Kosmaroff smiled, his odd, one-sided smile, and cut himself a piece of bread. There was a faint suggestion of the riverside in his manner at table. This was a man into whose life the ceremony of sit-down meals had never entered largely. He ate because he was hungry—not, as many do, to pass the time.
“One thing I came to tell you I can tell you now,” he said. “In fact, it is better that the princess should hear it; for in a way it concerns her also. But, please, do not stand,” he added, turning to her. “I have all I want. It is kind of you to wait on me as if I were a king—or a beggar.”
His laugh had rather a cruel ring in it as he continued his meal.
“It is,” he said, after a pause, “about that Englishman, Cartoner.”
Wanda turned slowly, and resumed the chair she had quitted on Kosmaroff’s sudden appearance at the door.
“Yes,” she said, in a steady voice.
“He knows more than it is safe to know—safe for us—or for himself. One evening I could have put him out of the way, and it is a pity, perhaps, that it was not done. In a cause like ours, which affects the lives and happiness of millions, we should not pause to think of the life of one. This does not come into my sphere, and I have no immediate concern in it—” He stopped, and looked at the prince.
“But I have also no power,” he added, “over those whose affair it is—you understand that. This comes under the hand of those who study the attitude of the European powers, our—well, I suppose I may say—our foreign office. It is their affair to know what powers are friendly to us—they were all friendly to us thirty years ago, in words—and who are our enemies. It is also their affair to find out how much the foreign powers know. It seems they must know something. It seems that Cartoner—knows everything. So it is reported in Krakow.”
The prince shrugged his shoulders, and gave a short laugh.
“In Krakow,” he said, “they are all words.”
“There are certain men, it appears,” continued Kosmaroff, “in the service of the governments—in one service it is called ‘foreign affairs,’ in another the ‘secret service’—whose mission it is to find themselves where things are stirring, to be at the seat of war. They are, in jest, called the Vultures. It is a French jest, as you would conclude. And the Vultures have been congregating at Warsaw. Therefore, the powers know something. At Krakow, it is said—I ask your pardon for repeating it—that they know, and that Cartoner knows what he knows—through the Bukatys.”
The prince’s lips moved beneath his mustache, but he did not speak. Wanda, who was seated near the fire, had turned in her chair, and was looking at Kosmaroff over her shoulder with steady eyes. She was not taken by surprise. It was Cartoner himself who had foreseen this, and had warned her. There was deep down in her heart, even at this moment, a thrill of pride in the thought that her lover was a cleverer man than any she had had to do with. And, oddly enough, the next words Kosmaroff spoke made her his friend for the rest of her life.
“I have nothing against him. I know nothing of him, except that he is a brave man. It happens that I know that,” he said. “He knows as well as I do that his life is unsafe in this country, and yet, before I left London I heard—for we have friends everywhere—that he had got his passport for Russia again. It is to be presumed that he is coming back, so you must be prepared. In case anything should happen to confirm these suspicions that come to us from Krakow, you know that I have no control over certain members of the party. If it was thought that you or Martin had betrayed anything—”
“I or Martin would be assassinated,” said the prince with his loud laugh. “I know that. I have long known that we are going back to the methods of the sixties—suspicion and assassination. It has always been the ruin of Poland—that method.”
“But you have no feelings with regard to this man?” asked Kosmaroff, sharply, looking from father to daughter, with a keen sidelong glance, as if the suspicion that had come from Krakow had not left him untouched.
“None whatever,” answered the prince. “He is a mere passing acquaintance. He must be allowed to pass. We will drop him—you can tell your friends—it will not be much of a sacrifice compared to some that have been made for Poland.”
Wanda glanced at her father. Did he mean anything?
“You know what they are,” broke in Kosmaroff’s eager voice. “They see a mountain in every molehill. Martin was seen at Alexandrowo with Cartoner. Wanda was seen speaking to him at the Mokotow. He is known to have called on you at your hotel in London.”
“It is a question of dropping his acquaintance, my friend,” said the prince, “and I tell you, he shall be dropped.”
“It is more than that,” answered Kosmaroff, half sullenly.
“You mean,” said the prince, suddenly roused to anger, “that Martin and I are put upon our good behavior—that our lives are safe only so long as we are not seen speaking to Cartoner, or are not suspected of having any communication with him.”
And Kosmaroff was silent.
He had ceased eating, and had laid aside his knife and fork. It was clear that his whole mind and body were given
