“We must not be seen together on the platform,” she said.  “I am only going to the next station.  We have a small farm there, and some old servants whom I go to see.”

She stood within the open doorway, and seemed to wait for him to speak.

“Thank you,” he said, “for warning me.”

And that was all.

“You must go,” he added, after a moment’s pause.

Still she lingered.

“There is so much to say,” she said, half to herself.  “There is so much to say.”

The train was moving when Cartoner stepped into a carriage at the back.  He was alone, and he leaned back with a look of thoughtful wonder in his eyes, as if he were questioning whether she were right—­whether there was much to say—­or nothing.

XVII

IN THE SENATORSKA

“It is,” said Miss Julie Mangles, “in the Franciszkanska that one lays one’s hand on the true heart of the people.”

“That’s as may be, Jooly,” replied her brother, “but I take it that the hearts of the women go to the Senatorska.”

For Miss Mangles, on the advice of a polyglot concierge, had walked down the length of that silent street, the Franciszkanska, where the Jews ply their mysterious trades and where every shutter is painted with bright images of the wares sold within the house.  The street is a picture-gallery of the human requirements.  The chosen people hurry to and fro with curved backs and patient, suffering faces that bear the mark of eighteen hundred years of persecution.  No Christian would assuredly be a Jew; and no Jew would be a Polish Jew if he could possibly help it.  For a Polish Jew must not leave the country, may not even quit his native town, unless it suits a paternal government that he should go elsewhere.  He has no personal liberty, and may not exercise a choice as to the clothes that he shall wear.

“I shall,” said Miss Mangles, “write a paper on the Jewish question in this country.”

And Joseph changed the position of his cigar from the left-hand to the right-hand corner of his mouth, very dexterously from within, with his tongue.  He saw no reason why Jooly should not write a paper on the Semitic question in Russia, and read it to a greedy multitude in a town-hall, provided that the town-hall was sufficiently far West.

“Seen the Senatorska, Netty?” he inquired.  But Netty had not seen the Senatorska, and did not know how to find it.

“Go out into the Faubourg,” her uncle explained, “and just turn to the left and follow all the other women.  It is the street where the shops are.”

Two days later, when Miss Julie Mangles was writing her paper, Netty set out to find the Senatorska.  Miss Mangles was just putting down—­as the paper itself recorded—­the hot impressions of the moment, gathered after a walk down the Street of the Accursed.  For they like their impressions served hot out West, and this is a generation that prefers vividness to accuracy.