The Vultures Part 14

"By-the-way," he asked, "what is Cartoner doing in Warsaw?"

"Cartoner--the Englishman who speaks so many languages? We met him in London," answered the prince. "Who is he? Why should he not be here?"

"I will tell you who he is," answered Kosmaroff, with a sudden light in his eyes. "He is the man that the English send when they suspect that something is going on which they can turn to good account. He has a trick of finding things out--that man. Such is his reputation, at all events. Paul Deulin is another, and he is here. He is a friend of yours, by-the-way; but he is not dangerous, like Cartoner. There is an American here, too. His instructions are Warsaw and Petersburg. There is either something moving in Russia or else the powers suspect that something may move in Poland before long. These men are here to find out. They must find out nothing from us."

The prince shrugged his shoulders indifferently. He did not attach much importance to these foreigners.

"Of course," went on Kosmaroff, "they are only watchers. But, as Wanda says, some people see more than others. The American, Mangles, who has ladies with him, will report upon events after they have happened. So will Deulin, who is an idler. He never sees that which will give him trouble. He does not write long despatches to the Quai d'Orsay, because he knows that they will not be read there. But Cartoner is different.

There are never any surprises for the English in matters that Cartoner has in hand. He reports on events before they have happened, which is a different story. I merely warn you."

As he spoke, Kosmaroff rose, glancing at the clock.

"There are no instructions?"

"None," answered the prince. "Except the usual one--patience!"

"Ah yes," replied Kosmaroff, "we shall be patient."

He did not seem to think that it might be easier to be patient in this comfortable house than on the sand-hills of the Vistula in the coming winter months.

"But be careful," he added, addressing Martin more particularly, "of this man Cartoner. He will not betray, but he will know--you understand.

And no one must know!"

He shook hands with Martin and Wanda and then with the prince.

"You met him in London, you say?" he said to the prince. "What did you think of him?"

"I thought him--a quiet man."

"And Wanda?" continued Kosmaroff, lightly, turning to her--"she who sees so much. What did she think of him?"

"I was afraid of him!"

XI

AN AGREEMENT TO DIFFER

The Saxon Gardens are in the heart of Warsaw, and, in London, would be called a park. At certain hours the fashionable world promenades beneath the trees, and at all times there is a thoroughfare across from one quarter of the town to another.

Wanda often sat there in the morning or walked slowly with her father at such times as the doctor's instructions to take exercise were still fresh upon his memory. There are seats beneath the trees, overlooking the green turf and the flowers so dear to the Slavonian soul. Later in the morning these seats are occupied by nurses and children, as in any other park in any other city. But from nine to ten Wanda had the alleys mostly to herself.

The early autumn had already laid its touch upon the trees, and the leaves were brown. The flowers, laboriously tended all through the brief, uncertain summer, had that forlorn look which makes autumn in Northern lat.i.tudes a period of damp depression. Wanda had gone out early, and was sitting at the sunny side of the broad alley that divides the gardens in two from end to end. She was waiting for Martin, who had been called back at the door of the palace and had promised to follow in a few minutes. He had a hundred engagements during the day, a hundred friends among those unfortunate scions of n.o.ble houses who will not wear the Russian uniform, who cannot by the laws of their caste engage in any form of commerce, and must not accept a government office--who are therefore idle, without the natural Southern sloth that enables Italians and Spaniards to do nothing gracefully all day long. Wanda was wiser than Martin. Girls generally are infinitely wiser than young men. But the wisdom ceases to grow later in life, and old men are wiser than old women. Wanda was, in a sense, Martin's adviser, mentor, and friend. She had, as he himself acknowledged, already saved him from dangers into which his natural heedlessness and impetuosity would have led him. As to the discontent in which all Poland was steeped, which led the princes and their friends into many perils, Wanda had been brought up to it, just as some families are brought up to consumption and the antic.i.p.ation of an early death.

In her eminently practical, feminine way of looking at things, Wanda was much more afraid of Martin running into debt than into danger. Debt and impecuniosity would be so inconvenient at this time, when her father daily needed some new comfort, and daily depended for his happiness more and more upon his port wine and that ease which is only to be enjoyed by an easy mind.

Wanda was thinking of these things in the Saski Gardens, and hardly heeded the pa.s.sers-by, though--for the feminine instincts were strong in her--she looked with softer eyes on the children than she did on the Jew who hurried past, with bent back and a bowed head, from the richer quarter of the town to his own mysterious purlieus of the Franoiszkanska. The latter, perhaps, recalled the thoughts of Martin and his heedlessness; the former made her think of--she knew not what.

