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.”