The prince carried his bluff9 head with that air which almost invariably bespeaks10 a stormy youth, and looked out over mankind from his great height as over a fine standing11 crop of wild oats. As a matter of fact, he had grown to manhood in the years immediately preceding those wild early sixties, when all Europe was at loggerheads, and Poland seething12 in its midst, as lava13 seethes14 in the crater15 of a volcano.
The prince had been to England several times. He had friends in London. Indeed, he possessed16 them in many parts of the world, and, oddly enough, he had no enemies. To his credit be it noted17 that he was not an exile, which is usually another name for a scoundrel. For he who has no abiding18 city generally considers himself exempt19 from the duties of citizenship20.
“They do not take me seriously,” he said to his intimate friends; “they do not honor me by recognizing me as a dangerous person; but we shall see.”
And the Prince Bukaty was thus allowed to go where he listed, and live in Warsaw if he so desired. Perhaps the secret of this lay in the fact that he was poor; for a poor man has few adherents21. In the olden times, when the Bukatys had been rich, there were many professing22 readiness to follow him to the death—which is the way of the world. “You have but to hold up your hand,” cries the faithful follower23. But wise men know that the hand must have something in it. The prince had been young and impressionable when Poland was torn to pieces, when that which for eight centuries had been one of the important kingdoms of the world was wiped off the face of Europe, like writing off a slate24. He was not a ruffian, as Deulin had described him; but he was a man who had been ruffled25, and nothing could ever smooth him.
He was too frank by nature to play a hopeless game with the cunning and the savor26 of spite which hopeless games require. If he liked a man, he said so; if he disliked one, he was equally frank about it. He liked Cartoner on the briefest of brief introductions, and said so.
“It is difficult to find a man in London who speaks anything but English, and of anything but English topics. You are the narrowest people in the world—you Londoners. But you are no Londoner; I beg your pardon. Well, then, come and see me to-morrow. We are in a hotel in Kensington—will you come? That is the address.”
And he held out a card with a small gold crown emblazoned in the corner, after the mode of eastern Europe. Cartoner reflected for a moment, which was odd in a man whose decisions were usually arrived at with lightning speed. For he had a slow tongue and a quick brain. There are few better equipments with which to face the world.
“Yes,” he said at length; “it will give me much pleasure.”
The prince glanced at him curiously27 beneath his bushy eyebrows28. What was there to need reflection in such a small question?
“At five o'clock,” he said. “We can give you a cup of the poisonous tea you drink in this country.”
And he went away laughing heartily29 at the small witticism30. People whose lives are anything but a joke are usually content with the smallest jests.
It was scarcely five o'clock the next day when Cartoner was conducted by a page-boy to the Bukatys' rooms in the quiet old hotel in Kensington. The Princess Wanda was alone. She was dressed in black. There is in some Varsovian families a heritage of mourning to be worn until Poland is reinstated. She was slightly but strongly made. Like her father and her brother, there was a suggestion of endurance in her being, such as is often found in slightly made persons.
The princess smiled as she shook hands, and then perceived that she had not been intended to show amusement. Cartoner had merely made a rather na?ve statement in his low monotone. She thought him a little odd, and glanced at him again. She changed color slightly as she turned towards a chair. He was quite grave and honest.
“That is kind of you,” she said, speaking English without the least suspicion of accent; for she had had an English governess all her life. “My father will take it to mean that you wanted to come, and are not only taking pity on lonely foreigners. He will be here in a minute. He has just been called away.”
“It was very kind of him to ask me to call,” replied Cartoner.
There was a simple directness in his manner of speech which was quite new to the Princess Wanda. She had known few Englishmen, and her own countrymen had mostly the manners of the French. She had never met a man who conveyed the impression of purpose and of the habit of going straight towards his purpose so clearly as this. Cartoner had not come to pay an idle visit. She wondered why he had come. He did not rush into conversation, and yet his silence had no sense of embarrassment33 in it. His hair was turning gray above the temples. She could see this as he took a chair near the window. He was probably ten years older than herself, and gave the impression of experience and of a deep knowledge of the world. From living much alone he had acquired the habit of wondering whether it was worth while to say that which came into his mind—which is a habit fatal to social success.
“Monsieur Deulin dined with us last night,” said the princess, following the usual instinct that silence between strangers is intolerable. “He talked a great deal of you.”
“Ah, Deulin is a diplomatist. He talks too much.”
“He accuses you of talking too little,” said Wanda, with some spirit.
