“I can, at all events, try,” answered Cartoner, simply. After a pause (the pauses always occurred when it happened, so to say, to be Cartoner's turn to speak) he rose from the stone seat, which was all that the Bukatys could offer him in Warsaw. “I can begin at once,” he said, gravely. And he took off his hat and went away.
It was done so quickly and quietly that Wanda and Martin were left in silence on the seat, watching him depart. He went the way he had come, down the broad walk towards the colonnade, and disappeared between the pillars of that building.
“A man of action, and not of words,” commented Martin, who spoke first. “I like him. Come, let us go for our walk.”
And Wanda said nothing. They rose and went away without speaking, though they usually had plenty to say to each other. It almost seemed that Cartoner's silence was contagious.
He, for his part, went into the Faubourg and crossed to the river side of that wide street. It thus happened that he missed seeing Mr. Joseph Mangles, sunning himself upon the more frequented pavement, and smoking a contemplative cigar. Mr. Mangles would have stopped him had they met. Paul Deulin was not far behind Mr. Mangles, idling past the shops, which could scarcely have had much interest for the Parisian.
“Ah!” said the Frenchman to himself, “there is our friend Reginald. He is in one of his silent humors. I can see that from this distance.”
He turned on the pavement and watched Cartoner, who was walking rather slowly.
“If any woman ever marries that man,” the Frenchman said to himself, “she will have to allow a great deal to go without saying. But, then, women are good at that.”
And he continued his leisurely contemplation of the dull shop-windows.
Cartoner walked on to his rooms in the Jasna, where he found letters awaiting him. He read them, and then sat down to write one which was not an answer to any that he had received. He wrote it carefully and thoughtfully, and when it was written sealed it. For in Warsaw it is well to seal such letters as are not intended to be read at the post-office. And if one expects letters of importance, it is wiser not to have them sent to Poland at all, for the post-office authorities are kind enough to exercise a parental censorship over the travellers' correspondence.