“They will know at the frontier,” answered the prince, “and it is there that you will have difficulties.”

“Then it is there that we shall overcome them,” he replied, gayly.  “It is there also, I hope, that we shall dine.  For I have had no lunch.  No matter; I lunched yesterday.  I shall eat things in the train, and Wanda will hate me.  I always hate other people’s crumbs, while for my own I have a certain tenderness.  Yes.  Now let us say good-bye and be gone.”

For Paul Deulin’s gayety always rose to the emergency of the moment.  He came of a stock that had made jests on the guillotine steps.  He was suddenly pressed for time, and had scarcely a moment in which to bid his old friend good-bye, and no leisure to make those farewell speeches which are nearly always better left unsaid.

“I must ask you,” he said to Wanda, when they were in the cab, “to drive round by the Europe, and keep you waiting a few moments while I run up-stairs and put together my belongings.  I shall give up my room.  I may not come back.  One never knows.”

And he looked curiously out of the cab window into the street that had run with blood twice within his own recollection.  He peered into the faces of the passers-by as into the faces of men who were to-day, and to-morrow would be as the seed of grass.

In the Cracow Faubourg all seemed to be as usual.  Some were going about their business without haste or enthusiasm, as the conquered races always seem to do, while others appeared to have no business at all beyond a passing interest in the shop-windows and a leisurely sense of enjoyment in the sunshine.  The quieter thoroughfares were quieter than usual, Deulin thought.  But he made no comment, and Wanda seemed to be fully occupied with her own thoughts.  The long expected, when it comes at last, is really more surprising than the unexpected itself.

It was the luncheon hour at the Hotel de l’Europe, but the entrance hall was less encumbered with hats and fur coats than was usual between twelve and two.  The man in the street might, as he had said, know nothing; but others, and notably the better-born, knew now that the Czar was dead.

As Deulin was preparing to open the carriage door, Wanda spoke for the first time.

“What will you do about the Mangles?” she asked.  “We cannot let them remain here unwarned.”

Deulin reflected for a moment.

“I had forgotten them,” he answered.  “In times of stress one finds out one’s friends, because the others are forgotten.  I will say a word to Mangles, if you like.”

“Yes,” answered Wanda, sitting back in the cab so that on one should see her—­“yes, do that.”

“Odd people women are,” said Deulin to himself, as he hurried up-stairs.  He must really have been in readiness to depart, for he came down again almost at once, followed by a green-aproned porter carrying his luggage.

“I looked into Mangles’s salon,” he said to Wanda, when he was seated beside her again.  “He remains here alone.  The ladies have already gone.  They must have taken the mid-day train to Germany.  He is no fool—­that Mangles.  But this morning he is dumb.  He would say nothing.”