at Cartoner with her quick, shrewd smile. It would have
been the obvious thing to have confirmed this explanation. But Cartoner
kept silent. He had acquired, it seemed, the fatal habit--very rare
among men and almost unknown in women--of thinking before he spoke.
Which habit is deadly for that which is called conversation, because if
one decides not to give speech to the obvious and the unnecessary and
the futile there is in daily intercourse hardly anything left.

"You see," said Martin, who always had plenty to say for himself,
"in this province of Russia we are not even allowed to choose our own
friends."

"Even in a free country one does not pick one's friends out, like the
best strawberries from a basket," said Wanda.

"Not a question to be arranged beforehand," put in Cartoner.

"Not even by the governor-general of Poland?" asked Wanda, looking
thoughtfully at the falling leaves which a sudden gust of wind had
showered round them.

"Not even by the Czar."

"Who, I am told, means well!" said Martin, ironically, and with a gay
laugh, for irony and laughter may be assimilated by the young. "Poor
man! It must be terrible to know that people are saying behind one's
back that one means well! I hope no one will ever say that of me."

Wanda had sat down again, and was stirring the dead leaves with her
walking-stick.

"Martin and I are going for a tramp," she said. "We like to get away
from the noise and the dust--and the uniforms."

But Martin sat down beside her and made room for Cartoner.

"We attract less attention than if we stand," he explained. And Cartoner
took the seat offered. "Such hospitality as our circumstances allow us
to offer you," commented the young prince, gayly, "a clean stone seat on
the sunny side of a public garden."

"But let us understand each other," put in Wanda, in her practical way,
and looked from one man to the other with those gay, blue eyes that saw
so much, "since we are conspirators."

"The better we understand each other the better conspirators we shall
be," said Cartoner.

"I notice you don't ask, 'What is the plot?'" said Wanda.

"The plot is simple enough," answered Martin, for Cartoner said nothing,
and looked straight in front of him. He did not address one more than
the other, but explained the situation, as it were, for the benefit of
all whom it might concern. He had lighted a cigarette--a little Russian
affair, all gold lettering and mouthpiece, and as he spok