“You see, there are only two methods of leaving things unsaid, princess.”
“Which is diplomacy.”
“Then I think you are both great artists,” she said, with a laugh, as the door opened and her father entered the room.
“I only come to ask you a question—a word,” said the prince. “Heavens! your English language! I have a man down-stairs—a question of business—and he speaks the oddest English. Now what is the meaning of the word jettison35?”
Cartoner gave him the word in French.
“Ah!” cried the prince, holding up his two powerful hands, “of course. How foolish of me not to guess. In a moment I will return. You will excuse me, will you not? Wanda will give you some tea.”
And he hurried out of the room, leaving Cartoner to wonder what a person so far removed above commerce could have to do with the word jettison.
The conversation returned to Deulin. He was a man of whom people spoke continually, and had spoken for years. In fact, two generations had found him a fruitful topic of conversation without increasing their knowledge of him. If he had only been that which is called a public man, a novelist or a singer, his fortune would have been easy. All his advertising36 would have been done for him by others. For there was in him that unknown quantity which the world must needs think magnificent.
“I want you to tell me all you know about him,” said the princess in her brisk way. “He is the only old man I have ever seen whose thoughts have not grown old too. And, of course, one wonders why. He is the sort of person who might do anything surprising. He might fall in love and marry, or something like that, you know. Papa says he is married already, and his wife is in a mad asylum37. He says there is a tragedy. But I don't. He has no wife—unless he has two.”
“I know nothing of that side of his life. I only know his career.”
“I do not care about his career,” said the princess, lightly. “I go deeper than careers.”
She looked at Cartoner with a wise nod and a shrewd look in her gay, blue eyes.
“A man's career is only the surface of his life.”
“Then some men's lives are all surface,” said Cartoner.
Wanda gave a little, half-pitying, half-contemptuous jerk of her head.
“Some men have the soul of an omnibus-horse,” she replied.
Cartoner reflected for a moment, looking gravely the while at this girl, who seemed to know so much of life and to have such singularly clear and decisive views upon it.
“What would you have them do beyond going on when required and stopping when expedient—and avoiding collisions?” he inquired.
“I should like them to break the omnibus up occasionally,” she answered, “and take a wrong turning sometimes, just to see if a little happiness lay that way.”
“Yes,” he laughed. “You are a Pole and a Bukaty. I knew it as soon as I saw you.”
“One must do something. We were talking of such things last night, and Monsieur Deulin said that his ideal combination in a man was an infinite patience and a sudden premeditated recklessness.”
“Not necessarily.”
The prince came into the room again at this moment.
“What are you people discussing,” he asked, “so gravely?”
He spoke in French, which was the language that was easiest to him, for he had been young when it was the fashion in Poland to be French.
“I do not quite know,” answered Cartoner, slowly. “The princess was giving me her views.”
“I know,” retorted the old man, with his rather hollow laugh. “They are long views, those views of hers.”
Cartoner was still standing near the window. He turned absently and looked out, down into the busy street. There he saw something which caused him intense surprise, though he did not show it; for, like any man of strong purpose, his face had but one expression, and that of thoughtful attention. He saw Captain Cable, of the Minnie, crossing the street, having just quitted the hotel. This was the business acquaintance of Prince Bukaty's, who had come to speak of jettison.
Cartoner knew Captain Cable well, and his specialty38 in maritime39 skill. He had seen war waged before now with material which had passed in and out of the Minnie's hatches.
The prince did not refer again to the affairs that had called him away. The talk naturally turned to the house where they had first met, and Wanda mentioned that her father and she were going to the reception given by the Orlays that evening.
“You're going, of course?” said the prince.
“Yes, I am going.”
“You go to many such entertainments?”
“No, I go to very few,” replied Cartoner, looking at Wanda in his speculative40 way.
Then he suddenly rose and took his leave, with a characteristic omission41 of the usual “Well, I must be off,” or any such catch-word. He certainly left a great deal unsaid which this babbling42 world expects.
He walked along the crowded streets, absorbed in his own thoughts, for some distance. Then he suddenly emerged from that quiet shelter, and accepted the urgent invitation of a hansom-cab driver to get into his vehicle.
“Westminster Bridge,” he said.
He quitted the cab at the corner of the bridge, and walked quickly down to the steamboat-landing.
“Where do you want to go to?” inquired the gruff, seafaring ticket-clerk.
“As far as I can,” was the reply.
