another cunning, much deeper. "Say you will go!"

And, sternly economical of words, he shook his head.

"I do not think you understand," she went on, changing her manner
and her ground again. And to each attack he could only oppose his own
stolid, dumb form of defence. "You do not understand what a danger to
us your presence here is. It is needless to tell you all this," with
a gesture she indicated the well-ordered railway station, the hundred
marks of a high state of civilization, "is skin deep. That things in
Poland are not at all what they seem. And, of course, we are implicated.
We live from day to day in uncertainty. And my father is such an old
man; he has had such a hopeless struggle all his life. You have only to
look at his face--"

"I know," admitted Cartoner.

"It would be very hard if anything should happen to him now, after he
has gone through so much. And Martin, who is so young in mind, and so
happy and reckless! He would be such an easy prey for a political foe.
That is why I ask you to go."

"Yes, I know," answered Cartoner, who, like many people reputed clever,
was quite a simple person.

"Besides," said Wanda, with that logic which men, not having the wit to
follow it, call no logic at all, "you can do no good here, if all your
care and attention are required for the preservation of your life. Why
have they refused your recall? It is so stupid."

"I must do the best I can," replied Cartoner.

Wanda shrugged her shoulders impatiently, and tapped her foot on the
ground. Then suddenly her manner changed again.

"But we must not quarrel," she said, gently. "We must not misunderstand
each other," she added, with a quick and uneasy laugh, "for we have only
five minutes in all the world."

"Here and now," he corrected, with a glance at the clock, "we have only
five minutes. But the world is large."

"For you," she said quickly, "but not for me. My world is Warsaw. You
forget I am a Russian subject."

But he had not forgotten it, as she could see by the sudden hardening of
his face.

"My presence in Warsaw," he said, as if the train of thought needed no
elucidating, "is in reality no source of danger to you--to your father
and brother, I mean. Indeed, I might be of some use. I or Deulin. Do
not misunderstand my position. I am of no political importance. I am
nobody--nothing but a sort of machine that has to report upon events
that are past. It is not my business to prevent events or to make