palace was his, and had belonged to his ancestors from time
immemorial. He had once made the journey to St. Petersburg to see in
the great museum there the portraits of his fathers, the books that his
predecessors had collected, the relics of Poland's greatness, which were
his, and the greatness thereof was his.

"Yes," he answered to the loquacious curator, "I know. You tell me
nothing that I do not know. These things are mine. I am the Prince
Bukaty!"

And the curator of St. Petersburg went away, sorrowful, like the young
man who had great possessions.

For Russia had taken these things from the Bukatys, not in punishment,
but because she wanted them. She wanted offices for her bureaucrats on
the Krakowski Przedmiescie, in Warsaw, so she took Bukaty Palace. And to
whom can one appeal when Caesar steals?

Poland had appealed to Europe, and Europe had expressed the deepest
sympathy. And that was all!

The house in the Kotzebue had the air of an old French town-house, and
was, in fact, built by a French architect in the days of Stanislaus
Augustus, when Warsaw aped Paris. It stands back from the road behind
high railings, and, at the farther end of a paved court-yard, to which
entrance is gained by two high gates, now never opened in hospitality,
and only unlocked at rare intervals for the passage of the quiet
brougham in which the prince or Wanda went and came. The house is
just round the corner of the Kotzebue, and therefore faces the Saski
Gardens--a quiet spot in this most noisy town. The building is a low
one, with a tiled roof and long windows, heavily framed, of which the
smaller panes and thick woodwork suggest the early days of window-glass.
Inside, the house is the house of a poor man. The carpets are worn thin;
the furniture, of a sumptuous design, is carefully patched and mended.
The atmosphere has that mournful scent of better days--now dead and
past. It is the odor of monarchy, slowly fading from the face of a world
that reeks of cheap democracy.

The air of the rooms--the subtle individuality which is impressed by
humanity on wood and texture--suggested that older comfort which has
been succeeded by the restless luxury of these times.

The prince was, it appeared, one of those men who diffuse tranquillity
wherever they are. He had moved quietly through stirring events; had
acted without haste in hurried moments. For the individuality of the
house must have been his. Wanda had found it there when s