“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, absentmindedly.
“Hope.”
“Hope! connais pas!” he exclaimed, with a sudden laugh. “You must ask someone who knows more about it. I am a man of sorrow, Wanda; that is why I am so gay.”
And his laugh was indeed lighthearted 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 indoor 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 dullness. 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 midair. 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 nutcracker 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 mantelpiece, 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,
