“Oh, Cartoner!  Yes, he knows a great deal.  He is a regular magazine of knowledge, while I—­I am only a little stall in Vanity Fair, with everything displayed to the best advantage in the sunshine.  Now, there is a life for you to exercise your charity upon.  He is brilliantly successful, and yet there is something wanting in his life.  Can you not prescribe for him?”

Netty smiled gravely.

“I hardly know him sufficiently well,” she said.  “Besides, he requires no sympathy if it is true that he is the heir to a baronetcy and a fortune.”

Deulin’s eyebrows went up into his hat, and he made, for his own satisfaction, a little grimace of surprise.

“Ah! is that so?” he inquired.  “Who told you that?”

But Netty could not remember where she had heard what she was ready to believe was a mere piece of gossip.  Neither did she appear to be very interested in the matter.

XVIII

JOSEPH’S STORY

Mr. Mangles gave a dinner-party the same evening.  “It is well,” he had said, “to show the nations that the great powers are in perfect harmony.”  He made this remark to Deulin and Cartoner, whom he met at the Cukiernia Lourse—­a large confectioner’s shop and tea-house in the Cracow Faubourg—­which is the principal cafe in Warsaw.  And he then and there had arranged that they should dine with him.

“I always accept the good Mangles’ invitations.  Firstly, I am in love with Miss Cahere.  Secondly, Julie P. Mangles amuses me consumedly.  In her presence I am dumb.  My breath is taken away.  I have nothing to say.  But afterwards, in the night, I wake up and laugh into my pillow.  It takes years off one’s life,” said Deulin, confidentially, to Cartoner, as they sipped their tea when Mr. Joseph P. Mangles had departed.

As Deulin was staying under the same roof he had only to descend from the second to the first floor, when the clock struck seven.  By some chance he was dressed in good time, and being an idle person, with a Gallic love of street-life, he drew back his curtain, and stood at the window waiting for the clock to strike.

“I shall perhaps see the heir to the baronetcy arrive,” he said to himself, “and we can make our entry together.”

It happened that he did see Cartoner; for the square below the windows was well lighted.  He saw Cartoner turn out of the Cracow Faubourg into the square, where innumerable droskies stand.  He saw, moreover, a man arrive at the corner immediately afterwards, as if he had been following Cartoner, and, standing there, watch him pass into the side door of the hotel.

Deulin reflected for a moment.  Then he went into his bedroom, and took his coat and hat and stick.  He hurried down-stairs with them, and gave them into the care of the porter at the side door, whose business it is to take charge of the effects of the numerous diners in the restaurant.  When he entered the Mangles’ drawing-room a few minutes later he found the party assembled there.  Netty was dressed in white, with some violets at her waistband.  She was listening to her aunt and Cartoner, who were talking together, and Deulin found himself relegated to the society of the hospitable Joseph at the other end of the room.