“That is kind of you,” she said, speaking English without the least suspicion of accent; for she had had an English governess all her life.  “My father will take it to mean that you wanted to come, and are not only taking pity on lonely foreigners.  He will be here in a minute.  He has just been called away.”

“It was very kind of him to ask me to call,” replied Cartoner.

There was a simple directness in his manner of speech which was quite new to the Princess Wanda.  She had known few Englishmen, and her own countrymen had mostly the manners of the French.  She had never met a man who conveyed the impression of purpose and of the habit of going straight towards his purpose so clearly as this.  Cartoner had not come to pay an idle visit.  She wondered why he had come.  He did not rush into conversation, and yet his silence had no sense of embarrassment in it.  His hair was turning gray above the temples.  She could see this as he took a chair near the window.  He was probably ten years older than herself, and gave the impression of experience and of a deep knowledge of the world.  From living much alone he had acquired the habit of wondering whether it was worth while to say that which came into his mind—­which is a habit fatal to social success.

“Monsieur Deulin dined with us last night,” said the princess, following the usual instinct that silence between strangers is intolerable.  “He talked a great deal of you.”

“Ah, Deulin is a diplomatist.  He talks too much.”

“He accuses you of talking too little,” said Wanda, with some spirit.

“You see, there are only two methods of leaving things unsaid, princess.”

“Which is diplomacy?” she suggested.

“Which is diplomacy.”

“Then I think you are both great artists,” she said, with a laugh, as the door opened and her father entered the room.

“I only come to ask you a question—­a word,” said the prince.  “Heavens! your English language!  I have a man down-stairs—­a question of business—­and he speaks the oddest English.  Now what is the meaning of the word jettison?”

Cartoner gave him the word in French.

“Ah!” cried the prince, holding up his two powerful hands, “of course.  How foolish of me not to guess.  In a moment I will return.  You will excuse me, will you not?  Wanda will give you some tea.”

And he hurried out of the room, leaving Cartoner to wonder what a person so far removed above commerce could have to do with the word jettison.

The conversation returned to Deulin.  He was a man of whom people spoke continually, and had spoken for years.  In fact, two generations had found him a fruitful topic of conversation without increasing their knowledge of him.  If he had only been that which is called a public man, a novelist or a singer, his fortune would have been easy.  All his advertising would have been done for him by others.  For there was in him that unknown quantity which the world must needs think magnificent.