"He hates ceremony, that young man," was the ready answer. "At first the people mobbed him. Now he rides through Delgratz like a courier, sometimes alone, at others with a friend or two, and perhaps an orderly."
Felix laughed. "He is a fine fellow," said he. "Do the King a good turn, John, and you will be able to buy a café in Warsaw one of these days."
"Me, monsieur! How can a poor waiter hope to serve a King?"
"Que diable! You never know your luck. Life is a lottery, and some day you may draw the great prize."
Felix sauntered into the street and took a keen interest in its architecture. In front of the hotel and down a slight gradient to the right it was a wide and straight thoroughfare; but to the left and uphill it narrowed rapidly and took a sharp left turn. In the angle stood a popular restaurant, and the rooms on the first and second stories were full of customers. No one, apparently, was looking out; but small parties of men sat near each open window, and they were not playing cards or dominoes, though the greater part of the male inhabitants of Delgratz seem to do little else when not eating or sleeping. Moreover, an empty bullock cart was halted in front of the ground floor entrance.
"There's thunder in the air," said Poluski to himself; but he continued to admire the irregular outlines of Fürst Michaelstrasse. Thus, he could not fail to notice that the upper rooms of three cafés exactly similar to that at the corner were untenanted, while there was a disposition on the part of the late Seventh Regiment to group itself either at the turning or a good deal lower down the street, perhaps a hundred yards beyond the hotel.
"Yes," said he, eying the glittering expanse of unclouded blue overhead, "a storm is certainly brewing. I can feel it in my bones. It reminds me of the afternoon we removed the Governor of Silesia. He was fused by a thunderbolt, from just such a summer sky. Obviously, what he lacked was a lightning conductor. Now, the question is, even if he had owned one, whereabouts would he have put it?"
The reply was given by the appearance of two men on horseback advancing at a fast trot up the easy slope of the hill. They were notable because they wore the ordinary costume adopted by riders in the Bois or the Row, and in Delgratz, where rank was marked by uniform, this fact conferred distinction. A few yards behind them cantered a couple of soldiers.
"You are ten minutes before time, my dear Alec," murmured Felix. "Joan will never forgive me if she is still asleep; but what is one to do? Saperlotte! One must act."