if we contemplate our neighbour's life with that calm indifference to his good or ill which is the only true philosophy, it will become apparent that the gods amuse themselves with men as children amuse themselves with toys. most lives are marked by a series of events, a long roll of monotonous years, and perhaps another series of events. in some the monotonous years come first, while others have a long breathing space of quiet remembrance before they go hence and are no more seen.
a child will take a fly and introduce him to the sugar-basin. he will then pull off his wings in order to see what he will do without them. the fly wanders round beneath the sugar-basin, his small mind absorbed in a somewhat justifiable surprise, and then the child loses all interest in him. thus the gods—with men.
cartoner was beginning to experience this numb surprise. his life, set down as a series of events, would have made what the world considers good reading nowadays. it would have illustrated to perfection; for it had been full of incidents, and cartoner had acted in these incidents—as the hero of the serial sensational novel plays his monthly part—with a mechanical energy calling into activity only one-half of his being. he had always known what he wanted, and had usually accomplished his desires with the subtraction of that discount which is necessary to the accomplishment of all human wishes. the gods had not helped him; but they had left him alone, which is quite as good, and often better. and in human aid this applies as well, which that domestic goddess, the managing female of the family, would do well to remember.
the gods had hitherto not been interested in cartoner, and, like the fly on the nursery window that has escaped notice, he had been allowed to crawl about and make his own small life, with the result that he had never found the sugar-basin and had retained his wings. but now, without apparent reason, that which is called fate had suddenly accorded him that gracious and inconsequent attention which has forever decided the sex of this arbiter of human story.
cartoner still knew what he wanted, and avoided the common error of wanting too much. for the present he was content with the desire to avoid the princess wanda bukaty. and this he was not allowed to do. two days after the meeting at the mokotow—the morning following the visit paid by wanda to the hotel de l'europe—cartoner was early astir. he drove to the railway station in time to catch the half-past eight train, and knowing the ways of the country, he took care to arrive at ten minutes past eight. he took his ticket amid a crowd of peasants—wild-looking men in long coats and high boots, rough women in gay shades of red, in short skirts and top-boots, like their husbands.
this was not a fashionable train, nor a through train to one of the capitals. a religious fete at a village some miles out of warsaw attracted the devout from all parts, and the devout are usually the humble in roman catholic countries. railways are still conducted in some parts of europe on the prison system, and cartoner, glancing into the third-class waiting room, saw that it was thronged. the second-class room was a little emptier, and beyond it the sacred green-tinted shades of the first-class waiting-room promised solitude. he went in alone. there was one person in the bare room, who rose as he came in. it was wanda. the gods were kind—or cruel.
“you are going away?” she said, in a voice so unguardedly glad that cartoner looked at her in surprise. “you have seen monsieur deulin, and you are going away.”
“no, i have not seen deulin since the races. he came to my rooms yesterday, but i was out. my rooms are watched, and he did not come again.”
“we are all watched,” said wanda, with a short and careless laugh. “but you are going away—that is all that matters.”
“i am not going away. i am only going across the frontier, and shall be back this afternoon.”
wanda turned and looked towards the door. they were alone in the room, which was a vast one. if there were any other first-class passengers, they were waiting the arrival of the train from lemberg in the restaurant, which is the more usual way of gaining access to the platform. she probably guessed that he was going across the frontier to post a letter.
“you must leave warsaw,” she said; “it is not safe for you to stay here. you have by accident acquired some knowledge which renders it imperative for you to go away. your life, you understand, is in danger.”
she kept her eyes on the door as she spoke. the ticket-collector on duty at the entrance of the two waiting-rooms was a long way off, and could not hear them even if he understood english, which was improbable. there were so many other languages at this meeting-place of east and west which it was essential for him to comprehend. the room was absolutely bare; not so much as a dog could be concealed in it. it these two had anything to say to each other this was assuredly the moment, and this bare railway station the place to say it in.
cartoner did not laugh at the mention of danger, or shrug his shoulders. he was too familiar with it, perhaps, to accord it this conventional salutation.
“martin would have warned you,” she went on, “but he did not dare to. besides, he thought that you knew something of the danger into which you had unwittingly run.”
“not unwittingly,” said cartoner, and wanda turned to look at him. he said so little that his meaning needed careful search.
“i cannot tell you much—” she began, and he interrupted her at once.
“stop,” he said, “you must tell me nothing. it was not unwitting. i am here for a purpose. i am here to learn everything—but not from you.”
