“Nobody,” he replied, in one word, for he was chary with information respecting himself.
Wanda had walked towards the platform. Immediately opposite to her stood a carriage with the door thrown open. In those days there were no corridor carriages. Two minutes now.
“We must not be seen together on the platform,” she said. “I am only going to the next station. We have a small farm there, and some old servants whom I go to see.”
She stood within the open doorway, and seemed to wait for him to speak.
“Thank you,” he said, “for warning me.”
And that was all.
“You must go,” he added, after a moment’s pause.
Still she lingered.
“There is so much to say,” she said, half to herself. “There is so much to say.”
The train was moving when Cartoner stepped into a carriage at the back. He was alone, and he leaned back with a look of thoughtful wonder in his eyes, as if he were questioning whether she were right—whether there was much to say—or nothing.
XVII
In the Senatorska
“It is,” said Miss Julia Mangles, “in the Franciszkanska that one lays one’s hand on the true heart of the people.”
“That’s as may be, Jooly,” replied her brother, “but I take it that the hearts of the women go to the Senatorska.”
For Miss Mangles, on the advice of a polyglot concierge, had walked down the length of that silent street, the Franciszkanska, where the Jews ply their mysterious trades and where every shutter is painted with bright images of the wares sold within the house. The street is a picture-gallery of the human requirements. The chosen people hurry to and fro with curved backs and patient, suffering faces that bear the mark of eighteen hundred years of persecution. No Christian would assuredly be a Jew; and no Jew would be a Polish Jew if he could possibly help it. For a Polish Jew must not leave the country, may not even quit his native town, unless it suits a paternal government that he should go elsewhere. He has no personal liberty, and may not exercise a choice as to the clothes that he shall wear.
“I shall,” said Miss Mangles, “write a paper on the Jewish question in this country.”
And Joseph changed the position of his cigar from the left-hand to the right-hand corner of his mouth, very dexterously from within, with his tongue. He saw no reason why Jooly should not write a paper on the Semitic question in Russia, and read it to a greedy multitude in a town-hall, provided that the town-hall was sufficiently far West.
“Seen the Senatorska, Netty?” he inquired. But Netty had not seen the Senatorska, and did not know how to find it.
“Go out into the Faubourg,” her uncle explained, “and just turn to the left and follow all the other women. It is the street where the shops are.”
Two days later, when Miss Julia Mangles was writing her paper, Netty set out to find the Senatorska. Miss Mangles was just putting down—as the paper itself recorded—the hot impressions of the moment, gathered after a walk down the Street of the Accursed. For they like their impressions served hot out West, and this is a generation that prefers vividness to accuracy.
Netty found the street quite easily. It was a sunny morning, and many shoppers were abroad. In a degree she followed her uncle’s instructions, and instinct did the rest. For the Senatorska is not an easy street to find. The entrance to it is narrow and unpromising, like either end of Bond Street.
The Senatorska does not approach Bond Street or the Rue de la Paix, and Netty, who knew those thoroughfares, seemed to find little to interest her in the street where Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski—that weak dreamer—built his great opera-house and cultivated the ballet. The shops are, indeed, not worthy of a close attention, and Netty was passing them indifferently enough when suddenly she became absorbed in the wares of a silver-worker. Then she turned, with a little cry of surprise, to find a gentleman standing hatless beside her. It was the Prince Martin Bukaty.
“I was afraid you did not remember me,” said Martin. “You looked straight at me, and did not seem to recognize me.”
“Did I? I am so shortsighted, you know. I had not forgotten you. Why should I?”
And Netty glanced at Martin in her little, gentle, appealing way, and then looked elsewhere rather hastily.
“Oh, you travellers must see so many people you cannot be expected to remember everyone who is introduced to you at a race-meeting.”
“Of course,” said Netty, looking into the silversmith’s shop. “One meets a great number of people, but not many that one likes. Do you not find it so?”
“I am glad,” answered Martin, “that you do not meet many people that you like.”
“Oh, but you must not think that I dislike people,” urged Netty, in some concern; “I should be very ungrateful if I did. Everybody is so kind. Do you not find it so? I hate people to be cynical. There is much more kindness in the world than anybody suspects. Do you not think so?”
“I do not know. It has not come my way, perhaps. It naturally would come in yours.”
And Martin looked down at her beneath the pink shade of her parasol with that kindness in his eyes of which Netty had had so large a share.
“Oh no!” she protested, with a little movement of the shoulders descriptive of a shrinking humility. “Why should I? I have done nothing to deserve it. And yet, perhaps you are right. Everybody is so kind—my uncle and aunt—everybody. I am very fortunate, I am sure. I wonder why it is?”
And she looked up inquiringly into Martin’s face as if he could tell her, and, indeed, he looked remarkably as if he could—if he dared. He had never met anybody quite like Netty—so spontaneous and innocent and easy to get on with. Conversation with her was so interesting and yet so little
