The prince looked at him over the folded sheet.  They had known each other since boyhood, and could read perhaps more in each other’s wrinkled and drawn faces than the eyes of a younger generation were able to perceive.  The prince pointed to the vacant arm-chair at the other side of the fireplace.  Deulin took the chair with that leisureliness of movement and demeanor of which Lady Orlay, and Cartoner, and others who were intimate with him, knew the inner meaning.  His eyes were oddly bright.

They waited until the servant had closed the door behind him, and even then they did not speak at once, but sat looking at each other in the glow of the wood-fire.  Then Deulin shrugged his shoulders, and made, with both hands outspread, a gesture indicative of infinite pity.

“Do you know?” said the prince, grimly.

“I knew at eight o’clock this morning.  Cartoner advised me of it by a cipher telegram.”

“Cartoner?” said the prince, interrogatively.

“Cartoner is in Petersburg.  He went there presumably to attend this—­pleasing denouement.”

The prince gave a short laugh.

“How well,” he said, folding his newspaper, and laying it aside reflectively—­“how well that man knows his business.  But why did he telegraph to you?”

“We sometimes do each other a good turn,” explained Deulin, rather curtly.  “It must have happened yesterday afternoon.  One can only hope that—­it was soon over.”

The prince laughed, and looked across at the Frenchman with a glitter beneath his shaggy brows.

“My friend,” he said, “you must not ask me to get up any sentiment on this occasion.  Do not let us attempt to be anything but what God made us—­plain men, with a few friends, whom one would regret; and a number of enemies, of whose death one naturally learns with equanimity.  The man was a thief.  He was a great man and in a great position, which only made him the greater thief.”

The prince moved his crippled legs with an effort and contemplated the fire.

“He is dead,” he went on, after a pause, “and there is an end to it.  I do not pray that he may go to eternal punishment.  I only want him to be dead; and he is dead.  Voila!  It is a matter of rejoicing.”

“You are a ruffian; I always said you were a ruffian,” said Deulin, gravely.

“I am a man, my friend, who has an object in life.  An object, moreover, which cannot take into consideration a human life here or there, a human happiness more or less.  You see, I do not even ask you to agree with me or to approve of me.”

“My friend, in the course of a long life I have learned only one effective lesson—­to judge no man,” put in Deulin.

“Remember,” continued the prince, “I deplore the method.  I understand it was a bomb.  I take no part in such proceedings.  They are bad policy.  You will see—­we shall both see, if we live long enough—­that this is a mistake.  It will alienate all sympathies from the party.  They have not even dared to approach me with any suggestion of co-operation.  They have approached others of the Polish party and have been sent about their business.  But—­well, one would be a fool not to take advantage of every mishap to one’s enemy.”