“Kosmaroff?”
“Yes. And if I had not been there it would have been all up with Cartoner. You know what Kosmaroff is. It was a very near thing.”
“That would have been a mistake,” said the prince, reflectively. “It was the mistake they made last time. It has never paid yet to take life in driblets.”
“That is what I told Kosmaroff afterwards, when Cartoner had gone. It was evident that it could only have been an accident. Cartoner could not have known. To do a thing like that, he must have known all—or nothing.”
“He could not have known all,” said the prince. “That is an impossibility.”
“Then he must have known nothing,” put in Wanda, with a laugh, which at one stroke robbed the matter of much of its importance.
“I do not know how much he perceived when he was in—as to his own danger, I mean—for he has an excellent nerve, and was steady; steadier than I was. But he knows that there was something wrong,” said Martin, wiping the dust from his face with his pocket-handkerchief. His hand shook a little, as if he had ridden hard, or had been badly frightened. “We had a bad half-hour after he left, especially with Kosmaroff. The man is only half-tamed, that is the truth of it.”
“That is more to his own danger than to any one else's,” put in Wanda, again. She spoke lightly, and seemed quite determined to make as little of the incident as possible.
“Then how do matters stand?” inquired the prince.
“It comes to this,” answered Martin, “that Poland is not big enough to hold both Kosmaroff and Cartoner. Cartoner must go. He must be told to go, or else——”