“Are you?” asked Martin, looking down at her.

“Yes,” she replied, with downcast eyes.  “Come,” she said, after a pause, with a sort of effort, “we must not stand in front of this shop any longer.”

“Especially,” he said, with a laugh, as he followed her, “as it is a Russian shop.  Wherever you see tea and articles of religion mixed up in a window, that is a Russian shop, and if you sympathize with Poland you will not go into it.  There are, on the other hand, plenty of shops in Warsaw where they will not serve Russians.  It is to those shops that you must go.”

Netty looked at him doubtfully.

“I am quite serious,” he said.  “We must fight with what weapons we have.”

“Yes,” she answered, indicating the shops, “these people, but not you.  You are a prince, and they cannot touch you.  They would not dare to take anything from you.”

“Because there is nothing to take,” laughed Martin, gayly; “we were ruined long ago.  They took everything there was to take in 1830, when my father was a boy.  He could not work for his living, and I may not either; so I am a prince without a halfpenny to call his own.”

“I am so sorry!” she said, in a soft voice, and, indeed, she looked it.

Then she caught sight of Paul Deulin a long way off, despite her short sight, which was perhaps spasmodic, as short sight often is.  She stopped, and half turned, as if to dismiss Martin.  When Deulin perceived them he was standing in the middle of the pavement, as if they had just met.  He came up with a bow to Netty and his hand stretched out to Martin—­his left hand, which conveyed the fact that he was an old and familiar friend.

“I suppose you are on your way back to the Europe to lunch?” he said to Netty.  “I am in luck.  I have come just in time to walk back with you, if you will permit it.”

And he did not wait for permission, but walked on beside Netty, while Martin took off his hat and went in the opposite direction.  It was not the way he wanted to go but something had made him think that Netty desired him to go, and he departed with a pleasant sensation as of a secret possessed in common with her.  He walked back quickly to the flower-shop kept by Ulrich, in the Senatorska.

A rare thing happened to Paul Deulin at this moment.  He fell into a train of thought, and walked some distance by the side of Netty without speaking.  It was against his principles altogether.  “Never be silent with a woman,” he often said.  “She will only misconstrue it.”

“It was odd that I should meet you at that moment,” he said, at length, for Netty had not attempted to break the silence.  She never took the initiative with Paul Deulin, but followed quite humbly and submissively the conversational lead which he might choose to give.  He broke off and laughed.  “I was going to say that it was odd that I should have met you at a moment that I was thinking of you; but it would be odder still if I could manage to meet you at a moment when I was not thinking of you, would it not?”