“Martin hinted at that,” said Wanda, slowly, “but I did not believe him.”

And she looked at Cartoner with a sort of wonder in her eyes.  It was as if there were more in him—­more of him—­than she had ever expected.  And he returned her glance with a simplicity and directness which were baffling enough.  He looked down at her.  He was taller than she, which was as it should be.  For half the trouble of this troubled world comes from the fact that, for one reason or another, women are not always able to look up to the men with whom they have dealings.

“It is true enough,” he said, “fate has made us enemies, princess.”

“You said that even the Czar could not do that.  And he is stronger than fate—­in Poland.  Besides——­”

“Yes.”

“You, who say so little, were indiscreet enough to confide something in your enemy.  You told me you had written for your recall.”

And again her eyes brightened, with an anticipating gleam of relief.

“It has been refused.”

“But you must go—­you must go!” she said, quickly.  She glanced at the great clock upon the wall.  She had only ten minutes in which to make him understand.  He was an eminently sensible person.  There were gleams of gray in his closely cut hair.

“You must not think that we are alarmists.  If there is any family in the world who knows what it is to live peaceably, happily—­quite gayly—­” she broke off with a light laugh, “on a volcano—­it is the Bukatys.  We have all been brought up to it.  Martin and I looked out of our nursery window on April 8, 1861, and saw what was done on that day.  My father was in the streets.  And ever since we have been accustomed to unsettled times.”

“I know,” said Cartoner, “what it is to be a Bukaty.”  And he smiled slowly as she looked at him with gray, fearless eyes.  Then suddenly her manner, in a flash, was different.

“Then you will go?” she pleaded, softly, persuasively.  And when he turned away his eyes from hers, as if he did not care to meet them, she glanced again, hurriedly, at the clock.  There is a cunning bred of hatred, and there is another cunning, much deeper.  “Say you will go!”

And, sternly economical of words, he shook his head.

“I do not think you understand,” she went on, changing her manner and her ground again.  And to each attack he could only oppose his own stolid, dumb form of defence.  “You do not understand what a danger to us your presence here is.  It is needless to tell you all this,” with a gesture she indicated the well-ordered railway station, the hundred marks of a high state of civilization, “is skin deep.  That things in Poland are not at all what they seem.  And, of course, we are implicated.  We live from day to day in uncertainty.  And my father is such an old man; he has had such a hopeless struggle all his life.  You have only to look at his face—­”

“I know,” admitted Cartoner.