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 attitude 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 embarrassment.
“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 assimilated 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 circumstances 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.
“The plot is simple enough,” answered Martin, for Cartoner said nothing, and looked straight in front of him. He did not address one more than the other, but explained the situation, as it were, for the benefit of all whom it might concern. He had lighted a cigarette—a little Russian affair, all gold lettering and mouthpiece, and as he spoke he jerked the ash from time to time so that it should not fly and incommode his sister.
“Rightly or wrongly, we are suspected of being malcontents. The Bukatys have in the past been known to foster that spirit of Polish nationality which it has been the endeavor of three great countries to suppress for nearly a century. Despite Russia, Prussia, and Austria there is still a Polish language and a Polish spirit; despite the Romanovs, the Hapsburgs, and the Hohenzollerns there are still a few old Lithuanian and Ruthenian families extant. And rightly or wrongly, those in authority are kind enough to blame, among others, the Bukatys for these survivals. Weeds, it seems, are hard to kill. Whether we are really to blame or not is of no consequence. It does not matter to the dog whether he deserves his bad name or not—after he is hanged. But it is not good to be a Bukaty and live in Poland just now, though some of us manage
