For these men were the vultures of their respective Foreign Offices, and it was their business to be found where the carcass is.
“The chief difference between the gods and men is that man can only be in one place at a time,” Deulin had once said to Cartoner, twenty years his junior, in his light, philosophic way, when a turn of the wheel had rendered a long journey futile, and they found themselves far from that place where their services were urgently needed.
“If men could be in two places at the same moment, say once only during a lifetime, their lives would be very different from what they are.” Cartoner had glanced quickly at him when he spoke, but only saw a ready, imperturbable smile.
Deulin was a man counting his friends among all nationalities. The captain of a great steamship has perhaps as many acquaintances as may be vouchsafed to one man, and at the beginning of a voyage he has to assure a number of total strangers that he remembers them perfectly. Deulin, during fifty-odd years of his life, had moved through a maze of men, remembering faces as a ship-captain must recollect those who have sailed with him, without attaching a name or being able to allot one saving quality to lift an individual out of the ruck. For it is a lamentable fact that all men and all women are painfully like each other; it is only their faces that differ. For God has made the faces, but men have manufactured their own thoughts.
Deulin had met a few who were not like the others, and one of these was Reginald Cartoner, who was thrown against him, as it were, in a professional manner when Deulin had been twenty years at the work.
“I always cross the road,” he said, “when I see Cartoner on the other side. If I did not, he would go past.”
This he did in the literal sense the day after Cartoner landed in England on his return from America. Deulin saw his friend emerge from a club in Pall Mall and walk westward, as if he had business in that direction. Like many travellers, the Frenchman loved the open air. Like all Frenchmen, he loved the streets. He was idling in Pall Mall, avoiding a man here and there. For we all have friends whom we are content to see pass by on the other side. Deulin’s duty was, moreover, such that it got strangely mixed up with his pleasure, and it often happens that discretion must needs overcome a natural sociability.
Cartoner saw his friend approaching; for Deulin had the good fortune, or the misfortune, to be a distinguished-looking man, with a tall, spare form, a trim white mustache and imperial, and that air of calm possession of his environment which gives to some paupers the manner of a great landowner. He shook hands in silence, then turned and walked with Cartoner.
“I permit myself a question,” he said. “When did you return from Cuba?”
“I landed at Liverpool last night.”
Cartoner turned in his abrupt way and looked his companion up and down. Perhaps he was wondering for the hundredth time what might be buried behind those smiling eyes.
“I am in London, as you see,” said Deulin, as if he had been asked a question. “I am awaiting orders. Something is brewing somewhere, one may suppose. Your return to London seems to confirm such a suspicion. Let us hope we may have another little … errand together—eh?”
As he spoke, Deulin bowed in his rather grand way to an old gentleman who walked briskly past in the military fashion, and who turned to look curiously at the two men.
“You are dressed in your best clothes,” said Deulin, after a pause; “you are going to pay calls.”
“I am going to call on one of my old chiefs.”
“Then I will ask your permission to accompany you. I, too, have put on a new hat. I am idle. I want something to do. Mon Dieu, I want to talk to a clean and wholesome Englishwoman, just for a change. I know all your old chiefs, my friend. I know where you have been every moment since you made your mark at this business. One watches the quiet men—eh?”
“She will be glad to see you,” said Cartoner, with his slow smile.
“Ah! She is always kind, that lady; for I guess where we are going. She might have been a great woman … if she had not been a happy one.”
“I always go to see them when I am in town,” said Cartoner, who usually confined his conversation to the necessaries of daily intercourse.
“And he—how is he?”
“He is as well as can be expected. He has worked so hard and so long in many climates. She is always anxious about him.”
“It is the penalty a woman pays,” said Deulin. “To love and to be consumed by anxiety—a woman’s life, my friend. Oddly enough, I should have gone there this afternoon, whether I had met you or not. I want her good services—again.”
And the Frenchman shrugged his shoulders with a laugh, as if suddenly reminded of some grievous error in his past life.
“I want her to befriend some friends of mine, if she has not done so already. For she knows them, of course. They are the Bukatys. Of course, you know the history of the Bukatys of Warsaw.”
“I know the history of Poland,” answered Cartoner, looking straight in front of him with reflective eyes. He had an odd way of carrying his head a little bent forward, as if he bore behind his heavy forehead a burden of memories and knowledge of which his brain was always conscious—as a
