And the Prince Bukaty was thus allowed to go where he listed, and live in Warsaw if he so desired.  Perhaps the secret of this lay in the fact that he was poor; for a poor man has few adherents.  In the olden times, when the Bukatys had been rich, there were many professing readiness to follow him to the death—­which is the way of the world.  “You have but to hold up your hand,” cries the faithful follower.  But wise men know that the hand must have something in it.  The prince had been young and impressionable when Poland was torn to pieces, when that which for eight centuries had been one of the important kingdoms of the world was wiped off the face of Europe, like writing off a slate.  He was not a ruffian, as Deulin had described him; but he was a man who had been ruffled, and nothing could ever smooth him.

He was too frank by nature to play a hopeless game with the cunning and the savor of spite which hopeless games require.  If he liked a man, he said so; if he disliked one, he was equally frank about it.  He liked Cartoner on the briefest of brief introductions, and said so.

“It is difficult to find a man in London who speaks anything but English, and of anything but English topics.  You are the narrowest people in the world—­you Londoners.  But you are no Londoner; I beg your pardon.  Well, then, come and see me to-morrow.  We are in a hotel in Kensington—­will you come?  That is the address.”

And he held out a card with a small gold crown emblazoned in the corner, after the mode of eastern Europe.  Cartoner reflected for a moment, which was odd in a man whose decisions were usually arrived at with lightning speed.  For he had a slow tongue and a quick brain.  There are few better equipments with which to face the world.

“Yes,” he said at length; “it will give me much pleasure.”

The prince glanced at him curiously beneath his bushy eyebrows.  What was there to need reflection in such a small question?

“At five o’clock,” he said.  “We can give you a cup of the poisonous tea you drink in this country.”

And he went away laughing heartily at the small witticism.  People whose lives are anything but a joke are usually content with the smallest jests.

It was scarcely five o’clock the next day when Cartoner was conducted by a page-boy to the Bukatys’ rooms in the quiet old hotel in Kensington.  The Princess Wanda was alone.  She was dressed in black.  There is in some Varsovian families a heritage of mourning to be worn until Poland is reinstated.  She was slightly but strongly made.  Like her father and her brother, there was a suggestion of endurance in her being, such as is often found in slightly made persons.

“I came as early as I could,” said Cartoner, and, as he spoke, the clock struck.

The princess smiled as she shook hands, and then perceived that she had not been intended to show amusement.  Cartoner had merely made a rather naive statement in his low monotone.  She thought him a little odd, and glanced at him again.  She changed color slightly as she turned towards a chair.  He was quite grave and honest.