She was looking towards the colonnade that marks the site of the King of Saxony's palace, when Cartoner came through the archway into the garden.

She recognized him even at this distance, for his walk was unlike that of the nervous, quick-moving Pole or the lurking Jew. It was more like the gait of a Russian; but all the Russians in Warsaw wear a uniform.

That is why they are there. There was a suggestion of determination in the walk of this Englishman.

He came down the wide alley towards her, and then suddenly perceived her. She saw this without actually looking at him, and knew the precise moment when he first caught sight of her. It was presumably upon experience that Wanda based her theory that women see twice as much as men. She saw him turn, without hesitation, away from her down a narrower alley leading to the right. It was his intention to avoid her. But the only turning he could take was that leading to the corner of Kotzebue Street, and Martin was at the other end of it, coming towards him.

Cartoner was thus caught in the narrow alley. Wanda sat still and watched the two men. She suddenly knew in advance what would happen, as it is often vouchsafed to the human understanding to know at a moment's notice what is coming; and she had a strange, discomforting sense that these minutes were preordained--that Martin and Cartoner and herself were mere puppets in the hands of Fate, and must say and do that which has been a.s.signed to them in an unalterable scheme of succeeding events.

She watched the two men meet and shake hands, in the English fashion, without raising their hats. She could see Cartoner's movements to continue his way, and Martin's detaining hand slipped within the Englishman's arm.

"What does it matter?" Martin was saying. "There is no one to see us here, at this hour in the morning. We are quite safe. There is Wanda, sitting on the seat, waiting for me. Come back with me."

And Wanda could divine the words easily enough from her brother's att.i.tude and gestures. It ought to have surprised her that Cartoner yielded, for it was unlike him. He was so much stronger than Martin--so determined, so unyielding. And yet she felt no surprise when he turned and came towards her with Martin's hand still within his arm. She knew that it was written that he must come; divined vaguely that he had something to say to her which it was safer to say than to leave to be silently understood and perhaps misunderstood. She gave an impatient sigh. She had always ruled her father and brother and the Palace Bukaty, and this sense of powerlessness was new to her.

While they approached, Martin continued to talk in his eager, laughing way, and Cartoner smiled slowly as he listened.

"I saw you," he said to Wanda, as he took off his hat, "and went the other way to avoid you."

And, having made this plain statement, he stood silently looking at her. He looked into her eyes, and she met his odd, direct gaze without embarra.s.sment.

"Cartoner and I," Prince Martin hastened to explain, "travelled from Berlin together, and we agreed then that, much as we might desire it, it would be inconvenient for me to show him that attention which one would naturally want to show to an Englishman travelling in Poland. That is why he went the other way when he saw you."

Wanda looked at Cartoner with her quick, shrewd smile. It would have been the obvious thing to have confirmed this explanation. But Cartoner kept silent. He had acquired, it seemed, the fatal habit--very rare among men and almost unknown in women--of thinking before he spoke.

Which habit is deadly for that which is called conversation, because if one decides not to give speech to the obvious and the unnecessary and the futile there is in daily intercourse hardly anything left.

"You see," said Martin, who always had plenty to say for himself, "in this province of Russia we are not even allowed to choose our own friends."

"Even in a free country one does not pick one's friends out, like the best strawberries from a basket," said Wanda.

"Not a question to be arranged beforehand," put in Cartoner.

"Not even by the governor-general of Poland?" asked Wanda, looking thoughtfully at the falling leaves which a sudden gust of wind had showered round them.

"Not even by the Czar."

"Who, I am told, means well!" said Martin, ironically, and with a gay laugh, for irony and laughter may be a.s.similated by the young. "Poor man! It must be terrible to know that people are saying behind one's back that one means well! I hope no one will ever say that of me."

Wanda had sat down again, and was stirring the dead leaves with her walking-stick.

"Martin and I are going for a tramp," she said. "We like to get away from the noise and the dust--and the uniforms."

But Martin sat down beside her and made room for Cartoner.

"We attract less attention than if we stand," he explained. And Cartoner took the seat offered. "Such hospitality as our circ.u.mstances allow us to offer you," commented the young prince, gayly, "a clean stone seat on the sunny side of a public garden."

"But let us understand each other," put in Wanda, in her practical way, and looked from one man to the other with those gay, blue eyes that saw so much, "since we are conspirators."

"The better we understand each other the better conspirators we shall be," said Cartoner.

"I notice you don't ask, 'What is the plot?'" said Wanda.