“You think so.”

“Yes, I think so, or I pretend to think so, which comes to the same thing, and makes it a more amusing world for those who have no stake in it.  Come with me, and I will show you this little world of Warsaw, where the Russians walk on one side and the Poles pass by on the other; where these fine Russian officers glance longingly across the way, only too ready to take their hearts there and lose them—­but the Czar forbids it.  And, let me tell you, there is nothing more dangerous in the world than a pair of Polish eyes.”

He broke off suddenly; for Cartoner was looking at him with a speculative glance, and turned away to the window.

“Come,” he said.  “It is a fine day—­St. Martin’s summer.  It is Sunday, but no matter.  All you Englishmen think that there is no recording angel on the Continent.  You leave him behind at Dover.”

“Oh, I have no principles,” said Cartoner, rising from his chair, and looking round absent-mindedly for his hat.

“You would be no friend of mine if you had.  There is no moderation in principles.  If a man has any at all, he always has some to spare for his neighbors.  And who wants to act up to another man’s principles?  By-the-way, are you doing any good here, Cartoner?”

“None.”

“Nor I,” pursued Deulin; “and I am bored.  That is why I want you to come to the races with me.  Besides, it would be more marked to stay away than to go—­especially for an Englishman and a Frenchman, who lead the world in racing.”

“That is why I am going,” said Cartoner.

“Then you don’t like racing?”

“Yes, I am very fond of it,” answered the Englishman, in the same absent voice, as he led the way towards the door.

In the Jasna they found a drosky, where there is always one to be found at the corner of the square, and they did not speak during the drive up the broad Marszalkowska to the rather barren suburb of the Mokotow (where bricks and mortar are still engaged in emphasizing the nakedness of the land), for the simple reason that speech is impossible while driving through the streets of the worst-paved city in Europe.  Which is a grudge that the traveller may bear against Russia, for if Poland had been a kingdom she would assuredly have paved the streets of her capital.

The race-course is not more than fifteen minutes’ drive from the heart of the town, and all Warsaw was going thither this sunny afternoon.  At the entrance a crowd was slowly working its way through the turnstiles, and Deulin and Cartoner passed in with it.  They had the trick, so rare among travellers, of doing this in any country without attracting undue attention.