And Wanda said nothing.  They rose and went away without speaking, though they usually had plenty to say to each other.  It almost seemed that Cartoner’s silence was contagious.

He, for his part, went into the Faubourg and crossed to the river side of that wide street.  It thus happened that he missed seeing Mr. Joseph Mangles, sunning himself upon the more frequented pavement, and smoking a contemplative cigar.  Mr. Mangles would have stopped him had they met.  Paul Deulin was not far behind Mr. Mangles, idling past the shops, which could scarcely have had much interest for the Parisian.

“Ah!” said the Frenchman to himself, “there is our friend Reginald.  He is in one of his silent humors.  I can see that from this distance.”

He turned on the pavement and watched Cartoner, who was walking rather slowly.

“If any woman ever marries that man,” the Frenchman said to himself, “she will have to allow a great deal to go without saying.  But, then, women are good at that.”

And he continued his leisurely contemplation of the dull shop-windows.

Cartoner walked on to his rooms in the Jasna, where he found letters awaiting him.  He read them, and then sat down to write one which was not an answer to any that he had received.  He wrote it carefully and thoughtfully, and when it was written sealed it.  For in Warsaw it is well to seal such letters as are not intended to be read at the post-office.  And if one expects letters of importance, it is wiser not to have them sent to Poland at all, for the post-office authorities are kind enough to exercise a parental censorship over the travellers’ correspondence.

Cartoner’s letter was addressed to an English gentleman at his country house in Sussex, and it asked for an immediate recall from Poland.  It was a confession, for the first time, that the mission entrusted to him was more than he could undertake.

XII

CARTONER VERSUS FATE

It has been said that on the turf, and under it, all men are equal.  It is, moreover, whispered that the crooked policy of Russia forwards the cause of horseracing at Warsaw by every means within its power, on the theory that even warring nationalities may find themselves reconciled by a common sport.  And this dream of peace, pursued by the successor of that Czar who said to Poland:  “Gentlemen—­no dreams,” seems in part justified by the undeniable fact that Russians and Poles find themselves brought nearer together on the race-course than in any other social function in Warsaw.

“Come,” cried Paul Deulin, breaking in on the solitude of Cartoner’s rooms after lunch one day towards the end of October.  “Come, and let us bury the hatchet, and smoke the cigarette of peace before the grand-stand at the Mokotow.  Everybody will be there.  All Poland and his wife, all the authorities and their wives, and these ladies will peep sideways at each other, and turn up their noses at each other’s toilets.  To such has descended the great strife in eastern Europe.”