he luncheon hour at the Hotel de l'Europe, but the entrance
hall was less encumbered with hats and fur coats than was usual between
twelve and two. The man in the street might, as he had said, know
nothing; but others, and notably the better-born, knew now that the Czar
was dead.

As Deulin was preparing to open the carriage door, Wanda spoke for the
first time.

"What will you do about the Mangles?" she asked. "We cannot let them
remain here unwarned."

Deulin reflected for a moment.

"I had forgotten them," he answered. "In times of stress one finds out
one's friends, because the others are forgotten. I will say a word to
Mangles, if you like."

"Yes," answered Wanda, sitting back in the cab so that on one should see
her--"yes, do that."

"Odd people women are," said Deulin to himself, as he hurried up-stairs.
He must really have been in readiness to depart, for he came down again
almost at once, followed by a green-aproned porter carrying his luggage.

"I looked into Mangles's salon," he said to Wanda, when he was seated
beside her again. "He remains here alone. The ladies have already gone.
They must have taken the mid-day train to Germany. He is no fool--that
Mangles. But this morning he is dumb. He would say nothing."

At the station and at the frontier there were, as the prince had
predicted, difficulties, and Deulin overcame them with the odd mixture
of good-humor and high-handedness which formed his method of ruling men.
He seemed to be in good spirits, and always confident.

"They know," he said, when Wanda and he were safely seated in the
Austrian railway carriage. "They all know. Look at their stupid,
perturbed faces. We have slipped across the frontier before they have
decided whether they are standing on their heads or their heels. Ah!
what a thing it is to have a smile to show the world!"

"Or a grin," he added, after a long pause, "that passes for one."

XXXIV

FOR ANOTHER TIME

The thaw came that afternoon. Shortly before sunset the rain set in;
the persistent, splashing, cold rain that drives northward from the
Carpathians. In a few hours the roads would be impassable. The dawn
would see the rise of the Vistula; and there are few sights in nature
more alarming than the steady rise of a huge river.

There is to this day no paved road across the plain that lies to the
south of Warsaw. From the capital to the village of Wilanow there
are three roads which are sandy in dry weather,