“I will come down to the door with you,” said Deulin, in the passage.  He was always idle, and always had leisure to follow his sociable instincts.

At the side door, while Cartoner was putting on his coat, he stepped rather suddenly out into the street, and before Cartoner had found his hat was back again.

“It is a moonlight night,” he said.  “I will walk with you part of the way.”

He turned, as he spoke, towards his coat and hat and stick, which were hanging near to where Cartoner had found his own.  He did not seem to think it necessary to ask the usual formal permission.  They knew each other too well for that.  Cartoner helped the Frenchman on with his thin, light overcoat, and reaching out his hand took the stick from the rack, weighing and turning it thoughtfully in his hand.

“That is the Madrid Stick,” said the Frenchman.  “You were with me when I bought it.”

“And when you used it,” added Cartoner, in his quietest tone, as he led the way to the door.  “Generally keep your coat in the hall?” he inquired, casually, as they descended the steps.

“Sometimes,” replied Deulin, glancing at the questioner sideways beneath the brim of his hat.

It was, as he had said, a beautiful night.  The moon was almost full and almost overhead, so that the streets were in most instances without shadow at all; for they nearly all run north and south, as does the river.

“Yes,” said Deulin, taking Cartoner’s arm, and leading him to the right instead of the left; for Cartoner was going towards the Cracow Faubourg, which was the simplest but not the shortest way to the Jasna.  “Yes—­let us go by the quiet streets, eh?  We have walked the pavement of some queer towns in our day, you and I. The typical Englishman, so dense, so silent, so unobservant—­who sees nothing and knows nothing and never laughs, but is himself the laughing-stock of all the Latin races and the piece de resistance of their comic papers.  And I, at your service, the typical Frenchman; all shrugs and gesticulations and mustache—­of politeness that is so insincere—­of a heart that is so unstable.  Ah! these national characteristics of comic journalism—­how the stupid world trips over them on to its vulgar face!”

As he spoke he was hurrying Cartoner along, ever quicker and quicker, with a haste that must have been unconscious, as it certainly was unnatural to one who found a thousand trifles to interest him in the streets whenever he walked there.

Cartoner made no answer, and his companion expected none.  They were in a narrow street now—­between the backs of high houses—­and had left the life and traffic of frequented thoroughfares behind them.  Deulin turned once and looked over his shoulder.  They were alone in the street.  He released Cartoner’s arm, through which he had slipped his left hand in an effusive French way.  He was fingering his stick with his right hand in an odd manner, and walked with his head half turned, as if listening for footsteps behind him.  Suddenly he swung round on his heels, facing the direction from which they had just come.