And for a moment Netty was silenced by she knew not what.
“You say that to please me,” she said at last. And her voice was quite different—it was low and uneven.
“I say it because it is the truth. There is no one more beautiful than you in all the world. Heaven knows it.”
And he looked up with flashing black eyes to that heaven in which he had no faith.
“But who is there in Warsaw,” he asked, “whom anyone could dream of comparing with you?”
“I have no doubt there are hundreds. But there is one whom Mr. Cartoner compares with me—and even you must know that she is prettier than I am.”
“I do not know it,” protested Kosmaroff, again taking her hand. “There is no one in all the world.”
“There is the Princess Wanda Bukaty,” said Netty, curtly.
“Ah! Does Cartoner admire her? Do they know each other? Yes, I remember I saw them together at the races.”
“They knew each other in London,” said Netty. “They knew each other when I first saw them together at Lady Orlay’s there. And they have often met here since.”
Kosmaroff seemed to be hardly listening. He was staring in front of him, his eyes narrow with thought and suspicion. He seemed to have forgotten Netty and his love for her as suddenly as he had remembered it in the salon a few minutes earlier.
“Is it that he has fallen in love—or is it that he desires information which she alone can give him?” he asked at length. Which was, after all, the most natural thought that could come to him at that moment and in that place. For every man must see the world through his own eyes.
Before she could answer him the town clocks struck ten. Netty rose hastily and drew her cloak round her.
“I must go,” she said; “I have been here much more than five minutes. Why did you let me stay? Oh—why did you make me come?”
And she hurried towards the gate, Kosmaroff walking by her side.
“You will come again,” he said. “Now that you have come once—you cannot be so cruel. Now that you know. I am nearly always at the river, at the foot of the Bednarska. You might walk past, and say a word in passing. You might even come in my boat. Bring that woman with the black hair, your aunt, if necessary. If would be safer, perhaps. Do you speak French?”
“Yes—and she does not.”
“Good—then we can talk. I must not go beyond the gate. Goodbye—and remember that I love you—always, always!”
He stood at the gate and watched her hurry across the square towards the side door of the hotel, where the concierge was so busy that he could scarcely keep a note of all who passed in and out.
“It is all fair—all fair,” said Kosmaroff to himself, seeking to convince himself. “Besides—has the world been fair to me?”
Which argument has made the worst men that walk the earth.
XX
A Light Touch
Soon after ten o’clock Miss Mangles received a message that Netty, having a headache, had gone to her room. Miss Cahere had never given way to that weakness, which is, or was, euphoniously called the emotions. She was not old-fashioned in that respect.
But tonight, on regaining her room, she was conscious, for the first time in her life, of a sort of moral shakiness. She felt as if she might do or say something imprudent. And she had never felt like that before. No one in the world could say that she had ever been imprudent. That which the lenient may call a schoolgirl escapade—a mere flight to the garden for a few minutes—was scarcely sufficient to account for this feeling. She must be unwell, she thought. And she decided, with some wisdom, not to submit herself to the scrutiny of Paul Deulin again.
Mr. Mangles had not finished his excellent cigar; and although Miss Mangles did not feel disposed for another of those long, innocent-looking Russian cigarettes offered by Deulin, she had still some views of value to be pressed upon the notice of the inferior sex.
Deulin had been glancing at the clock for some time, and, suspiciously soon after learning that they were not to see Netty again, he announced with regret that he had letters to write, and must take his leave. Cartoner made no excuse, but departed at the same time.
“I will come down to the door with you,” said Deulin, in the passage. He was always idle, and always had leisure to follow his sociable instincts.
At the side door, while Cartoner was putting on his coat, he stepped rather suddenly out into the street, and before Cartoner had found his hat was back again.
“It is a moonlight night,” he said. “I will walk with you part of the way.”
He turned, as he spoke, towards his coat and hat and stick, which were hanging near to where Cartoner had found his own. He did not seem to think it necessary to ask the usual formal permission. They knew each other too well for that. Cartoner helped the Frenchman on with his thin, light overcoat, and reaching out his hand took the stick from the rack, weighing and turning it thoughtfully in his hand.
“That is the Madrid Stick,” said the Frenchman. “You were with me when I bought it.”
“And when you used it,” added Cartoner, in his quietest tone, as he led the way to the door. “Generally keep your coat in the hall?” he inquired, casually, as they descended the steps.
“Sometimes,” replied Deulin, glancing at the questioner sideways beneath the brim of his hat.
It was, as he had said, a beautiful night. The moon was almost full and almost overhead, so that the streets were in most instances without shadow at all; for they nearly all run north and south, as does the river.
“Yes,” said Deulin, taking Cartoner’s arm, and leading him to the right instead of the left; for Cartoner was going
