You and your thin ice! I am no diplomatist--a
man who is afraid to look over a wall."

"No. Only a man who prefers to find out what is on the other side by
less obvious means," corrected the Frenchman. "One must not be seen
looking over one's neighbor's wall--that is the first commandment of
diplomacy."

"Then why are you here?" asked the prince, abruptly, with his rough
laugh.

And Paul Deulin suddenly lost his temper. He sat bolt upright in his
chair, and banged his two hands down on the arms of it so that the dust
flew out. He glared across at the prince with a fierceness in his eyes
that had not glittered there for twenty years.

"You think I came here to pry into your affairs--to turn our friendship
into a means for my own aggrandizement? You think that I report to my
government that which you and I may say to each other, or leave unsaid,
before your study fire? Was it not I who cried 'Thin ice'?"

"Yes--yes," answered the prince, shortly. And the two old friends glared
at each other gleams of the fires that had burned fiercely enough in
other days. "Yes--yes! but why are you here this morning?"

"Why am I here this morning? I will tell you. I ask you no questions,
I want to know nothing of your schemes and plans. You can run your neck
into a noose if you like. You have been doing it all your life. And--who
knows?--you may win at last. As for Martin, you have brought him up
in the same school. And, bon Dieu! I suppose you are Bukatys, and you
cannot help it. It is your affair, after all. But you shall not push
Wanda into a Russian prison! You shall not get her to Siberia, if I can
help it!"

"Wanda!" said the prince, in some surprise--"Wanda!"

"Yes. You forget--you Bukatys always have forgotten--the women. Warsaw
is no place for Wanda to-day. And to-day's work--to-night's work--is no
work for Wanda!"

"To-night's work! What do you mean?"

The prince sat forward and looked hard at his friend.

"Oh, you need not be alarmed. I know nothing," was the answer. "But I am
not a complete fool. I put two and two together at random. I only guess,
as you know. I have guessed all my life. And as often as not I have
guessed right, as you know. Ah! you think I am interfering in that which
is not my business, and I do not care a snap of the finger what you
think!"

And he illustrated this indifference with a gesture of his finger and
thumb.

The prince laughed suddenly and boisterously.

"If I did not know that