“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 dulness.  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 mid-air.  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 nut-cracker 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.