eyes deeply, tragically intelligent. “that is more comfortable. can you tell me nothing that will amuse me? do you not see that my sins sit heavily on me this evening?”
“i do not know if it will amuse you,” answered wanda, in her energetic way, as if taking him at his word and seeking to rouse him, “but mr. mangles and miss cahere are coming to tea this evening.”
deulin made a grimace at the clock. if he had anything to say, he seemed to be thinking, he must say it quickly. wanda was, perhaps, thinking the same.
“separately they are amusing enough,” he said, slowly, “but they do not mingle. i have an immense respect for joseph p. mangles.”
“so has my father,” put in wanda, rather significantly.
“ah! that is why you asked them. your father knows that in a young country events move by jerks—that the man who is nobody to-day may be somebody to-morrow. the mammon of unrighteousness, wanda.”
“yes.”
“and you are above that sort of thing.”
“i am not above anything that they deem necessary for the good of poland,” she answered, gravely. “they give everything. i have not much to give, you see.”
“i suppose you have what every woman has—to sacrifice upon some altar or another—your happiness!”
wanda shrugged her shoulders and said nothing. she glanced across at him. he knew something. but he had learned nothing from cartoner. of that, at least, she was sure.
“happiness, or a hope of happiness,” he went on, reflectively. “perhaps one is as valuable as the other. perhaps they are the same thing. if you gain a happiness you lose a hope, remember that. it is not always remembered by women, and very seldom by men.”
“is it so precious? it is common enough, at all events.”
“what is common enough?” he asked, absent-mindedly.
“hope.”
“hope! connais pas!” he exclaimed, with a sudden laugh. “you must ask some one who knows more about it. i am a man of sorrow, wanda; that is why i am so gay.”
and his laugh was indeed light-hearted enough.
“the rain makes one feel lonely, that is all,” he went on, as if seeking to explain his own humor. “rain and cold and half a dozen drawbacks to existence lose their terrors if one has an in-door life to turn to and a fire to sit by. that is why i am here.”
and he drew his chair nearer to the burning logs. wanda now knew that he had something to tell her—that he had come for no other purpose. and, that he should be delicate and careful in his approach, told her that it was of cartoner he had come to speak. while the delicacy and care showed her that he had guessed something, it also opened up a new side to his character. for the susceptibilities of men and women who have passed middle age are usually dull, and often quite dead, to the sensitiveness of younger hearts. it almost seemed that he divined that wanda's heart was sensitive and sore, like an exposed nerve, though she showed the world a quiet face, such as the bukatys had always shown through as long and grim a family history as the world has known.
“do you not feel lonely in this great room?” he asked, looking round at the bare walls, which still showed the dim marks left by the portraits that had gone to grace an imperial gallery.
“no, i think not,” answered wanda. she followed his glance round the room, wondering, perhaps, if the rest of her life was to be weighed down by the sense of loneliness which had come over her that day for the first time.
deulin, like the majority of frenchmen, had certain mental gifts, usually considered to be the special privilege of women. he had a feminine way of skirting a subject—of walking round, as it were, and contemplating it from various side issues, as if to find out the best approach to it.
“the worst of warsaw,” he said, “is its dulness. the theatres are deplorable. you must admit that. and of society, there is, of course, none. i have even tried a travelling circus out by the mokotow. one must amuse one's self.”
he looked at her furtively, as if he were ashamed of having to amuse himself, and remembered too late how much the confession might mean.
“it was sordid,” he continued. “one wondered how the performers could be content to risk their lives for the benefit of such a small and such an undistinguished audience. there was a trapeze troupe, however, who interested me. there was a girl with a stereotyped smile—like cracking nuts. there was a young man whose conceit took one's breath away. it was so hard to reconcile such preposterous vanity with the courage that he must have had. and there was a large, modest man who interested me. it was really he who did all the work. it was he who caught the others when they swung across the tent in mid-air. he was very steady and he was usually the wrong way up, hanging by his heels on a swinging trapeze. he had the lives of the others in his hands at every moment. but it was the others who received the applause—the nut-cracker girl who pirouetted, and the vain man who tapped his chest and smiled condescendingly. but the big man stood in the background, scarcely bowing at all, and quite forgetting to smile. one could see from the expression of his patient face that he knew it did not matter what he did for no one was looking at him—which was only the truth. then, when the applause was over, he turned and walked away, heavy-shouldered and rather tired—his day's work done. and, i don't know why, i thought—of cartoner.”
she expected the name. perhaps she wished for it, though she never would have spoken it herself. she had yet to learn to do that.
