“Then how do matters stand?” inquired the prince.

“It comes to this,” answered Martin, “that Poland is not big enough to hold both Kosmaroff and Cartoner.  Cartoner must go.  He must be told to go, or else——­”

Wanda had taken up her work again.  As she looked at it attentively, the color slowly faded from her face.

“Or else—­what?” she inquired.

Martin shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, Kosmaroff is not a man to stick at trifles.”

“You mean,” said Wanda, who would have things plainly, “that he would assassinate him?”

Wanda glanced at her father.  She knew that men hard pressed are no sticklers.  She knew the story of the last insurrection, and of the wholesale assassination, abetted and encouraged by the anonymous national government of which the members remain to this day unknown.  The prince made an indifferent gesture of the hand.

“We cannot go into those small matters.  We are playing a bigger game that that.  It has always been agreed that no individual life must be allowed to stand in the way of success.”

“It is upon that principle that Kosmaroff argues,” said Martin, uneasily.

“Precisely; and as I was not present when this happened—­as it is, moreover, not my department—­I cannot, personally, act in the matter.”

“Kosmaroff will obey nobody else.”

“Then warn Cartoner,” the prince said, in a final voice.  His had always been the final word.  He would say to one, go; and to another, come.

“I cannot do it,” said Martin, looking at Wanda.  “You know my position—­how I am watched.”

“There is only one person in Warsaw who can do it,” said Wanda—­“Paul Deulin.”

“Deulin could do it,” said the prince, thoughtfully.  “But I never talk to Deulin of these matters.  Politics are a forbidden subject between us.”

“Then I will go and see Monsieur Deulin the first thing to-morrow morning,” said Wanda, quietly.

“You?” asked her father.  And Martin looked at her in silent surprise.  The old prince’s eyes flashed suddenly.

“Remember,” he said, “that you run the risk of making people talk of you.  They may talk of us—­of Martin and me—­the world has talked of the Bukatys for some centuries—­but never of their women.”

“They will not talk of me,” returned Wanda, composedly.  “I will see to that.  A word to Mr. Cartoner will be enough.  I understood him to say that he was not going to stay long in Warsaw.”

The prince had acquired the habit of leaving many things to Wanda.  He knew that she was wiser than Martin, and in some ways more capable.

“Well,” he said, rising.  “I take no hand in it.  It is very late.  Let us go to bed.”

He paused half-way towards the door.

“There is one thing,” he said, “which we should be wise to recollect—­that whatever Cartoner may know or may not know will go no farther.  He is a diplomatist.  It is his business to know everything and to say nothing.”