“I do not know.  He never talks to me of his affairs.  I never know whether he is travelling for pleasure, or on account of his business in America, or for political purposes.  He never explains.  I only know that we are going on to St. Petersburg.”

“And I shall not see you again.  What am I to do all my life without seeing you?  And the others—­Monsieur Deulin and that Englishman, Cartoner—­are they going to St. Petersburg, too?”

“I do not know,” answered Netty, hastily withdrawing her hand, because a solitary promenader was passing close by them.  “They never tell me either.  But . . .”

“But what!  Tell me all you know, because it will enable me, perhaps, to see you again in the distance.  Ah! if you knew!  If you could only see into my heart!”

And he took her hand again in the masterful way that thrilled her, and waited for her to answer.

“Mr. Cartoner will not go away from Warsaw if he can help it.”

“Ah!” said Kosmaroff.  “Why—­tell me why?”

But Netty shook her head.  They were getting into a side issue assuredly, and she had not come here to stray into side issues.  With that skill which came no doubt with the inspiration of the moment in which Kosmaroff trusted he got back into the straight path again at one bound—­the sloping, pleasant path in which any fool may wander and any wise man lose himself.

“It is for you that he stays here,” he said.  “What a fool I was not to see that!  How could he know you, and be near you, and not love you?”

“I think he has found it quite easy to do it,” answered Netty, with an odd laugh.  “No, it is not I who keep him in Warsaw, but somebody who is clever and beautiful.”

“There is no one more beautiful than you in Warsaw.”

And for a moment Netty was silenced by she knew not what.

“You say that to please me,” she said at last.  And her voice was quite different—­it was low and uneven.

“I say it because it is the truth.  There is no one more beautiful than you in all the world.  Heaven knows it.”

And he looked up with flashing black eyes to that heaven in which he had no faith.

“But who is there in Warsaw,” he asked, “whom any one could dream of comparing with you?”

“I have no doubt there are hundreds.  But there is one whom Mr. Cartoner compares with me—­and even you must know that she is prettier than I am.”

“I do not know it,” protested Kosmaroff, again taking her hand.  “There is no one in all the world.”

“There is the Princess Wanda Bukaty,” said Netty, curtly.

“Ah!  Does Cartoner admire her?  Do they know each other?  Yes, I remember I saw them together at the races.”

“They knew each other in London,” said Netty.  “They knew each other when I first saw them together at Lady Orlay’s there.  And they have often met here since.”

Kosmaroff seemed to be hardly listening.  He was staring in front of him, his eyes narrow with thought and suspicion.  He seemed to have forgotten Netty and his love for her as suddenly as he had remembered it in the salon a few minutes earlier.