“Had any dinner?” asked his father.

Wanda looked at her brother’s face, and changed color herself.  There was a suggestion of the wild rose in Wanda’s face, with its delicate, fleeting shades of pink and white, while the slim strength of her limbs and carriage rather added to a characteristic which is essentially English or Polish.  For American girls suggest a fuller flower on a firmer stem.

“Something has happened,” said Wanda, quietly.

“Yes,” replied Martin, stretching out his slight legs.

The prince laid aside his newspaper, and looked up quickly.  When his attention was thus roused suddenly his eyes and his whole face were momentarily fierce.  Some one had once said that the history of Poland was written on those deep-lined features.

“Anything wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing that affects affairs,” replied Martin.  “Everything is safe.”

Which seemed to be catch-words, for Kosmaroff had made use of almost the identical phrases.

“I am quite confident that there is no danger to affairs,” continued Martin, speaking with the haste and vehemence of a man who is anxious to convince himself.  “It was a mere mischance, but it gave us all a horrid fright, I can tell you—­especially me, for I was doubly interested.  Cartoner rode into our midst to-night.”

“Cartoner?” repeated the prince.

“Yes.  He rang the bell, and when the door was opened—­we were expecting some one else—­he led his horse into our midst, with a loose shoe.”

“Who saw him?” asked the prince.

“Every one.”

“Kosmaroff?”

“Yes.  And if I had not been there it would have been all up with Cartoner.  You know what Kosmaroff is.  It was a very near thing.”

“That would have been a mistake,” said the prince, reflectively.  “It was the mistake they made last time.  It has never paid yet to take life in driblets.”

“That is what I told Kosmaroff afterwards, when Cartoner had gone.  It was evident that it could only have been an accident.  Cartoner could not have known.  To do a thing like that, he must have known all—­or nothing.”

“He could not have known all,” said the prince.  “That is an impossibility.”

“Then he must have known nothing,” put in Wanda, with a laugh, which at one stroke robbed the matter of much of its importance.

“I do not know how much he perceived when he was in—­as to his own danger, I mean—­for he has an excellent nerve, and was steady; steadier than I was.  But he knows that there was something wrong,” said Martin, wiping the dust from his face with his pocket-handkerchief.  His hand shook a little, as if he had ridden hard, or had been badly frightened.  “We had a bad half-hour after he left, especially with Kosmaroff.  The man is only half-tamed, that is the truth of it.”

“That is more to his own danger than to any one else’s,” put in Wanda, again.  She spoke lightly, and seemed quite determined to make as little of the incident as possible.