A steamer came almost at once, and Cartoner selected a quiet seat over the rudder. He must have known that the Minnie was so constructed that she could pass under the bridges, for he began to look for her at once. It was six o'clock, and a spring tide was running out. All the passenger traffic was turned to the westward43, and a friendly deck-hand, having leisure, came and gave Cartoner his views upon cricket, in which, as was natural in one whose life was passed on running water, his whole heart seemed to be absorbed. Cartoner was friendly, but did not take advantage of this affability to make inquiries44 about the Minnie. He knew, perhaps, that there is no more suspicious man on earth than a river-side worker.
The steamer raced under the bridges, and at last shot out into the Pool, where a few belated barges45 were drifting down stream. A number of steamers lay at anchor, some working cargo46, others idle. The majority were foreigners, odd-shaped vessels47, with funnels48 like a steam threshing-machine, and gayly painted deck-houses.
In one quiet corner, behind a laid-up excursion-boat and a file of North Sea fish-carriers, lay the Minnie, painted black, with nothing brighter than a deep brown on her deck-house, her boats painted a shabby green. She might have been an overgrown tug49 or a superannuated50 fish-carrier.
“Just took the skipper on board a few minutes ago, sir,” he said. “He must have come down by the boat before yours.”
A few minutes later Cartoner stood on the deck of the Minnie, and banged with his fist on the cover of the cabin gangway, which was tantamount to ringing at Captain Cable's front door.
The sailor's grim face appeared a moment later, emerging like the face of a hermit-crab from its shell. The frown slowly faded, and the deep, unwashed wrinkles took a kindlier curve.
“It's you, Mr. Cartoner,” he said. “Glad to see you.”
“I was passing in a steamer,” answered Cartoner, quietly, “and recognized the Minnie.”
“I take it friendly of you, Mr. Cartoner, remembering the rum time you and me had together. Come below. I've got a drop of wine somewhere stowed away in a locker53.”
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1
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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2
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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3
hatred
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| n.憎恶，憎恨，仇恨 | |
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4
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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radicals
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| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
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6
hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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7
dissent
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| n./v.不同意，持异议 | |
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8
thrifty
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| adj.节俭的；兴旺的；健壮的 | |
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9
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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10
bespeaks
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| v.预定( bespeak的第三人称单数 )；订（货）；证明；预先请求 | |
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11
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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12
seething
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| 沸腾的，火热的 | |
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13
lava
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| n.熔岩，火山岩 | |
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14
seethes
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| （液体）沸腾( seethe的第三人称单数 )； 激动，大怒； 强压怒火； 生闷气(~with sth|~ at sth) | |
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15
crater
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| n.火山口，弹坑 | |
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16
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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17
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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18
abiding
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| adj.永久的，持久的，不变的 | |
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19
exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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20
citizenship
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| n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份) | |
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21
adherents
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| n.支持者，拥护者( adherent的名词复数 )；党羽；徒子徒孙 | |
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22
professing
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| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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23
follower
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| n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒 | |
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24
slate
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| n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订 | |
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25
ruffled
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| adj. 有褶饰边的, 起皱的 动词ruffle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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26
savor
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| vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味 | |
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27
curiously
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| adv.有求知欲地；好问地；奇特地 | |
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28
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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29
heartily
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| adv.衷心地，诚恳地，十分，很 | |
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30
witticism
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| n.谐语，妙语 | |
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31
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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32
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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33
embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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34
diplomacy
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| n.外交；外交手腕，交际手腕 | |
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35
jettison
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| n.投弃，投弃货物 | |
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36
advertising
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| n.广告业；广告活动 a.广告的；广告业务的 | |
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37
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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38
specialty
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| n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长 | |
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39
maritime
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| adj.海的，海事的，航海的，近海的，沿海的 | |
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40
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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41
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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42
babbling
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| n.胡说，婴儿发出的咿哑声adj.胡说的v.喋喋不休( babble的现在分词 )；作潺潺声（如流水）；含糊不清地说话；泄漏秘密 | |
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43
westward
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| n.西方，西部；adj.西方的，向西的；adv.向西 | |
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44
inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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45
barges
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| 驳船( barge的名词复数 ) | |
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46
cargo
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| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
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47
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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48
funnels
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| 漏斗( funnel的名词复数 )； （轮船，火车等的）烟囱 | |
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49
tug
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| v.用力拖(或拉)；苦干；n.拖；苦干；拖船 | |
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50
superannuated
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| adj.老朽的，退休的；v.因落后于时代而废除，勒令退学 | |
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51
orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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52
pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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53
locker
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| n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人 | |
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