Wanda turned slowly, and resumed the chair she had quitted on
Kosmaroff's sudden appearance at the door.

"Yes," she said, in a steady voice.

"He knows more than it is safe to know--safe for us--or for himself. One
evening I could have put him out of the way, and it is a pity, perhaps,
that it was not done. In a cause like ours, which affects the lives and
happiness of millions, we should not pause to think of the life of one.
This does not come into my sphere, and I have no immediate concern in
it----" He stopped, and looked at the prince.

"But I have also no power," he added, "over those whose affair it
is--you understand that. This comes under the hand of those who study
the attitude of the European powers, our--well, I suppose I may say--our
foreign office. It is their affair to know what powers are friendly to
us--they were all friendly to us thirty years ago, in words--and who are
our enemies. It is also their affair to find out how much the
foreign powers know. It seems they must know something. It seems that
Cartoner--knows everything. So it is reported in Cracow."

The prince shrugged his shoulders, and gave a short laugh.

"In Cracow," he said, "they are all words."

"There are certain men, it appears," continued Kosmaroff, "in the
service of the governments--in one service it is called 'foreign
affairs,' in another the 'secret service'--whose mission it is to find
themselves where things are stirring, to be at the seat of war. They
are, in jest, called the Vultures. It is a French jest, as you would
conclude. And the Vultures have been congregating at Warsaw. Therefore,
the powers know something. At Cracow, it is said--I ask your pardon
for repeating it--that they know, and that Cartoner knows what he
knows--through the Bukatys."

The prince's lips moved beneath his mustache, but he did not speak.
Wanda, who was seated near the fire, had turned in her chair, and was
looking at Kosmaroff over her shoulder with steady eyes. She was not
taken by surprise. It was Cartoner himself who had foreseen this, and
had warned her. There was deep down in her heart, even at this moment,
a thrill of pride in the thought that her lover was a cleverer man than
any she had had to do with. And, oddly enough, the next words Kosmaroff
spoke made her his friend for the rest of her life.

"I have nothing against him. I know nothing of him, except that he is a
brave man. It happens that I know that," he said. "He knows as