A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING

Martin led the way without speaking. He opened the door with a key, and pa.s.sed through first. The garden was dark; for the trees in it had grown to a great height, and, protected as they were from the wild winds that sweep across the central plain of Europe, they had not shed their leaves.

A few lights twinkled through the branches from the direction of the house, and the shape of the large conservatory was dimly outlined, as though there were blinds within, partially covering the gla.s.s.

"Yes," said Martin, carefully closing the door behind him. "You find me in sole possession. My father and sister have gone to a reception--a semi-political affair at which they are compelled to put in an appearance. It only began at half-past nine. They will not be home till midnight. Mind those branches, Cartoner! You will come in, of course."

And he hurried on again to open the next door.

"Thank you, for a few minutes," answered Deulin, and seeing a movement of dissent on Cartoner's part, he laid his hand on his arm.

"It is better," he said, in an undertone. "It will put them completely off the scent. There are sure to be more than two in it."

So, reluctantly, Cartoner followed Martin into the Bukaty Palace for the first time.

"Come," said the young prince, "into the drawing-room. I see they have left the lights on there."

He pushed open the door of the long, bare room, and stood aside to allow his guests to pa.s.s.

"Holloa!" he exclaimed, an instant later, following them into the room.

At the far end of it, where two large folding-doors opened to the conservatory, half turning to see who came, stood Wanda. She had some flowers in her hand, which she had just taken from her dress.

"Back again already?" asked Martin, in surprise.

"Yes," answered Wanda. "There were some people there he did not want to meet, so we came away again at once."

"But I thought they could not possibly be there."

"They got there," answered Wanda, "by some ill chance, from Petersburg, just in time."

And as she spoke she shook hands with Cartoner.

"It is not such an ill chance, after all," said Deulin, "since it gives us the opportunity of seeing you. Where is your father?"

"He is in his study."

"I rather want to see him," said Deulin, looking at Martin.

"Come along, then," was the answer. "He will be glad to see you. It will cheer him up."

And Wanda and Cartoner were left alone. It had all come about quickly and simply--so much quicker and simpler than human plans are the plans of Heaven.

Wanda, still standing in the doorway of the conservatory, of which the warm, scented air swept out past her into the great room, watched her brother and Deulin go and close the door behind them. She turned to Cartoner with a smile as if about to speak; but she saw his face, and she said nothing, and her own slowly grew grave.

He came towards her, upright and still and thoughtful. She did not look at him, but past him towards the closed door. He only looked at her with quiet, remembering eyes. Then he went straight to the point, as was his habit.

"I was wrong," he said, "when I said that fate could be hampered by action. Nothing can hamper it. For fate has brought me here again."

He stood before her, and the att.i.tude in some way conveyed that by the word "here" he only thought and meant near to her. There was a strange look in her eyes of suspense and fear, and something else which needs no telling to such as have seen it, and cannot be conveyed in words to those who have not.

"A clear understanding," he said abruptly, recalling her own words.

"That is your creed."

She gave a little nod, and still looked past him towards the door with deep, submissive eyes. One would have thought that she had done something wrong which was being brought home to her. Explain the thought, who can!

"I made another mistake," he said. "Have been acting on it for years.

I thought that a career was everything. I dreamed, I suppose, of an emba.s.sy--of a viceroyalty, perhaps--when I was quite young, and thought the world was easy to conquer. All that . . . vanished when I saw you.

If it comes, well and good. I should like it. Not for my own sake."

She made a little movement, and her eyelids flickered. Ah! that clear understanding, which poor humanity cannot put into words!

"If it doesn't come"--he paused, and snapped the finger and thumb that hung quiescent at his side--"well and good. I shall have lived. I shall have known what life is meant to be. I shall have been the happiest man in the world."

He spoke slowly in his gently abrupt way. Practice in a difficult profession had taught him to weigh every word he uttered. He had never been known to say more than he meant.

"There never has been anybody else," he continued. "All that side of life was quite blank. The world was empty until you came and filled it, at Lady Orlay's that afternoon. I had come half round the world--you had come across Europe. And fate had fixed that I should meet you there.

At first I did not believe. I thought it was a mistake--that we should drift apart again. Then came my orders to leave for Warsaw. I knew then that you would inevitably return. Still I tried to get out of it--fought against it--tried to avoid you. And you knew what it all came to."

She nodded again, and still did not meet his eyes. She had not spoken to him since he entered the room.

"There never can be anybody else," he said. "How could there be?"

And the abrupt laugh that followed the question made her catch her breath. She had, then, the knowledge given to so few, that so far as this one fellow-creature was concerned she was the whole earth--that he was thrusting upon her the greatest responsibility that the soul can carry. For to love is as difficult as it is rare, but to be worthy of love is infinitely harder.

"I knew from the first," he continued, "that there is no hope. Whichever way we turn there is no hope. I can spare you the task of telling me that."

She turned her eyes to his at last.

"You knew?" she asked, speaking for the first time.

"I know the history of Poland," he said, quietly. "The country must have your father--your father needs you. I could not ask you to give up Poland--you know that."

They stood in silence for a few moments. They had had so little time together that they must needs have learned to understand each other in absence. The friendship that grows in absence and the love that comes to life between two people who are apart, are the love and friendship which raise men to such heights as human nature is permitted to attain.

"If you asked me," said Wanda, at length, with an illegible smile--"I should do it."

"And if I asked you I should not love you. If you loved me, you would one day cease to do so; for you would remember what I had asked you.

There would be a sort of flaw, and you would discover it--and that would be the end."

"Is it so delicate as that?" she asked.

"It is the frailest thing in the world--and the strongest," he answered, with his thoughtful smile. "It is a very delicate sort of--thought, which is given to two people to take care of. And they never seem to succeed in keeping it even pa.s.sably intact--and not one couple in a million carry it through life unhurt. And the injuries never come from the outer world, but from themselves."

"Where did you learn all that?" she asked, looking at him with her shrewd, smiling eyes.

"You taught me."

"But you have a terribly high ideal."