He turned his horse as he spoke, and rode back towards the city with Cartoner.

“In the mean time,” he said, “I have the hunger of a beggar’s dog.  What are we to do?  It is one o’clock—­and I have the inside of a Frenchman.  We are a great people.  We tear down monarchies, and build up a new republic which is to last forever, and doesn’t.  We make history so quickly that the world stands breathless—­but we always breakfast before mid-day.”

He took out his watch, and showed its face to Cartoner, with a gesture which could not have been more tragic had it marked the hour of the last trump.

“And we dare not show our faces in the streets.  At least, I dare not show mine in the neighborhood of yours in Warsaw.  For they have got accustomed to me there.  They think I am a harmless old man—­a dentist, perhaps.”

“My train goes from the St. Petersburg Station at three,” said Cartoner.  “I will have some lunch at the other station, and drive across in a close cab with the blinds down.”

And he gave his low, gentle laugh.  Deulin glanced at him as if there were matter for surprise in the sound of it.

“Like a monstrosity going to a fair,” he said.  “And I shall go with you.  I will even lunch with you at the station—­a station steak and a beery table.  There is only one room at the station for those who eat and those who await their trains.  So that the eaters eat before a famished audience like Louis XVI., and the travellers sit among the crumbs.  I am with you.  But let us be quick—­and get it over.  Did you see Bukaty?” he asked, finally, and, leaning forward, he sought an imaginary fly on the lower parts of his horse; for, after all, he was only a man, and lacked the higher skill or the thicker skin of the gentler sex in dealing with certain delicate matters.

“No, I only saw the princess,” replied Cartoner.  And they rode on in silence.

“You know,” said Deulin, at length, gravely, “if that happens which you expect and I expect, and everybody here is hoping for—­I shall seek out Wanda at once, and look after her.  I do not know whether it is my duty or not.  But it is my inclination; and I am much too old to put my duty before my inclination.  So, if anything happens, and there follows that confusion which you and I have seen once or twice before, where things are stirring and dynasties are crumbling in the streets—­when friends and foes are seeking each other in vain—­you need not seek me or think about our friends in Warsaw.  You need only think of yourself, remember that.  I shall have eloped—­with Wanda.”

And he finished with an odd laugh, that had a tender ring in it.

“Bukaty and I,” he went on, after a pause, “do not talk of these things together.  But we have come to an understanding on that point.  And when the first flurry is over and we come to the top for a breath of air, you have only to wire to my address in Paris to tell me where you are—­and I will tell you where—­we are.  We are old birds at this sport—­you and I—­and we know how to take care of ourselves.”