“martin hinted at that,” said wanda, slowly, “but i did not believe him.”
and she looked at cartoner with a sort of wonder in her eyes. it was as if there were more in him—more of him—than she had ever expected. and he returned her glance with a simplicity and directness which were baffling enough. he looked down at her. he was taller than she, which was as it should be. for half the trouble of this troubled world comes from the fact that, for one reason or another, women are not always able to look up to the men with whom they have dealings.
“it is true enough,” he said, “fate has made us enemies, princess.”
“you said that even the czar could not do that. and he is stronger than fate—in poland. besides——”
“yes.”
“you, who say so little, were indiscreet enough to confide something in your enemy. you told me you had written for your recall.”
and again her eyes brightened, with an anticipating gleam of relief.
“it has been refused.”
“but you must go—you must go!” she said, quickly. she glanced at the great clock upon the wall. she had only ten minutes in which to make him understand. he was an eminently sensible person. there were gleams of gray in his closely cut hair.
“you must not think that we are alarmists. if there is any family in the world who knows what it is to live peaceably, happily—quite gayly—” she broke off with a light laugh, “on a volcano—it is the bukatys. we have all been brought up to it. martin and i looked out of our nursery window on april 8, 1861, and saw what was done on that day. my father was in the streets. and ever since we have been accustomed to unsettled times.”
“i know,” said cartoner, “what it is to be a bukaty.” and he smiled slowly as she looked at him with gray, fearless eyes. then suddenly her manner, in a flash, was different.
“then you will go?” she pleaded, softly, persuasively. and when he turned away his eyes from hers, as if he did not care to meet them, she glanced again, hurriedly, at the clock. there is a cunning bred of hatred, and there is another cunning, much deeper. “say you will go!”
and, sternly economical of words, he shook his head.
“i do not think you understand,” she went on, changing her manner and her ground again. and to each attack he could only oppose his own stolid, dumb form of defence. “you do not understand what a danger to us your presence here is. it is needless to tell you all this,” with a gesture she indicated the well-ordered railway station, the hundred marks of a high state of civilization, “is skin deep. that things in poland are not at all what they seem. and, of course, we are implicated. we live from day to day in uncertainty. and my father is such an old man; he has had such a hopeless struggle all his life. you have only to look at his face—”
“i know,” admitted cartoner.
“it would be very hard if anything should happen to him now, after he has gone through so much. and martin, who is so young in mind, and so happy and reckless! he would be such an easy prey for a political foe. that is why i ask you to go.”
“yes, i know,” answered cartoner, who, like many people reputed clever, was quite a simple person.
“besides,” said wanda, with that logic which men, not having the wit to follow it, call no logic at all, “you can do no good here, if all your care and attention are required for the preservation of your life. why have they refused your recall? it is so stupid.”
“i must do the best i can,” replied cartoner.
wanda shrugged her shoulders impatiently, and tapped her foot on the ground. then suddenly her manner changed again.
“but we must not quarrel,” she said, gently. “we must not misunderstand each other,” she added, with a quick and uneasy laugh, “for we have only five minutes in all the world.”
“here and now,” he corrected, with a glance at the clock, “we have only five minutes. but the world is large.”
“for you,” she said quickly, “but not for me. my world is warsaw. you forget i am a russian subject.”
but he had not forgotten it, as she could see by the sudden hardening of his face.
“my presence in warsaw,” he said, as if the train of thought needed no elucidating, “is in reality no source of danger to you—to your father and brother, i mean. indeed, i might be of some use. i or deulin. do not misunderstand my position. i am of no political importance. i am nobody—nothing but a sort of machine that has to report upon events that are past. it is not my business to prevent events or to make history. i merely record. if i choose to be prepared for that which may come to pass, that is merely my method of preparing my report. if nothing happens i report nothing. i have not to say what might have happened—life is too short to record that. so you see my being in warsaw is really of no danger to your father and brother.”
“yes, i see—i see!” answered wanda. she had only three minutes now. the door giving access to the platform had long been thrown open. the guard, in his fine military uniform and shining top-boots, was strutting the length of the train. “but it was not on account of that that we asked monsieur deulin to warn you. it does not matter about my father and martin. it is required of them—a sort of family tradition. it is their business in life—almost their pleasure.”
“it is my business in life—almost my pleasure,” said cartoner, with a smile.
“but is there no one at home—in england—that you ought to think of?” in an odd, sharp voice.
“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.
