“It would be very hard if anything should happen to him now, after he has gone through so much.  And Martin, who is so young in mind, and so happy and reckless!  He would be such an easy prey for a political foe.  That is why I ask you to go.”

“Yes, I know,” answered Cartoner, who, like many people reputed clever, was quite a simple person.

“Besides,” said Wanda, with that logic which men, not having the wit to follow it, call no logic at all, “you can do no good here, if all your care and attention are required for the preservation of your life.  Why have they refused your recall?  It is so stupid.”

“I must do the best I can,” replied Cartoner.

Wanda shrugged her shoulders impatiently, and tapped her foot on the ground.  Then suddenly her manner changed again.

“But we must not quarrel,” she said, gently.  “We must not misunderstand each other,” she added, with a quick and uneasy laugh, “for we have only five minutes in all the world.”

“Here and now,” he corrected, with a glance at the clock, “we have only five minutes.  But the world is large.”

“For you,” she said quickly, “but not for me.  My world is Warsaw.  You forget I am a Russian subject.”

But he had not forgotten it, as she could see by the sudden hardening of his face.

“My presence in Warsaw,” he said, as if the train of thought needed no elucidating, “is in reality no source of danger to you—­to your father and brother, I mean.  Indeed, I might be of some use.  I or Deulin.  Do not misunderstand my position.  I am of no political importance.  I am nobody—­nothing but a sort of machine that has to report upon events that are past.  It is not my business to prevent events or to make history.  I merely record.  If I choose to be prepared for that which may come to pass, that is merely my method of preparing my report.  If nothing happens I report nothing.  I have not to say what might have happened—­life is too short to record that.  So you see my being in Warsaw is really of no danger to your father and brother.”

“Yes, I see—­I see!” answered Wanda.  She had only three minutes now.  The door giving access to the platform had long been thrown open.  The guard, in his fine military uniform and shining top-boots, was strutting the length of the train.  “But it was not on account of that that we asked Monsieur Deulin to warn you.  It does not matter about my father and Martin.  It is required of them—­a sort of family tradition.  It is their business in life—­almost their pleasure.”

“It is my business in life—­almost my pleasure,” said Cartoner, with a smile.

“But is there no one at home—­in England—­that you ought to think of?” in an odd, sharp voice.

“Nobody,” he replied, in one word, for he was chary with information respecting himself.

Wanda had walked towards the platform.  Immediately opposite to her stood a carriage with the door thrown open.  In those days there were no corridor carriages.  Two minutes now.