“Not a question to be arranged beforehand,” put in Cartoner.
“Not even by the governor-general of Poland?” asked Wanda, looking thoughtfully at the falling leaves which a sudden gust of wind had showered round them.
“Not even by the Czar.”
“Who, I am told, means well!” said Martin, ironically, and with a gay laugh, for irony and laughter may be assimilated by the young. “Poor man! It must be terrible to know that people are saying behind one's back that one means well! I hope no one will ever say that of me.”
Wanda had sat down again, and was stirring the dead leaves with her walking-stick.
“Martin and I are going for a tramp,” she said. “We like to get away from the noise and the dust—and the uniforms.”
But Martin sat down beside her and made room for Cartoner.
“We attract less attention than if we stand,” he explained. And Cartoner took the seat offered. “Such hospitality as our circumstances allow us to offer you,” commented the young prince, gayly, “a clean stone seat on the sunny side of a public garden.”
“But let us understand each other,” put in Wanda, in her practical way, and looked from one man to the other with those gay, blue eyes that saw so much, “since we are conspirators.”
“The better we understand each other the better conspirators we shall be,” said Cartoner.