“You see,” said Deulin, in an explanatory way, “Cartoner may have had reasons of his own for leaving without drum or trumpet.  You and I are the only persons in Warsaw who know of his departure, except the people in the passport-office—­and the others, whose business it is to watch us all.  You have a certain right to know; because in a sense you brought it all about, and it concerns the safety of your father and Martin.  So I took it upon myself to tell you.  I was not instructed to do so by Cartoner.  I have no message of politeness to give to any one in Warsaw.  Cartoner merely saw that it was his duty to go, and to go at once; so he went at once.  And with a characteristic simplicity of purpose, he ignored the little social trammels which the majority of mankind know much better than they know their Bible, and follow much more closely.  He was too discreet to call and say good-bye—­knowing the ways of servants in this country.  He will be much too discreet to send a conge card by post, knowing, as he does, the Warsaw post-office.”

He took up his hat as he sat, and broke suddenly into his light and pleasant laugh.

“You are wondering,” he said, “why I am taking this unusual course.  It is not often, I know, that one speaks well of one’s friend behind his back.  It is six for Cartoner and half a dozen for myself.  To begin with, Cartoner is my friend.  I should not like him to be misunderstood.  Also, I may do the same at any moment myself.  We are here to-day and gone to-morrow.  Sometimes we remember our friends and sometimes we forget them.”

“At all events,” said Wanda, shaking hands, “you are cautious.  You make no promises.”

“And therefore we break none,” he answered, as he crossed the threshold.

He had hardly gone before Netty entered the room, followed closely by Mr. Mangles.  She was prettily dressed.  She appeared to be nervous and rather shy.  The two girls shook hands in silence.  Joseph Mangles, standing well in the middle of the room, waited till the first greeting was over, and then, with that solemn air of addressing an individual as if he or she were an assembly, he spoke.

“Princess,” he said, “my sister begs to be excused.  She is unable to take tea this afternoon.  Last night she considered herself called upon to make a demonstration in the cause that she has at heart.  She smoked two cigarettes towards the emancipation of your sex, princess.  Just to show her independence—­to show, I surmise, that she didn’t care a—­that she did not care.  She cares this afternoon.  She had a headache.”

And he bowed with a courtesy with which some old-fashioned men still attempt to oppose the progress of women.

XXIV

IN THE WEST INDIA DOCK ROAD

It is not only in name that this great thoroughfare has the sound of the sea, the suggestion of a tarry atmosphere, and that mystery which hangs about the lives of simple sailor men.  To thousands and thousands of foreigners the word London means the West India Dock Road, and nothing more.  There are sailors sailing on every sea who cherish the delusion that they have seen life and London when they have passed the portals of one of the large public-houses of the West India Dock Road.