“I hope you will stay a long time in Warsaw,” said Martin, as they walked up the platform.  “My father and sister will be coming home before long, and will be glad to see you.  We will do what we can to make the place tolerable for you.  We live in the Kotzebue, and I have a horse for you when you want it.  You know we have good horses in Warsaw, as good as any.  And the only way to see the country is from the saddle.  We have the best horses and the worst roads.”

“Thanks, very much,” replied Cartoner.  “I, of course, do not know how long I shall stay.  I am not my own master, you understand.  I never know from one day to another what my movements may be.”

“No,” replied Martin, in the absent tone of one who only half hears.  “No, of course not.  By-the-way, we have the races coming on.  I hope you will be here for them.  In our small way, it is the season in Warsaw now.  But, of course, there are difficulties—­even the races present difficulties—­there is the military element.”

He paused and indicated with a short nod the Russian officer who was passing to his carriage in front of them.

“They have the best horses,” he explained.  “They have more money than we have.  We have been robbed, as you know.  You, whose business it is.”

He turned, with his foot on the step of the carriage.  He was so accustomed to the recognition of his rank that he went first without question.

“Yes,” he said, with a laugh, “I had quite forgotten that it is your business to know all about us.”

“I have tried to remind you of it several times,” answered Cartoner, quietly.

“To shut me up, you mean?” asked the younger man.

“Yes.”

Martin was standing at the door of Cartoner’s compartment.  He turned away with a laugh.

“Good-night,” he said.  “Hope you will get some more sleep.  We shall meet again in a few hours.”

He closed the sliding door, and as the train moved slowly out of the station Cartoner could hear the cheerful voice—­of a rather high timbre—­in conversation with the German attendant in the corridor.  For, like nearly all his countrymen, Prince Martin was a man of tongues.  The Pole is compelled by circumstances to learn several languages:  first, his own; then the language of the conqueror, either Russian or German, or perhaps both.  For social purposes he must speak the tongue of the two countries that promised so much for Poland and performed so little—­England and France.

Cartoner sat on the vacant seat in his compartment, which had not been made up as a bed, and listened thoughtfully to the pleasant tones.  It was broad daylight now, and the flat, carefully cultivated land was green and fresh.  Cartoner looked out of the window with an unseeing eye, and the sleeping-carriage lumbered along in silence.  The Englishman seemed to have no desire for sleep, though, not being an impressionable man, he was usually able to rest and work, fast and eat at such times as might be convenient.  He was considered by his friends to be a rather cold, steady man, who concealed under an indifferent manner an almost insatiable ambition.  He certainly had given way to an entire absorption in his profession, and in the dogged acquirement of one language after another as occasion seemed to demand.