“yes,” said deulin, after a pause, pursuing, it would appear, his own thoughts, “the world would get on very well without its talkers. no great man has ever been a great talker. have you noticed that in history?”
wanda made no answer. she was still waiting for the news that he had to tell her. the logs on the fire fell about with a crackle, and deulin rose to put them in order. while thus engaged he continued his monologue.
“i suppose that is why i feel lonely this afternoon. in a sense, i am alone. cartoner has gone, you know. he has left warsaw.”
deulin glanced at the mirror over the mantel-piece, and if he had had any doubts they were now laid aside, for there was only gladness in wanda's face. it was good news, then. and deulin was clever enough to know the meaning of that.
“gone!” she said. “i am very glad.”
“yes,” answered deulin, gravely, as he returned to his chair. “it is a good thing. i left him this morning, placidly preparing to depart at half an hour's warning. he was packing, with that repose of manner which you have perhaps noticed. better than vespers, better than absolution, is cartoner's repose of manner—for me, bien entendu. but, then, i am not a devout man.”
“then you have done what i asked you to do,” said wanda, “some time ago, and i am very grateful.”
“some time ago? it was only yesterday.”
“was it? it seems more than that,” said wanda. and deulin nodded his head slowly.
“i was able to give him some information which made him change his plans quite suddenly,” he explained. “so he packed up and went. he had not much to pack. we travel light—he and i. we have no despatch-boxes or note-books or diaries. what we remember and forget we remember and forget in our own heads. though i doubt whether cartoner forgets anything.”
“and you?” asked wanda, turning upon him quickly.
“i? oh! i do my best,” he said, lightly. “but if you desire to forget anything you should begin early. it is not a habit acquired in later life.”
he rose as he spoke and looked at the clock. he had a habit of peering and contracting his round brown eyes which made many people think that he was short-sighted.
“i do not think i will wait for the mangles,” he said. “especially julie. i do not feel in the humor for julie. by-the-way—” he paused, and contemplated the fire thoughtfully. “you never talk politics, i know. with the mangles you may go further, and not even talk of politicians. it is no affair of theirs that cartoner may have quitted warsaw—you understand?”
“i should have thought mr. joseph mangles the incarnation of discretion,” said wanda.
“ah! you have found out mangles, have you? i wonder if you have found us all out. yes, mangles is discreet, but netty is not. i call her netty—well, because i regard her with a secret and consuming passion.”
“and have an equally secret and complete contempt for her discretion.”
“ah!” he exclaimed, and turned to look at her again. “have i concealed my admiration so successfully as that? perhaps i have overdone the concealment.”
“perhaps you have overdone the contempt,” suggested wanda. “she is probably more discreet than you think, but i shall not put her to the test.”
“you see,” said deulin, in an explanatory way, “cartoner may have had reasons of his own for leaving without drum or trumpet. you and i are the only persons in warsaw who know of his departure, except the people in the passport-office—and the others, whose business it is to watch us all. you have a certain right to know; because in a sense you brought it all about, and it concerns the safety of your father and martin. so i took it upon myself to tell you. i was not instructed to do so by cartoner. i have no message of politeness to give to any one in warsaw. cartoner merely saw that it was his duty to go, and to go at once; so he went at once. and with a characteristic simplicity of purpose, he ignored the little social trammels which the majority of mankind know much better than they know their bible, and follow much more closely. he was too discreet to call and say good-bye—knowing the ways of servants in this country. he will be much too discreet to send a conge card by post, knowing, as he does, the warsaw post-office.”
he took up his hat as he sat, and broke suddenly into his light and pleasant laugh.
“you are wondering,” he said, “why i am taking this unusual course. it is not often, i know, that one speaks well of one's friend behind his back. it is six for cartoner and half a dozen for myself. to begin with, cartoner is my friend. i should not like him to be misunderstood. also, i may do the same at any moment myself. we are here to-day and gone to-morrow. sometimes we remember our friends and sometimes we forget them.”
“at all events,” said wanda, shaking hands, “you are cautious. you make no promises.”
“and therefore we break none,” he answered, as he crossed the threshold.
he had hardly gone before netty entered the room, followed closely by mr. mangles. she was prettily dressed. she appeared to be nervous and rather shy. the two girls shook hands in silence. joseph mangles, standing well in the middle of the room, waited till the first greeting was over, and then, with that solemn air of addressing an individual as if he or she were an assembly, he spoke.
“princess,” he said, “my sister begs to be excused. she is unable to take tea this afternoon. last night she considered herself called upon to make a demonstration in the cause that she has at heart. she smoked two cigarettes towards the emancipation of your sex, princess. just to show her independence—to show, i surmise, that she didn't care a—that she did not care. she cares this afternoon. she had a headache.”
and he bowed with a courtesy with which some old-fashioned men still attempt to oppose the progress of women.