“When I was a young man there were opportunities of learning Polish in Paris,” said Deulin.  “Yes—­I learned Polish when I was young——­”

He had arranged the table to his satisfaction, had picked up several objects to examine them and replace them with care on the exact spot from whence he had taken them, and was now looking round the room with large, deep-lined eyes which were always tired and never at rest.

“When one is young, one learns so much in a short time, especially if that time is ill-spent,” he said, airily.  “That is why the virtuous are such poor company; they have no backbone to their past.  With the others—­’nous autres’—­it is the evil deeds that form a sort of spinal column to our lives, rigid and strong, upon which to lean in old age when virtue is almost a necessity.”

Finally he came round in his tour of inspection to the face opposite to him.

“Do you know,” he said, sharply, “you are devilish absent-minded.  It is a bad habit.  It makes the world think that you have something on your mind.  And having nothing on its own mind—­or no mind to have anything on—­it hates you for your airs of superiority.”

He took up the bottle of wine which the waiter had set upon the table in front of him, inspected the label, and filled two glasses.  He tasted the vintage, and made a wry face.  Then he raised his shoulders with an air or reconciliation to the inevitable.

“When I was a young—­a very young diplomatist—­an old scoundrel in gold spectacles told me that one of the first rules of the game was to appear content with that which you cannot alter.  We must apply that rule to this wine.  It is our old friend, Chateau la Pompe.  It will not hurt you.  It will not loosen your tongue, my friend, you need not fear that.”

He spoke so significantly that Cartoner looked across the table at him.

“What do you mean?”

Deulin laughed and made no answer.

“Do you think that my tongue requires loosening?”

And the Frenchman stroked his mustache as he looked thoughtfully into the steady, meditating eyes.

“It is not,” he said, “that you assume a reserve which one might think unfair.  It is merely that there are so many things which you do not think worth saying, or wise to speak of, or necessary to communicate, that—­well—­there is nothing left but silence.  And silence is sometimes dangerous.  Not as dangerous as speech, I allow—­but dangerous, nevertheless.”

Cartoner looked at him and waited.  Across the little table the two schools went out to meet each other—­the old school of diplomacy, all words; the new, all silence.